Parklife

Back in the early 90's, a girl introduced me to Britpop and namely to Blur. Wanting to seem cool and knowledgeable, I bought the CD's, listened to them, and even enjoyed some of them like "Boys and Girls". Some I really didn't understand. Take Parklife.

The meat of it is Blur singing about some guy hanging out at the park. Now, these days you can look it up on the internet and find information on how Blur was satirizing some sort of class situation in London, but to a teenager in the pre-internet mid nineties growing up in a small eastern Washington town, I really had no frame of reference. I had a friend who lived in an RV Park and I honestly thought that's what parklife was.

Which brings us to why I was singing this song to Cleo as we drove to visit my mom recently.

As you may or may not remember, my mom and stepdad bought an RV recently. Since my mom is a teacher, this has given her the opportunity to hang out close to us for a month this summer. My mom gets to see Cleo, Cleo gets to see her grandma, and I get to enjoy air conditioning. It's really a win, win, win situation.

About the only losers are my mom's dogs who are, at heart, country dogs that are used to having an acre to run around on. An RV park cramps their style and taking them to a dog park is overwhelming for them. Well, one of them adapts well, but the other is prone to anxiety. There is normally nothing more he likes than a good game of catch, but with cars racing around and a billion other scents at the dog park, he kind of implodes a bit like Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" and stares blankly  into space when you throw the ball.

Still, it's overall a great experience. If the weather holds, Cleo and I might even brave the pool next week!