Quick Hitters

I. Playgrounds
It is officially playground season. School is nearly out for the summer, the weather is nice all day long, and we have two small boys whose biological imperative is constantly demanding that they stretch their little muscles, run, jump, leap, pull, and, apparently, slide down slides.
We knew even before we moved that the playground at the elementary school across the road would be a big hit with the boys. There were maybe one or two days that November warm enough for me to bundle James up and take him over, but we needed to wait until Spring to really use "Our Playground" as they call it. It's quite nice--I think the nicest in the area, although some of the novelty has worn off for James.
It's been running in the stroller that helped us discover the others--one about half a mile down Empire Boulevard at a busy intersection, another at the local middle school, and then another about a half-mile up from the middle school. There's an established routine now for discovering a new playground. James, upon being freed from the jogging stroller, immediately puts his stuffed animals and cars in the deepest recess of his seat where no one can find them and runs to find the smallest slide, then gestures to Owen and tries to convince him to come join him.
Owen, who has been attempting to free himself from the stroller from the moment the playground was spotted, is already halfway up the ladder to whatever the largest, scariest-looking big boy slide might be.
That pattern holds true for swings as well. James will choose the toddler swing if available, or the lowest hanging traditional swing. Owen will only ride the traditional swings, the higher and scarier the better. (J saved him from certain doom the other day when he fell asleep mid-swing and was about to tumble out, sucking on the fingers of his right hand and tugging on his ear with his left, of course.)
It's been good to see that they are capable of some positive social interaction as well. Mostly they prefer dogs to people, but yesterday James chatted so animatedly to a pleasant looking dog-owner who was visiting with her little son that I had to pick up him and transport him back to a slide (still going on eagerly about the musical tastes of the various characters of the movie Cars and how many days were left until we left for the beach this summer) so that the stranger could have a little peace. There have been a few bullies to deal with as well. Yesterday a little girl insisted repeatedly to James (and very loudly) that he needed to come with her RIGHT NOW.
He sat in the woodchips looking shell-shocked, and when she eventually stalked off, apparently quite angry with him, he looked at me in bewilderment and said "...but I have work to do with my dump truck!" I felt sorry for the little girls' parents, who were attempting what looked to be an often-occurring chat about manners, and explained to James that red-headed girls could be a real mixed bag.
Our worst playground experience was at a little community playground that was supposedly for younger children. The lot was dirty and overgrown, and the engineering on the equipment didn't make a whole lot of sense for little kids--Owen banged his head hard on an arch multiple times after scaling a rock wall, both kids got violently bumped a round a steep slide, and there were seedy looking teenagers who showed up and lounged about the benches. Best of all, Owen walked through someone's old vomit one of the stairs to the slides. I don't think we'll be heading back there anytime soon.

II. Who Is Trying to Reach Me?
1. Mint Analytics with a breakdown of where my money went last week. I like it when they tell me that we didn't spend very much, which was true of last week, apparently.
2. E-Z Pass Customer service, which is dipping into the bank account yet again. (I'm ready to be off the highways for a while after this week.)
3. eBay, reminding me that a pair of shoes I was looking at is going to sell soon. (This is fine, I'm not interested.)
4. Navient, reminding me to pay my student loans 20 days from now.
5. The Monroe County Library, reminding me that we need to return a Curious George video before we leave for Pennsylvania. (They don't know we're going to Pennsylvania, of course, but they would like it back before Wednesday)
6. My Whole Bean Coffee Supplier, offering me a 25% discount on beans this weekend. (Not interested, I just bought beans last month.)
7. Brass Quintet members, inquiring about dates for a gig that I can't do.
8. Starbucks, trying to sell me overpriced breakfast sandwiches
9. An ebay user who bought one of my old trumpet cases, responding to my email shaking him down to pay up
10. A local college dean who offered me a job that I turned down, responding curtly ( I hope not too upset) that he'd received my answer

So...mostly money. If any of you would like to send me an email that isn't about money, I'd love to hear from you and promise a quick response!

III. The Ice Cream Maker
We held off on Thai DNI for a long time because there was going to be a big extra expense involved--a $65 ice cream maker attachment for J's KitchenAid. We made the splurge, and the cardamom/vanilla thai ice cream was pretty good, albeit a little crunchy. (The straining part didn't quite work out.) Then J made some chocolate ice cream with it a few days ago. Honestly, the stand mixer would be worth it just for the ice cream. It's going to be a good summer.