La Familia Kulick - Taverna

Julie says Rose really likes me, more than most. She crawls after me, fingers and mouths everything I touch, and chirps and gurgles baby gibberish in ecstatic explosions whenever I'm around.

It's all pretty fun for me and really I love just hanging out with Bubba, as Julie jokingly calls her on account of her baby fat. Last night she gave her to me to carry around on my shoulder and entertain as we played pinball and sipped pints at a tavern down the street. Rose was digging it and I was too. She likes me...!

Maybe I could be hip to the parenting thing one day with munchkins as cool as Rosalita, age 1. Before I left we took a stroll down by the river together. Everything was so humid and moist and green, organic and alive after the rainstorm last night it feels like a greenhouse. Along the river of course I spyed egrets and herons and sandpipers for Will while they helped speculate on the various trees and wildflowers along the way being naturalists too. Rosalita seemed to think the sycamore seed pods were the best and could not be made to part with the one I gave her the rest of the morning. We even found a big old persimmon tree I found near the trail pointing out to Will that would make some good jam come fall.

When I finally got back to Richmond I went to visit my own family gathered together for my cousin Corey's send off to college. I know everybody says this, but it really does feel like yesterday he was just a little kid. Now he's heading off to Virginia Tech to begin college, my alma mater and his parents too. I can tell he is SO ready to go. I can recognize and identify with that feeling a mile away. Next thing I know it will be Rosalita heading off to college...