is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
Pressing pause on Palinization terror for this beachy bit: Staycation redux, day two
Thursday, September 4, 2008 
Oh yes, I am terribly behind on this vacation reporting. And if it wasn't for Twitter and The Colbert Report, I may very well be stalled into complete Palinized silence. Or perhaps that's terror. But probably more like determination to get my own Obama shirt and hunt down the Sharpies and poster board signs. I'll be ranting about reproductive justice and book banning and the crisis of teen pregnancy in our country and that green flying squirrel dress cape-type Cindy McCain was wearing last night, but all in good time.
For now, let's rewind from the RNC balloon and confetti drop (did you catch Sarah Palin saying, "It's beautiful!" as it all came falling down over the audience full of strategically-planted people of color, like she'd never seen such things in these here parts outside of Alaskeee...oh wait) back to simpler, happier, DNC days of vacation, so long ago and just last week:
On the way home from the Field Museum, as we made our way down a stretch of Lake Shore Drive, I opened the windows so we could really take in the gloriously blue lake to the east, the students rowing crew to the west, the skyline just behind us to the south and the sailboats lining the harbor just ahead.
I pointed out the bridge over Lake Shore Drive at North Avenue Beach and I told Lil E about how I remembered my mom walking my brother and I across it on summer days when I was a kid. I told him about how hot the bridge felt, how it vibrated from the cars below on my bare feet. I told him about how my parents took us there on warm evenings to put those bare feet in the water, eat Italian ice and watch the moon rain down on the city.
He asked me if what kinds of sand toys we played with and if grandma held our hands as we crossed that bridge. He asked me to tell him more stories about the beach, listened quietly behind his sunglasses and then said quietly, "I would like to go to that beach."
"That would be fun," I agreed in sort of wistful, someday maybe sort of way.
"I would like to go to that beach tomorrow," he said, correcting me.
"Really?" I was surprised. Our options were open but LegoLand and riding on a double decker tour bus downtown and taking an architectural boat ride along the Chicago River were on the table.
"Yes," he said adamantly. "I want to go to the beach tomorrow."
I was in. How could I not be?
"Then that's what we'll do," I said, smiling.
The next morning I mentioned that maybe we should try another beach that might not be so crowded and Lil E interrupted me quickly.
"NO MOMMY! THAT beach. The one you goed to with Grandma!"
That made me smile even bigger. He wanted a bit of what we once had, and I got that. It sounded good. And it had been.
Those kinds of memories are unmistakably warm, mostly because my parents were educators and home in the summers and that's most of our relaxed, easy family time happened. For that reason and for me, this is why I think Chicago's at its best in months between the chill of spring and the chill of fall, when blue wraps around the city from the stretch of the lake to the top of the skyscrapers.
So we would snap up a bit of that summer warmth ourselves, my boy and I, during this week we'd been calling Mommy and Lil E's Vacation Adventure.
There was just one thing: The water.
(Read on about my shivers to touch Lake Michigan after the jump).
