My Truant Pen

Ghost stories

bflynn — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:13:28 +0000

This last weekend we went on the last camping trip of the year. It has finally started getting easier, this camping with children thing. This resulted in me actually getting time to think, to mull, and to consider. And, of course, to read some ghost stories in front of the camp fire (on the Kindle — ah, the 21st century! How enabling you are!).

I love ghost stories. For a while in college, I extensively read “true”, first-person ghost stories. My favorite site was completely unedited, updated monthly (this was the old days folks) and had lots and lots of tales about ambiguously frightening things happening. As I was also getting my degree in English, I couldn’t help but begin to analyze the form and contemplate what was universal to the first person, claimed-to-be-true ghost story, what separated the good from the bad, what made them interesting, and what made people care about them.

After extensive (and pointless) research into the ill-defined genre, I finally figured it out. The key to a good ghost story isn’t the actual haunting or specter or experience. It’s the back story. You’d hardly ever find a ghost story posted that didn’t include the “I did some research and it turns out that on this spot XXX bad thing happened”. The very best stories are the ones with the strongest back story and the closest ties to whatever inspired the haunting.

This was on my mind in Istanbul. If ever there was a city to be haunted, it was Justinian’s Constantinople.

See this cheerful picture, with the tourist and the little kid tooling around on his bicycle?

The brazen column

This bucolic scene is inside where the Hippodrome stood in Constantine’s fair city. The Hippodrome. It was on this soil, fifteen hundred years ago, as Justinian made to flee and Theodora declared she’d rather die in purple than live in exile, that a mob gathered. It was here that, according to records, 30,000 of them were killed in the Nika Riots. That was a grim and gruesome tale. And it wasn’t just those riots. This same ground was a combination of Fenway and Yankee Stadium. The passions of the racers, flying in chariots behind their quadrigia, bedecked in their factions colors, was a drop compared to the fury of longing and joy and despair echoing from the stands. Emperors were one thing, but the races were the greatest thing. The best of the racers had statues raised to them, and the names of their horses were lauded in song and story. This same Hippodrome saw the height of Constantinople being truly itself. There were the royalty, the common man, the horses, the palaces and Hagia Sophia watching it all from the top of the hill. Here the Venetians came. Here the Crusaders came. Just a stone’s throw away, the Christians huddled in their sanctuary as their walls fell to Ottoman artillery.

If ever there was a place in all human history where the gathered passionate energy of an entire civilization might linger, leaving it’s ectoplasm or psychic imprint behind, surely it was on this soil. I stood there, warm sun on my heads, little kids zooming by on bikes with indulgent parents proudly watching, and waited to feel it. Surely there would be some hint on this storied ground? Surely some ghost stories lurked in the ancient stonework, or swirled above the domes of the city like roosting gulls?

The Hippodrome, before Constantine

But no. There was nothing. I heard laughter, cell phone ringtones, low music. I saw smiles and tourists and the ever-present children. I smelled moussaka and boiled corn. There was no hint of the history (and bodies?) indubitably buried beneath my feet. There were no ghost stories I could find.

I admit that back in college, I was tempted to take the trope of the true ghost story and expand on the form. Having identified the elements, I felt, I could write some cracking good ghost stories, masquerading as real experiences. (What? It’s the internet. Don’t believe everything you read.) I thought about it this weekend, staring into red embers and listening to the loons singing my children to sleep. I thought about it, reading literary ghost stories which (honestly) don’t all have the form of the ghost story quite figured. And if I did, perhaps I would set it there, in the Hippodrome, between the palace and the church, above the sea.

Top ten reasons you should move to Stoneham MA

bflynn — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:01:06 +0000

So I’ve been waging a not-very-subtle campaign to get some subset of my friends who are “thinking about buying a house maybe some day” to consider doing so within convenient walking distance of my house. This is entirely selfish. It’s simply much easier to have a social life when you have friends on this side of the Big Dig.

Pony ride during winter fair on Stoneham Town Common

In support of this attempt, I thought I’d put together a top 10 list of reasons you should move to Stoneham Massachusetts.

10. The local paper is hilarious. It assumes you already know everyone important in town, exclusively covers potlucks at St. Patrick’s church, and used to feature a safety column by Officer Rotondi, who was rotund. The safety column was excellent, with advice like “Do not put your credit card on the internet. Many criminals are now using the internet.” Best of all is the crime blotter. Every third entry has to do with someone calling the cops on the “youth” who were found to be loitering. One person called the cops because they saw a deer.

9. The Middlesex Fells reservation is part of Stoneham. Who knew that we had such an extensive quasi-wilderness area in sight of Boston? There are miles and miles of trails. You can take an all day hike, with excellent views of the city skyline. It’s close enough to Stoneham Town center to be a reasonable walk, or a quick bike-ride, and is open for cross country skiing and snow shoeing in winter.

The Fells in Stoneham

8. Melissa’s Main Street Bistro has quite possibly the best menu I’ve ever seen anywhere, ever. Better yet, they deliver on the promise of that great menu. They mix an incredibly powerful martini (and delicious!) but the great news is that if you live here, you can just walk home.

7. We’re right at the corner of I93 and I95. You can find no better location for an equally inconvenient commute for you and your partner. We’re also 10 minutes from the end of the Orange Line (depending on where you are in Stoneham, it’s possible to get closer).

6. Stoneham Town Day! September 11th this year! (You can find this actually helpful information buried on page 6 of the newspaper….) There’s carnival rides, booths from every organization in town, balloons, politician’s kissing babies, raffles and fried dough. Fun for the whole family!

5. My neighborhood has a Walk Score of 80, which is very walkable. Grey can easily walk to: a grocery store, pharmacy, library, bank, post office, police station, park, ice cream parlor (2), about 15 restaurants, live theater, mechanic, bike store, hardware store, furniture store, homepathic store, dance studio, martial arts studio, 5 salons, and best of all, the Book Oasis. And more! As far as I can tell the only things you can’t walk to are the hospital (4 miles) or a movie theater (5 miles).

4. Local politicians actually walk around and knock on doors to personally introduce themselves during election season. I find this both charming and useful. I’m sure it happens other places, but I promise it never happened to me any other place I’ve ever lived.

3. The town square. It’s un-selfconsciously exactly what you imagine New England towns that predate the Revolutionary War to be. It has the bank, post office, funeral home, church, fire station, police station, town hall, park and Honeydew Donuts clustered around it. The church carillon plays music every hour on the hour between 9 and 9. Stoneham Town day is held there. During the summer they hold concerts on the Band Stand. Santa comes to visit in the winter. And every Tuesday in summer and fall we have a Farmer’s Market! You can see people taking strolls, sitting on the bench, or playing Frisbee on unscheduled evenings. Charming!!!

2. Housing prices have held up. The median home price is down about 10% from the peak and has risen this year. Stoneham boasts a nice mix of single family houses, multifamily houses for rent or purchase as a condo, and apartment units. It’s a demographically diverse and well-educated community, but not so upper class that you won’t be able to find a place here you could afford.

And finally, the top reason you should consider moving to Stoneham Massachusetts….

1. I live here, and you could hang out with me!

There once was a boy named Grey

bflynn — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:52:58 +0000

Part of me thinks that I should “hold on” to good, milestone posts about my kids until they hit a good milestone. I mean, Grey is only a month away from his fifth birthday! He’s not going to change so much in the intervening month, so I’ll either miss a milestone update, repeat myself, or have to make stuff up. But the part of me that is a middle-aged and more experienced writer whispers “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a’flyin.” Which translates as “Write your blog posts when you’re thinking about them, idiot.”

Grey at Yosemite

So, Grey. Grey is almost five. If you ask him when his birthday is, he can tell you the date. He knows what day of the week it is every day, and what that means. He knows what month of the year it is, and what that means. He knows his brother’s birthday, and how old Thane will be, and will likely volunteer the information that when Grey is seven, Thane will be four. This is important because seven is the epitome of “grown up” and four, well, Grey is four so four is awesome!

Grey will not being going to Kindergarten this week. I’ve been wrestling with this for over a year. There’s lots of “one the one hand” and “on the other hand” going on. (The one hand is: he’s reading well, can count to 100 and is making light of his preschool curriculum. The other hand is: children tend to do well with an extra year’s emotional maturity before going to school, and Grey will be no exception. Also, he will spend the rest of his life as a big person… why rush it?) The third and final hand, though, is that there is no mechanism for testing in early and I don’t want to start him off in private school, so wait a year it is. I don’t think this will do him any harm.

The reading. Oh, the reading! So Grey first read a book all by himself nearly a year ago, at his 4 year checkup (to the surprise of his doctor and I). He spent several months with the ability to read a word or two. It’s hard work, though, and he preferred to let us do the reading. Since he’s four, and he deserves to still have his mommy and daddy read to him, we praised his reading efforts, cursed when he read something inconvenient to us, and continued to read to him.

But last night! My mother-in-law is here, so I have a few moments of this weird thing called “leisure”. Go ahead and look it up in the dictionary. I was using this precious commodity to read a book for work (hey, at least it was an interesting one). I asked Grey to read with me on the couch. First he read me the book “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket”. (Which, um, seriously. That’s not exactly easy. Do you know how many made-up words there are? He must have a decent grasp of phonics to do it, although he definitely uses rhymes to figure out the pronunciation of the nonce-words.) After that, I told him he had to read to himself. And so he got out a treasury of Little Critter stories and read THREE of them to himself. All by himself.

A quiet moment at a busy party

His reading is sophisticated. He uses funny voices, when appropriate. There’s rhythm and cadence. He sometimes corrects my interpretations when I read aloud to him. He stops at punctuation. He misses words because he is reading for content. It took me a while to figure out that’s a sign he’s reading better, not worse. But a word might say “that” and he’ll read it “the” because he’s taking a holistic view of the sentence. It makes sense. It still flows. But it means that he’s reading sentences instead of words. (And hey, my mom still does that sometimes!) But reading for entertainment!!! Squee!!!!

I bought him some new books to read this weekend while we’re camping. I hope we get him good and hooked.

He’s starting to get a better grasp on his temper. Obviously one of the big components of that is getting more sleep. I need to keep reminding myself how much easier his life is when he gets to bed early, because I get lazy and enjoy his company and don’t always get him to bed with alacrity. But if you take away his toy unfairly, he might yell at you, “I don’t like that!” This may not seem huge, but it is. He’s using his words to work through very hot and present emotions. He’s making huge strides in mastering control of himself.

We watched “Drunken Master” the other night. (What? Jackie Chan is totally kid-appropriate, and I won’t hear otherwise. I just tell him the wine is a magic potion!) He didn’t mind the Kung Fu, which is pretty ballet-like in truth, but he got very concerned when Jackie was really hungry and tried to steal a dinner. He shows empathy in very appropriate ways, I think. (He also loved Drunken Master. “I want to watch it EVERY home day!”)

Grey intellectually understands that effort and practice are the keys to becoming proficient. We were playing Mario Kart Wii and I’m bad enough that I wouldn’t throw the game to protect his ego. (I actually think we’re pretty evenly matched. I’m not a great video gamer.) He stormed off. Afterwards, tearfully, he told me, “I forgot that if I keep trying I’ll get better!”

Grey also likes Rock Band

There are still some challenges, of course, in Grey’s life. He’s a very picky eater, often turning up his nose at the delicious and laborious dinners I place in front of him. I find that hard to deal with. He has a tendency to be a bit emo… there are times when some black eyeliner and vampire-themed-clothing would not be out of place. He hates it when things don’t go perfectly his way. (Don’t we all?) We’re working on cutting out a nail-biting habit before it gets too ingrained. But if he was totally perfect, that would be annoying.

King of the Hill

Emotionally, Grey is getting very complex. We were in the car the other day, driving home from aikido, and he told me, “Mom, did you know some old people are sad because they didn’t have any children?” Whoof. Complicated social concepts to explain on no notice … GO! So we talked about how for some people that’s true, how some people don’t have kids and aren’t sad about it, and how other people choose to find other ways of having children, like adopting. I finally figured out he’d watched “UP” and really taken to heart that wrenching first 20 minutes. We talked about how that couple was both very happy and a little sad.

Despite being a non-cuddly baby/toddler, Grey has turned into the world’s snuggliest preschooler. He often comes to hug me, give me kisses and snuggle me. He is very solicitous of my well-being, although he is also a big rough-houser. He’s getting big enough that we’re teaching him how to safely rough-house with us. But he is so gentle and kind, to me and to his little brother. And most especially to his two favorite animals du jour: Tigry and Puppy. They are his children. He’ll give you the complete family tree of all his stuffed animals, but they’re his favorites.

He tells me, without provocation or priming, that he loves me very much and that I am his “Sweet mommy”.

He is my sweet Grey.

Grey with Tigry and Puppy

So you think I’m self-confident

bflynn — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:07:19 +0000

Part of being in your 30s is finally knowing a bit of who you are. You can get rid of that setting for four because you never feed four people: it’s either just your family or it’s a minimum of six people. You can pass on the lovely porcelain figurine you inherited because it turns out you’re not a knick-knack person. You can wear big jewelry and not feel self-conscious because you’re a person who wears big jewelry, and you really don’t have to think that hard about it.

One of the real joys of my late 20s and 30s for me has been being ok, downright comfortable even, with who I am. I can present at a big important meeting, speak in public, plan a party, sing the Halleluia Chorus, fix plumbing and make a peach pie. I know how to comport myself at an opera, and feel at home in fancy French restaurants (especially ones IN France… YUM!). After a quick look around, I handled a Turkish bath (with all states of undress) just fine. In all sorts of walks of life: from church to work to culture to leisure, I don’t ponder whether or not I belong. I just engage in what we’re there to do.

There is one huge, glaring exception to this.

Manicure/pedicure places freak me out.

This spring I went to get a mani/pedi at a local place. Like every single place I’ve ever been to, it was staffed by a variety of Asian women (I believe they’re generally Vietnamese?!) and attended by a variety of white women, all of whom seem to know everyone and be in media res with the latest gossip. There are at least two tvs on, with some incredibly annoying movie playing. The lady at the counter never makes eye color with you when she tells you to pick out your color.

The steps of getting a mani/pedi are like this intricate dance. You do the pedicure first. God help you if you didn’t plan ahead and are wearing socks and/or jeans. The person is usually chatting to their fellow technicians, while the other people getting pedicures are talking about all the people they know. There are all these steps to it, and so many of the customers there are there regularly — weekly even — that you feel like the only idiot who has to be told what to do. And there are all these unspoken things… do they take credit cards or only cash? You have to pay before they’re done, or you’ll smudge your fingers. How much do you tip? And you just KNOW that this gaggle of women will not hesitate to discuss any faux pas you may have made after you depart.

By the time I got out last time, I was nearly a nervous wreck. I felt ill with the strain of it — totally self inflicted of course. Granted, my fingernails looked great, but it just wasn’t worth it. I did my own nails the other night. The outcome wasn’t nearly as good, but the tv on had baseball and it hardly cost me a thing other than time.

So that’s me. Where are you unexpectedly uncomfortable? Where do you feel like an outsider, and despite your competence in many arenas, avoid?

Breaking news

bflynn — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:37:19 +0000

So rumor on the street is that there’s a worldwide shortage of FUDGE dice caused by the emergence of a Dresden Files game using the mechanic.

I’m happy to say that I was cool and using FUDGE dice years, YEARS before the bandwagon fans did. My house is well supplied with FUDGE dice, as well as enough D12s for a whole HORDE of barbarians.

D6 gold, baby

We have an unreasonable amount of dice. Grey could correctly conjugate die/dice by age 2.

Ahem.

In slightly less geeky news, batch 3 of plum jam is popping away on the counter. It still looks darker than last year’s magic batch. I wish I knew what varietal it was. I’m pretty sure these aren’t damson plums, and from what I’ve read I may have to track down some damsons for yet another batch, because they sound awesome.

Grey brought one of his Star Wars books to school today and read it to his class. I wonder if he pronounced the “r”s? It’s funny what even an open-minded parent like myself won’t put up with.

OK. Dice shortages and yet another jam update. That’s a sign that I should leave you all to your sweet dreams!

Peach butter and babies

bflynn — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 01:52:56 +0000

You know, in my day job I’m all professional. I knowingly use acronyms. The word “synergy” unironically passes my lips. I’m actually a technical professional, which ups the number of acronyms like 50% from everyone but finance, who has a vocabulary entirely made up of acronyms. Real grownup professional. I swear. Ok, yeah. I don’t buy it either.

Thane's room, now with big boy bed

Right now I’m sitting at my kitchen table. Monday, my double-fruit share from Farmer Dave showed the ugly side of a bumper crop, when my take-home number of peaches hit thirty-two. 32. That’s THIRTY TWO PEACHES (on top of 8 nectarines). Nearly ten pounds of peaches, people. Now, I’ve made my fair share of peach pies this summer. (Mmmmm…. peach pies.) But 32 peaches is like 4 peach pies. Or maybe three. And I didn’t have TIME for four peach pies. Or pie starter. I knew that I needed to can it. To my surprise and chagrin, peach jam was quite a disappointment last year. It was sugary and crystallized after opening. But apple butter was a delight. So tonight, peach butter. Why not?

Of course, it’s easy to airily say “Why not?” before you have peeled and cubed about 20 peaches, but whatever. I bought a big canner pot this year, for the apple butter. I usually jam with pectin, because that’s how my mom does it, but the butters don’t use pectin. Just sugar, lemon and time. I’m caught between hoping it’s good (did I mention how amazing the apple butter is on corn bread?) and hoping it’s not so that I’m not on the hook to make it every year. I mean, a family can only eat so many preserves, and this is my seventh? Eight? batch of something this summer, and I MUST still make damson plum jam and apple butter. I think I need to buy more jars. And make more friends. Be warned, if you enter my house…. better yet, I have never once met a non-fruit-eater, so don’t you go thinking your dietary constraints will save you. Muahahah!

Anyway, in other news, the big boy bed. Guess what? It’s NO PROBLEM. It’s like Thane hasn’t even noticed that there’s been a change in his bedtime routine. You put him on the bed. You give him puppy. You leave the room. You hear from him again at 6:15 in the morning. One can hope that maybe he’ll start to play a bit in the mornings — specifically Saturday mornings. But it was a complete non-event in terms of disruption. Man, I love that kid.

He didn't notice he was big

Ok, I better make sure the butter isn’t burning. I wonder if it will be good on pancakes, maybe….

The changing of the seasons

bflynn — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:17:45 +0000

One of the things I don’t like about myself is how far ahead I get. There are advantages, of course. I usually plan in sufficient time. I am seldom taken unawares by the next step. But in children and summer, you give up a lot by pushing to be further along than you need to be. So I pause and take seriously this feeling in the air, to make sure it is not just because I am pushing.

But no. I came back from Istanbul, the heat of summer in the Mediterranean, to discover one flamboyantly yellow birch on my commute home. It has since been joined by several maples in scarlet on quiet roads. Being that it’s mid-August, I suspect drought has advanced the season, and not just my perspective. But still. The days are hot and humid, but shorter. Night arrives earlier, and lacks the sultriness of July. A tell-tale crispness creeps over the window panes in the early morning hours. We are, by no means, into autumn, but we can see it on the horizon.

Summer child

As for the other season? I am passing out of the baby time of life. I nursed a child for the last time nearly a year ago. One dark night when I laid Thane into his crib… that was the last night. And tomorrow? Tomorrow they are bringing my baby a bed, with no sides. He will lie unrestrained and tiny on rocket-ship sheets with a blanket and a pillow — faithful Puppy still firmly at hand, golden curls pressed against the unfamiliar mattress.

And it’s not just the bed. It’s been a while since I’ve given you a proper Thane update, but oh! What a big boy he is. At the farmshare pickup after Istanbul, I ran into a friend from church. “It was fun to see your family all in tie-dye,” she said, “But who was the curly-headed kid? And did you bring Thane with you?” She wasn’t being sarcastic, or joking. She literally didn’t recognize my Thane. He does so many big boy things. He climbs, jumps and runs. He’s very good at puzzles. He sits and reads books. He organizes his cars by colors and carries them throughout the house, lining them up. He speaks in full sentences now: “I found it!” “Car mine!” “Yummy pancakes” “Cereal and milk, please” “No, thank you”. He even comes up with new sentences. For example, the other day in the car when I started in on the “ABC” song, he said, “No! Daddy ABC!”

He can recite his numbers to ten. He sings about 90% of the ABC song. He knows “Ring Around the Rosy” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and sings them to himself. He tells knock knock jokes (endlessly!) at dinner. He can correctly identify all the basic colors.

He eats cereal in a bowl with milk. He snitches his father’s ice tea. He climbs into his high chair and car seat for himself. He follows instructions (when he chooses to). He will come lay his head on your knee and say “Nuggle”. He has two kinds of kisses: real kisses and “all tongue” kisses, and thinks it’s hilarious when he can give you one of the latter. Whenever he sees a cell phone, he demands to speak to “Gamma! Gamma! Gamma!” He can correctly identify our two cats by name.

He pours sand on himself first thing when he gets to a sandbox. I’ve brought him home and put him on the changing table, and had rivers of sand fall out of his pockets. He can tell you when he wants a new diaper. I’ve started him sitting on his potty chair, to begin that years-long process.

In a word, he’s not a baby anymore. He’s a toddler, a child, a boy, a curly-haired blue-eyed delight… many things, but not a baby. That season has passed.

Too big for his crib

Istanbul and Camp Gramp: Final Day

bflynn — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:39:39 +0000

August 7

Adam and I are about five hours from the time shown on my little travel alarm clock. So I suppose, against my great desire, I must admit that our sojourn in Istanbul draws to a close.

After another sleepless night, we dragged our weary carcasses out of bed in time for the free breakfast at the hotel. As an aside, I’m mightily glad we don’t usually watch cable news over breakfast. Anyway, we then went back to the Archaoelogical museum. See, it’s not air-conditioned at all, so last time we only saw about half of it in hundred degree heat before calling “uncle”. We are nothing if not thorough, so we returned for the other half. I was hoping that fourteen centuries of being a beacon of success, art, opulence and learning in Constantine’s fair city might get, oh its own wing or something. Sadly, Constantinople seemed underrepresented in the archaeological museum. We did see about a gagillion first century marble busts, and an ample sufficiency of Terra cotta jars from Troya… As well as a few snide remarks about which European Museum has the good stuff. Still, the marble heads were lovely!

One of many

After that we took the tram across the Golden Horn. Istanbul has a fine transit system, far more modern and clean than Boston’s. From there we waited by the water for a ferry. I watched a kind Turkish woman give money to a poor looking woman with a little baby. It struck me how few here seem destitute. I think I’ve seen one beggar the entire time (the woman with the baby wasn’t asking for help, but clearly needed it). Then the same kind woman insisted on paying our ferry fare since we were guests in her country. The hospitality and kindness of the Turks has been astonishing. Anyway, we took a brief trip across the Bosphorous to a tiny island on the Asian side called either Maiden’s Tower or Leander’s Tower. It offered a lovely view of the skyline of historic Istanbul. We climbed to the top and then back down for lunch. While there I picked up a pebble for Grey. He’s very interested in Asia, so I thought he might enjoy a tiny piece of it.

The same kind lady took this picture of us at Maiden's Tower

On our return to Europe, we went to find the remaining columns of the Hippodrome. The Million we’d passed daily, but we never gone the extra block to see the Obelisk, which is either a reconstruction or shockingly well preserved, the serpentine column, or the brazen column. Then we got dessert. Have I mentioned how much I will miss Turkish food?

The Serpentine Pillar. It used to have three snakes' heads on the top.

Finally, we went back to the Bosphorous near our hotel and sat by the water with sea breezes in our face and joked with each other while the sun set behind us. Lovely.

I loved that stretch of water

Tomorrow’s journey comes too soon. but I must confess, I miss my boys sorely. I think that this trip has been everything I hoped for, in terms of food for the mind and soul, and nurture for a marriage we plan to make go the distance.

I will see you all soon!

Brenda

Meanwhile, back in the States
It is a bit early for the report of the final full day for Camp Gramp, but I am planning to be busy this evening. There is a rumor out there that the Flynns are returning to the castle and right now it looks like — well I don’t want them to see it this way. So the evening is devoted to restoration. The cars will be returned to their customary place. The Legos returned to their box, the books re-shelved. A good time as been had by all — The grandparents are still alive!

Today we went to the Science Museum to see if we could find the camera. As Don points out, it may also be here. After that we headed north by our family’s navigation and found Bunker Hill where Grey and I climbed to the very top. There was rolling down the hill. And there was running down like mad. There was no ice cream eating — we are soooooo mean. Then by the same aforementioned navigation, we headed north. Cape Ann is lovely! We followed the perimeter road around the very end. We went to the state park where we saw a presentation on bats and visited the quarries. We also saw lobster pots — many of them.

Home was much closer than I thought. We are here now and Baz is making dinner. Hot dogs and Quesedillas. Sounds good to me.

Thanks for lending us your children.

Love Gramama and PAPAPA

What I found waiting for me at home

Cousins saying goodbye

Finis

Istanbul & Camp Gramp: Days 5 & 6

bflynn — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:24:54 +0000

August 5 – back in the States (I was too lazy to write home)
Today was Museum of Science day. It had been steadly growing hotter since we got here and today — oh my. This morning Baz noted that he couldn’t get his shirt off. It was so warm and humid. A place with air conditioning, we thought. That is an awesome museum. Thane loved the discovery center — water and balls, how can it get any better. So did Kay who loves to dress up and made a wonderful coffee filter butterfly there. Baz and I want the electricity show in our living room. The worlds largest Vandegraph generator — and we are talking 40 ft. high or so. It was awesome. Grey liked the whales exhibit and the dinosaurs. They had this astonishing replica of a whale heart there — easily 6 feet high lying on its side. The kids could crawl in it. While we were there, it rained and cool off the land. Still muggy, but not so hot,which is good.

We returned all the children to the car, tired by happy. Then we started to get out of the garage. 35 minutes to get out of the garage. 35 minutes! After that, piece of cake. I had been dreading rush hour, but it was speed limit the whole way home. The other direction, however, into town was stop and go almost to home. I wonder what was up.

When we got home, we ate and I gave Thane a bath. I have never seen a child who loved baths as much as he does. The older kids and the adults then watched “Up”. The evening ended with glow sticks. Very nice day.

Your children are all fine. Dad and I are still alive. I hope you are all having a great time.!

Love, Grandmama

August 6

We began our anniversary day (editor’s note: August 5) with a trip to the Church of Cora, which, rumor had it, still had intact mosaics. And so it did. They were quite splendid, and we spent a happy hour twisting our necks and guessing at Bible stories. (The genealogy of Christ had us flummoxed for a while, I confess.)

The Church of Chora - mosaics & frescoes

From there we took a death defying taxi trip across the Golden Horn to the Fortress of Europe. It was every 12 year olds dream of a fortress! There were battlements and high walls and precarious staircases and murder holes and high towers. It was extremely cool. After a much more sedate return taxi trip, we went again to the
Turkish baths, because they are extremely awesome.

The Fortress of Europe was SO COOL. Bring your walking shoes.

Today we slept in again. Ambition has been replaced by a certain degree of lethargy. We went to this really cool museum of Islamic scientific contributions from 900 to 1600. (Note: The Islamic Scientific and Technology Museum in lovely Gulhane Park. By far the best interpreted museum in Istanbul and completely worth a visit.) It was awesome. We spent about four hours there, reading about everything from seige machines to astrolabes to optics. Our only regret was lacking the classical scientific background to understand it all, especially the math and navigation sections.

The last remaining goal for our last remaining day is to touch Asian soil. We see it across the water, but it is a residential, not tourist area. So we will probably go tomorrow only to have gone.

It has been a spectacular and outstanding trip… One of the finest. We have had good luck, good food, good weather and good company. We only hope you all are doing as well!

Brenda

Meanwhile, back in the States

Today was lovely. We stayed home most of the day. In the morning we went to the used book store and the park to play. While Thane napped, we made Shrinky Dinks. Then we played in the back yard for a while. Adam and Brenda, about the orange ball. Do you know how long that takes to pump up! But having gotten it pumped up, it is a real hit. They are rolling all over the yard. Dinner and a walk to the ice cream place to get dessert.

This may not sound perfect to you. What was perfect was the weather. High 70s, low humidity, nice breeze. It was awesome

The bad news is, we can’t find the camera (editor’s note: TRAGEDY!). We think we had it at the Museum of Science, but we can’t find it anywhere. This is very sad. It has the trip to see my mom and the Camp Gramp pictures on it. We will continue to look.

Gramama

Istanbul Pictures

bflynn — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 03:40:02 +0000

Oy! We took a lot of pictures, amazingly, in Istanbul. Here they are. I would apologize for having 93 pictures of the Fortress of Europe & cool devices in the Museum of Science and Technology in Islamic History, but hey. You all asked for pictures of MY vacation, and that’s what was important to me!

With no further ado: Here you go