FAMILY TOGETHERNESS: treats

emergency tofutti is a tradition started eight and a half years ago.

yeah.
back in the day, for harvest's tenth berfday,
we made an emergency stop at sweet claude's ice cream shop,
and it immediately became a rule that that's where we gotta go
whenever we're all together in connecticut.
i mean, rules is rules.
so,
maple and her sister and i all made it a point to do what we do,
and get those rainbow sprankles on top, too.
i mean. c'mon-
vegan ice cream is what you need when you're with your kids, right?

right!
family togetherness is hard when everybody is grown up.
that's f'real, friends.
and i don't see my people nearly enough.
since we could all be together in one place, i felt i HAD to make the trip.

yeah!
i'll screenshot a snapchat, man.
don't tell me how to live.
those two are the first ones,
and while they'll always be my babies,
they're big now, and they do their own things more often than not.
i needed the trip, and it did wonders for my old heart.
seeing the old ones, and waiting to meet this new one,
has got me feeling a special kind of way.
feelings are not where i excel, but i'm feelin' all of the feels,
and it's all really happening;
i guess that's the whole point.
***********
crabtree came, too, and we walked and walked and walked
through my hometown of hamden's secretly elite neighborhoods.
yep.
exploring is what he and i do best together.
although, i'll admit he's a great car dog, too.
i like driving around with him, and i miss our old cruises through the mountains.
alas, i can't see for sh!t at night and i'm always just so worn out
from all those feelings...
* sidebar: once i stopped being so angry all the time at the unfairness of the world,
i just got really tired. without the directionless drive to rage at the universe,
i let what i feel unfold the way it wants to, and it's exhausting.
weird.
...so driving around for no reason in the dark isn't gonna be a thing.
maybe now that we're saving daylight, me and my little guy can do a thing.
he needs it, and he's better off for it when he gets it.
just like i am when i see my children.
knowing that they have lives that are their own is a good thing.
knowing we can all get together and have that be good, too, is comforting.
i miss them always, and i'm grateful for the time we get to span together;
never quiet, never soft.....