The Average Blogger

Such Is Life

I wish I had some amazing photos or some beautiful words to share with you after my extended hiatus, but you'll have to make do with average -- and meager -- offerings on both counts.

What we did on our summer vacation:

Played with dogs.

Ditched the kid and celebrated our tenth anniversary with a visit to St. Louis and amaaaaazing seats at a Cards game.

Played with family. This is Totally Awesome Nephew Jude. I asked him how old he was and he said, "My mom says I'm 3."  Atta boy, Jude. Trust but verify.

We went to Hutsonville, where NYAB's dad grew up, just to poke around. Found the gravestones of his grandparents. The YP was much more taken with the park.

After the Midwest, we went east, to the beach.

And the many entertainment venues Chincoteague has to offer.

All in all, a good couple of weeks.

Then it was back to school -- which doesn't really look like much of a change from kindergarten, does it?

I also finished the first draft of my book and am furiously rewriting it now to add texture and depth and threads of continuity and all the other stuff that theoretically make books good. Between that and my day job, it'll probably be another two weeks til you hear from me again.  Maybe. I don't know. Every time I think I'm ready to hang up this blog biz, something comes along and gets me in a mood to post. We'll see.

Alaska 4 -- Just Krashingly Lovely

Hey, I warned you I was running out of alphabet ideas.

After our whirlwind tour of Wrangell-St. Elias, we headed to Seward for the last five days of our stay. Here is a sign I couldn't get enough of:

It was a nice drive, and along the way we stopped at the Matanuska glacier (another goddamn glacier!) and hiked out to it. This one was really cool, though, because as you walked over it, you saw how it went from dirt to ice.

How you get there:

Where the hike starts:

And where it ended for us:

Although if you know your way around glaciers, you could go much further:

After the mountains comes the sea. I am pretty sure we saw some Beluga whales swimming near shore. You tell me:

We finally got to Seward, and stayed at the nicest lodge suite you can imagine. The Windsong lodge wasn't really "lodge-y" -- there was almost never anyone in the common area, the fireplace was only lit once in the week we were there, etc.  But omigod, the rooms! DVD player and porch facing the mountains. It had a separate bar area where we made the kid sleep.  He was all jazzed at the idea of a trundle bed and insisted on pulling it out every night so he could "fall" out of his real bed. Though we could have just had him sleep in the bathtub, as he fit quite nicely:

There isn't much to do in Seward proper, it's very small-town in nature. We spent five days there, but mostly it served as a base for other things. We did take two days to sort of goof off, do laundry, lounge around -- oh, and hike.

... Including to Exit Glacier, which was a really interesting hike because they have marked off where the glacier was in various years past. So, you could see that in 1976, you'd have been standing on the glacier at X spot, but today you have to hike another half-mile or so to get to it. It was very interesting. No photos, you've got the idea on glaciers and I have other stuff to show you.

The main event was a Fox Island Resurrection Bay lunch cruise, with many sightings of water critters.  Lunch was at another cute lodge on ... duh ... Fox Island, and if I hadn't loved our lodge so much I would have been sorry not to be staying at this place. Quiet, secluded, an island! We saw a flit of a whale -- and I got a photo that looks pretty much like the same photo I took when we went whale-watching in Hawaii. But it's not, I swear. Different, and MUCH colder, water!

We also saw otters. Very cute otters.

And steller (not a typo) sea lions.  They are a lot like lower 48 sea lions, only bigger and grumpier.

I told the Young Prince I was going to turn this one into a poster and put the words, "BUT MOTHERRR!" at the bottom.

The other major animal event was puffins. Regular:

And tufted:

And, the YP completed his second junior ranger badge (the first one was at Denali, did I mention this?) and got sworn in on the boat. 

The last big Thing we had planned was a raft trip down Kenia River with AK Rivers Company. I was a little surprised, I figured on a river where you weren't making a bunch of car or hiking noise there'd be more animals visible, especially what with them needing a drink and all.  But we really didn't see anything. Oh, except eagles.

After that amazingly peaceful, but astonishingly nippy run down the river, we still had an afternoon to kill, so we went to Kenai. First major astonishment: the kid ate four tacos for lunch. This, up from his usual of one. Guess that fresh air had an effect.

And then, because it was close by and we figured the kid could use a run, we went to the beach. Why not? It's Alaska. What better place to shed your britches and jump in the water? It's only 40 degrees!

After all that, we had another lazy day of souvenir purchasing. Thomas got his hair cut just in time for school, and we capped it all off with another 2-hour hike and dinner at a place by the harbor.

Next day we got on the road back up to Anchorage, stopping on the way to look at one last glacier (the Portage glacier this time.) We got to town much too early to just go to the airport, so we had lunch at a place called Humpy's (also on Joan's recommendation! Thanks again, Joan!) and then killed a few hours at the children's museum/Imaginarium, which was probably more fun for NYAB and myself, though the kid seemed to have a good time. 

Turned in the rental car, headed back to the airport, the adventure was over. Well, except when the TSA infuriated my 7-year-old by insisting he not only remove his sweatshirt to go through the metal detector but also confiscated his half-to-3/4-empty jar of peanut butter that was going to serve his noshing purposes on our 16-hour trip home. "BUT THAT LADY IN DULLES WAS ALL COVERED UP IN THAT BLACK THING AND YOU COULDN'T EVEN SEE HER EYES! WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY SWEATSHIRT?"   And then, "WHY DO THEY THINK I AM A TERRORIST? I AM SEVEN! SEVEN! YEARS! OLD!" I am only slightly ashamed to say that we parental units were exasperated enough with the proceedings that we did not tone him down in the slightest.  In fact, NYAB told him to send a letter to Janet Napolitano.

Know what? He did. It went out in the post this week. I rather think we will hear nothing in return, but I was amused as hell.  A transcript:

Dear Secretary Napolitano

You have to stop taking peanut butter away from kids. We are not terrorists. We just want to eat a sandwich on an airplane. I was taking a long long flight from Alaska back to my home, and the airport security people took away my jar of peanut butter. So I had no sandwiches to eat on the plane and the food the airplane people gave out was not any good. If I was a terrorist, you could have my peanut butter and put me in jail. But I'm not. I'm 7 years old and want to eat a peanut butter sandwich. OK?
Sincerely (but firmly),
[The Young Prince]

Oh, apples and trees.  What ya gonna do? Fortunately for all of us, there was a McDonald's on the correct side of the security kabuki theater, and the boy was placated. After turning his nose up at the airplane food, he pretty much conked out and stayed asleep through our four-hour layover in Houston and much of the flight to Washington.

And then we got home, and it was time for laundry and unpacking and getting back to normal life.

I would love-love-love to go back.

 

Alaska 3 -- Gee, Haw, I'm Lazy

So, there we were, at Wrangell-St. Elias. It is an interesting park, because you can't get into very much of it by car, not even with bus tours like at Denali. There are two unpaved roads that head into the park, but no rental company lets you take their cars on them, and the park literature says "High clearance, two wheel drive vehicles usually can make the trip in summer." Note that "usually." 

Well, that's no cause not to see it. We took a plane, instead. 

We signed up with a tour company that would fly us into the park to Kennicott/McCarthy, and it was an interesting study in rolling with changes, because we had made this reservation only a couple days before as a last-minute decision, it was all done via e-mail and not through the tour company, so we were curious to see how it would work out.

So we drove out early in the morning to a landing strip at a place called Chitina (CHIT-nah) and waited with six or seven other people for 9 a.m. to roll around, when ... something was supposed to happen, though we weren't sure what because there was no office for our tour company and there weren't any employee-looking types around. Another tourist happened to be driven up by a lodge employee, and she explained that no, the company only had an office in McCarthy, at the other end of the route, and that at 9 a plane was supposed to land and we'd all get on it.

9:30, no plane. 9:45, no plane. The hotel employee goes over to a pay phone that doesn't take money and dials the 800 number (conveniently posted near the phone,) and learns that McCarthy is socked in, but the pilot will try later. When later? How will we know? How will we know if he decides not to come? Hmmm.

So we all piled into the car and drove up the road a piece to explore Chitina. We saw a moose by a lake, which was rather pretty.

Walking past every building in town took about 15 minutes, and then we drove down a little bit of the road into the park just to see what was there. It looked like it would probably be a very bumpy, gorgeous and harrowing drive.

We headed back to the air strip and waited. Finally, at 11:30, two planes arrived, and we all took off.

It was another very nice flight with a lot of great views of mountains and glaciers.  The pilot talked about driving the road we were flying above, and he said it takes about 2 hours to go 50 miles -- which was somewhat reassuring, since we didn't know what the weather would be like when our plane was supposed to bring us back that evening.

We got to McCarthy, got in a van and were driven to Kennicott, where we had a decent lunch of stew over rice at the lodge. NYAB was enchanted, though I was less so since we were a bit pressed for time and some woman had set up camp in the one women's bathroom to be found. 

And then we took the mine tour, which was incredibly interesting and even held the YP's attention, although he was also quite taken with a local dog that befriended him and wanted to play fetch as we walked along the main road. (That will be important later.)

The mine is the tallest wooden building in America (not the tallest wooden structure, as the guide was quick to point out, some roller coasters are taller.) It was built on a hill so that production went downhill-- starting where the copper was and landing at the train tracks, where the train took it away.

Forgive this astoundingly crappy photo, but I think this bit was my favorite part of the tour. Because the process of extracting copper from rock required a lot of banging and shaking, the building had some foundation trouble.  When someone noticed that it was sliding off the mountain, they installed giant cables on either side of the building, and every so often someone would use a giant wrench to twist this gizmo and tighten the cable to pull the building back up.  Wonder what OSHA would have to say about that.  Or about the giant corroded vats of ammonia used for the last bit of the extraction process.

After the mine tour, we headed back to McCarthy and our flight home, which the YP was in a big hurry for, because as far as he was concerned, the main event was happening back at the lodge at 7 p.m. 

Dog sled! Well, dog cart, really, since there was no snow. He was over the moon, and there has been much discussion since then in the Blogger household about whether to add another four-footer to our mix, allergies be damned.  Sigh. So much hair. So much effort. But so much reward. 

Next day was another long driving day, down to Seward. You know what? I'm going to save that for the next post. I have to go to work.

Alaska 2 -- Denali, Eating, Fairbanks

So, Denali. What can I say ?It was amazing.   Our first afternoon there, we drove as far as you can into the park -- about 20 miles or so, and puttered around the Savage River a little bit. 

We hiked a ways, but we didn't have a trail map and even though we figured it looped around at some point it was starting to rain so we just headed back after a half-hour or so.  I didn't figure on seeing any animals in the part of the park where Just Anyone could drive, so imagine my surprise when on our way out we stop with a cluster of other people and watch a giant moose and his lady friend while they chomped down dinner.

I hate autofocus. I should really learn how to use my damn camera already.

Next day, Gary went off on his own while the three of us took a daylong bus tour into the depths of the park with Kantishna Wilderness Trails Tour. It was quite a trip.  They load a bunch of people onto an old school bus and some certified-type (and genuinely knowledgable) guide drives this creaky old bus along a frighteningly narrow road with some frighteningly precipitous dropoffs and yaps about what you're looking at while all the passengers stare out the window looking for bears and moose and ptarmigans while hoping nothing scares the driver or otherwise runs the bus off the road. You basically go through a huge chunk of the park, stop at the "historic town" of Kantishna -- which is now basically a lodge with some folks around who explain what stuff used to be like, a la Williamsburg, but smaller -- have lunch, poke around, then drive the same road back looking for more critters and different afternoon light for picture-taking.

So this was Wildlife Day, and we basically got sightings of all animals in the park except lynx. (Though I could have done with a better view of caribou. Sigh.) People there are very hot on Dall sheep, which ... I don't know, whatever, we saw a lot of them and it was like looking at sheep.

We saw two wolves, and I can't at all describe how amazingly cool that was.

And a grizzly bear! Not to be confused with the smaller and less ferocious black bear of the previous post.

We could also see Mt. McKinley, which is apparently a big deal. I guess the peak has its own weather system and 90 percent of the time all you can see is clouds.  We totally lucked out on the weather for this trip, did I mention that?

The Young Prince was surprisingly malleable on this day of forced inactivity.  The day started so early that he actually slept for the first couple hours, and then once he woke up and got over his Morning Cranks, he was more or less OK.

This was a setup. He wasn't actually screaming inside the bus. I don't think.

I mean, he didn't spend a lot of time looking out the window trying to spot wildlife, but he did look up when others spotted things, and he was more than happy to get off the bus and walk around the stops and look at things. Honestly, from what little I remember of myself at the age of 7 I don't think I would have done very well just sitting and staring out a bus window for 9 hours. Where I would have read a book and made myself car sick, he played his video game with the sound off -- also a minor victory for the old folks, since he went volume-less without protest. At Kantishna, he discovered to his amazement that he likes tomato soup and then was sucked into a hula hoop demonstration and did better than the woman running the program (Thanks for the practice, Grandparents!) -- a lovely woman whom he then latched on to and became her special helper in the panning-for-gold demonstration.

Panning for gold is a setup; there's a nail-clipping of gold in every bag they hand out.  The YP found his fastest, and we got it laminated -- and then it promptly disappeared. I'm sure whoever had the hotel room after us was thrilled to find it and retired immediately.

When we got back that night, we reconnected with Gary and had what was probably the second-best meal of our trip at the lodge restaurant. So, so good.

After that we went back to the room and tried to settle in for the night. Alaska time had me sort of off-kilter for most of the trip.  When we got there, it wasn't getting dark til 10:30 or so at night, although they were losing 7 minutes of light a day, so by the time we left it was getting dark around 9. I had very little idea what time it was where we were, and even less idea of what time it might have been at home. I think I did most of my checking-on-work stuff around 3 a.m. DC time. Heh.

Next morning, Gary headed back to Wasilla to wrap up his job stint there and head back to Tucson, while we futzed around until later in the morning, when we were picked up by a van service and taken to our next adventure: a helicopter ride to a glacier. The copter carried us and another couple out to this ice patch, the Yanert glacier, at the foot of Mount Deborah, where we got out and wandered around staring at the landscape. The YP, of course, is an old hand at helicopters, having ridden in one in Hawaii.  Not Your Average Blogger and I were both glad this one had doors -- NYAB for security's sake, me because it would have been Effing Cold without them.

The glacier was amazing. It was gorgeous, and silent, and so removed from anything.  I don't quite know what the YP thought of it, other than it was a chance to play in the snow in summer time. 

Ice falls, above. Ice river, below.

It took some doing to explain to him that we weren't standing on dirt that was covered with snow, like at home, but that we were standing on a piece of ice that was as tall as 6 of our office buildings.

I don't know that he ever fully grasped what we were telling him, though flying back and seeing dirt on top of ice might have helped him a little bit.  By the end of the trip he was able to explain the difference between moraine, glacier melt and snow melt, though.  I am not sure how long he'll retain that info, either. He has held on to the difference between moose and caribou antlers, at least.

After the helicopter, we headed back to the park for another little hike, this one down to a lake near the park entrance.  I am, it seems, dreadfully out of shape. I've got no air.  Or perhaps I'm just not suited for my family's approach to exercise.  The menfolk just bolt up and down these trails and get to some spot and wait for me unless I tell them not to, whereas I sort of plod my way along toting my camera at my standard 3 mph, slowing down to 2 as I huff up some of those steeper suckers. I like to think that I am the tortoise to their hare, but the truth is I'm really just a sad sack to their speed and endurance. And I need to go on a diet. Glargh. Still, the hike was nice, and got us all good and hungry for that night's dinner at the Salmon Bake -- which was OK, but not as good as the night before. In fact, the food sort of trailed downhill the whole trip.  Even the worst was still excellent, however. This was probably the best Eating Vacation that I've taken since last we saw New Orleans.

Next morning we headed back to the park one last time -- the YP got his junior ranger badge and we took a last drive into the park for one last view of what there was to see. We got to see a Moose Crossing.

After that, we drove up to Fairbanks, with a stop at North Pole, Alaska -- not to be confused with North Pole, The World.  Santa was there and chatted up the YP, but he's not taking orders yet.  We also saw some penned-up reindeer.  What better choice for dinner that night than reindeer sausage lasagna? The YP was most horrified with me and insisted I would get nothing good for Christmas.

The Fairbanks Princess Lodge is a stupid place.  It is too far out of town to be a useful hotel, but it is too far from anything remotely natural to be a lodge. The restaurant is meh. If we had it to do again, this is the one place I would have opted for something different. On the plus side, it was the first place we stayed where the staff would call your room if the northern lights were showing -- and they were! So we all went out the parking lot and shaded our eyes against the lights and looked at this giant green rainbow-like thing arcing over our heads.  NYAB and I scuffed off a ways behind the hotel to see it with a little more darkness. 

That was the other semi-regret of the trip.  The phone rang at midnight and the kid didn't wake up. After some deliberation, we decided to let him sleep, since it would be hard to wake him up, he'd never go back to sleep, he wouldn't know what he was looking at, etc. etc. He was very unhappy to learn this the next morning and insisted that if the hotel called again any other nights, we should take him too. Turns out that was the only night they were visible. But now I can cross "see the northern lights" off my do-before-dying list, though I hear September 2013 is going to be the kickass time to go back and get a great show.Who's with me, besides the kid?

Next morning we headed to another tiny airport and got on another tiny plane -- though this one seated 8 or 10, I think -- and flew up to the Arctic Circle.  I think the YP was disappointed, he was hoping for Fortress of Solitude snowscapes and lots of dancing polar bears.  What he got was a lot of green, a couple cats, and some cool views of the pipeline.

The plane landed at a town called Coldfoot, which looked to me like it consisted of a tiny airport and a truck stop. Part of the tour involved going down the (newly paved and thus highly disappointing) Dalton Highway to visit a place called Wiseman. I'm not sure what you'd call it -- a village? A settlement? A camp? About 15 people live there, and man, I tell you what, they are old school. They hunt and fish; they use solar and wind, they have giant woodburning stoves, if they want a freezer they dig a hole under their house.

Let me put it this way: The kid amused himself by stacking lopped-off moose and caribou forelegs into a piece of art.

It is moments like that when I realize how very ill-equipped I am to survive in any sort of setting that requires me to be even remotely useful. I couldn't possibly cut enough wood to burn all winter, I don't think I could fell a tree for log cabin purposes, and even if I could, I don't know how to build a house. I don't know how to make a snare, I doubt I could hit a caribou with a shotgun, and even if I did manage to accidentally down one, I wouldn't have the first idea what to do with it to make it edible. Not to mention the whole freezing to death thing. I've generally held a great amount of respect for the elements -- I know Mother Nature ain't my friend; I've seen what tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes do. I know the ocean is a fracking scary place. I think people who build their houses on beach cliffs are idiots who deserve whatever mudslide happens to them.  But none of what I've seen -- NONE -- compares with what you realize could happen to you up there if you stop and think about it for 12 seconds. You really have to know what you're doing and be ready to cowgirl up and do it the second it has to be done.

Needless to say, I was sheepishly happy to get back to the hotel that night. I blasted the heater and stole all the blankets just because I could.

Next morning, because we were feeling less than adventurous, we ate at Denny's.  Granted, it was the northernmost Denny's in the world, so we had that going for us. Not surprisingly, it was very much like all the more southerly Denny's eateries I've tried.

That day was a long driving day, with some eagles spotted and some nice vistas. It was also the only really bad weather day we had, very California winter-y -- wet, sort of cold, made colder by the damp.

We got to Wrangell-St. Elias that afternoon, poked around at the park visitor center and wandered on the trail nearby for about an hour, then checked into our next Princess Lodge (Copper Center, better than Fairbanks, with a bodacious fireplace and comfy couch in the common area.) I had caribou for dinner. It is gamy and a little tough. NYAB was on his 142nd salmon of the trip, this one with some kind of walnut coating, and declared it excellent. 

Up next: Mines, Dogs and Boats. Probably the last installment.

Alaska 1 -- Arrival, Bears, Commuting

So, let's see. We flew Continental, which I have to say was a very nice airline despite their irritating policy of basically charging for luggage by the pound.  It was the first time in ages that we all got seated together on a majority of our flights, and the one leg where it couldn't be fixed all three employees were incredibly apologetic and went out of their way to help with other stuff. So, yay.

We left DC at a very civilized hour of the afternoon and said goodbye to NeighborGirl, who dropped us off before heading back to college for the year. Sniff.  We love NeighborGirl. Dulles has finally opened its underground shuttle from the main airport to the gates, so that was something new and improved. We flew from Dulles to Houston, from Houston to Seattle and from Seattle to Anchorage -- and the layovers weren't even that bad. It was distressing to be in the Seattle airport at 9 p.m. and see absolutely every food place already locked down for the night, but we muddled through. The kid was sterling on all legs of the flight, and the plane out of Seattle was so empty that we each could have had our own row in which to stretch out and sleep. The kid took advantage of this, I stayed up to watch a movie and NYAB dozed and read.  We got to Anchorage around 11:30 or so -- and that airport was blazing with activity -- everything open, all lights on, it was sort of incongruous with the place we'd just left.

We got a cab to our hotel -- the Inlet Tower (nice enough rooms but I definitely do not recommend their restaurant -- the food is eh, it's all buffet, and the way you pay is very confusing -- there's some sort of voucher system in place with Alaska Tours, I guess, so you can't just sign your room number and then our waitress got sort of torqued that we were going to pay with cash.) We stumbled in and basically crashed immediately. Next morning we were picked up by a shuttle, which took us to the airport, where we got on a float plane with four other people and flew to a lodge on Big River Lake. 

The YP loved the plane. He was very excited.  The idea of taking off and landing in the water just tickled him to pieces.

Lunch was at the lodge.  I had a banger of a headache so I didn't eat, but the food was a bit outre for my tastes -- some kind of tomato fish soup paired with something that I think might have been potato salad but looked like dog food.  The kid requested a peanut butter sandwich, and that came out looking right, although he sniffed at it because it was crunchy peanut butter. Hee. Can't imagine where he got his picky eating tendencies!  Instead, he and I went out to the deck of the lodge and he chased birds while I sat with my eyes shut and waited for the aspirin to kick in.  When the others were done with lunch, we all piled into a pontoon boat and took off around the lake.

This was the first bear we saw.  I figured this would also be the last bear we saw, and that was my best shot at seeing any wildlife for the day.

I was wrong!

Bears are cool, man.  We basically sailed around for several hours looking for animals and mostly relaxing and listening to the quiet. We saw a waterfall where salmon were bashing themselve to bits trying to go upriver -- not realizing it was all rocks and a fairly precipitous drop. It depressed me; it reminded me to some degree of my job and how we work very hard to do things without any clear picture of whether we are trying to go up a river to better water or trying to climb a rocky waterfall that will be the end of us.

 

We also saw some trumpeter swans and their babies, though it is hard to see here.

The other really cool thing on this outing was the guide took us to this hydroponic masterpiece -- it was basically a floating pile of grass and moss and stuff, and when you hopped off the boat and walked around in it, it was like being on a giant waterbed.

Unfortunately, it was also very wet and dirty, and your feet squished down so you were wet up to your ankles, so the idea of rolling or jumping around much was -- well, squelched.

After a day of this, we flew back to Anchorage, on another float plane, with another set of headphones and mic.  This was probably the kid's worst performance of the trip because he would NOT. SHUT. UP! Worse, he was up with the pilot and NYAB and I were sitting behind him so we couldn't really make him understand what was appropriate yammering and what was not until he'd already yammered.  But it was a fairly short flight, and once we landed we had a long discussion about abusing the equipment, and it appeared to sink in since he was much better after that.

Once we got back and a bit freshened up, NYAB's brother Gary met us. He'd been in Wasilla for a month filling a slot for his company and doing MRIs on people. He said it had rained pretty much every single day he'd been there, and this was borne out by my friend Joan when we all met up with her and her squeeze for dinner that night.  Joan recommended a steak place called Club Paris, and I have to tell you, Joan knows what she is talking about. That place was amazing. The people were nice, they got the orders right, the food was INCREDIBLE. And the company was charming.  It was so good we tried to go back before our departing flight, but it had canceled lunch hours for the holiday.

Next morning we ditched breakfast at the restaurant and NYAB went to pick up our rental SUV. We stopped at Target to buy some stuff we didn't bring with us (a cooler, some hair bands, peanut butter, etc.) and then went to meet his brother in Wasilla, so we could caravan to Denali. It was a lovely drive. Gorgeous. Also, there is a publication called Milepost for Alaska, that basically tells you what is along every inch of every highway in the state. I love this thing, I have to tell you.  The only time it failed us was when it recommended a great place for lunch and as near as we could tell that place had already closed for the season for a while. Instead we had lunch at Panorama Pizza Pub. Not bad, and very laid back and comfortable.  The YP worked on his foosball skills. 

In Denali, we stayed at the first of many Princess lodges.  It's interesting, these places.  For one thing, they are quite nice, though the "lodginess" varies with the particular place you are.  For another, almost everyone staying there appears to be retired. I think for the most part we were the youngest group around by at least 15 years, and it was so rare to see other children around that the YP struck up excited conversations with every single one he met.

Next installment, Denali, Eating, Fairbanks.  I don't know if I'll be able to continue the alphabet titles after that, but we'll see. Nothing coming this weekend, however -- we are off on another camping excursion to Gettysburg. (All this nature business seems to have struck a chord -- at least until the snow flies.)

Busting Your Chops

 

So, the Young Prince finally did it. After years of watching him climb wobbly shelves, get into precarious positions splayed between chairs and tables, and try to hit lightswitches just out of his reach on stairwells, the kid finally splattered.

I admit, I always stood by and watched him do those things sort of hoping he'd fall and get just hurt enough to learn his lesson. And you know, he never did. I'd say, "Be careful, you could fall and get hurt," and he'd shift his balance or pirouette or do some other gymnastic move and leap lightly away from whatever spot he was in and land on his feet. 

Apparently grammar school has atrophied this skill.

So yesterday he was in science class. They were cleaning up, and it sounds like up to that point it had been a pretty good day. But he started horsing around, using two desks as parallel bars. I guess his elbows gave out or something, and he face-planted onto the floor.

I was training on a night shift when Not Your Average Blogger came over and motioned me into my office to tell me the principal had called and the YP has busted his lip. The principal also said it looked like the kid needed a stitch, so NYAB was heading out to get him.

I thought it might be better to get him out of school faster, and since NeighborGirl is home from college, and was planning to babysit him for a couple hours anyway, I called her and asked if she'd go get him. She said sure, so I told NYAB he could meet them at home instead of at school, and then called the principal back to tell her someone else was picking up the kid.

According to the principal, he was very upset that I'd be angry.  The kid said later that he was upset that I'd think he was ugly. I was admittedly pleased at the former and dismayed by the latter.

NeighborGirl said the school ladies were all very nice, but kind of funny. "Don't look at him," they said. "It's gruesome. And if you see him, don't freak out and react about the gore, he'll just get upset."

NeighborGirl is a total trooper. She thinks stuff like that is kind of cool. We love NeighborGirl.

So she called me when she got him home and said it was pretty gross, but he seemed to be doing OK and she'd hang out for whatever came next. She put him on the phone and he said he'd learned not to do that anymore, and to listen when people told him to stop doing similar things. Then he put NG back on the phone. I told her to drop me an email when NYAB got there to tell me what was going on -- since he is so good about keeping me me informed on such matters -- and that if the YP wanted her to go to the ER with them and she wasn't busy, that'd be nice. 

Then I went back to work.  I felt moderately guilty, but the truth is I probably was more useful in the office than I would have been in this situation. I don't know.

NeighborGirl emailed an hour later to say the boys were en route to the ER, and that they'd all agreed she didn't need to go.

Forty minutes after that, NYAB emailed to tell me they were waiting for attention at the ER.

And then to tell me the kid got stitches, though no amount of asking got him to tell me how many.

And then to tell me they got a prescription and a popsicle.

And then to tell me the kid barfed in the car.

And then to say they were home.

And then to say the YP's teacher called to see how he was doing. How cool is that? (And to say she'd warned him not to swing on desks. Heh. She's awesome.)

He called after that and I talked to the kid again, who didn't sound nearly as energetic or happy as when I'd talked to him before the hospital. I also was referred to Facebook to find out there had been four stitches.  Ah, the modern age.

When I got home, 3 hours later, the rest of the story trickled out. The first version was "Same as last trip, but no Greek stories." Then I heard more. Apparently the kid got so worked up about doctors fussing with his face that they had to try twice -- letting him calm down the first time and then strapping him to the bed for Round Two.  NYAB said it was pretty amazing -- there was absolutely nobody home in that little savage animal brain of his.

 

All I can say is, if he's going to keep getting hurt like this, he'd better grow up about getting himself fixed.

But hey, chicks dig scars.  And the YP himself apparently concluded in the ER that, "You know, if the scar is too bad, I can just grow a moustache and beard like you, Dad." 

Today he's back to his bouncy self. I'm still sort of wondering what to do about him worrying that I'd think he was ugly, but we'll get over that, I suppose. The YP probably already is. Maybe. I hope.  Almost as much as I hope he actually, you know, learned something.  Though my breath, it is not being held.

Take Off Your Cheaters and Sit Right Down

So, the kid has been complaining intermittently of headaches since around Christmas. Then last week he started rubbing his eyes.

I'm not a big believer in freaking out, as you might guess. Brain tumor? Riiight. Allergies? Well, it is springtime. Seems like a good guess.

But we had a few free hours to kill last week, and I figured we might as well make sure it wasn't anything mid-range and eyeball-related that could be addressed.  So off to the eye doctor we went. 

Except, Lenscrafters was closed for the month because their optometrist quit. Pearle Vision was closed because it was a Thursday. Which left driving another 15 minutes, or wandering into WalMart in the same mall. WalMart won.  

I prepped the YP.  "They are going to make you look at some bright lights. They are going to make you stick your head in a frame and then poof some air in your eye. They'll make you look through a bunch of lenses like the ones we saw on the submarine at Pearl Harbor and ask you which ones make it easier to read."

He was all set, and he was all for it, and he did really well. This is no small feat for a kid who hates people fucking with his face and can barely sit still for a haircut.

And then ... there were eyedrops. Oh, my lord. I either didn't know or had forgotten they put drops in your eyes before they run a bunch of tests.  So this came as a surprise to the YP, and I'm pretty sure even if it hadn't he would have been a holy terror anyway. I don't know that any of that stuff ever went near his eyeball, though he said it did. 

So after all that ... I don't know why, but I really was expecting them to do a bunch of tests and tell me the kid was fine and to get out of their office and stop wasting time.  

Instead, the doc was all, "Well, he's nearsighted in one eye, and farsighted in the other. And he has astigmatism. He needs bifocals."

Whaaa? Bifocals? At 7? Why?

"Well, it would be very low prescriptions, but he needs correction for reading."

And for far away?

"No, not as much. But he'd need split lenses so he can see when he is not reading."

Ummm. Can't he just have reading glasses, then?

"Sure, we can do that instead. It's up to you."

Now, I guess this should make me happy, that a doctor listened and didn't just tell me I was a moron for having an alternate idea. And I guess I'm glad it was up to me. But there's still something a little unnerving about the idea that a doctor would be telling me, "Oh, yeah, that's a better idea. Let's do that."

Thomas was hot for bifocals at first. Then I explained he'd have to wear them at recess, on the bus, at gym ... and he reversed. "Oh. No. They will fall off. Forget it."  Score one for mom.

So we went to pick out frames, and I steered him over to the kid frames, where I was delighted to see him gravitate right toward a pair of $10 frames -- the pair you see in the photo.  Did he choose them because they were cheap and easily replaced when he inevitably squashes them? Of course not. He chose them because they were as close as he could get to this:

(This also explains the stern expression the kid is wearing in the photo above, and why you can't see his eyes very well.The glasses fit correctly, but he wanted a Doctor Photo and wouldn't hold his head in a way I could get everything centered.)

I have a feeling there will be some hardcore distraction going on in reading circle for the next week or so. And all reading aloud will be done with a British accent, puncutated by the occasional "Allonz'y!"

Oy.

Still. At least it's not bifocals. Like his dad. Hahaha.

Spring Break

So, last week was the kid's spring break.  But both his parents had to work, and that meant he wound up having to do so as well.  So this was last week's rundown:

Monday -- worked from home, watched a lot of TV.
Tuesday -- went to the office. While I worked, the kid was recruited to help sort pay stubs into people's mailboxes. I certainly hope he did it right; his supervisor seemed unperturbed and I heard no complaints of people's money going missing, so I assume all went well.
Wednesday --  I went to meetings; the kid cleaned out the pen drawer and supply cabinet. Sort of. He needed a bit of help in the "making neat piles" department. We did take an extended lunch that day, though, and went to see the Terra Cotta Army exhibit at the National Geographic museum.  I think the old folks found it infinitely more interesting than the kid did. Got back to office, went to more meetings while the kid played video games.
Thursday -- I edited stories while the kid sorted through old issues of magazines for saving or recycling.
Friday -- I felt so guilty that the kid had spent his whole spring break in my office that I worked from home that morning and then let him pick how he wanted to spend the afternoon.  And that is how we spent 3 hours at Chuck E. Cheese. (Though the place isn't as bad now that I can let him run off and I don't need to trail after him to some bigger kid doesn't jack his tokens. I got a lot of reading done!)

I needn't have worried, apparently. The weekend was infinitely more fun.  Saturday was covered in the previous post.

Sunday was Easter. We are not religious observers of this event, so for us the reason for the season IS the chocolate and the bunnies. And the golf.

Every year we hide baskets around the house for the kid to find, and then we hide some number of as-ant-proof-as-possible-plastic eggs outside. This year we hid 20.  The kid found 19. I couldn't figure out where the other one was, since it wasn't where I remembered hiding it. Then I saw it .... waaaayyyy across the driveway, down in the mud, where I certainly hadn't left it.
Nor had I done this to it:

I hate wildlife.  The deer eat my trees and the squirrels eat my tulips.  I hope some little bastard choked on his plastic with this one.

So that afternoon NYAB and the kid went golfing while I went for a hike, and then we all came home and ate more candy. I did some gardening while NYAB took a nap (egg hunts that start at 6:55 a.m. on Sundays are not conducive to a day of wakefulness,) and then we all snugged down to watch the Yankees-Red Sox game til we passed out one by one.

Monday was the last day of the kid's vacation. From the get-go, this was a day of disorganization and changed plans. Two months ago, Not Your Average Blogger and I looked at the calendar and assumed the kid would go back to school that day, so the grownups could have a hot date to the Nationals' opening day game.  This is as close to a religious holiday as we get. Much closer than Easter.  So we bought two tickets and arranged with a neighbor to pick him up after school and watch him til we got home.

Only, as I just indicated -- Monday was a school holiday.  Whoops. I asked the four people I knew in this state who weren't working if they'd be interested in watching the kid, and got no takers.  NYAB managed to find a ticket on StubHub at the last minute that was one section over, so we bought that.

Monday morning I got a late start in getting dressed, but I knew that would happen and had planned ahead. I knew it would be crowded, so I didn't take a purse and instead carried my camera, extra lens, sunscreen and assorted ID and money. We all wore our hats and sunglasses. I got my shoes tied in the car on the way into town. The plan was to park at my office and take a cab to the ballpark.

Well, when we got to the office, someone was in my assigned space. So I had to figure out who was supposed to know this, where we were supposed to park instead, blah blah blah. Meanwhile I'm also fielding e-mail on my BlackBerry about upcoming work schedules. So we finally get the car situation sorted out, with the bonus of having had time to stop at an ATM, and off we go in a cab to the stadium. 

Without my camera, but with my extra lens. Without the kid's sunglasses. But with three pens. Because, hey, you might need to sign something! So that is why this post is wildly devoid of art, where there would usually be at least three more photos.

So there we are, taking a cab to the game -- almost. We actually got about 4 blocks from the stadium, when we finally gave up and got out and walked because of all the street closures. Security was a mess because it was Opening Day, the president was throwing out the first pitch, there were a bazillion people, lalala. The lines were crazy and then got even crazier when security started closing lines that were too long and hustling people to lines at other gates.  And pretty much everyone was being wanded after going through the metal detector, which also backed things up.

But, we finally got in, and still had time for me to kiss the boys goodbye and stop at a gift shop to buy an Opening Day souvenir (a ball this year. Usually they have shirts or pins. Whatever.) and get to my seat just as the National Anthem was starting.

Turns out that extra ticket? Sold by a Phillies fan who was part of a group of 27 buses that came down for the game and had apparently started serving beer before sunrise.  Wow. They are a loud and rowdy bunch, y'all. They booed Ryan Zimmerman for getting some do-gooder award. They booed Obama. They booed the umpires.  Then the announcer mentioned Adrian Fenty and they were all, "Whaaa?" Who?" and booed anyway. See, I find this a bit unseemly.  I'll boo a bad play, but I won't boo people for being people. I might choose not to clap, but that's it. The up side to all this booing, however was that the people were, at least, paying attention and into the game. For the most part, anyway. The guy on my left -- who weighed about 300 pounds and was oozing into my seat -- kept dozing off and leaning farther into my space. This was OK -- I'm still small enough that I can wiggle in my seat a bit, and happily the skank on my right was hella skinny. She also seemed far more interested in keeping the beer coming, and at some point disappeared altogether in a quest for same.  But not before she'd inadvertently cheered 3 times for the Nats. Which sort of made me think maybe it was time to lay off the beer, but hey, I'm not her mother.

The plan was that in the middle of the 5th inning, we would meet in the aisle and the grownups would change seats. But the SRO space actually seemed nicer than crowding into that third seat, and I told Mr. Long-Legged 6-2 NYAB so.  Then the kid and I went down and sat in the seats originally purchased -- and wow. Nice seats.  At the end of the foul line along the first base side, three rows from the wall. NYAB said foul balls had been flying like mad for the first half of the game -- and they must have been, because the ball girl even threw one to our kid, who spent all but one inning playing his portable video game hunched on the ground in what little shade he could find. 

The seventh-inning stretch was very sweet. Longtime readers will recall that Take Me Out to the Ball Game is NYAB's and my wedding dance song, and we've danced to it at every game we've been to since. Except this one, because we were split up.  So I had just posted on Facebook that the stretch isn't as much fun without my dance partner when the kid pops out with, "I'm not stopping my game for this because you always dance with Daddy." I say, "Well, Daddy's not here. Why don't you sing with me?" He says, "I could dance with you, if you want. And we can both sing!"  So we did. It wasn't very romantic, and the kid can't lead very well, but it made my game.

Since the score was 11-1 at this point, people started filtering out.  NYAB came down 2 outs later and we all sat together for another inning before leaving in the bottom of the 8th to beat traffic and get the kid to his Boy Scout meeting. It was important we show up on time for that, since I was supposed to give a presentation on "how news gets published on the Internet" as part of their "communication" requirement.

All of which would have been fine, but my spit-and-paperclip Internet connection was verrrrry slooooww. And then I used a borrowed laptop, but had to copy over some web addresses I hadn't fully memorized which made it eeeeven slooooowwwer. This is a bad thing when you are putting on a show for six first-grade boys.

On the plus side, I think I managed to convince them all that journalism is boring and they should all find other fields of endeavour when they grow up. I considered that my good deed for the day.

This week is basically my spring break. I'm working in the mornings, but from home, and that leaves me with free afternoons. I'm spending it on stuff about as exciting as the kid spent his -- except where he did supply closets and pen drawers, I am doing yard work and laundry. Yeeha. I am grateful, however. Next week the office will be painfully short-staffed, so I'm not sure I'll see much of home.

Stay in school, kids. Grow up to be holographic geniuses.

The Fan of the Game

Saturday afternoon, we went to the Red Sox-Nationals game. 

The Young Prince was torn.  The Nats are really his team, as much as any team is, since it's the local team and he goes to their games.  But on the American League side, he is a true-blue Sox fan, just like his daddy. We are also going to Opening Day on Monday, so as is the Young Prince's wont, he wore his heart on his sleeve -- or rather, his Sox on his chest.  The current incarnation is a Dustin Pedroia shirt. 

As is Not Your Average Blogger's wont, he got us tickets in a "watch out or foul balls will take off your head or maybe some player will sneeze on you" section. 

So there we are, just arrived, settling in, and a guy with a big ol' TV camera is wandering around. As I watch, I see him notice the kid's red shirt and swing around to the front, only to see it is a Sox shirt and keep moving.  He goes to the girl behind us and says, "how about it? Wanna try for Fan of the Game?" 

A whole back and forth ensues. "When would I do this?" "Right now." "What do I have to do?" "Just jump around and act crazy for 30 seconds." "THIRTY seconds? That's a long time!"

Meanwhile, I'm smacking NYAB in the head and shrilling at him, "Put my sweatshirt on the kid! He'll do it! He'll totally do it!" NYAB looks mildly exasperated, stops the camera guy from bantering with the girl behind us and says, "Hey, my kid'll do it. We've got a sweatshirt to cover that up."

"A Nats one?" 

"Yeah, yeah, of course!"

On that shirt goes. The kid hops around like a loon, sweatshirt arms flailing a foot past his fingertips like windmills.

The YP watches an inning and a half before he gets bored. This is not unusual; he will put up with watching and listening to us talk about what's going on for an inning or two, but then his interest wanes. We counter this with Crackerjack and letting him take pictures.

Fast forward to the sixth inning. 

We took terrible iPhone video. 

He was very excited when he won.

And then, the fan of the game went back to HIS regularly scheduled programming: the Ghostbusters game on his DS. 

We figured all the kid won was the adulation of his peers .... but no! Check it out! 

Next round is on the YP!

Domesticity

When I was a comparative slip of a lass, I attended high school in Plant City, Florida. Plant City was famed for being the "winter strawberry capital of the world," and every year they hold a huge festival with concerts and rides and berries upon berries. As a member of the marching band, it was required that I put in some number of hours manning the strawberry pie booth.

I don't like strawberries. I don't like the seeds, I don't like the squish. I will eat artificially strawberry flavored whatever, but real ones? No.

Couple this with the fact that I was an only child, in a household of 3, where if I saw fruit at all, it came out of a can, and I was completely bewildered why anyone would buy an entire flat of strawberries at one go.

I have concluded they all must have been making jelly.

Not Your Average Blogger's mom made fabulous jelly.  We finished the last jar of it a little while back. Sad.

So I figured I might as well take a stab at carrying on the tradition, right? I checked out six books from the library. I read everything I could get my hands on. I found out jam is easy, jelly is hard.  But ... well. Seeds. Squish. Jelly it must be.

Well. Now I know why I like jelly. It is so far removed from actual fruit as to be almost completely unrelated.

After doing my homework, and thanks to Mom and Dad, I got all kinds of nifty jelly-making apparatus for my birthday. I got a canner bath and rack. I got a jar gripper and a lid magnet and some other items. I got another book.

I found a recipe in one of the library books. It was very thorough and incredibly detailed and seemed reasonably idiot-proof. So I went with that.

First, it told me to get 5 quarts of strawberries. Except strawberries are sold in pounds. So that was interesting.

Hulled and chopped.

Mashed.

Then the recipe said to heat them in an 8-qt pan with a cup of water. Well, I had a 6-quart and a 12-quart. I went with the smaller.

When the berries finally did boil, they made a lot of foam. That needs to be skimmed off.

Ew.

Then it said to strain through a seive to get juice from pulp. Large and small. The problem is, the small gunks up the sieve. So I had to dump in little amounts and run through the sieve, then rinse out the sieve and start over. It took five or six cycles to run through the whole potful.

Once the big hunks are done, the juice needs to be strained through cloth. Twice. And more scum skimmed off. And again, the pulp clogs up the process. I used two of three juice bags to get through all the juice, and even doing it that way I had to wiggle the bags around to get to unclogged pieces of cloth.

It said that for truly clear and gorgeous jelly, you should strain it through a coffee filter.  Know what? Screw that. I dropped in a quarter cup and watched it for five minutes and barely any went through.

So after two strains, I put it in a big bowl and refrigerated overnight, to allow sediment to settle. Next morning I measured out the amount I needed.

And strained it one more time. Now, the recipe I was looking at wanted 4 cups of juice and 7 cups of sugar. It also called for two packets of liquid pectin.  Well, I had powdered. So I blew off the original recipe and looked at the recipe in the pectin box. 3-3/4 c juice, 4 cups sugar. Sold!

Juice.

While all this jelly measuring and straining and sugar measuring is going on, you are also supposed to be sterilizing the jars and lids. (I got a shmancy lid holder -- you can see it off to the right in the photo above.)

I had a problem with the jars. I put them in the rack and lowered the rack into the water, and -- duh, the empty jars all immediately tipped over and fell out and rolled around. Harumph. While I was bringing the juice to its first boil, I fished all the jars out.

Pectin.

Boil, stirring constantly. It poofs up right damn quick, so you have to have the sugar RIGHT THERE and be stirring the whole time.

ADD LOTS OF SUGAR.

Stir til sugar dissolves and boil again. It looks virtually the same as the first boil.

Then there is more scum to skim off.

Once everything is all hot and bothered, the jars are out and the jelly is ready, ladle into jars.

Add lids. (Side note. There are five small cans of Dr. Pepper in this shot. They have been in my house for a week. I am doing quite well getting that monkey off my back, thanks to the wonders of Starbucks and Chik-Fil-A iced tea. Now, on with the show.)

Screw on tops. Tightly.

Put in boiling water bath for 5 minutes. I don't know if I was more careful, or having the jars full helped, but none fell over that time.

Take out, let cool.

Five of my six jars sealed correctly, which makes me happy. Now I am waiting to see if this stuff sets up. It's been three hours, and I've been advised not to even bother checking it until tomorrow.
 The jar that didn't seal is in the fridge. Thomas had some of the leftover jelly from the pan on a sandwich and declared it good.  So at the very least, we'll have strawberry sauce for ice cream, I suppose.