A night to remember

It truly was.

After work I met Linda, an architect, and her daughter Devin, who is in preschool with Rachel and is a few weeks younger (and they're great friends). We headed over to Jamison Park, right in the Pearl District, which has the big advantage of having two cool eateries across the street: Hot Lips Pizza and Cool Moon ice cream. The plan was to have pizza for dinner, ice cream for dessert, and then have the girls play in the fountain for a while until it was time to go home.

We had the most excellent -- and I mean EXCELLENT -- time. Rachel ate half a cheese pizza; I ate two slices, one vegan and another cheese, and then the girls pretended to feed ducks with small rocks they found in the dirt next to the trees at the pizza place. Then they pretended to put us both in timeouts because we were being bad, and then they pretended they were being attacked by alligators and Rachel kept running up to me, throwing her arms around my waist and pressing her cheek into my back. She then very nicely asked to go to the bathroom. (I am quickly finding out that Portland restaurants have an abundance of clean toilets, thank God). We quickly changed the girls into their bathing suits, tossed their dresses on top and then off we went.

Then it was on to the ice cream place, where Linda treated us all -- and I had the most incredible chocolate sorbet of my LIFE, with sprinkles on top. Rachel's strawberry ice cream was terrific, too, even if she only ate a few bites. At that point it was around 7:30, and we told the girls to play in the fountain while we sat and watched them and talked about Linda's job, my job, our desire to take indulgent vacations, our musings on how fortunate we are to have the lives that we do, etc. The girls had a blast in the fountain; it's a non-traditional fountain that fills up, to the point of being a wading pool that Rachel could sit in and get soaked, and then disappeares -- only to refill. They ran into a friend of theirs from St. James named Astrid, who is leaving preschool for kindergarten starting Friday. (Yes, Portland is a really small town). Dusk slowly turned to darkness and we both hated to leave; we thought it would be wonderful to stay out all night in the heat and just watch the kids play under the streetlights.

A man suddenly appeared before us, twin babies in tow. "Your kids are ADORABLE," he gushed. "I keep looking at them and thinking that soon my girls will be that age, too. I'm told it goes fast." We reassured him that it does, and I suddenly flashed back to that stage in Rachel's life, when she was a baby and I was overwhelmed and wishing ardently that she'd grow up enough so we could have conversations and I wouldn't be a wreck from worry and lack of sleep and inability to breast-feed. Translation: I never thought I'd get to this stage, and I tried to communicate some of that to this guy and his wife. I think I succeeded, a little.

On the way home Rachel said, "I want to stay all night in the fountain."
"That would be great, if we could," I said. "I'd love to put a tent right near the fountain and camp."
"I want my OWN tent!" Rachel said. Yes, sweetie, next summer we'll buy you one.

I can't wait to go back to Jamison Park. This was really a night to remember.