Delights: July 21 to July 27

July 21: My energetic Iowa family, unfatigued by beach, boat and ponies, resolved to spend their last day on the East Coast by taking the Metro into Washington, DC. We rode in the very first car, with our faces planted against the glass to see the tunnel lights. We visited the bell tower of the Old Post Office for a splendid view of Washington. And we escaped the heat by sampling the Mammals Hall in the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum before returning home by Metro among the commuters. 

My Iowa family’s plane landed in Des Moines at 1:00 am. I was long asleep, dreaming of ideas for next year.

July 22: On Friday, Jeremiah pulled out our CD of the Beatles’ Rubber Soul. An hour later we emerged from a mop-top rabbit hole, almost panting from a combination of memory, give-and-take (Jeremiah advances firm opinions) and hilarity. 

We established the exact playlist for Jeremiah’s daily car rides to daycare: Help, Ticket to Ride, Yellow Submarine and Eleanor Rigby. Every day, every trip.

I explained that four-year old me thought She Loves You was about a little girl and her Daddy. (My Dad, who bought all our 1963, 1964 and 1965 Beatles records, may have planted the idea…)

I also showed Jeremiah my Beatles scrapbook. Judging from the date, which I had carefully written on the first few pages, the scrapbook and the accompanying Beatles bubblegum cards were presents for my five-year birthday. We turned page after page of 1964 bubblegum cards and sixty-year old clippings. Finally, we found in the scrapbook a set of fifteen trivia questions, circa 1967, that my Dad had made for my sister and me. 

Dad, she does love you. Yeah yeah yeah.

Bonus: My Dad’s Beatles Trivia Questions: 

1. How often ain’t the Beatles got anything but love?
2. Where is Penny Lane? [Not geographically]
3. What are the last four words of SHE LOVES YOU?
4. The Beatles have been in love before and they know that love is more than . . .
5. How is Paul’s grandfather described in the movie “Hard Day’s Night”?
6. In what English city did the Beatles kick off their career?
7. What is the flip side of I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND?
8. Identify the source of these lines: Say that I’m the only one/And then I might/Never be the only one.
9. What does Anna give back to the Beatles?
10. In what song do these lines appear: As I write this letter,/Send my love to you,/Remember that I’ll always/Be in love with you.
11. The Beatles sing: Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you. . . . What will happen tomorrow?
12. What should the Beatles have known better with a girl like you?
13. Why don’t the Beatles care too much for money?
14. When didn’t they need anybody’s HELP?
15. How old was the girl they shouldn’t have danced with?

July 23:  Pink bubbled everywhere as I left the movie theatre: from the raspberry-saturated crepe myrtle and fuchsia impatiens on the sidewalk to the little girl’s cowboy hat and my own hot-pink tunic with tiny matching purse. Women wore all shades of pink and even a few men decided to dazzle. The theatre was packed, the sidewalk was humming, and Barbie was in the air.

After my joyful two-hour visit to Barbie Land, everything outside the theatre seemed brighter, kinder and filled with just a little more possibility. I am still laughing over the movie’s take on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barbie’s many other bits. I didn’t play with Barbie when I was young, but I found myself proud of Astronaut Barbie, and Chef Barbie, and Doctor Barbie, and Construction Worker Barbie. I harrumphed with sympathy during one character’s “it’s impossible to be a woman” speech. Most of all, I adored the shared experience of laughing together in a crowded movie theatre. (I’ll also be more sensitive to the men I leave behind when I scamper off to Girls’ Night.)

Finally, when my pink-clad friends and I posed for a photo in front of the Barbie poster, I channeled my inner Problem-Solver Barbie to move the large obstructing trash can.

Bonus: An advertisement for bath rugs popped up on my computer. Honestly, for more than a second, I thought they were reproductions of these Alma Thomas pieces. (If they had been, I’d have bought both!) Artificial intelligence can be very unsettling.

July 24: I forgot to put turnips into the chicken soup already knitting together on the stove, and now I had two of them sitting lonely and expectant on the kitchen counter. Having zero experience with turnips and not wanting to compost them (yet), I decided to quickly sauté slivers in olive oil, seasoned with a little salt and pepper, and scrape them into the almost-done soup.

After a few minutes, I dipped my spoon into the pan to sample a few for doneness. Definitely done — and delicious. A bit buttery, a bit softly sweet, only half the turnips made it into the soup. The rest went directly into my empty soup bowl as a pregame warmup. 

I can’t wait to cook the other turnip. And to accept my invitation to what I now know is a rollicking turnip party at the farmers market.

July 25: Late last week, Kevin packed his bike gear, camping stuff and lots of energy into a friend’s car and headed west for his annual RAGBRAI extravaganza. RAGBRAI stands for the [Des Moines] Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. Kevin rode his first RAGBRAI as a teenager and has returned regularly over the past fifteen years. 

RAGBRAI always starts in a town on Iowa’s western border (with riders dipping their rear tires in the Missouri River) and concludes six days later at the Mississippi River (with a ceremonial front tire dip to complete the event). 

If you don’t know this already, Iowa is very hot in July and also pretty darn hilly. With 129.5 miles already in the saddle, Kevin achieved 86.1 miles today and looks forward to a “mere” 54.4 miles tomorrow (between Ames and Des Moines). In Des Moines, he’ll enjoy a soft bed, good food and air conditioning with our Iowa family (Karolina, give my husband a kiss for me!) before returning to two more nights of camp grounds, mess halls and tens of thousands of other cyclists. 

While I’m piddling around the house, Kevin will remount his bicycle in Des Moines to tackle two more 80+ mile days and a benign 71.2 miles into Davenport, for a total of 500 miles in seven days. (!!!!) Meanwhile, as scores of tiny towns roll out food-laden tables of hospitality all along the route, Kevin will have eaten pork chops for breakfast, apple pie for lunch and pancakes as a snack. “If you lose weight on RAGBRAI,” Kevin always says, “you’re not doing it right.” 

Kevin, I am so proud of you.

July 26: Remember my soup with only half a turnip? Today is dumpling day.

During lulls after the beach last week, my sister-in-law Karolina whipped up pots of chicken soup for kid-friendly meals. She also tried to teach me how to make dumplings. (Me: You mean you don’t roll each dumpling individually? They actually form themselves in the soup??)

I didn’t quite grasp the details. (Karolina: Really, this is so easy!). And we didn’t have time for me to make more dumplings under Karolina’s supervision. (We went to the Smithsonian instead.)

So Karolina, with the skill of a Tik Tok star, sent me a video of her making dumplings. With her iPhone camera trained on the skillet, I watched Karolina’s long wooden spoon melt butter, stir in Cream of Wheat, add an egg and scrape it all into the bubbling soup pot. 

Yay! I get it! But the ending was my favorite part, when Karolina turned toward the camera and gave me a big “I Love You” smile.

July 26: My two favorite worlds collided tonight: brews and books. Our local brewery Audacious Aleworks is hosting our local independent bookstore, One More Page. That means two different twenty-person lines to buy beach-reads and hefeweizen. It also means joyful mayhem. Evidently I’m not alone in my idea of paradise.

Bonus: I found a seat at the bar to sip my beer. I ended up in a delightful conversation with the couple sitting next to me. The woman, Wendy Shang, is the award-winning author of The Secret Battle of Evan Pao and other middle grade books. The man’s career, meanwhile, aligned remarkably with mine. Ninety minutes later, we bid farewell with homework to greet mutual friends, buy books, and hope to see each other again. 

July 27: I just finished reading Maya and the Book of Everything, the first book in a series by my blogging friend Laurie Graves. With magical books and a league of heroic librarians, I found Maya irresistible. Our fifteen-year old heroine acquires Earth’s Book of Everything after an impulsive, resourceful rescue; breathless adventure — and difficult choices — ensue. 

My only consolation after turning the last page is that three more volumes of Laurie’s Great Library Series await me. You can order Laurie’s books at your local woman-owned independent bookstore.

Female-Solidarity Barbie would be very proud of you.

Answers to my Dad’s Beatles Trivia Questions:

1. EIGHT DAYS A WEEK
2. In my ears and in my eyes.
3. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
4. Just holding hands
5. A clean old man
6. Liverpool
7. I SAW HER STANDING THERE
8. HOLD ME TIGHT
9. Their ring
10. P.S. I LOVE YOU
11. Tomorrow I’ll miss you
12. That they would love everything that you do
13. Money can’t buy them love.
14. When they were younger, so much younger than today
15. She was just seventeen — you know what I mean.

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