I'm tired tonight but it's a feeling that allows me to break down the fence between the day and the night, and bring reflections forward.

The need to write has been growing thoughout the last week...as I long to record the beautiful moments of the last seven days.

Treor (8) and Chloe (6) flew up from Studio City to stay with me, and spend time with their cousins, Anders (7) and Auggie (5).  Auggie and Anders and their parents, my son, Gunther and daughter-in-law Eliza live across the street, so we have a little family compound going.

Eliza and I moved in sync each day to set up fun local acitivities--and to give each other needed breaks.  (I'm not used to full-time mothering!)

Bright moments:

• In Memorial Park, a pick-up baseball game with another 8-year old, who had brought a ball and bat, but who lacked any friends (he said he was visiting his divorced father.)  Trevor--who plays on a little team at home, was thrilled.  We all walked home together-a new friend

• Auggie's 5th birthday on Sunday July 12th, again at Stinson beach--friends, lounging, body boards, a rare sunny day, a Pinata, hamburgers, hot dogs, and getting buried in the sand.
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• Robert, Trevor, Chloe, and me watching the original (is there even a new one?) Attack of the 50-foot Woman.  An alcoholic woman gets irradiated by an alien and grows so large she walks the streets moaning, "Harry, where are you?" in search of her philandering husband.  She squeezes him to death.  "I liked it, actually," said Chloe when I remarked to my friend that it was pretty hokey.
  

•  Buying enormous quantities of food, every day
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• Going to Adventure Land at the Berkeley Marina, where they all went on a zip line (landing in a hill of sand) and got to do stuff like hammering and sawing
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• We made a "movie" where aliens landed and hunted down the earthlings at my house.  Anders and Trevor, wearing last-year's Halloween's knights costumes arrive in a cardboard box from outer space.  Chloe and Auggie (wearing his "handsome shirt") arrive home in my car after shopping, enter the house and go to bed.  Hearing noises, they go downstairs to encounter the aliens.  "The humans have to win," I direct. I teach them how to slip a sword between their arm to look like a stab.  The aliens, fight, but unfortunately are killed and fall down dead.  Everyone stays in character.  I wish I knew how to put my digital vignettes into one continuous narrative.  "We want to have 100 hits on YouTube," they all tell me.
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• Last Satuday, the parents (Gunthe and Eliza and Jim and Sigrid) go off to San Francisco.  The kids and I eat dinner on the new deck that Gunther just built onto his house.
  
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• "I want to make a speech," begins Anders, and offes a long thank-you speech to me ("Nana")  Wow, it broke my heart.  Trevor followed suit, and actually thanked me for having their parents. I returned the favor by pointing out the special qualities of each of them.
• After Jim and Sigrid and Trevor and Chloe left to drive down to Southern California, Gunther put up three swings in my front yard.  Now we can have a mini-park in front of my house.
  
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• Last week (especially Saturday) might turn out to be the best days of my life.