Wednesday was a quiet day — or as quiet as Camp Gramp gets. There is a new Camp Gramp enterprise going — the making of Fluffy figures — on paper. They will be wealthy soon because they are making these figures to sell. Chu Chu appears to be a cat with diagonal stripes. Octo is an octopus. They also watched TV and played games. The Legos purchased at Legoland were constructed!
Then, in the evening, Matthew purchased tickets for All’s Well at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare whatever. It was at this awesome site on the shore of the Hudson across from West Point. Wonderful. It was a great evening. In addition to this gift given for our anniversary, he took care of Camp Gramp for the evening. Wow!
Thursday was New York day. In deference to his legs and occasional tendency to sit down and refuse to move, Papapa stayed home and kept Thane. They went out to lunch and got some Legos and a puzzle. It seemed to be a good day.
The remaining five of the Camp Grampers went with Uncle Matt for a day in New York City. He is an awesome tour guide. We parked the car uptown and took the Subway wayyyyy down town. The advertised air condition cars were not. The weather was perfect outside and hot inside, but we rode to South Beach (I think). We took the Staton Island Ferry across and back for a nice view of the Statue of Liberty. When we saw the line snaking all around the island, we thought our decision not to go to the island was a good one.
Then we walked to the 9-11 site. Line adverse, we got a great view from a neighboring walkway and avoided all the people who wanted to sell us the ultimate guide to the 9-11-01 event.
Then we caught the subway (with considerable trouble because you can only use a credit care twice in the system and only 4 people can use one card and other things we didn’t know. We went to Time Square, then to the Empire State building, then to the Nintendo store where CG allowances were spent. After that we walked down 5th avenue (I was so under dressed I couldn’t breathe). We ended in Central Park where we found the place the pigeon lady stood and walked through the park for about 45 minutes. The children climbed on rocks. We saw cool fields and experienced the magic of the country in the city.
A walk through Morningside park brought us to the car — a miracle since I would never have found it.
Uncle Matt was the hero of the day. I can’t believe how much of the city we saw.
The children were always heroes. They walked miles without complaining. They did a great job!
Today we will be recovering. The enterprise continues. They have decided that original copies will cost more than photo copies. Thane is going to be the advertising executive. ‘
Pictures. Well, I thought I posted pictures from the first part of CG, but discovered that they didn’t post. So after lunch, I will be posting pictures, I hope!
Camp Gramp time is usually a week when Adam and I slip away, and remind ourselves joyously of why we chose to marry each other in the first place. It is appropriate, then, that Camp Gramp week almost always falls on our anniversary. On August 5th of this year, Adam and I marked thirteen years of joyful marriage together. Thirteen has always been a lucky number in my family, as my parents married each other on a Friday the 13th. I’m feeling 13 years lucky myself, these days.
Anyway, the rhythm of Camp Gramp was shifted a bit because my brother had obligations into the second week of August, and this year Camp Gramp was to be held at my brother’s manse* in New York. This had the effect of moving Camp Gramp week into Gencon week – two sacred obligations colliding. Since I could schedule time with my husband another time, I am sending him with goodwill to Gencon where – I am reliably informed – he has the best schedule he has yet gotten (possibly due to some algorithmic javascript software he wrote to help him rejigger his schedule on the fly.) So this year, there was no Istanbul, Austria or Ashland for us.
Still, there was the weekend. We left Friday night – after a full day’s work. This was – of course – the Friday night where the beer truck dangled off the side of the freeway. (An incident only amusing because I ended up making it home in good time due to some excellent and thoughtful reaction by MBTA employees, and because no one was hurt.) I fetched our farm share, prepared that which would not keep, schlepped the rest of it in the ‘fridge and consigned the three watermelons and two vast cantaloupe to Camp Gramp consumption. We packed full the back of the car and cossetted our sons with pillows and blankets.
Come and sit by my side if you love me
The last pink traces of sunset found the Flynn family singing “Red River Valley” in the car, with certain young voices picking up the refrain. I thought as I sang “Come and sit by my side if you love me” about Michael. I remember him crying when I crooned the old words to an infant grandson of his, remembering his lost brother Jimmy. And now those small voices from the back seat may someday fondly remember the same strains, and their beloved brothers. One of those small voices begged anonymity, as though I would ever find a love of singing something to be ashamed of, so you will never ever know who sang so sweetly back there.
Through construction, leaving the Red Sox broadcast area, crossing the mighty Hudson and late into a starlight night we went. Only I was awake when we finally got to Middletown. My mother was waiting for me on the steps – waiting up for me to pull in to the driveway, like she has done so many times. Small bodies were carried upstairs – perilously close to the last time that will be possible. Cantaloupe were unloaded. Blessed flat, soft surfaces were revealed.
How silly is that Unka Matt in the window?
We left not too late the following morning. It’s funny how little time is required to fall into the cadence of your family. For me this is a blessing – I’m very fond of my family. I ate breakfast, kibbitzed with my brother, brushed my niece’s hair, took a picture of the four of them – Thane clinging to his Kay, Grey with a comradely arm around his Baz – and we were on our way. We only forgot four things, and we hadn’t even left town by the time my mom called to tell me of it.
It was 11 on a Saturday morning, and my husband and I were at LIBERTY. We went shopping. We ate at Denny’s. We pointed the car northward in search of an elusive hike on the Appalachian trail. By the way, in case it ever comes up, I highly recommend searching for a particular unmarked trailhead on the Appalachian Trail as an excellent way of discovering and becoming intimate with the rural ways of Connecticut. We sought for signal to update our directions in the high places of grassy, half-forgotten graveyards. We went round and round main square intersections looking for signs. We accosted random hikers. We went on one-lane, washboard gravel roads thickly papered with no-trespassing signs. We did u-turns. We drove past horses and pastures and woods and rivers. We went past shoulder-high corn, dappled streams, private schools and mansions in Salisbury.
The author, on the Appalachian
We finally gave up, and hiked a different section before turning around to Kent for our night’s repose in a fancy inn. Any implication that I picked the Starbuck Inn because of my coffee leanings is purely hypothetical, mind. We had a lovely dinner at the Fife and Drum, right next to the pianist. We laid out in the dewing air and watched the Milky Way stretch itself luxuriously across the country sky, hardly blemished at all by any falling Perseids.
The next day we got a good start on the morning, up in time for the breakfast part of bed and breakfast. Our host, calloused feet clad in sandals, regaled us with tales of what we’d missed the prior afternoon. The portraits and maps adorning the walls of the well-kept colonial attested to the fact that Starbucks had been in New England a very long time. I wondered if he was the hippy scion of a long and proud lineage. Anyway, two blocks to town for a cup of coffee! But look! The bookstore is open! I consider it a moral duty to stop at small local bookstores and find things I desperately need (even if you can get them cheaper at Amazon). So we found the new Arthur translation by Tolkien, and books for the boys. But hardly had we gone a block before we discovered the library was having a book sale! Tables and tables of trade paperbacks, clothbound books, best sellers and all manner of odd books were laid out. Well, that set us back long enough that I had to get a refill of my coffee before we left (happily, four times as many books cost a tenth as much as the bookstore). Finally, we were awa’.
Actual Appalachian Train – I have proof!
This time, we did find the Appalachian Trail. We walked our way up the gold and green Connecticut hillsides, punctuated by old stone walls and periodic views. Adam was nursing a hamstring injury (a parting gift of aikido) and a nasty cold, and I was still trying out my new knee, so we didn’t go to far. But we talked and laughed and ate pretzels and talked through the latest developments in Season III of Downton Abby. We noted various interesting bugs and talked about how astronomy and atomic theory seemed on the point of convergence, like a fractal. We missed our children in the cheerfully satisfied way parents miss their children when those parents are perfectly satisfied that the children are having a blast and not missing them at all. Finally, we turned back (the path racing below our feet as we returned). We wound our way north over 7 and returned with abrupt reality to bad traffic on I90 – two days and a vast refreshing distance since we had traversed it Westbound.
And here I am now – at over 10,000 feet – on yet another business trip (missing my husband of 13 years, and my still-satisfied-to-be-gone children). It’s remarkable that although the days seems to blur together in an endless March of sameness, when I cast my memory back I find so many joyfully memorable moments popping up.
Business travel is losing what allure it once had by novelty, but yet I am content. Thirteen years I’ve had with my husband, and two bonny bright children. A thousand joyful memories we’ve made together, along with a home and a life strong enough to endure. I hope for thirty and thirteen more. Maybe then we’ll do the whole length of the Appalachian Trail together!
Housatonic River Valley
*I discovered later in life that manse actually has two meanings. In a New England context, it’s synonymous with mansion and means a fancy house. In a Presbyterian sense, however, the manse is the house that the pastor lives in. It usually specifically means a home provided for the pastor by the church. It is in this second sense I use it – since it is a classical manse, so close to the church as to almost be touching and built in a similar style. We actually lived in The Manse (a double-wide trailer) for two years when I was a young girl.
If I ever form a rock band – which is less preposterous now than it once was – I think I will name it Imperative Basil.
Imperative. Basil.
My farm share pick up is on Fridays. In theory, this is a great idea. I’ll have all weekend – luxurious laid-out hours – to process mother nature’s bounty. A few weeks ago a note came through from our CSA saying that extra bundles of basil were for sale! $14 for 10 bundles. I thought about my great success canning pepperonata last year, and my favorite pesto/mozzarella/pepperonata sandwiches, and thought… pesto! I’ll make pesto! And I signed up for ten bunches.
A week passed.
Then I went to pick up my ten bunches. They were not ten REGULAR sized bunches. Oh no. There were ten VAST bunches. And the temperature was over 90 in my kitchen. The delicate basil had a life-span measured in hours, not days.
I managed to clear out enough room in the ‘fridge for the yards of basil. But I didn’t have lemon juice, nor did I have enough parmesan. Saturday morning, I slept in. When I got up, I had just enough time to get to the grocery store before Adam had to leave for aikido… if I didn’t stop for coffee or breakfast.
You have never in your life seen such a grumpy grocerier than I was that morning.
The next four hours of my life were spent in pesto making. There were three double batches. Twelve cups of pressed basil needed to be washed and stemmed. Pecans roasted. Jars readied. I stewed in the 90 degree heat. Adding insult to injury, I misread the pesto recipe for the first batch and added the amount of salt that was supposed to go into the WATER for the PASTA to the pesto. Doubled. Still, I labored on.
At about 2:30, the final jar of pesto was put into the freezer. Twenty one jars comprised 84 ounces. I had saved the basil. Alleluia.
Now, to save the afternoon. My plan had been to go to the beach after aikido, which I reckoned to last until 3. But at 1, my husband limped home. And by limped, I mean, limped. With only two weeks left to his aikido career, my husband managed to do something to his hamstring that involved horrible popping sounds. So there we had the oppressive heat, the imperative basil, the injured husband and the beach plans.
I corralled my children. I packed the fun bag. My husband limped around packing the food bag. I cajoled and threatened until people were covered in sunscreen – hard to rub in through the sheen of sweat. I put my children in the car. As I closed the door, I heard the rumble of thunder.
“By JOVE!” I exclaimed in fury!
My husband, bless him, pointed out it might be fun to watch the thunderstorms roll into the Atlantic from Gloucester, so we went North anyway. We drove through a deluge, with waves parting in front of the wheels of the car and lightening strikes to the East and West – the sun dimmed to twilight under the heavy burden of the falling rain. When we pulled into Good Harbor beach, they waved us through without payment. We’d driven past the bulk of the storm – assuming it to be hard on our heels – but the beachgoers were flocking out as the first drops fell.
We sprinted to the beach and tossed the children in the water, the cold and hot air like layers on a cake, the winds picking up. And we danced in the water, jumped through the waves, dove in, sluiced off, and laughed – knowing at any moment the storm would come.
Then we made the most awesome set of sand castles across a rill trickling through the saturated sand. Grey worked on the Fortress of Europe. Adam – across the channel – constructed the Fortress of Asia. I played Venetian and provided buildings to both sides, counting my profit. Thane dug holes and chased seagulls.
Then we had some lunch. I sat on a beach chair, cool winds to my back and warm sands underfoot, eating a salami sandwich on homemade bread when I was viciously, viciously attached by a seagull with bad aim. I retained my sandwich, but incurred an injury on my pointer finger. So far, I am happy to report, I have not died of mysterious seagull diseases, but in case my life is actually a Chekhov novel, beware.
The rain? It never came. The band of storms passed to the south. We stayed until we were played out, and headed home sandy and tired. When we got home, the breezes were cool and bracing.
We made it.
And in the winter I will remember – as I taste the oh-so-salty tang of farm-share, home made pesto – the heat and the joy and the luck of my summer.
I read an article about the inevitable demise and diminution Fire Lookouts, and watched one of my dreams go from unlikely to never-going-to-happen. I have a few daydreams like this one – that required my life to take a different path in order to ever happen. See also: being a Starbucks barista*.
High Rock Lookout from the access road
But the fire lookout was one of my favorite daydream jobs. I imagined getting out of school and being shiftless for a while and landing a job for a summer as a firespotter. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for old codgers, and some of my favorite old codger stories were from firespotters from the mid century. They’d talk about backpacking in all their supplies to their remote, mountain-top eeries. There’s quiet up there, and nothing you don’t bring in yourself on your own back over miles of so-so trail. The views are, by definition, amazing. Fire lookouts have the best views possible, the better to spot tell tale tracks of white or gray where none should belong. A lookout would develop an intimate and loving knowledge of that masterful view… which valleys held mist until midmorning, the way the clouds curled over the peaks and ran like a waterfall down the other side. The lookout would know topography of their charge in full-moonlit nights, and would experience true darkness when the faint lights of their own tower were off and the clouds cut off starlight.
A firespotter’s job would be to look out the window, intermixed with the great and healthy labors of keeping one’s self fed. I imagined a life of good exercise, quietness, mastery, importance. And of course, the novel, the journal, the poetry. With so much space and so much quietness, surely my pace would slow. Surely I would coax out those words, slow-crafted, home-brewed, that would make of me an author. Surely with the racing clouds as my muse and the high mountains as my foundation I could find the words to paint my beloved Northwest, my new Albion, as richly as those before me painted the fields of England, the moors of Scotland. The fir, Oregon grape and madrona would take their right place in my mythology next to the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree. I even had the spot picked out – I would man High Rock.
The last time I was at High Rock – 1998. That needs to change.
Sunny weekends would bring hiking visitors – a chance to catch up with people. I imagined evenings, with the long slow gloaming of high places keeping my mountain lit to the last, with the mercury notes of my silvered trumpet sliding down the hill and traveling for miles across my beloved countryside.
Of course, the summer would end, or the year would end, and I would return to the fast world of busy humanity renewed, written and sure of myself. Then I would build a life (much like the one I have now), only with that summer of solitude behind me.
Of course, that didn’t happen. I got a job before I graduated. I married two short months after I was handed my diploma. I have never been shiftless and footloose. And now they are closing the mountains to human eyes, counting on the more reliable satellites and planes and motorists with cell phones instead of the lonely mountain spotter. I haven’t been able to even so much as backpack in a National Park for years; the closest I ever got to that kind of solitude.
Would I trade my husband, my children, my career, my home and my life to be a fire spotter? Um, no. I’m quite sure my vision was lacking in a few key details. (I mean, I’m an extrovert. How many days before I went completely crazy?! Two?) The mid thirties are an age though where you start acknowledging some lives you will never lead, and that idyllic summer is one of them.
What about you? What adventures did you always wait for just the right moment in life to invite you to partake in? What daydreams have passed irretrievably from you? Would you have wanted to be a mountain fire-spotter?
*I’ve wanted to be a Starbucks barista since I was 16. I applied a few summers, but they weren’t hiring summer help. I haven’t totally given up on this, since perhaps after I’m done paying for college I can do any job I want regardless of pay and maybe Starbucks will still be around and I’ll still want to work for them, and I’ll do it by gum.
I don’t write a ton about my husband, Adam. There are many reasons for this: he says fewer cute things than my kids, he rarely brings home cool artwork from work, etc. But the primary reasons I rarely write about him is because he is fully capable of writing about himself, and rarely chooses to do so. But I’ll break my self-imposed embargo today to talk about him, because it’s Father’s Day, and it’s a time where we sit down to say the things we think so often and say so rarely.
Four generations of Flynn men: three fathers and one baby
My husband has had some great fathering role models. His father was also a good father. He talks to me often about the walks they took on warm Saudi nights with his dad and his dog – talking about everything and nothing. I miss Mike a lot – today especially. He was always convinced that we were the most amazing, the best. I often think of how proud of me Mike would be, which says a lot about how supportive he was of me while he was here. Mike died four years ago, but he remains with us in memory and thought.
My dad
I’m fortunate that my Dad is still around and doing cool stuff. I talked to him this morning, and his newest book is doing well. He did a book signing this weekend! But my Dad was always there – at every sporting event, schlepping me from location to location, teaching me how to drive or reminiscing about the layout of the streets in Seattle in 1969. He reaches out every time there’s wild weather in my area to make sure I know. He usually knows my forecast better than I do!
All this is to say, there are a lot of great dads in our lives. But the one I see the most of, whose work I can most appreciate, is my husband.
The day my husband became a father
Adam is a great father to our two sons – whose very looks are stamped unmistakably on his boys. There are so many things they do together: he’s their teacher in aikido, their “tickle and snuggle time” favorite, their morning-breakfast-short-cook, and their gamemaster. He is with them every day, and in every way, in sickness and in health. I love watching him wrestle with the boys. (80% of my family pictures involve the three of them locked in some manner of combat).
A hike on another day. I didn’t bring the camera yesterday.
Yesterday we went for a lovely family hike in the Breakheart Reservation, where Adam and the boys talked about snakes, beetles, optimum swinging mechanics and other related phenomenon. Today, we decided to spend Father’s Day being a family by going to the Museum of Fine Arts to check out the Samurai exhibit. (And the mummies. Because Dude! Mummies!) Once again, I got to watch my husband with my sons – explaining canopic jars, pointing out historical references, sharing the enthusiasm of the kids. It was – it always is – a pleasure and a joy.
Thank you, Adam, for the joyful and loving time you spend with our sons every day. I can only hope that they grow into men and kind, as loving, and as fun as you.
“Modern technology has taken most of the misery out of the outdoors. Camping now is aluminum-covered, propane-heated, foam-padded, air-conditioned, bug-proofed, flip-topped, disposable and transistorized. Hardship on a modern camping trip is blowing a fuse on your electric underwear, or having the battery peter out on your Porta-Shaver. A major catastrophe is spending your last coin on a recorded Nature Talk and then discovering that Camp Comfort and Sanitation Center (featuring forest green tile floors and hot showers) has pay toilets.
“There are many people around nowadays who seem to appreciate the fact that a family can go on an outing without being out. But I am not one of them. Personally, I miss the old-fashioned misery of old-fashioned camping.”
Gazing over the scene on Saturday morning, I gazed around contentedly. “Patrick,” I thought, “Patrick would be proud of me now.” Mr. McManus was quite an influence on my young mind. He and I had briefly lived in the same part of the country: his high school football team had played against the town my brother had been born in. But I had been an itinerant through Idaho’s panhandle, and he. Well, he belonged there. But it was from Patrick that I learned that it was the nature of a rope to be 6 inches too short. Patrick taught me that any time my husband asks for some expensive hobby gear, the right answer is always, “At least he doesn’t like bass fishing”. I have learned from this old sage from the time I was about Grey’s age and found a stack of his books in my grandfather’s cabin in the woods of Washington State.
But the last few years, I felt like I’d been letting old Pat down. I mean, White Lake State Park is a nice campground. Far too nice. I mean, the Sanitation center has flush toilets and coin operated showers! Running water! A nice little store. You can get pizza delivered, for heaven’s sake. And we sleep on an air mattress. I can feel his disappointment from here.
This camping trip, though, I was making up for it. I stood under a patchwork of tarps, held together by a labrynthine network of ropes that were all 6 feet too long (my husband likes to do things with his own flair). The rain made an incessant, staccato beat – drowning out the call of the loons. The wind was picking up, driving the sheets of water further under the tarp. And it was about fifty degrees, but the forecast called for it to get cold soon. All in all, it was a fine and pleasant misery, and I was content. I puttered around, humming, “It is Well With My Soul”, deeply satisfied.
When I made reservations last year, I accidentally made the Memorial Day reservation an extra day. Gazing at dreariness of November, I figured that was just the thing. I imagined lolling by the lake, regaling each other in front of the fire and perhaps even practicing my guitar and being discovered as an astonishing new talent. I kept the five days, and took Tuesday as a vacation day. As Memorial day crept closer and closer, I started getting nervous. It looked a little soggy and cool. But, I reasoned, it had rained every camping trip of the first year we went camping, when Thane was nine months old. I bought better-rated sleeping bags and cast my faith on the Lord.
This wasn’t accurate. It got colder than that, and rained more.
And lo, it wasn’t as bad as it had looked a few days prior. No, it was much worse. Saturday was horrific by camping standards. It was about 50 degrees and bucketing. One began to worry about flooding. We didn’t have a tarp over the fire, so breakfast that morning was courtesy of Dunkin’ Donuts. “Hey boys!” I called. “Let’s go swimming!!!” “Moooooooom! Stop lying!” “Nope. Go get your swim suits.”
Well, what Patrick McManus doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
It cost a bundle, but it was worth it to be warm.
We went to Kahuna Laguna up in North Conway. It was actually very fun. I discovered that thanks to his swimming lessons during afterschool, Grey was now a good enough swimmer to be released on his own recognizance in a controlled environment with lifeguards, so we did just that. This left one grownup able to pursue their own agenda. The fourteen year old boys running the fastest water slide started giving me a funny look after my fourth run… but what good is it being a grownup if you can’t run the big, fast waterslide?
After three or so hours of swimming, Thane started crying because his foot hurt. Now, if you know Thane you know that broken bones would most likely be shrugged off in the right circumstance, so this was suspicious. He was presented with chicken fingers, which he verbally disdained. Then he bolted three of them, slurped down 10 ounces of lemonade, and collapsed on me solidly asleep. I held his incredibly tall, strong, long, active boyness for over an hour, losing sensation in various body parts. And I thought as I held my golden-haired son, quiet on my lap, that this was very likely the last time one of my sons would ever sleep in my arms. Long-lashes against ruddy cheek, I did not begrudge the failing circulation in my legs for the gift of that last time – known and recognized.
That night, Adam and I played BattleLine on the picnic table – cold and far from the fire that spit against the falling rain. The peace of our evening was only periodically disturbed by having to yell at the kids to GO TO SLEEP ALREADY twenty or so times.
Having fun together – regardless of location – since 2007.
Finally, the weather turned the next day. Yes, it started getting windy and dropped to about 45 degrees. Leveraging un-Patrick-approved powers of technology (indeed, one of my friends started making fun of my Facebook updates of misery), I arranged to meet our next door neighbors from home at the Meredith Children’s Museum. Now, this museum might not seem like a great museum to someone without children. But here’s the thing… there were NO SIGNS telling you what not to do. Instead, everything was fair game for kids to play with. And oh they did! The Rube Goldberg Room, the Castle Room, the Bubbles and Puzzles room. It was GREAT. It was full of things that actually appealed to kids, instead of things that appeal to grownups misunderstandings of kids. I’m definitely adding it to our list of things to do when it rains.
Even the bigger kids really got into parts of it.
We went out to lunch afterwards. Grey and his best friend wandered off by themselves. We found them playing cards together, and just left them to it. Who knew they played cards? Thank you, afterschool, for teaching them useful things!
I’m not even sure what the game was!
That night, returning to our campsite, we luxuriated in the tarp over the fire, which helped to more efficiently direct smoke into our car. The rain had also discovered a new trip and was coming in sideways. One thing I love about camping is how you get to bed so early! 9 pm!
Through October, November and December as my life sped up to warp speed, I consoled myself with my previously spotted annual pattern recognition of busy times and less busy times. “Just make it to January” I encouraged myself, doing the laundry at 11 pm on a Saturday night. “Once you get to January, you’re good!”
Bad picture, bad show, happy kid.
January came. I was really busy. “You’re just catching up on all the stuff that got put off in December.” I don’t even remember February. And March felt like a desperate sprinting finish to a marathon, with Easter and vacation a firm deadline that made it impossible to have any task slip at work or at home. I had birthday parties, Vinterfest parties, dinner parties, Burns Night parties, Pie parties. We took the kids to Scooby Doo Live: the Musical. I traveled to Atlanta (family), New York (work), Minnesota (work) and Tampa (work).* I rearranged the dining room. I played three hard pieces on trumpet for Easter. I signed the kids up for: swimming lessons (2), basketball (1) and science class (1). I did the taxes, rethought my pie crust recipe, wrote my best blog post ever (by volume), and managed a rocky production go-live (for work) from the hallway of the YMCA while Grey learned to dribble. It’s just been BUSY.
But on Sunday, after the high of the hallelujas and the truly awesome final high C I hit on the postlude, my beloved husband and I threw stuff in suitcases, packed approximately 93 digital devices (we used to pack 93 books, but now we have digital devices with the books on them!), and started driving North.
Long time readers have likely picked up my vacation patterns, and notice a discrepancy. We usually take zero time off this time of year, until camping heats up in May. Then we take a romantic, exciting vacation in August while the kids are at Camp Gramp. So why am I taking an exciting, romantic vacation in April this year? It just so happens that Camp Gramp and Gencon line up this year. I’m quite certain that my husband loves me more than Gencon, but I also know that it would make him sad to miss it. So when I realized my folks were also coming out for my mom’s spring break, well…. I snuck in our romantic vacation this week. (Of course, it would be longer if the coming weekend was not Helgacon – another, smaller convention – but at least that gives me some time with my own family.)
Not that a romantic vacation with the two of us is without games…
We weighed three options for our vacations: trip to Europe, beach vacation in Caribbean, less expensive vacation somewhere we could drive to. After reviewing all options, and recalling that we are (financially) putting a nice new car on top of our house (in the form of a new roof) this year, we opted for a taste of Europe in Canada.
So here we are in Montreal! We got this really amazing loft hotel thingy, with a full kitchen, comfy chairs and couches, a full size table (for gaming!), and a really excellent spa tub. We walked the city length and breadth on Monday before the weather turned bitter. Our peregrinations brought us to Chez Geeks where we stocked up on some games to see us through (see above picture – those are all new!). Then we had chocolate crepes for lunch. Any lunch served flambee is a good lunch, in my humble opinion. Books, bathtub, pizza. Relaxing.
At the Chinese tea house
Yesterday we went to the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History, which might be one of my least favorite museums ever.** We also went to the Notre Dame Cathedral, which was lovely. There was a fantastic paper shop, and then we sat in an ornately decorated Chinese tea shop and had tea served to us while we both wrote on our beautiful papers. For dinner, we went to an Alsatian restaurant and I got escargot and duck confit. Mmmmmmmmm……
Today is lightly scheduled. One nice part of a close-to-home vacation is that the opportunity cost of hanging out in your glorious hotel loft is much smaller. So the only key thing on the docket is a trip to the Scandinavian baths. I’m wondering how many vacations I can have unique spa experiences in. I doubt this will top the Turkish baths, but I figure I have to give it a shot, right? Also, probably fondue for lunch. Or maybe crepes. Or crepes and fondue.
When we return, I have this fond hope that maybe, MAYBE, it will actually be that quieter time. You know, where I can blog more than once a week and hang out with my beloved sons? Yeah, we’ll see about that!
*Two of those three trips were around major storms where the question of whether we would make it back or have to tough it out a few extra days was a real one. I was very happy to make it back both times!
**I emerged from it – no easy feat, given it’s labyrinthine structure and lack of guidance – cognizant that I was absolutely no more informed regarding: Quebec separatism, the linguistic ebb and flow of the province, the fur trade, the Iroquois wars, the building of the great underwater wall in the St. Lawrence, impact of the War of 1812, why Montreal has a huge statue that I like to call the “Lord Nelson fanboy plinth”, Canadian relations with the US, construction of the transcontinental railroad, the use of First Nations Tribes in building skyscrapers, how the St. Lawrence waterway was opened for commerce, or any other topic that might be vaguely interesting. The mandatory (you could not get to the museum without going through it) introductory frenetic video actually said something “Oops! Iroquois!” at one point and showed a big wall going up. GAH! However, it was very well marked which elements of the 150 year old foundation were original and which were changes. I kept thinking to myself, “This is only 30 years older than my house….”
This morning we woke up (late) to a bright, sunshiny, monochromatic world. And a house with no heat. But the bright sunshiny world and temperatures in the upper 30s made today a much better day to have the furnace on the fritz than any other day of the storm. We’re actually not sure what the issue is – the furnace spontaneously began working again about 15 minutes prior to the arrival of the furnace guy. But all this was minimally inconvenient – the sunlight streaming in kept some rooms warmer than the furnace does!
Adam stands on the drifts on the house-side of the driveway
So where did Nemo leave us? According to the National Weather Service, our friend dropped 22 inches of dry powerdy snow on Stoneham. 65 mile an hour winds sculpted those inches in to massive drifts and clear-swept sections – an inequal distribution that was exacerbated by the labors of homeowners with shovels, the suddenly popular owners of snow-blowers and the profiteering-but-slightly-lazy shovel wielding teens.
I thought, as I luxuriated in bed this morning (the covers being even more enticing when there is no heat in the room) that today would be a nice, quiet, peaceful day. We were snowed in enough to intimidate us from making the 20 mile trip to church. But then the furnace happened. Once that was resolved, I had to go grocery shopping. That was epic. The produce section of the store looked as though locusts had descended upon it. I’m guessing that bit didn’t get restocked. Either that, or everyone else in Stoneham also found a pressing need for bananas. This was even more epic because, starting on Ash Wednesday after service, I’m going to join my husband in attempting a Slow Carb Diet. I’m rather unconvinced of my ability to stick to this. Cutting out carbs and dairy is like, um, cutting out bread and milk from my diet. So while at Stop & Shop, I attempted to find slow-carb-compliant foods so I can at least make it a single week. We shall see.
Post Nemo: Locusts attacked
And then more shoveling. Hours of effort yesterday + a borrowed snow blower + a pair of neighborhood teens got the first car unburied and the second car half unburied. Another 2+ hours of snowblower + shoveling and we can use our entire driveway again. These are things you don’t think about in October when you buy a house: where are you going to put the snow for your driveway? When it’s nearly two natural feet plus massive drifts, this becomes non-trivial. Two years ago, I had to walk each shovel full across the street. Fortunately, the next 7 days have highs above freezing, so we should lose a lot of the snowmass. As it is, it’s very difficult to turn corners driving due to lost visibility with the drifts.
If I had to rate this blizzard, I would give it an A for the following reasons:
1) Life time memory: the “boys” spending hours sledding down our street, followed by pancakes at midnight. These are the times you remember in your nursing home.
2) Actual vs. predicted snow: absolutely on target. This snow storm came precisely as billed
3) Loss of life: while there were a few tragic losses, there were fewer than usually accompany weather like this. Partially this is due to the precautions (draconic as they were) taken by our elected officials to shut everything down for an extended period of time.
4) Fellowship: I spent so much wonderful time this weekend with my neighbors and friends – all a stone’s throw from the house – that it was a joy. We played, ate, shoveled, laughed, watched movies, and enjoyed our time together. This is one of life’s great blessings.
5) Inconvenience: we kept power and only lost heat after it was no longer critically needed. It was a liberating inconvenience for us.
So Nemo: would recommend and do it again!
I give persective to the wall-side drifts. A “Before” picture would have shown the tips of the wipers as the only visible parts of the cars. (Due to drifting)
Having chronicled my escapades in snow yesterday for you, it seems unfair to keep my breath-bated audience from finding out – as Paul Harvey would say – the rest of the story! As we return to the snowy streets of Stoneham, our heroic crew woke up a little too early after last night’s sledding-and-pancakes extravaganza (well, the masculine parts. The feminine parts lollygagged in bed for another few hours.)
The site that met the eyes upon awakening was a vast expanse of snow – still falling hard at mid-morning. It’s difficult to gauge the amount on the ground since the blizzard gales have sculpted and rearranged it, but I’d guess we have at least 18 inches – possibly more – of blizzard-spawn. The brave pancake eaters and street lugers from the dark have now been converted to studious snow-blowers and shovelers. The children – talking big talk about how much they want to build snow men just like Calvin – remain in their pjs.
Thane is skeptical about the red-sweater dress code
This Martin Luther King Jr. Day we headed to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. We have an embarrassment of riches in Boston, when it comes to great museums, which is my only excuse for never before having come to this particular museum. Also, there are no mummies. There was a time in my life where this meant a great deal. (See also: last year.) But finally the right moment came to take the trip to Cambridge and check it out!
The trip started, as most trips to Cambridge do, at Alewife. The kids still find the T to be an enjoyable and novel experience. Tragically, they do not have the cultural background to spend the entire T ride humming “Charlie on the MTA” the way I did for the first, oh, five years I lived in Boston.
On the T headed to Cambridge
Adam works in Cambridge, and I have been there pretty often. It was therefore quite surprising to realize neither one of us had ever been to Harvard Square. We walked through it – as the fastest way to get to the museum. I kept waiting to feel smarter. Instead, I mostly felt like a Japanese tourist.
The toe was shiny from rubbing
The museum was a delight. It was 50% modern museum with excellent interpretations done by people with PhDs in interpretations designed to be interactive for the target demographic. Basically – a great modern museum. But the other 50% was the creepy, paper-noted, formaldehyde-ridden, dusty, wooden, ancient and slightly menacing type of museum right out of Lovecraft. The air smelled of ancient radiators and the banisters were worn from use and there were rooms with mysterious brass plaques on the front door. One of the volunteers admitted her entire motivation was to get into the back rooms – closed to the public – and see what was there. It was very cool.
Modern: photographic interpretationLovecraftian: evolution as shown through skulls.
There were also lots of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are really cool. Oh, and a coelecanth! (Not living, obviously. But, er, recentish?!)
Dinosaurs and bizarre creatures
After we did the “dead animals” side of the museum, we went over to the “interesting rocks” side. Bridging the gap between the two was an amazing room full of glass flowers. The crazy thing about these flowers is you would never ever ever believe they were glass. They were astonishingly realistic. Such a thing was a vast labor. It will never be done again – we have no need. We can photograph and freeze dry and sequence dna and do all manner of communicating and saving information on plants. But this tremendous artistry attempted to faithfully reproduce the ephemeral. It’s remarkable.
The minerals rooms was particularly fun since we’d just seen a very similar (much more modern) exhibit at the Tellus museum. Adam liked the natural fiberglass best. I liked this stunning piece. I’m pretty sure that my mother-in-law would turn it into a necklace if she could
In the final room – about climate change – I actually learned something completely new. I had no idea that earth’s orbit was erratic over tens of thousands of years. I thought our orbit was pretty stable – other than annual variations.
We did wander a bit through the Peabody Museum (they flow into each other), but lunch beckoned. We found ourselves with two rather tired hungry kids at a local Cambridge landmark.
We had to explain who Johnny Cash was, because Thane was in his seat.
We ended the trip just sitting on these really cool old shoeshine booths in the Starbucks at Cambridge Square – just sitting together and talking and watching the world go by. I need more days like that in my life.
You can see all my pictures of the last, um, week here!
My Truant Pen 