It feels like I haven't had a moment's rest since coming back from Ethiopia.  Chet's party was the day after and then two days later I was driving Ava and three of her best friends to the Hamptons for a slumber party.  Ava'd been planning this for at least ten months, ever since I'd told her that my Uncle Billy was kind enough to allow us to use his beach house whenever we wanted.  I also hit him up to borrow his big Mercedes so the girls got chauffered out there in style.  It was Radio Disney on the radio and Nanny McPhee on the portable DVD player in the back for three hours.  A and her daughter M and Chet drove in A's car.  I was still a bit off balance, remembering that just a few days before I was watching donkeys pass through a traffic jam in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  If it weren't for A's help and M being the cute mascot to all the little girls I'd never have made it.  I was also still battling my GI tract.  It felt like a rabid family of ferrets were wrestling inside my stomach.  But Ava had a great time, the ice cream cake and the pizza and the beach were just perfect.  I hope she remembers it for years to come.

Now back in the city for a few days we have to pack tomorrow for two weeks in France.  I'm not thrilled with the idea of getting back on a plane but the kids have been looking forward to the trip for months.

With the dollar so low I was on the verge of cancelling the vacation and staying in the city but we're flying on miles and staying with friends in Paris and then in the same little village, Ramamtuelle, that I've been visiting for the last fifteen years.  I  love France but I have to say that here in New York it's magical as well.  Tonight I took Ava and her two best friends, Chet, A and M to a little restaurant inside Riverside Park overlooking the Hudson.  I treated myself to a margarita and black angus kebobs and corn and after dinner the kids played for hours on the gymnastic rings and by the time we were walking out of the park it was dusk and the fireflies were everywhere.  The kids went nuts and capered after them, catching them in their hands, begging me to take them home.  I'd heard that fireflies had returned to New York City but growing up here I'd never once seen one.  When I was a kid the last place you wanted to be was inside a park after dark.