Exposure.

[tedwords]

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. — Mark Twain

This has been an unusually rainy summer so far, and July 4 weekend was probably the worst. Which was a shame, because all of us were looking forward to resuming one of our most beloved family traditions after a two-year absence: July 4 at my parents' beach house.

To be sure, it's changed a bit through the years, as time has taken its toll. When we first started going to the beach house in Westport, I was 15 years old, and my parents co-owned the place with their best friends, Cathy and Jim. Now I'm 55 and Cathy passed away a long time ago; Jim moved away. My sister Kerrie now co-owns the place with my parents and so many people have come and gone during that time.

Some of us handle change better than others, and Ashes has always...well, been the worst. This past week-end was no exception. She was SO looking forward to getting together with everyone on Saturday, to swim in the lake, play games, light fireworks. But the weather did not cooperate, and no one looked forward to being stuck in the tiny beach house all day, so my parents moved the date to Monday.

Just two days! But you would have thought my parents had committed a criminal offense. Ashes was upset because she had bought a lot of food for the party that would now go bad, that her boyfriend Dan wouldn't be able to go because of work, that we wouldn't have as much time on Monday. After airing her grievances, she sulkily said "I'm not going" and refused to talk to anyone for two days.

But of course, when Monday rolled around, Ashes was there at the beach house, with her food, with her boyfriend, and everything was fine, as if it never happened. That's the thing about her: she may get angry, fiery angry, but something comes along or she has an experience she needs to share? And boom, it's as if it never happened, and the summer lightning is replaced by a bright blue sky.

The same thing happened at the end of our Monday celebration. Kerrie, who is recovering from a double mastectomy was tired by six, and her husband had to wake up to work at five the next day. And my parents started to get tired, so we started winding things down at six. This did not set well with Ashes, who had been hoping for a later night with at least sparklers, so she abruptly got up and stormed away (to be fair, she did keep it together for my parents and Kerrie. It's always me and Josie she takes things out on.)

And, another silence began. But remember what I said about a shiny object appearing and boom, it's like nothing ever happened? 

Sure enough, the next day, I received a call from her, laughing hysterically. "What's up?" I asked, curious. 

"You know how TJ is looking after our apartment while Dan and I are going away for the week?" she asked. Yes, of course. Dan and Ashes were heading off to Cape Cod and I had taken their keys from them to give to TJ the day before. 

"What I didn't tell TJ was that I had to work today, until three. So when he got out of work at the pot factory, he decided to head right over to our apartment, to check on things. Well, Dan didn't know that, and thought I was home from work. And sometimes he has a thing he does where he will hide and wait until I come in and then pop out naked, just to make me laugh. And this time, he was hiding in the closet that has Euffie's litter box, and he squatted over it with his butt hanging out as if he were going to the bathroom. And so TJ entered the kitchen, and Dan didn't know it was TJ and he slowly opened the door to show himself and...boy did TJ scream! Dan was SO embarrassed."

"That's a side of Dan TJ has never seen before," I said, laughing.

"And never will again."

"Let's hope!" I said. "And if you ever ask me to look after your apartment, I am going to enter and yell as loudly as I can. I never want to see that side of Dan, either, sweetie."

And with that, she was off to her trip to the Cape. But see what I mean? It's like the lightning storm had ended, to replace by blue skies. And a funny story, on top of that. 

All I really want from my kids is more blue skies, less thunder. Please let that be the side of Ashes I see more times than not in the years to come, now that she became one of the few to find love during the pandemic. That's been a huge weight off my shoulders.