Finding Our Wings

Thanks to gift vouchers from family and each other, Don and I ventured out of our routine a bit this winter and spring. We began well within our comfort zones with weekend excursions to Condon, Portland, and Lincoln City, then timidly ventured into the unknown of San Mateo. Our trips were short, simple, and delineated by time constraints, but served to bring us much needed respite with a touch of adventure.

 

Although Don and I very willingly put portions of our lives on hold over the last sixteen years, it was difficult to also sacrifice visiting our kids in their own homes, some of which we have never seen. In spite of that, they went over and above in their support of us and their grandparents so we are now anxious to begin making that time up to them before we do anything else. Eventually, we will be able to touch base with the rest of our family, as well, and maybe even plan an adventure of our own, but we are quickly finding out that we have to pace ourselves and our budgets. We hope everyone will be patient with us as we play catch up.

 

 

Our trips thus far have been good learning experiences, though, which have made us more confident with airports, car rentals, and Google map navigation. I might even be able to single-handedly purchase a plane ticket now without clutching the arm of one of my kids lest they leave and I make a wrong decision. Also, once Don has retired, it will be easier to work around my subbing schedule so that we have fewer time constraints.

 

 

In the meantime, we savor what we’ve done so far and continue to budget and to plan. Our wings are a bit rusty, but they still seem to work so, look out! One of these days, probably after you’ve given up on us, we might land in your neighborhood to see what you’re up to.

Sometimes one needs to be a bit creative (and quite silly) when trying to negotiate a break in caregiving. It helps to have a good friend:


Dear Lady in Black,
Be prepared; "Operation Sneak Out" goes into effect starting tomorrow night. If Plan "A" to WW is aborted then Plan "B" goes into effect (have your walking shoes on); of course we could always opt out for Plan "C" but it involves a bonfire and your neighbors could get a wee testy. Small fire, though, so it is still in the pot for consideration.
Dress your best, I'm thinking camo (optional) and/or dark clothing would be fitting.
Love,
The Queen of Sneak

Your Sneaky Highness,
You are such a great friend!
I will be ready for whatever adventure we can drum up.
If we make it to WW, though, I'm worried about you driving home at midnight. you are welcome to stay the night. You can have J's room with the sofa bed and the half bath and we'll make sure you are up early to get to work.
Hope I'm not too old for these late night shenanigans. Maybe I can catch a wee nap this afternoon.
Contemplating my disguise...
Lady in Black

Lady in Black,
Last night was fun and I'm ready for the next adventure! I stayed up until 2 am reading my Kindle (did I tell you it was a GOOD story) then slept like a log until I got up at 6 am. Yes, it was a solid 4 hours; no tossing or turning. I felt so refreshed this morning. I really need to borrow the Harry Potter books to catch up on the gap between where I left off and last night's movie. I'm glad you were able to fill me in on the story as we travelled to WW.
The trip home was good, only passed 4 cars so I was able to use my brights most of the trip. Hardly anyone was out in the wee hours of the night.
Thanks for the movie - my turn next time.
Savoring the adventure,
The Queen of Sneak

Queenie,
I'm so glad you had no trouble getting home! Mom and I both had a good day yesterday. I think Tuesday's late night escape did us both good; Mom realized she'd done something special for me, and I got out and did something I really wanted to do (with nearly no guilt). I don't know how you do it on four hours of sleep, though. Although I read awhile too and got one more hour of snoring in than you, I was still falling asleep during So You Think you Can Dance tonight.
I have the books and DVDs ready to send to you so you can fill in the gaps. I was distressed that you had to learn about Dumbledore in such a heartless manner. We should have watched Deathly Hallows, part 1 before our rendezvous, but I was too impatient.
Thanks again for the daring adventure, the pleasure of which will satisfy me for a long time...or, at least, until the next time!
Take care, Queen of Sneak. I remain forever your friend,
Lady in Black

Laugh a Little, Laugh a Lot

When did life get so complicated? Somewhere along the line, spontaneous laughter became a scarce commodity in life. Was it the bills, the decisions, the stress, the boredom? Didn't we do that much more when we were kids? Is it because, as we get older, we become so cerebral that it takes more to make us laugh? Is it the sophistication of the new millenium? After all, what's healthier than a good, rolling-on-the-floor, tears-streaming-down-your-face belly laugh? Especially over nothing. I don't think we should be able to count on the fingers of only one hand how many of those we've had in the last year. Let's back life up a bit and see if we can't find our gleeful abandon...(I'll bet you've already cracked a smile just looking at the still picture below)...press play and really enjoy yourself.

Ho, Ho, Ho

Last weekend I joined my shopping buddies in Portland for round the clock fun. We wear out sooner than we did when we started this tradition thirty years ago, but I'm pleased to announce that I can still do a mean mall walk. Jennifer, Sarah, and Danielle joined us at different times. It was really nice to connect with them, but it meant that they had to track us down by cell phone and try to pin us down to a meeting place. It's probably a little like trying to herd cats. As always, they were patient with us and good sports about wearing Betty's "Christmas Crowns" that she says spread cheer and help her find us in the stores when she's lost. We took a moment to let Sarah and Danielle entertain us with their wall climbing and bouldering. They had it worked out with management to give us turns, but we settled instead for taking pictures of them in action. Maybe next year.

I apologize to the family members that I neglected to call. Time always zooms by and I had more trouble than usual keeping my phone charged. We kept ourselves pretty busy hopping between shopping centers and individual stores scattered around the area, trying to at least find the things we could only get in the city. I still have some online ordering to do and some local shopping, but I can breath a little easier. The place where we stayed set up a wrapping room complete with Christmas paper, bows, labels, ribbon, scissors, and tape so we spent our last evening wrapping about half of our packages.

Here Danielle is tutoring Betty in a shirt folding trick that takes a certain flick of the wrist. After giving everyone individual lessons, they practiced on their own clothes the rest of the evening and the next morning when we packed up to leave. I guess we're pretty easily entertained.

Now it's time for the hot tub! What a group. We have so much fun every year, we have come to realize that it is less about the shopping and more about the personal connections. Each of us has had our share of difficult moments, but no matter where life takes us, we always have this time set aside for each other; a time for wise cracks, silliness, commiserating, and fun with a little shopping, eating, and margaritas on the side. Get ready! Only 364 days until we're back!

Let's Dance!

Here's a fun editing marvel that spans a lot of recognizable movies.

Thinking Back

I can't believe that Danielle's 1st Thursday art show was ten days ago already. It seems like I just got back. She will be updating her website (click here if you need the URL) soon with pictures of her work. In the meantime, I have posted quite a few memories of the evening on my family blog (K-Kids Family Fun).

The evening was beautiful and warm. Sarah and I rode the trolley the fourteen blocks from her place to Urban Studios to save ourselves the hassle of finding parking. Later, when I was about ready to fold for the night, I bid the girls, who were going to hit the dance floor, adieu and begged a ride to Sarah's apartment from Larry and Dan. Although Larry forewarned me that they had been unable to find a close parking spot, I still thought it better to be with someone than walk alone after dark. Ironically, by the time we got to Larry's car, he only had to drive me four blocks or less to my destination.

At least he had warned me though, right? In Rome he promised me once, at the end of a VERY long day of walking, that we only had five blocks to go before we'd be at the hotel. It was near the end of our three week Lorenzo Fitness Tour and by evening my feet were tender and, until we took a dinner break, I was running on borrowed steam. After silently congratulating myself for making it past what I counted as three very l-o-n-g city blocks, Larry, who was always brimming with energy (like the Ever Ready Bunny to which Don likens him) turned around to us and declared with way too much glee, "One!" Gasping in disbelief, I swung my arm in a futile attempt to clobber him, but he had anticipated a disgruntled response and danced out of my reach. Eventually my ruffled feathers were soothed with mention of gelato.

Ah, yes; good memories. And Danielle's art show will be another. It was great to see Jen, Sarah, and Danielle all dressed up and happy and to be a small part of the evening's fun. Now it is back to the day-to-day stuff for all of us, yet, in the midst of the doldrum, it is really nice to be able to mentally transport back in time long enough to recharge with a smile. Thanks for letting me tag along!

It's Puzzling

For the past two weeks we’ve been casually working on a 1000 piece puzzle that Danielle gave Don for Christmas. As its name, Wasgij?, (“jigsaw” spelled backwards) implies, this is no ordinary puzzle from the Piccolo Mondo toy store where Danielle works. Rather, it challenges the players’ accepted perspectives by portraying, not the picture printed on the box, but the point of view of something or someone in the picture. Huh? Yeah, that’s what we thought, too.

So, basically, the picture on the front is very little help other than setting up the context for whatever the puzzle will ultimately portray. Adventurous puzzlers must then resort to relying on colors, lines, and shapes to begin piecing the mystery together.

I have a kind of love/hate relationship with jigsaw puzzles. I am fascinated with them, but get so obsessed with finding the pieces that periodically I have to get up and walk away to avoid screaming. Intrepidly, Don and I started this new one and, about halfway through, began to hypothesize and then finally see what was happening in the picture, but it still didn’t get much easier. I must say that there was more than the usual sense of triumph when the Wasgij was finished. Although younger children could piece the puzzle together merely by matching and still benefit from the planning, comparing, evaluating, and predicting skills that they utilize, I think it would be even more valuable for challenging the developing abstract thought processes of adolescents. The idea of trying to analyze and predict someone else’s point of view based on building clues is a good mental exercise that would parlay well into a discussion on globalism.

For now, however, I’m just glad this mystery is solved and my sanity is still intact. I wonder what challenge will be next.

Skyping

Little by little we are becoming more entrenched in technology. Although not nearly as electronically fluent as our kids, we have, nevertheless, toddled into the twenty-first century in a few ways. Our latest venture is with Skype, a free video conferencing system available over internet.

Mom has had more success with the speaker feature of our latest wireless phones than ever before, but I hoped that video calling would work even better. My goal was for her to have an easier time conversing with family because she would be able to see faces and read lips. Indeed, the back and forth dialog goes more smoothly because Mom can see when the other person is beginning to speak so that she doesn’t try to talk at the same time and she can understand them better because of being able to read lips as well as hear them speak. The added bonus has been that she can now also enjoy the great grandkids more now too. Whenever they wander into the room, they will stop in front of the webcam and wave and say something to her and she can respond back easily. It is so much more natural and carefree than being told to “say something” on the phone. It makes me realize that exchanging smiles can be much more valuable than exchanging mere words. The whole essence of each person comes through so much better when we can experience body language and facial expressions.

Of course, as with anything else, there are some difficulties. Mom’s biggest concern was how she looked. “Oh! They can SEE me? But, I don’t have any makeup on yet!” she protested the first time. That can be a drawback alright. It won’t do to accept a video call in your underwear, although Mom gave Coletta quite a start once by appearing with a mud mask still on her face. It certainly was worth a good laugh, and we can always use more of those. I think Skype is here to stay.

Something's Fishy at Valencia's Central Market

We were surprised by a flag throwing performance in Italy, but we never saw this. I guess we didn't frequent the right market...



You've gotta love a country that reacts to a surprise opera in the marketplace by breaking out the wine and passing it around!

Just a Reminder to Relax and Have Fun!

Sometimes I stress out trying to make things too perfect, which is utterly impossible in my world, so this is a reminder to myself that being together and having fun is really the whole point. Mishaps will add to the humor and everything else will slip into place when it is supposed to. Merry Christmas!
TSO Wizards in Winter 2007

Straight No Chaser: A Cappella

These guys are having way too much fun. Loosen up! This is proof that everything does not have to be perfect to be great; different can be fun.

Think Pink

Sometimes we wonder what we can do in our little corner of the world to make a positive difference. I think, sometimes, it is just a matter of not saying no to the risk of stepping outside our comfort zone a little bit. Here is a really fun video in support of Breast Cancer awareness made by a crossection of staff from Providence St. Vincent's Medical Center in Portland.