ok, not quite. parker turns five this weekend, but last saturday night we celebrated with 18 of her closest friends at acrosports where she takes gymnastics.

a fine time was had. almost all of the older kids rode the zip line halfway across the gym. one of the dads from preschool even smuggled beer into the bleachers and passed around paper cups. these are my peeps!! i don't much like beer, but i love rebellion. felt like natick high school minus the marlboro reds.

there was a little stress when the pizza was half an hour late and i had 18 hungry kids under the age of 5 seated (sort of) patiently around a table in a tiny upstairs room. thankfully, upon parker's request,  i brought tons of fruit and a case of juice boxes. they ate/drank almost all of it. the pizza arrived just in time for us to do the cake before we were to be kicked out. after a phone call the next day, half of the pizza bill was comped...

girlie's gift from mama was a mani/pedi from my gal cindy at rose nails around the corner on hayes street. parker has been begging for this forever. she loved it, and her nails look very fancy with little sparkly (ghetto)  decals. i reneged on the bicycle. hard times. she's cool with asking santa for it next month, when we'll be in better shape. waiting on a big check from dan's work in LA...

i love my local nail salon. there is one across the street that's much more chic, with good feng shui, contemporary tunes, and a soothing color palette on the walls. they have updated magazines and a much wider selection of opi lacquer. they also have more than one chair and do eyelash extensions, threading, and other shit.

at rose nails, i've paged through same issue of 'shape' for six months, while listening to dreadful soft rock hits from the seventies. the place is lit with ugly fluorescents, and the ladies' idea of design is plastic plants and colored flip flops hanging from a cord in the window above the obligatory buddhist altar. plus, i often can't understand a word joanne, the hairdresser who does my eyebrows, says, in her heavy vietnamese accent.

but cindy is the sweetest woman ever, and since business is kind of slow, you get upwards of a two-hour mani/pedi with feet soaked in a bowl of hot water strewn with rose pedals (girlie's "best" part), a lengthy foot, calf, hand, and arm massage with lavender oil, and steaming hot towels.  28 bucks. i'll never go elsewhere. and now  i guess i'll be paying double. cindy just got a new client...

i was dreading the weekend.

i'm solo again with the shorties — dan left for LA thursday and won't be home til monday. which means no workouts or runs or time to write without constant interruption, unless the kids are in bed in which case i'm usually too exhausted to formulate a cohesive sentence, producing and serving every meal and snack, reading all stories, changing all diapers, breaking up all fights, and putting both kids to bed and naps for four days straight. oy.

but, here i sit in contentedly on a gorgeous sunday afternoon with the chron and the times, sunlight flooding my front room and warming my toes, the baby napping, and parker working on her letters in a cinderella workbook.

the weekend has been stellar — yesterday we got up early and headed to lola, the red and white sailboat at c dock on pier 39, owned by my good friends captain jordy and his lovely redheaded bride, charlotte. they live on a houseboat on a nearby slip.

weather looked iffy in the morning, but i loaded the diaper bag with snacks and lots of layers for all three of us, and some weatherproof gear, and headed to fisherman's wharf. even before we arrived the day looked perfect.

my little sailors were awesome! nary a complaint or a whine out of either of them. (well nino hated the life vest at first.) parker steered the boat and helped charlotte with the sails. roman loved the feeling of sea legs, and cracked himself up when he tried to move around. but mostly he sat serenely observing the glassy bay and the boats and sea life around him. "wah-wer."

today, we awoke (all in the same bed) to another beautiful sunny day.

when you're alone with two kids under five, and you get a mid-november day as gorgeous as today in frisco, and you realize that the rains are coming soon, there is only one thing to do. dune running, of course.

frisco parents take heed of this — ocean beach is a dangerous place. i learned it the hard way when my two-year-old was nearly snatched by a wave even though he was holding the hand of his strong, 6-foot-2-inch daddy. his boston red sox cap was claimed by the pacific (giants fan, i'm assuming), but even though he was bowled over completely, he was fine and undeterred by the roils of the ocean. still, this made me seriously wary. crissy field wading, yes, but no little ones out of reach on ocean beach.

but, here's something i learned about growing up with summers on cape cod — dunes! ok, maybe you'll need to forfeit the frolicking in the salty waves while the kids are really young, but here are the advantages:

• kids don't get wet and caked with sand and trash your car
• they can't run away too fast (have you ever tried to run uphill in sand?)
• falling in sand doesn't hurt
• it's great exercise and tires them out
• you can position yourself on top of the dunes on a blanket and watch them wherever they go, yet still relax since you're far enough from the water
• you get to spend hours at the beach
• if you park near java beach, you can go there before or after for refreshments (they serve beer and wine, btw)

it's a win/win folks.

touched down at jfk early in the morning listening to cold play on my headphones. that chris martin, he really does it for me. lucky gwyneth.

after three hours of hell (long story involving  service interruption the A train, a shuttle bus that broke down, and ending up on the local, stopping at every stop in brooklyn from rockaway to j street). it took four and half hours to get from frisco to new york and three hours to get from the airport to the upper east side.

but what a weekend! frisco mama could live a happy, happy life as manhattan mama. i hadn't been back in three years. jules took the high speed train from boston and we met at the brownlie twins' pad on the east 86th street.

i met liz and brey through their father, pete, a 90-year-old painter who is one of the most colorful and eccentric folks i've ever met. brey put it well — pete is either blueblood or blood on him. he has navigated through the new york art scene in the fifties and sixties, the hamptons summer crowd, and the upper east side mavens. he was a merchant marine, tells great sea stories, and has a mouth like a sailor. he bursts into song at any given moment, goes off on vitriolic tirades, and lives in squalor in a shanty town in bolinas with a bunch of mexican guys, and jane, the town's most notorious lunatic.

i worked for him promoting his greeting card business, opening accounts all over frisco. he is a prolific painter, a schemer, and a scammer. he's currently the subject of a documentary that's liz and brey were being interviewed for this week.

but i digress. it was truly wonderful hanging out with those ladies and liz's adorable children.

the weather was amazing so we wandered around central park, then to quioxte in the chelsea hotel for excellent spanish tapas. dan hooked us up with tix to see jake johanssen at gotham where we got styled with vip treatment. dan is a total rock star in that joint — his comedy portraits line the walls. they love him. the show was great,

on sunday we ate bagels and drank coffee overlooking the east river at carl shurz park, home of the gracie mansion, said our goodbyes and headed to the west village to the incentra village house.

adorable hotel, killer location! the meatpacking district and the hudson was a few blocks west, chelsea a block north and the whole village surrounding us. we had dinner in little italy, dropped in at the morrison hotel to see jim marshall's rock photos, and just walked for miles enjoying the beautiful indian summer.

it was way to short, but just what i needed. i miss my sistercuz already...

omg, i'm kind of a wreck! i'm leaving in a few hours on the redeye to manhattan for three days. solo! no bags of snacks, books, toys, goodies, or kids' programming on my iphone. no three-page comprehensive packing list for myself and two others. no diaper bag, fer crissakes! i'm traveling light!

i've never left my precious cargo for this long. what if my jet blue aircraft plummets to the ground in a fiery ball, and i leave my children motherless all because i thought i deserved to fly across the country and spend a long weekend going to the movies, comedy, shopping, eating, and gallery hopping with my cousin/soulmate jules, to celebrate our mutual november birthdays?

how f'en irresponsible.

i can't wait to be kicking back in my window seat— my window seat — with a cocktail and a copy of the new york, the sunday times style section, and the new david sedaris book without having to pacify, shush, or placate anyone but myself.

but, truly, i am a bundle of nerves. what if they forget about me? what if, because i'll be missing the san franicsco public school enrollment fair, my daughter ends up at john muir next september? what if my son reaches some important and/or adorable milestone in my absence? what if dan leaves me for some twenty-something starf*ckr who my kids fall in love with?

too late now...

ciao, bellas and gracie, dan, you're the best — xx