One of my most prized possessions in grade school was a pretty large Fisher Price dollhouse. It opens up and you can move the little plastic dolls around the children’s bedroom area, a kitchen/dining area, living room area, and a parents’ master bedroom area. There was also a side garage with a blue door that slid up to open, and a yellow plastic car with 2 holes to plop the dolls of your choice in for a ride, and a smiling dog doll. The back of the garage served as a doghouse entrance. On the house itself were cartoon pictures of things, like shrubbery, curtains, flowerbeds on windowsills, birds. The drawn kitchen window, as seen from outside the house, depicts a cartoon mom smiling and waving from what is presumably the sink. There may have even been a pie cooling off on the windowsill. I played with this house endlessly, charmed by the ways my characters could interact, even ring the doorbell by flicking a small plastic lever that’d spring back up to hit a resonating bell. The characters were always smiling and they always got along. I knew it was unrealistic, and I loved it.

Today, after purchasing my new $93 New Balance stability-inducing running shoes at A Snail’s Pace, I decided to break them in by wearing them to visit my parents. Mr. W had suggested we visit them first and then come back to his place for a short (3 mile) run so I don’t blister when I train in them. When I pulled up to my parents’ house in the evening, my dad was to our left watering the front lawn, and I lowered the window, said, “Hi dad!” and he waved at us. As we waved back, I giggled at how Fisher Price this felt, my dad watering the lawn, smiling and waving at his daughter and her boyfriend, who are smiling and waving back pulling into the driveway. It’s the classic Lego/Barbie depiction of “life.” We got out of the car, walked to my dad, and chatted about the trees. I decided to take Mr. W around the backyard since there’s been considerable changes made since I’d last been out there maybe 10 years ago. My dad walked with us watering all the leafy fruit trees, telling us what each one was. Lime grafted with palmelo, white peach grafted with some other thing I’d forgotten, 3 types of guavas, kumquats grafted with another type of kumquat, and then we rounded the side of the house to the back of the house. “Eh??” I heard coming from the kitchen window. My mom was standing there, presumably doing dishes, looking surprised to see us. “Hi mom!” I waved. “Hi!” she waved back. I giggled again. We walked around the garden looking at the other stuff, the veggies on the other side of the yard, squash, tomatoes, and the gourds hanging from the rafters, some so large they nearly hit Mr. W on the head. My mom came out and talked about the neighbor’s figs. Fresh figs? My mom took us to the other side of the yard and pointed out the neighbor’s fig tree, heavy with large drops of deep purple fruit. Apparently this neighbor can’t get rid of the figs fast enough and constantly invites my parents to help themselves. So Mr. W and I leaned down the slope and picked some fresh figs. They were delicious, soft and syrupy inside. My mom made won ton soup for us and we sat around the dinner table chatting and eating. Then, as my parents left to my aunt’s house to return some DVDs in their weekly Chinese soap opera exchange, Mr. W and I set off for a walk around my parents’ hilly neighborhood as we were now too full to run. First we explored a newly built fancy senior citizen’s recreation center up on a nearby park at the top of a hill. As we strolled along the perimeter, my parents drove by on their way to my aunt’s and I heard my mom’s playful higher-pitched chirp, “Hello!” We waved at them as my mom’s extended waving arm disappeared around the bend. I giggled again. A walk that takes my parents 40 minutes took us over an hour. I was pretty proud of them. It was not an easy walk, definitely very slopey. I didn’t blister at all, and I think I broke those shoes in. After unloading soy milk, yogurt, fruit, crackers, an oven mit, and some Chinese bath salt paste on me, my parents walked us out the garage and we were off.

This evening, in addition to the early afternoon spent napping (I took like 3 naps today, and I don’t normally nap at all), watching interesting shows on TV and Inside Man on DVD, and eating freshly made guacamole, homemade oatmeal-butterscotch cookies, and Ben & Jerry’s “Vermonty Python” ice cream (I just learned that Ben & Jerry’s only uses milk/cream from cows not treated with growth hormones, cool!) made for a relaxing, happy day. Perfectly in contrast to the chaos that will be tomorrow as I go into work to play with the 90 new prospective jurors we’re supposed to pick 15 people from for the 2nd jury of our 4-defendant, dual jury murder trial.