Road Trip

Nothing beats a road trip in the summer.  Yes, it’s hot and traffic is awful and gas costs a bazillion dollars, but still, without a doubt, my favorite memories of vacations are those spent largely in the car.  There’s just something special about the way things happen on a road trip.  Sometimes you find a random radio station that plays excellent music for miles and miles, and it seems like a miracle.  Other times you scroll through the dial again and again and you find nothing you would ever listen to, even at gunpoint.  In any other context, that would be annoying, but on a road trip, it jumpstarts a rousing metaphysical conversation.  (Why, for example, would there need to be a different Rush song playing on every available station at the same time?  Even in 1982 that would have been excessive!  Who lives in this region that the airwaves are catering to?)  At different times on a road trip, everyone is awake and goofy and laughing and the time passes quickly.  At other times, you’re the only one awake and you get to enjoy some peace and solitude while driving and listening to Rush.   My favorite thing about a road trip is studying the map and deciding at the last minute to get off the highway and take a different route.  Yes, it’ll take you longer to get where you’re going, but who cares? 

So, this past weekend Tom and Lila and I took our first family road trip, and it was great.  Our destination:  Fredericksburg, VA, where my family was meeting on Saturday at my cousin’s house for a reunion.  Here are some highlights:

We left Worcester on Thursday, headed for Philadelphia, where we planned to stop for the night.  Our first pit stop:  New Haven, CT, my hometown and, more importantly, the home of Pepe’s Pizza, the absolute best pizza in the country.  It’s a major family tradtion, so we stopped for lunch and Lila had her first Pepe’s pizza:

We got back on the road and arrived in Philly to spend the night with our dear friends Linda and Jim and their sweet son Elliot.  Lila and Elliot hit it off immediately:

Friday, we got back on the road and arrived in Fredericksburg, VA in the early afternoon.  We went straight over to visit my grandmother.  Now, this was actually the whole point of the trip.  My grandmother is hugely important in my life, and she needed to meet Lila.  This was bittersweet: my grandmother is sharp as a tack and otherwise healthy, yet her eyesight has failed to the point where she is almost completely blind.  For a lifelong knitter and reader, this must be unbearably difficult.  It’s hard to know how to help her, but sweet little Lila certainly brightened her world for a little while:

Saturday was the actual reunion.  It was a blast.  They live on a lake, so we swam, boated, ate and drank all day.  It was great to catch up with family members I haven’t seen in years.  Lila got lots of attention, and she got to “swim” in the lake:

Sunday, we got back in the car and headed for home.  We planned to stop for the night in Spring Lake, NJ to visit with Tom’s aunt and uncle, and after looking at the map, we decided to take a different rout and take the ferry across from Delaware to Cape May, New Jersey.  This was a nice diversion from the car, and Lila got to have her first ferry ride:

She also got to have her first thunder and lightning storm on a ferry ride!  That was exciting!  We got drenched.  In the morning, Tom gave Lila and me a tour of Spring Lake, where his family lived until he was 9 years old.  Lila had her first experience on the beach:

See how much she loved it?  Tom showed us the house he grew up in – or, he would have shown us the house, except it was torn down years ago and replaced with this massive thing:

We got back in the car and finally headed for home.  It’s nice to be back, but we’re already looking forward to the next vacation.  I just hope it’s a road trip.

Casting Call!

My daughter has an agent.  It’s true, go ahead and laugh.  Many months ago, when Lila was a teeny babe, I submitted her picture to an agency and they accepted her.  This wasn’t entirely my idea – I must implicate my dear friend Ann in this as well.  Hey – we have awesome looking baby girls, both rare red-headed, blue-eyed beauties, so don’t be judgy!

Anyway, Monday night, we both got a call about a Tuesday afternoon audition for a TV commercial, and off we went.  (We were scheduled at separate times, and Lila and I went first.  This will be important later.)  Now, there are basically two phases to this audtion I want to describe.  First, there’s the interminable-waiting-in-the-hall-for-our-name-to-be-called phase.  This was your basic nightmare, but at least it was fun for Lila.  Then comes the actual audtion phase, which lasts about 3 minutes and yet somehow was even more unpleasant.

Phase 1:  The Hallway.

As I’m planning the trip in to Brighton yesterday morning, I remember reading in the “rules” the agency sent that it’s not cool to be too early to these things.  So, I aim for 10 minutes early – professional, yet not too eager.  I guess no one else bothered with these guidelines, because the tiny, humid hallway is already crowded with babies.  “I’ve been here for an hour!” chirps the too-perky lady I make the mistake of sitting next too. 

I sign in – #8 on the list, not too bad.  We sit down to wait quietly.  Anyone with an 11-month old baby knows I am just kidding, of course.  Lila wants to CRAWL!  Which I am more than happy to let her do.  Ann and I both told ourselves that we would do this modeling thing as long as the babies enjoyed it and not a moment longer.  And Miss Lila is in her glory in that hallway.  The place is crawling (ha, ha!) with babies, and Lila LOVES da babies.  We find a totally empty hallway around the corner and she has a blast crawling around with two boys about her age, while I chat with two very nice parents.  A fourth parent joins us for a moment, but then apparently she decides her son will get “too dirty”, so they go back to sit down.  On the crowded bench.  With all the sweaty parents holding squirmy babies.

This brings me to my general analysis of the parents.  Now, I met some really nice parents, parents who I’m sure I’d be happy to spend time with even in another crowded hallway, although a park would be better.  However, I also observed two types of parents I DO NOT want to be like or, in fact, even be around.  Type 1 is the clueless, classless, I want-my-kid-to-be-famous-so-I-can-live-vicariously type.  There were plenty of these on the scene.  These are the people who blatantly ignored the guidelines and rules the rest of us were courteous enough to follow.  The rule about not bringing a stroller inside because of the small space, for one.  Numerous people had strollers, which was bad enough, but the lady with the DOUBLE STROLLER took the prize on that one.  As Lila and I were leaving, we caught the tail end of this scene: “OK, everyone clear the way!  Double stroller coming through!”  This by definition means this lady was breaking another rule: Don’t bring other children with you.  Get a babysitter.  Or don’t go.  But there she was, so you may be thinking, well, what was she supposed to do at that point?  Carry both twins and leave the stroller where it was until it was time to leave?  Ummm… yes.

Other parents I put in this category are the parents who waited and waited for over an hour while their babies cried!  I didn’t see this myself, because I was lucky enough to be in and out fairly quickly, but Ann reported later that by the time she was there, many babies were full-on crying.  Go home!  If your baby is miserable, go home!  Your gross baby isn’t going to get chosen for this commercial anyway!  Go home!  Luckily, Ann found the same empty hallway we did and her baby Charlotte had a similar blast crawling around and playing.  Which brings me to the parents Ann met during her interminable-wait-in-the-hall…

These parents fall into the other category, Type 2 – the snooty, my-child-is-perfect-and-also-I-am-better-than-you type.  Ann sat near a gaggle of three of these moms and their obnoxious babies, who swarmed Charlotte and stole her toys.  One mom asked the other mom, “Where did you get those toys?” and the other mom nonchalantly replied, “Oh, I don’t know whose toys these are.”  Implying, “And I don’t care.”  But Ann’s favorite mom was the one who let her baby take another one of Charlotte’s toys.  Ann told the mom, “We brought plenty of toys, so go ahead and borrow that one!”  To which the mom replied by taking a sanitized wipe out of her bag and wiping Charlotte’s “cooties” off, while simultaneously adding a pleasant alcohol-reek to the musty hallway air.  Nice.

OK, back to the story.  Phase 2:  The Audition

We wait in the hall.  I know we’re up next because the pushy bitch who signed in ahead of me after I held the door open for her and her stroller is in there now.  The door opens, the woman with the list comes out.  “LEE-la?” she calls.  I say “It’s LI-la.”  Huge eye-roll, followed by “Oh, LI-la?!?!?”  As if it’s a totally incomprehensible name and how could I expect her to know?  WTF?  It’s spelled L-I-L-A.  It’s Lila.  I get it that sometimes ‘i’ can have the long ‘e’ sound, but don’t you usually go for the obvious pronunciation first?  Anyway, not important, except to establish that this woman is already annoyed with her job today, and we’re only the 8th baby so far!  There are probably a hundred!

So we go inside, they ask me to plop Lila on the floor and they put the Busy Ball toy in front of her.  A different lady pushes a ball through a hole, it makes a noise, rolls down a circular chute, and rolls out the other side.  Lila looks at the ball and looks around at the three strangers pointing a camera at her.  The lady says “Can’t she crawl?”  Umm, yes, indeed she can.  In fact, she just spent the last 45 minutes crawling her ass off in your hallway!  Give her a minute, bitch!  She wants me to “get her to crawl.”  So I say, “OK, Lila, the nice lady wants you to crawl after the ball!”  No, actually, of course I don’t say that, because she’s ELEVEN MONTHS OLD and doesn’t follow directions all that well.  But, Lila does actually crawl after the ball on her own, picks it up, stuffs it down the chute, and crawls after it again.  And then we’re done.  “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” or something to that effect.

Back out the door, through the hallway, out to the car, home.  Will Lila be in a commercial for the Busy Ball?  I seriously doubt it.  Did she have fun chasing babies down a hot hallway yesterday?  You bet she did.

Perfect weekend

My family knows how to rock a birthday!  My actual birthday isn’t until tomorrow, but we had a celebratory dinner on Saturday.  My brother and sister-in-law drove down from Maine, leaving their kids behind for this trip.  My mom and stepdad drove up from Connecticut.  Everyone got to coo over Lila for awhile, until she went off to bed at 6:30.  Then, we had drinks and fun on the deck:

This was followed by a massive meal, which we had to eat in three courses.  First, there were these guys:

They were surprise guests who made the trip straight from Maine! 

We also had corn on the grill:

Next, steak, salad, etc.  No pics of these – you get the idea.

Then finally, yummy desserts from On the Rise bakery here in Tatnuck:

Now I wonder what’s in store for my official b-day tomorrow!

Memory Palace

The book I’m reading, The Madonnas of Leningrad, is set partly in Leningrad during the German seige of 1941.  Marina is a docent at the Hermitage museum, and she and others prepare for the advancing German army by packing away the paintings for safekeeping.  Only the empty frames remain on the walls.  Later, to mentally escape the terror of the German bombing raids, she begins to recreate a “memory palace” in her mind, filled with the missing paintings which she remembers in painstaking detail. 

This has me thinking about memory – the way that certain images or sounds can trigger powerful memories seemingly out of the blue.  For me, I’ve always thought about certain songs and books as being part of a lengthy “soundtrack” to my life.  All of high school was set to R.E.M and The Smiths.  Any 10,000 Maniacs song puts me instantly back on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer of 1988.  (I can even picture the tape case, which always had some gritty sand inside of it.)  My drive across the country when I moved to California will forever be associated with reading Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose.  Cormac McCarthy = my first apartment; John Banville’s The Sea = Lila’s first days home from the hospital.  And on and on.

What’s on your soundtrack?

Rocky Mountain High

Tomorrow morning DH and I are getting on a plane with Baby L and heading to Denver!  This trip marks a lot of firsts:

1.  My first vacation during the summer ever in my entire working-adult life!  I have worked for the same company since 1992.  Until this year, my job was very spring and summer-intensive, forcing me to take all of my vacation time in the fall or winter every year.  Now I have a new position, and I plan to take as much of my vacation time as possible between now and the end of August.  First Denver, then Virginia in late July, then various trips to the beach in Maine and Connecticut.

2.  My first time packing for an airplane trip that includes a baby!  I traveled so much for work over the past decade and a half that I became very good at and in fact complacent about packing half-assed at the last possible minute.  I prided myself on this.  This time it’s a whole new ballgame.  I have lists.  I have piles.  I have back-up lists and back-up piles.  I have 3 suitcases lined up and ready to be filled.  I have the third load of laundry of the day so far in the dryer.  Phew.

3.  My first time flying with a baby!  This worries me not.  If all of Baby L’s other life experiences so far in her short 10 months on the planet are a good predictor of what’s to come, she’ll be a happy, cheerful kid on the plane.  If not…  oh, well.  I’ve had my fair share of long flights next to or near an unhappy, unpleasant baby, and I figure the universe owes me some payback, in the unlikely event of my daughter having a meltdown.

Now, I am under no illusions that I will be able to get any knitting or reading done on the plane, even if Baby L is a dream-come-true.  But, just in case, I am bringing something to knit:

And something to read:

Although, more likely I’ll be reading this instead, over and over again:

 

Happy 4th of July!

 

 

Well, it’s about time…

Took me awhile to get up-to-speed with the rest of you bloggy people, but here I am.  So, what’s it all about?  Well, as most of you know, I’m *ahem* quite fond of yarn.  What most of you might NOT know is that I used to be equally, if not more, obsessed with books.  When I discovered knitting, my reading life suffered a bit, as is to be expected when one finds a new addictive hobby.  Can’t do both at once, unfortunately.  Then, two more things interfered with my book-aholism:  First, pregnancy turned my brain a little mushy and made me incapable of staying awake long enough to finish a page.  Second, new motherhood made my brain even more mushy and even more incapable of staying awake to read.  Lately, though, something’s been happening.  I find that my bedside table is once again supporting a dangerous tower of books.  I find myself daydreaming about the book I’m reading even when I’m not reading it.  I find myself choosing to read over knitting sometimes.  In short, books are back, baby!

So, who knows what I’ll end up writing about here.  Certainly there’ll be knitting, but I’d also like to offer up some thoughts on books and poetry from time to time.  And to kick things off, let me tell you what happened last night, as an illustration of one of the many reasons why I love to read:

I’ve been reading David Sedaris’ newest book of essays, When You Are Engulfed in Flames.  He’s been one of my favorite authors for years.  He’s hilarious and witty and bitingly on-target with his observations of life and people.  One of the essays tells about an elderly man’s battle against some mice that had infested his home.  He fumigated, the mice fled the house and took up shelter in a pile of leaves, the man quickly lit the pile of leaves on fire to incinerate the mice (and the leaves)… and one mouse, aflame, ran blazing from the leaf pile directly back into the house, burning it to the ground. 

Now, the essay is about a lot of other things (as David Sedaris’ essays always are), but this immediately reminded me of a poem by one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins, called “The Country.”  Which is also about a mouse committing arson, this time by dragging a strike-anywhere match along a wooden beam.  (Neither of these sounds very amusing, I realize, but I urge you to read them both and you’ll see…  I can’t post them here without violating copyrights.)  Anyway, so I started thinking, “Of course David Sedaris must love Billy Collin’s poetry – they have the same sense of humor!”

So as soon as I finished the Sedaris essay, I went and dug out my Billy Collins books and read poetry for the rest of the evening.  David Sedaris made me go find Billy Collins.  And that is one reason why I love books.