Lily told me that this summer, she wants to make a PLAN. Her plan involves actually doing stuff when the days are long and the homework is absent, so another summer doesn’t just vanish before her very eyes. I told her – you had me at “plan”. I do love a good plan. I upped the ante and said – what’s stopping us from starting now? It’s the worst season of the year in PNW, but instead of going deeper and deeper into our seasonal depression, let’s push ourselves to just do some stuff. We decided that Sundays, rain or shine, we would go do two things we’ve never done each week. One is meant to get us OUT. Hike, see a play, get on the water, whatever. The second can be a small thing – go out to eat somewhere you’ve never been (my guess is this will pretty much always be our thing two). After ten years in this city, I’m embarrassed by how little of it I’ve actually explored.

We are calling it the GO project, for Get Out. Neither of us is exactly a fount of creativity but it works for us. Sometimes I do worry that I’m turning Lily into a Golden Girl at the age of 16, but I love that she is not only willing to do kind of stuff with her mom, but she is the one coming up with THE PLAN.

Today: a chilly walk around Mount Tabor with Oscar the fattest dog on the block. If you want to feel better about humanity, take your dog for a walk through a Portland park on a weekend. So many friendly good boys and good girls to say hello to, so many butts sniffed. Afterwards, we warmed up with Chai and donuts at Pips. To be fair, neither of these things was completely new, but we had never taken Oscar to this park. And we had never had the Chai at Pips.

Five stars for the park walk with a special nod to the rare appearance of SUN, three stars for the chai (sorry, Pips, we like Grand Central chai better). Infinity stars for hanging out with a teenager who actually seems to like me (some of the time).

Pictures or it didn’t happen: