Zia Camp

Zia ("aunt" in Italian, aka ME) was quite exhausted after 12 hours with her six year old nephew. At first, I thought it was due to my advanced age, but when Erik fell asleep in the car after we dropped Cyrus off, I felt justified.

First, we had a challenging game of Guess Who and Battleship. Then we went to the aquarium and Pier 39. Pier 39 is ripe with an arcade, 3-D ride and plenty of ways to spend money on crap:

"Zia, can I have this?" (a wand that flashes multiple colors...something every kid needs on a foggy day)
"OK"
"Zia, I want this!"
"Uh..."I say...but then Erik interjects: "Mom, get the poor kid a stuffed sing ray...come on!"
"Zia, I need this!"
"No Cyrus, you don't a rubber ball with bloodshot eye for $5.95."

I actually quite enjoyed playing tourist and some of the games at the arcade. Erik was a wonderful helper and didn't milk me for too much. He enjoyed saying loudly, "Wow! I just love San Francisco, I want to live here!" as we passed by tourists (poor things...why do they always wear shorts & tank tops? Didn't they listen to Mark Twain? The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.)

The day ended with a trip to the dog park before we went to Erik's baseball game. When I dropped him off, Cyrus bubbled, "When can we do Zia camp again?"