While the boys are off at camp (more on that, later), M and I spent a few days in NYC. While there, we headed to the MOMA, which is always bright, airy, and always packed with half the population of the free world. Where do all these people come from? And are they really all interested in modern art, or do they think that it’s free cone day at the city’s largest Ben and Jerry’s? I’ll never know. I usually like to check out the special exhibits, but the special exhibit was this:

The Rain Room. We asked the man selling tickets what it was and he said: It’s a room. It’s dark. You get rained on, but you never really get wet. Oh, and there’s usually a 90 minute wait to get inside.
A dark room in which you get perpetually rained on but never get wet? In Seattle we call that summer. Thanks anyway, MOMA. The Rain Room was skipped.
The real rain, however, apparently poured down on Seattle with a vengeance while we were schvitzing it up in enwhycee, but I think we brought summer back with us because it’s glorious here today. I took the 3 girls plus two of their friends (I don’t like to travel with less than 5 kids) to the beach where I was mostly surrounded by big-boned, tattooed women. It’s really quite remarkable. You can spend four days in New York City with practically all of humanity pressed up against you, but you don’t see anywhere near as many tattoos as you do on a small beach on the shores of Lake Washington.
In Seattle, we call that summer, too.