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Three of the grands painted a birdhouse that looks like a beach house on the Florida coast—hot pink with a teal roof. It was only up a couple of weeks before bluebirds moved in, laid three eggs and sometimes played Jimmy Buffet tunes late at night.

The family schooled themselves on elusive bluebirds, knew when the eggs hatched and counted the days until the hatchlings would leave the nest. Despite a faithful watch, they somehow missed the birds’ departure.

They cleaned out the birdhouse, installed a teeny tiny camera and a few weeks later the birds returned and deposited four eggs.

Again, they counted the time until the birds might begin exiting. When one leaves, they all leave.

Our daughter texted before 8 a.m. the other day, saying it was time. One had already flown the coop. Did I want to come watch?

Of course, I did. It would be like watching newborn quads leave a hospital.

Nobody saw No. 1 leave, but there it was sitting on the fence top. Then it took off, smacked into a neighbor’s house and tumbled to the ground. It was back on the fence a short time later. No. 2 also exited unnoticed and camped on a crossbeam of the fence, low to the ground.

My daughter and I, armed with four cameras, planted ourselves in patio chairs to catch the final two making their exit.

It was a large family affair as nine bluebirds, adults and young (probably from the first brood) hovered about, perching on rooftops, a nearby trampoline and fence posts.

They protested loudly when I crept into the yard for a better camera angle. I feared there would be a re-enactment of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” if I didn’t keep my distance.

We waited and waited. Clouds came and left.

Momma bluebird delivered food to the two cloistered in the birdhouse and popped a worm into the mouth of the one still cowering on the cross beam.

We waited and waited some more.

Bluebirds are tidy housekeepers. Adult birds carry out baby bird poo in a white sac held in the mouth. Perhaps they get the little white sacs at Target or Walmart, next to the 30-gallon Hefty bags.

Lunchtime came and went. We joked about phoning for Door Dash, wondering if they would do Backyard Birdhouse Dash.

Her older sister, in possession of their combined six children and not a big nature lover, texted that the birds were never coming out—they’d been in there too long and would require forceps.

Four uneventful hours later, I called it a day and abandoned the watch. Three hours later I got a call expecting it was the call of defeat.

It was hard to tell through the screaming, but it turned out she saw the last two exit, heads bobbing in the opening to the birdhouse, a final shove, then taking flight, one after another.

It took eight hours, but she saw the baby birds leave home and was over the moon with delight.

The wait on her own baby birds leaving the nest will be far longer, say in the 15-to-18-year range. No doubt, she’ll be emotional then, too.

 

Word has gotten out that I have cake pans. Word has also gotten out that being mildly unhinged, I occasionally agree to make wedding cakes for family members and close friends.

So there they were, the glowing bride-to-be and the debonair groom-to-be, along with her mother, her father, my husband and myself, all gathered in our kitchen for a cake tasting. Shortly, the engaged couple would be having one of their first arguments.

Before them sat their two choices in small scale on pedestal plates. The vanilla cake with chocolate cookie crumbs was covered in white icing and chocolate cookie crumbs, and a lemon velvet cake with raspberry filling was finished in traditional white icing.

They tasted the vanilla cake with cookie crumbs first. They liked it. Everyone did.

The lemon cake was next, and everyone liked it, too. The groom-to-be might have let it slip that he liked the lemon cake better because it looked more traditional.

“Well, I want what you want,” she cooed to him.

“But I want what you want,” he cooed in return.

So it began, two lovebirds locked in a gentle tennis match in which neither wanted the title of winner.

“It’s not about me,” he said. “If you prefer the vanilla cake with chocolate cookie crumbs, I want the vanilla cake with chocolate cookie crumbs.”

“But I think you want the lemon cake because it looks more traditional,” she said.

The tennis match continued, eventually turning into a tennis tournament, so I made coffee.

Back and forth it went until the mother of the bride-to-be exclaimed, “Lemon!” To which the father of the bride-to-be echoed, “Lemon!” Neither of which were heard, of course, due to the engaged couple being engulfed in a sound barrier of euphoria.

On it went with more “I want what you want.”

I shoved the lemon cake to the center of the table hoping to make myself clear.

They never even noticed. All they could see was each other.

“I want you to be happy.”

“But I want you to be happy.”

I was about to ask if they could all stay for dinner.

“I want you to remember this day as the best day ever, so I want you to have the cake you like.”

“But I want you to remember this as the best day ever, so I want you to have the cake you like.”

Someone had to intervene. “I’ll make the cake you want,” I said, “but in my opinion the cake covered in chocolate cookie crumbs looks like something I dug out of the garden. The chocolate cookie crumbs look like dirt. People will think one of your families is depressed about the wedding.”

There. I said it.

Silence.

Then they started again. I want what you want. I want what you want.

“Enough!” snapped her mother.

“Enough!” snapped her father.

“Pick a cake already!” I snapped.

So they did. Lemon velvet for the bottom layer for guests, and vanilla cake with cookie crumbs for the top layer for the bride and groom and wedding party, all finished in a traditional white icing.

It was a creative compromise, a key ingredient to every good marriage. They’re going to do well, these two. May all their arguments be tempered with sweetness and may they always think of the other first.

I was exploring summer travel plans when Bezos announced his summer travel plan to rocket into space. Somehow it took the wind out of my sails.

Or the flames from beneath my rocket.

I am still wondering how you pack for a trip into space. You don’t need much because you can’t move around much. The Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio, houses Neil Armstrong’s Gemini 8 capsule, which is unbelievably cramped. And, of course, in space there’s no getting out to stretch your legs. Well, you could get out, but you’d never return.

The Gemini 8 exhibit also details how astronauts contended with everyday matters like personal plumbing. I won’t go into detail but let me just say – gag. But Bezos will be up in space and back within 11 minutes, so bodily functions shouldn’t be an issue.

Not only will the Bezos ensemble travel light by necessity, they won’t have to pack toiletries in a see-through bag and run it through security. Or stand spread eagle and be wanded. Money does have perks.

It is fashionable to be hateful toward people who have a lot money today, which always comes down to anybody who has more money than you do. One of my favorite verses from Proverbs is where the writer asks that he never be so rich as to forget God, and never be so poor that he steals and profanes God’s name. Both poverty and riches are slippery slopes. We are content in the middle, although sometimes I do think, “Test me with riches, Lord. Just once. Let’s see how I do.”

Originally, Bezos was rocketing into space with fellow billionaire Richard Branson, but they turned the Rocket Man Vacation into Space Wars and now it is a competition to see who gets there first. Branson will be rocketing separately. Nothing ruins a vacation like taking separate rockets.

Bezos will be traveling with his brother and a chump who paid $28 million at an auction to secure a seat onboard as well. I shouldn’t have called the winning bidder a chump; that smacks of envy. I’m probably more hateful than I thought. We all are. It’s in the air and extremely contagious.

I know this based on a petition that, as of this writing, has been signed by more than 120,000 people demanding Bezos get out and stretch his legs when he’s in space. That’s right, they want him to take a one-way trip and not return.

Rocket envy. That’s all it is.

Another recent petition made headlines after 14,000 people signed it, calling for Bezos to buy Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” And eat it.

No, there’s nothing wrong with us. We are perfectly fine.

Happy summer travels to you and yours, on ground or in space, and please, let’s all live within our budgets and leave the Mona Lisa alone.

Although family humor writers primarily write lighthearted stories, surely readers know that our family experiences the same difficulties, setbacks and sorrows as everyone else.

We recently attended three funerals in two weeks. The first one was on a Saturday morning. We dressed, drove to the church and were puzzled no other cars were in the parking lot. We were a week early. So really, it was only two funerals in two weeks, which isn’t good, but better than three.

The other funeral was for a friend who lost her father suddenly. Three days after her dad’s funeral she sat in a hospital waiting room as her husband had cancer surgery.

Even when your own heart doesn’t break, it breaks for others. Suffering is simply part of life.

Several of the grands have been sick recently and are now enjoying good health. I was across the table from one who fights fierce and lengthy battles with asthma and said, “I’m so glad you are finally healthy that I could throw a party.”

Her entire face lit up and she yelled, “WE SHOULD!”

We should, you know; we really should.

We are so fixated on the steady barrage of headlines of tragedies near and far that they all but eclipse moments of goodness right under our noses.

And so we partied. All 19 of us-with badminton games, kids on tricycles circling the patio, kids scaling a tree, burgers on the grill and pitchers of lemonade.

Best of all, we made homemade strawberry ice cream with a White Mountain hand-crank ice cream freezer now 43 years old. The metal parts are rusting and showing their age, but so are we.

Kids clamored for turns at the large metal crank with the wooden handle that turns the dasher inside the metal canister filled with milk, cream, strawberries, sugar and goodness, surrounded by ice and rock salt.

One kid cranks while another sits on top to hold the contraption steady. It’s always good to work as a team when you find yourself in a challenging spot.

As the ice cream mix grows colder and colder, the cranking grows increasingly difficult. Kids take turns that grow shorter and shorter. One of the sons-in-law notices and yells over to ask if we wouldn’t like an electric ice cream freezer for Christmas.

“This is a family tradition that goes back generations,” I yell, turning the crank with all my might. “Your family tradition is going to Florida every summer. I come from a long line of people willing to suffer for ice cream!”

Only the older kids take turns now and they are hanging tough. Nobody gives up. It is a sweet place to learn patience, endurance and fortitude.

Years ago, as a young mother with three children close in age, a husband who worked long hours, and occasionally at the end of my rope, a good friend who had grown up in Berlin calmly said to me: Wo viel Sonnenlicht ist, ist viel Schatten.” Thankfully, she also translated it. “Where there is a lot of sunlight, there is a lot of shadow.”

It’s true. You don’t get one without the other. Life is a constant mix and on a recent weekend afternoon, we were all together, healthy, happy, basking in the sunshine, eating homemade strawberry ice cream from plastic cups until we had brain freeze.

What a party.

We held a trial at the kitchen table before church on Sunday. Seven grands had spent the weekend—five girls and two boys.

There was a ruckus upstairs. I could hear it, but it was far enough away that I could ignore it. I heard them thundering down the stairs but was not quick enough to slip into the garage.

One of the girls said that her brother had picked a lock and busted into the girls’ room and shoved her.

Note to the reader: They have a long history.

Others appeared, all talking at once, with their version of events. He said. She said. This one said. That one said. I said everyone take a seat around the table.

There’s always more to the story. Always, always, always.

I said we would have a jury trial, hear witnesses and return with a verdict. I choose three jurors—one based on maturity, one based on attention to detail and a 5-year-old based on malleability.

The accused sat at the head of the table. His sister took the stand, or in this case the kitchen chair with syrup on the seat. She said he had been upstairs locking doors and picking locks (mechanical, that one, always has been). He picked the lock, crashed into the girl’s room and when they chased him out, he shoved her.

I asked if she fell. No. Did she cry out in pain? No. She said it wasn’t actually a shove, but more like a tap.

The next witness confirmed that he had been picking locks and indeed picked the lock to the girls’ room—but before picking the lock he yelled, “Is everyone dressed?”

I high-fived the accused and congratulated him on respect for privacy.

The next witness— nobody wanted to be a juror, everyone wanted to be a witness—confirmed that the accused had asked if they were dressed before picking the lock and busting in, but added that they were waiting for him, hiding in the closet, under the bed and behind the door to scare him.

The final witness confirmed testimony of the previous witnesses but added that, in addition to ambushing the accused, when they all ran out of the room, she saw his sister shove him.

Bombshell testimony. I rapped a wooden spoon on the table and called for order.

The accused, clearly elated, demanded to testify on his own behalf and against his sister. I told him it was inadvisable and there wasn’t time.

The jurors voted. Writing 1 on their folded slip of paper meant the accused had been out of line and would forfeit 50 cents of garage sale money earned selling lemonade the day before. A 2 would mean he was free to go and everyone should knock it off.

The older jurors voted to let him go. The youngest juror, gentle as a dove and sweeter than honey, wrote both 1 and 2 on her paper. I explained the 50 cents he would forfeit would not go to her. She was more calculated than I had anticipated.

Court adjourned with instructions to load into the cars for church.

Surely Judge Judy would have been pleased.

Nearly every restaurant has “Now Hiring” signs posted. Our closest McDonald’s has a sign on the drive-through menu that says, “Now hiring 14- and 15-year-olds.” A pizza place has jammed “Now Hiring” signs in the easement every three feet for the entire length of the block.

Not long ago, a favorite local burger restaurant (with three locations) was on the news talking about how they attended a job fair needing to make 50 hires. Only a handful of people came.

I told the husband maybe I’d apply for a job just to help them out for a bit.

He looked stunned.

“It’s not that different from what I do around here,” I said. “Long hours and low pay.” I also reminded him I had worked in food service three different times in my teens and early 20s.

So when you think about it this way, you could say that I am definitely qualified for the positions that they are hiring for. Although, in fact, I think I may be too overqualified. But that shouldn’t stop me.

I personally thought it was a great idea. But the husband didn’t appear to be too happy.

He reminded me I wasn’t in my teens or 20s. Then he asked exactly how I planned on helping — waiting tables or working in the kitchen.

“I could do either one,” I said, tilting my nose in the air.

“You couldn’t wait tables,” he said.

Sometimes the man has no idea how close he is to danger.

“Why not?” I asked.

“You don’t hear well in big crowds. No restaurant wants a food server yelling at the customers, ‘Speak up, can you? Spell that for me. Here, just take this pad and write down what you want. Great. Now pass it around the table to your buddies.'”

“You shouldn’t make fun of my hearing,” I said.

“What’s that?” he said.

“I could help in the kitchen,” I snapped. “I’m very efficient. I made lunch for 13 yesterday on short notice and at warp speed.”

“You did,” he said, “but everybody had the same sandwich, the same chips and the same veggie sticks thrown into plastic red baskets with paper liners and you announced that if anybody didn’t like it, you didn’t want to hear about it.”

“And the problem would be?” I asked.

“Well,” he hesitated, “you can be inflexible sometimes.”

“Inflexible? Who are you calling inflexible? I am the Queen of Flexible and that’s that!”

I may have raised my voice. He took a couple of steps back. The Queen of Flexible can get hot under the collar (or apron), not to mention inflexible, when discussing flexibility.

Undaunted, he continued: “The first person to send back an order because it has onions and they didn’t want onions, you’d rush out to the table and start lecturing about showing a little gratitude for the food in front of them and tell him to eat it anyway.”

It’s possible, just possible, the man may have made a few good points. Our best contribution to the restaurant industry is to keep doing what we’ve been doing-patronize the locals and tip big.

We have received an invitation to an event where the suggested dress code is smart casual. This has thrown us into a tizzy, prompting us to ask a lot of dumb questions about smart casual.

Does smart casual require we bring academic transcripts? Perhaps pin them to our chests or randomly pull them from our pockets when the conversation lags?

If there is such a thing as smart casual, doesn’t that infer that there must also be a not-so-smart casual? If there are pictures of what not-so-smart casual looks like, we might be better able to deduce what smart casual looks like. We are the people who learn more by looking at “what not to wear.”

If we don’t come dressed smart casual, will the assumption be that our intelligence levels are subpar?

Does a hoodie sweatshirt emblazoned with Oxford or Yale count as smart casual?

I didn’t think so. Just asking for a friend.

Further complicating matters, how does smart casual differ from snappy casual, glitzy casual, dressy casual, party casual and business casual?

Of course, the bottom-line question with every stated dress code is, “Can I wear jeans?”

Jeans have become the global default.

Often, we get ready to go somewhere and the husband asks, “Can I wear jeans?”

It’s a trap and I’ve learned how to maneuver around it.

“The jeans you just did yardwork in?” I ask.

“No, of course not.”

What he’s not saying is that he’s thinking of wearing the jeans he did yardwork in a couple of weeks ago, which look better than the ones he did yardwork in today.

My answer is usually no, just like it will be no to jeans for smart casual. But that’s just me and it certainly doesn’t mean you can’t wear jeans for smart casual. Casual is in the eye of the beholder.

Of course, there will also be those wondering if ripped jeans with the horizontal shreds qualify for smart causal.

Absolutely not. Those fall into the category of “over-priced casual.”

The trend is toward more and more casual. I’m waiting for the pendulum to swing back in the other direction – you know, when putting bling on jeans doesn’t mean you’re ready for the theater and when Casual Friday becomes collared-shirt Friday.

A friend recently received a wedding invitation that stated the attire will be “picnic casual.”

That’s certainly better defined than “picnic formal.” Jeans would be entirely acceptable. Perhaps even jean shorts. It might even be a good idea to toss swimsuits and trunks in the back seat of the car. Guests might also consider bringing their own fried chicken and potato salad.

Going casual is a lot more work than it used to be.

A slew of grands were coming and we were out. Completely out. Not sunscreen. Not bug spray. Ice cream.

And I call myself a grandma.

You don’t go to Grandma’s on a hot day, fan yourself in her freezer and not see ice cream. A grandma could be stripped of her title.

Just like that, life turns on a dime. Or an ice cream sandwich.

The last time some of them came and the freezer was empty, one of them looked at me in bewilderment, her expression slowly morphing to a smile of pity. The look said, “When was the last time that woman was credentialed?” and “Isn’t there a grandma refresher course she could take?”

My parents were legen-dairy. They always had three kinds of ice cream in the freezer for grandkids and boasted of an open-door policy. The kid who enjoyed all that ice cream the most, is now lactose intolerant. She can no longer eat ice cream, but at least she has fond memories of ice cream.

The husband, “any time is a good time for ice cream,” is the one who never disappoints. He considers Hershey’s syrup a staple. You think the man isn’t popular? The grands follow him like the Pied Piper. Hershey’s syrup is the way to win devotion and wield influence. Politicians should try it—a  Hershey’s syrup giveaway funded by federal money. (Your money.)

By the way, I don’t cone-done that behavior.

I don’t cone-done ants in the house either, which is why I make the kids eat ice cream outside. That’s what I’ll be remembered for—yelling: “Take that mess outside!”

Meanwhile, the Pied Piper is holding the door open squirting chocolate syrup into their mouths as they file out the door.

Watching kids eat ice cream gives you a window into their personalities.

The ones who smash ice cream with the back of a spoon, squish it against the side of the bowl and turn it into soup, are the same ones who consider kicking dirty clothes under the bed as “cleaning up.”

Kids who layer toppings deliberately, or are particular about the even distribution of sprinkles, have perfectionist tendencies and are the ones with building and engineering bents.

Naturally, there are wild variations even within the same gene pool. Two grands who are sisters, ages 6 and 3, have diametrically different approaches to the fudge pop.

The 6-year-old cajoles the fudge pop, lapping it neatly and methodically, slowly turning it as it vanishes into thin air. There is not the slightest bit of evidence she ever held one in her hand. Even the wooden stick has disappeared. Maybe she ate that, too.

Her 3-year-old sister approaches a fudge pop like a full-body contact sport. She attacks wildly, smearing ice cream on her forehead, cheeks and chin, throughout her hair, up and down both arms and all over her clothes. She gets more on her than she gets in her.

All of which brings us to the second summer essential to always have on hand: a wand attachment with a spray setting for the garden hose.

 

For months I have been hearing about the Brood X singing cicadas that will be coming to a tree near me. I’d rather they go to a bar near me and sing on Karaoke night, but I have little say in such matters.

Besides, they are not coming—they have arrived.

I was in the garden recently saying a few words over the two-inch stub that remained from a beautiful 5-foot purple clematis. If I catch the rabbits that destroyed the clematis, I will say a few words over them, too. They will not be kind words.

Wrapping chicken wire around the paltry remains of the clematis, I noticed small holes in the hardened ground nearby. The cicada nymphs had begun to emerge.

I’m a mature grown-up. I’m not going to panic over an invasion of millions (perhaps billions) of cicadas and run screaming toward the house.

I walked briskly and sobbed softly.

Safe in the house, windows shut, doors barricaded, I calmly reviewed what I know to be true about cicadas, drew a line down the middle of a yellow legal tablet and labeled one side “Reason to Panic” and the other “Reason Not to Panic.”

The first Reason Not to Panic is that insect experts unanimously agree Brood X prefers heavily wooded areas.

Reason to Panic: We live in a heavily wooded area.

Reason Not to Panic: People think they are called Brood X because of their size, but they are Brood X because it will be the tenth time scientists will have observed the 17-year cicadas.

Reason to Panic: X may indicate a Roman numeral, not shirt size, but the locusts  have a 3-inch wingspan and are 2.5 inches long, which in the insect world makes them an XXXL.

Reason Not to Panic: Brood X loves to sing and will provide music around the clock.

Reason to Panic: A 4-year-old grand who said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a singing cicada in the house?”

Yet another Reason to Panic: They may be so thick in some places that they drop from trees, land on humans and cover outdoor surfaces. Clearly, Brood X does not practice social distancing.

Reason Not to Panic:  We have a leaf blower.

Perhaps the greatest reason to not panic is that (almost) everyone in our family enjoys cicada shells. Last year, the grands wore them on their shirts, in their hair and parked them on their noses. One of our grown daughters, married, mother of three, seemingly rational and sane, picked up a locust shell, dipped it in ketchup and pretended to eat it.

Reason to Panic: The family is loosely wrapped.

Facebook has been toying with plans for Instagram for children, declaring it would be a “parent-controlled experience” allowing kids to keep up with friends. Just the “experience” every busy parent is clamoring for, another online arena to monitor.

If you believe Mark Zuckerberg’s $114 billion fortune revolves around the best interests of parents and children, I have some asbestos to sell you.

The truth is, Facebook is considering a platform for children because kids are one of their few untapped markets and every entrepreneur knows that the earlier you establish brand loyalty, the greater the chances of having a consumer for life.

Cha-ching!

Naturally, a platform for children would come with the same dangers of platforms for adults—personal data leaks, sexual predators lurking, and long-lasting loss of privacy, often accompanied by long-lasting regret. All the aforementioned are why Facebook has previously prohibited anyone under 13 from opening an account. But now, they’re rethinking things.

So should we.

Is it healthy for 7-year-olds to be posting selfies?

How does an 8-year-old process an online snub or outright ridicule?

Will children post pictures of peanut butter sandwiches cut into the shape of hearts or go directly for the political jugular?

If parents post pictures of kids without permission, will kids post pictures of parents without permission?

Shortly after the death of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, a reporter who had interviewed him wrote a thoughtful retrospective. He recalled asking Jobs what his kids thought of the iPad after it had been released. The reporter was surprised when Jobs answered, “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

A number of chief technology executives have expressed similar opinions. A developer in the early days of Facebook has even expressed remorse for helping create the dopamine effect of the platform that keeps users coming back and wanting more.

Maybe children have all the platforms they need.

The great outdoors is a platform for exploration, adventure and discovery. Birds are laying eggs in nests; butterflies are fluttering and the cicadas are coming.

Gardening could be your platform; you never know until you try. If nothing else, you’ll learn a lot about squirrels and rabbits.

Sidewalks are a solid platform for bicycles, scooters, skates, chalking, dog-walking and lemonade stands.

Most every home has a shelf or box jammed with craft supplies—paper, markers, paints, scissors and glue sticks. The platform is imagination. Go for it.

Books are a platform for time travel. Have a good trip.

Games can be platforms for developing logic, strategy and an acumen for property development.

Our kids were not allowed to say they were bored when they were young. If they couldn’t find something to do themselves, I would find something for them. Like cleaning the bathroom.

Our youngest was in fourth grade when she had a friend over. The friend wandered into the kitchen, heaved a sigh and said, “We don’t know what to do. We’re —” Our daughter quickly put her hand over her friend’s mouth and said, “You don’t ever say you’re bored around our mom.”

Now go find your platform.