Cleveland has been much on my mind lately, with its unseasonably warm temps in the 80s (while those of us out here in the PacNW shiver with the early onset on winter-like gray and 50s!) The Indians are kicking butt in the playoffs, and those quarter-beer days on the 1980s seem a distant memory.
I grew up just outside of Cleveland in a then-small-now-monstrous suburb called Strongsville. My parents still live there, active as ever in local theater groups, various landscaping and car-fixing projects, filling me on all the details of the neighbors, the football team, and the mall. My sister A has, like me, abandoned the suburbs in favor of urban living. She lives in West Cleveland with her husband J and their daughter L in a funky little neighborhood called Tremont. Within a several block radius of their house they can dine at Mexican, Polish, African (I think!), or visit the best year-round market in Cleveland.
In mom's most recent letter she described my little niece L, aged 20 months, as having "a huge belly and no butt!" Her description of her pants sliding right down around her legs has still got me howling! This letter was soon followed by a phone call from my sister in which she lamented the fact that she and J had better stop swearing in front of L. The most recent incident: while grocery shopping L accidentally knocked something off the shelf. She looked down, looked up at her mum, shook her head and said "Dammit."
L is ready to do battle with one of grandma's garden gnomes.
Chilling out at the local fair.
Z and I went to two Indians games while we were there in June.
