Sunday, July 18, 2010

Pool Party, Baby


It was 5,000 degrees yesterday in Evanston. I don’t know what I’m paying my taxes for if they can’t keep it reasonable.

About midway through the morning, as I was contemplating a twelve hour Star Wars marathon to beat the heat, Steve texted me, “Want me to bring the kiddies over?”

I responded, “Yeah! Pool party, baby.” And then I began singing the classic Aquabats song “Pool Party.” Much like my “Total Recall” reference from a week or two ago, if you don’t know what an Aquabat is, it’s not really worth your time looking them up.

Anyhoo, Steve arrived shortly after with his hilarious son Finn and the always cute Rory. Who, at the age of 1, had already mastered the art of matching her shoes to her swimming suit.

Steve and I immediately took our shirts off and compared beer bellies over the baby pool. He won on girth, but I destroyed him on hairiness.

The kids fought, splashed, rubbed popsicles all over themselves and allowed the sun to attempt to penetrate their SPF 50 shields. Meanwhile, Steve and I huddled in the 1 foot by foot square of shade that our backyard offers. With beers.

Suddenly, it happened. Our neighbors to the west began their block party. Now, this is no lily white, north shore, wine and cheese party. This was…urban. Awesomely urban. I don’t know where they found their sound system, but the base alone cracked some of our custom made bricks in the front walkway.

Rory started us off by feeling the music deep inside her. She stood on top of a nearby table and began dancing…uh…urban-ly. I didn’t know a one-year-old Catholic could move like that.

The rest of us followed suit. Eli flapped his arms to the beat of the beat. Even Finn, who would prefer you take his Star Wars toys away than dance, got into the groove.

Luca bounced on my knee like the world’s greatest miniature rap star. My apologies to Lil Wayne. In fact, our backyard turned exactly into a rap music video. If you took all the elements of a rap music video and did the opposite. But we still had a ton of fun.

The popsicles eventually ran out and we went inside to eat our sliced turkey and provolone cheese.

1 comment:

steve hamann said...

Rory Maria is TWO. When she was one, she liked the Wiggles, now that she's two, she's into Dr. Dre