Best and Worst--Notes from the Road

Worst Hotel Stay:

Holiday Inn , Florence, South Carolina

Noisy, noisy, and noisy. Kids were left unsupervised in rooms and were jumping on beds and wrestling at 2 a.m. Three calls to the front desk and no one did anything about it.

No towels available at the pool after we were told not to BRING towels to the pool, they'd be provided. The complimentary coffee in the lobby was out and when we brought this to the front desk's attention, nothing was done. We checked back 30 minutes later, still no coffee.

No napkins in the restaurant, and when we asked for one, we got a crumpled brown paper towel. We tried to order off the breakfast menu and they were "out of" pancakes, waffles, and french toast. One restaurant employee was trying to make the best of things--I appreciated her efforts.

Our room key failed and had to be replaced.

All of the above took place in an 18 hour period.

Best fast food:

We hit McDonald's, Chick Fil A, Wendy's, Arby's, Burger King, and other places.

Arby's Martha Vineyard Salad was the best entree. Fresh greens, toasted almonds, real chunks of turkey breast, dried cranberries, apple chunks, shredded cheddar cheese with a raspberry vinagariette dressing. Yum! Arby's also had the best fries. Their homestyle fries are chunky and include the potato peel.

Favorite Dessert:

A tie between Ruby Tuesday's chocolate cake and the Westmoreland Berry Farm's fresh fruit ice cream sundae.

Biggest dessert disappointment:

Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. Too expensive, more sweet than flavorful. Even the kids thought it was kind of gross. We threw most of it away.

Worst stretch of highway:

I-95 south of DC to Fredericksburg, Virginia, is constantly congested, backed up or shut down due to accidents. It's depressing.

Kids' favorite attractions:

Adventureland water park in Jacksonville, Florida, was not too big, not too small, and great fun. The wave pool was a blast. 

My kids (who are nearly 12 and 10), surprised us by thoroughly enjoying their tour of Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC, and Jamestown in Virginia. 

Not too exciting:

The aquarium in Charleston. We've been to a lot of aquariums, and this one left us yawning.

August 1, 2007

Old friends : )

I met Low Maintenance Grrrl in homeroom on the first day of eighth grade. The school system had been reorganized, a new middle school created, and none of us were sure what the year would be like. Three elementary schools fed students into the current classroom, and there were lots of unfamiliar faces.

We were excited and nervous and jittery as we surveyed each other. As we took our seats, most of us tried to sit near friends from our old school, but one girl plopped down in the middle of us all and had a different plan.

I don’t remember her exact words but I know they were something like this, “I need to meet some new people!” And then she pivoted around in her chair, started asking people their names and introducing herself.

That was how I became acquainted with Low Maintenance Grrrl and her no nonsense, take charge personality. LMG was someone who was always popular in school, not because she was cool or rich but because she was unabashedly herself.

Friendly and outgoing, she had the capacity to transcend high school cliques and establish relationships with a wide variety of people, guys and girls, jocks and brains, good old boys and hometown girls.

We had nearly all of our classes together throughout high school and bonded through our shared love of track and distance running. Our high school boyfriends were great friends, and we spent a lot of time following the Nature Boys on trails and hikes and dates involving rain and hypothermia. When our boyfriends dumped us, we became champion cadet chasers at the local military college. We kept stats together for our high school football team, served as co-captains on the track team, ran road races together, and both received scholarships to the same college, where we continued our friendship as roommates.

Low Maintenance Grrrl was with me the night I met E and was my maid of honor when we married. Since then, we’ve lived thousands of miles apart but always kept in touch as we navigated marriage, jobs, motherhood, disappointments, medical issues, and deaths in our families. She’s changed careers, earned a master’s, started her own accounting firm, raised a son, joined Michael on plenty of camping, hiking, and whitewater adventures, and been a loyal friend to many.

Today is Low Maintenance Grrrl’s birthday, and seeing as I’m on the road, I didn’t get a card out. Happy Birthday Vicky! I hope Michael and Low Maintenance Boy celebrate your day with gusto!

July 31, 2007

Florence, South Carolina

On our way back to Virginia. Spending the night at a Holiday Inn that is hosting a massive family reunion. Our room is on a courtyard facing the pool. Are y'all thinking what I'm thinking? Yeah. There's going to be lots of voices outside our door tonight.

I hated saying goodbye to E's mom this morning, thinking how long it will be until I see her again. As the car was heading north, my mind was traveling south--imagining her day, the cans of Sprite and Ensure, the TV set to Animal Planet, her walker next to her chair, and the nurse standing by to help her as necessary, including the task of distracting her from the deafening sound of absent family.

I'm dragging today. Tired even after dozing in the car on and off all day. It's been four weeks since we left home. We've traveled 2,500 miles in the van and slept in five different places. When I wake up in the night, it takes me a while to get my bearings, figure out where I am, and how to navigate the darkened room and find the bathroom. All my clothes are wrinkled from being bound by my suitcase. Everything smells unfamiliar.

Tomorrow we  arrive at my friend Lynn's, and i'm looking forward to settling into the familiarity of her home and our friendship. Then on Tuesday it's back to Woodbridge and house buying and mortgage loans and house inspections and tying up loose ends. Next week at this time, I'll be home, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my summer.

3 a.m. in Florida

Sleep recedes to another corner of the room. E's snuffles and snores and coughs under its influence.  I try to breathe with his rhythm. I want a taste of nature's narcotic.

The air conditioner hums, the ceiling fan stirs the air, and in the darkness I know the second hand on the clock is sweeping bits of my life away.

I think about the house we're buying and my stomach churns a bit. Concerns about the foundation. Anxiety over not being present at closing--who can we trust to do the walk through? Who will represent us and explain the paperwork? We've sold houses from a distance but we've never bought one that way.

E's dad died of  ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) in 2001. For reasons I can't explain, I've felt his absence on this trip more acutely than before. E's sister and her husband have four boys, aged 5 to 14 years. They're very active in athletics, and my father-in-law was a sports nut. He would have loved sitting in the bleachers at ballgames and swim meets cheering them on. And I wish he was here for E's mom as she navigates Parkinson's and other illnesses.  She is getting excellent care, but he could give her the type of support none of us can provide.

My mind drifts to milestones that slipped unexpectedly into my summer. Buying a bra for a certain little girl, waking up one morning to notice my son's voice had changed overnight. Realizing that while we slept, he'd crossed some bridge between childhood and adolescence and that the boy I'd kissed the night before was gone forever.

I pull the sheets up to my chin and think of Belgium and Petey (my cat) and the boxes and boxes of items I'll have to go through in order to  downsize enough to make our new home in Virginia comfortable and not cluttered. I mentally start sorting through my kitchen stuff, Christmas decorations. and ponder the fate of beloved toys and books, outgrown but not forgotten.

I think of Di and Peter and the friends I'll leave behind when I move back to America in 2008.  I close my eyes and chase sad thoughts away. I envision future visits to Belgium and trips to Europe. I refuse to accept that once I move back to America, my life will fossilize.

I consider what direction I want to take professionally when I return, how to nurture my creativity, feed my bank account, and use all my skills to best advantage.

A cricket chirps outside the window. The house creaks. My bones groan. I turn my back on questions and wait for morning to lighten my mood.

July 27, 2007

Raised eyebrows in St. Augustine

We took E's mom on a "field trip" to St. Augustine, loading her wheelchair into the back of the van and heading out with the kids and nurse in tow. E's sister had told us that his mother loves to visit a shrine there, the Mission Nombre de Dios, the place where the Spaniards landed in 1565 and celebrated the first Mass in America.

We park and get E's mom unloaded from the van and enter the grounds through the gift shop, which is full of religious statuary, including figurines showing  a fair-skinned Jesus playing football, baseball, and basketball. I kid you not. Jesus the All American athlete was an interesting cultural curiosity.

The shrine E's mom likes to visit at the Mission is devoted to Mary and motherhood. It's called Nuestra Senora de La Leche. The tiny ivy-covered chapel with the tile roof looks Spanish and has a simple altar, benches, and votive candles within its walls. This is a place where women struggling with infertility come to pray for divine intercession. I stand in the back absorbing all the energy of hope tinged with despair, and a woman comes up to me asking for money, holding a sign that says Hungry and Homeless.

We wander the grounds, pushing E's mom along in her wheelchair. It is a lovely place, and I pause before a statue of St. Francis that I particularly like. From the Mission, we drive in the van through the main tourist district. E's mom spots a restaurant on the water where she'd like to have lunch. We're not sure we can wheel her up onto the pier that leads to the restaurant, but we want to try because the restaurant clearly captured her interest and that's rare.

There isn't an available handicap parking spot on the street, so E and the nurse pull over to the side of the road and unload E's mom first. He'll park later. We have to take her out of the opposite side of the van from the door she normally enters and exits, and this proves a bit arduous. We finally succeed and wheel her across the street. We get all the way up to the pier and see a sign for the restaurant: "Closed on Wednesdays."

Closed on Wednesdays? WEDNESDAYS? Where am I? BELGIUM? We roll our eyes and walk back and struggle to get E's mom back into the van. We cruise the tourist area again looking for a place to eat and decide to eat at The White Lion. Once again, parking is a challenge, we can't get E's mom out of the van easily because we can't find a handicap spot, and it's a bit difficult. Once we get her into the wheelchair and walk over to the restaurant, we discover the handicap access is all the way on the other side of the building and we have to walk around the block to get there. It's hot. We're on the verge of getting grouchy as the wheelchair bumps over the brick sidewalks.

We're greeted by an icy blast of air in the restaurant and Lisa, our friendly waitress. She's very patient with E's mom, who is overwhelmed by the menu and a bit confused about what she wants to eat. She takes a long time to decide, and Lisa lets her, treating her with respect and not TALKING LOUDLY AT HER as if increasing volume faciliatates comprehension.

Once we survive placing the order and have tall, cold drinks in front of us, the kids and I start chatting and laughing and relaxing a bit. We're watching the food channel on the pub's TV and critiquing the cooking shows with a lot of humor. Lunch is delicious and E's mom wants dessert. The kids, of course, just LOVE this about Grandma. She always orders dessert!

Lisa describes our options, "We have cheesecake, strawberry shortcake, and The Giant Chocolate Thing, which is a big bowl of chocolate pudding, cake, and whipped cream in layers covered with chocolate candy on top."

E orders strawberry shortcake for his mom, cheesecake for the kids, and says, "My wife doesn't want dessert but I'll give her some of my Thing."

The waitress can't suppress a laugh when she considers E giving me his Thing for dessert.

I totally crack up. E turns red, laughs a bit, and then says to me, "You're not going to blog this, are you?"

Between giggles, I tell him that of course I'm going to blog it. I owe Bernie a good laugh.

July 25, 2007

Back in the sunshine state

I‘ve been traveling to northern Florida once a year for all of my adult life. E’s parents settled in Gainesville shortly before I met him, and now his mother lives with his sister’s family in Jacksonville.

The interstate is a flat ribbon winding through scrubby trees and pines under a sky whitened by the summer heat. Billboards promise fast food meals, cheap hotels, golf, outlet malls, and discount tickets to Disney.

The miles slide by in sameness. Our knees complain at each stop, stiff and aching. The inside of the van is littered with books and water bottles. We cross into the Sunshine State under cloudy skies. E knows the way to his sister’s house in Jacksonville by heart.

This is the first time the kids and I have seen E’s mom since we moved to Belgium two and a half years ago. I’m a bit anxious about what her condition will be. She has rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson’s disease, a form of dementia, and assorted other health issues. For months, the kids have been talking about how much they’re looking forward to seeing their grandma.

E was here in February, and his mom had back surgery. After the surgery, she was in a rehab facility for a few weeks. Now she’s back at E’s sister’s home and has full time nursing care.

When we see her, I’m pleasantly surprised at how well she’s doing. She recognizes the children, who have grown so much, and engages us all in conversation. They park in chairs next to hers and tell her about Petey our cat and the trips we’ve made in Europe. Later, E’s sister and her husband arrive home from a swim meet. They have four boys and the kids pick up where they left off.

E’s sister is my age and we’ve always gotten along well, Her husband B and I share an offbeat sense of humor. Around a crowded dinner table that night, the kids are animated and excited, the adults drinking margaritas, and E’s mom taking in the whole scene. E’s dad died six years ago, and I think how much he would have enjoyed seeing all of us together.

Later that evening as I’m kissing my mother-in-law goodnight, she says, “Veronica, it was so good to hear your laughter tonight.” And in that moment I realize what a gift that is to give, the gift of laughter.

July 23, 2007

Meltdown in Charleston

Charleston—lovely, historic, and perched on a harbor—the perfect place for a meltdown.

E booked us into a nice hotel with a beautiful view and shuttles that run back and forth to the heart of the historic district. Because we arrived in the middle of the day, we decided to go visit the aquarium and then explore the city on foot later in the afternoon when things cooled off.

Except in Charleston, things never do cool off. It was hotter than hot, and I’m just not used to intense heat and humidity anymore.

Let’s start my tale of woe with the hotel van, which was packed to capacity with tourists and had broken air conditioning. It felt like steam was coming off our skin. The aquarium was welcome relief from the elements, but when we stepped outside afterwards, it felt even hotter than it had when we’d gone in.

I was wearing a linen skirt and cotton t-shirt and toting a quart of water with me. We kept crossing streets looking for shady sidewalks, pausing to read all the placards describing the history of the 19^th century houses lining the streets. Eventually we reached the market and I’d had more than enough of walking and was not at all interested in shopping. I parked my butt on a bench.

I was sweating so much I felt rivulets running down between my shoulder blades and soaking into my waistband. My bra felt disgusting and clammy against my skin and the front of my orange t-shirt was soaked from chest to stomach with a bold and distinctive hour glass shaped sweat stain with two half moons of sweat under my sleeves. I’m sure the back of my shirt looked equally wet. Good lord, this is the quantity of sweat that is only socially acceptable on athletes and laborers. I felt humiliated by it as women in heels cruised by in sundresses and deep tans.

The hotel shuttle runs on a two-hour cycle, so we waited a long time for it to come back around and then a large group of us squeezed into it like riders on a Japanese train. By then, I was beyond miserable, beyond hot, beyond any shred of interest in seeing even one more square inch of Charleston.

Back at the hotel, I stripped off my clothes, parked in front of the air conditioning vent and declared I was DONE being a tourist in Charleston in July. There was no way I was setting foot outside the hotel or getting back into their stupid hot-box of a shuttle.

This morning E and the kiddos loaded up to go tour Fort Sumter, home of the first battle of the Civil War. After they left, I spent 35 minutes looking for my sandal in our hotel room. Yes, my sandal.

How can you lose a sandal a hotel room? Good question! We’ve been living out of suitcases and shopping bags for three weeks now and despite our best efforts, everything is in disarray. My sunglasses are missing (another reason I hated walking around yesterday), I can’t find my aspirin (needed for my heart), there are piles of funky laundry next to all our suitcases, stinky flip flops on the floor, and wet swimsuits spread out to dry. It’s like a high-class tenement. 

E-Grrrl has balled up her clothes and shoved them into her suitcase. Mr. A’s suitcase isn’t much better. After opening up closets and drawers, tearing the beds apart, and crawling around on my hands and knees on the floor searching for my bloody sandal, I finally decided to look through ALL the suitcases one more time. I finally found my sandal wrapped in a clump of clothes in E-Grrrl’s suitcase.

After spending 45 minutes looking for the sandal, I didn’t get to the hotel restaurant for breakfast until after 10 a.m. Because I was by myself, they seated me over in the lounge area, where I had to wait for 20 minutes for a server to notice me and come over to the table.

When I went to pay for my meal, I discovered that I had had some chocolate in my purse yesterday and the 100 degree heat reduced it completely to a liquid state. Y’all, it looked just like someone had taken an enormous crap in my handbag. Everything covered in a sticky brown mess.

I’m looking on the bright side—at least my purse smells good.

July 21, 2007

I think we should take up a collection for Rock Grrrl

As many of you know, Rock Grrrl and I did a house swap. For five weeks this summer, she's living in my house in Belgium while I'm staying in her condo in Virginia.

We opted to rent a van for a month but Rock Grrrl graciously told us we are welcome to use her Jeep as a second vehicle while we're at the condo. She left us instructions on how to drive the Jeep, which are SO blog worthy. Here are the notes Rock Grrrl left on her Jeep:

"The speedometer DOESN'T WORK! 2,000 rpms in fifth gear = 70 mph, 1,800 rpm is about 55 mph.

Since the speedometer doesn't work, neither does the odometer. Get a receipt if you have to get gas so I can plug it into my spreadsheet and estimate the mileage.  :)

Sometimes it tries to stall out when you come to your first stop. Won't do it again once you restart (usually just does this in the morning).

If it rains a lot, the brake lights might not work. It's a wiring thing--be aware.

Sometimes it revs really high when you first start it up. Slamming the gas pedal sometimes works, other times you have to lift the hood and manually rev the choke. 

The AC fan only works on high right now, but the AC DOES work!

The green box in the back has jumper cables, coolant, and other car things in it."

Says V-Grrrl, "Jumper cables? Coolant? Tools? What Rock Grrrl really needs is AAA membership AND a new car!" Send your check today to the Give a Rockin Grrrl a Jeep fund!"

P.S. I don't manually adjust chokes in parking lots anymore, no matter how much someone complains about their revving engine. I'm just too old for that, y'all.

July 18, 2007

Finally, a photo of the Versace glasses

I admit that I raised a big ruckus about the new glasses and how cool they were and how much I loved them, and yet when I look at these photos, the frames don't show anything especially remarkable. I guess the magic of the new glasses is in the heart of the wearer and not the eye of the beholder.  I'm thrilled to finally be able to see at all distances and the purple frames just rock my socks off.  (Photo below is in different light and shows them in all their colorful glory.)

July 18, 2007

Back to see the house

This morning we went back to the house, to meet the owners and to be present during the home inspection. The owners were very gracious and provided lots of information about the house.

They're retired and moving to North Carolina, and selling this house, which they've invested so much of themselves into, is wrenching. My hope is that they liked our family, understood that we appreciate all they'd done to to the house to make it a wonderful place to live, and that our joy in it will ease the pain of letting it go.

It was great to have them give us a personal tour and point out features we missed when we visited with the realtor: a broom closet tucked into a side wall, pocket doors separating the kitchen from the office area, a jewelry drawer hidden in a small space. the antique bathroom cabinets. It was good to just linger in the spaces, envisioning where I'd put things and how I'd arrange the rooms.  Every minute I spent there, I felt more and more thrilled with our decision to buy this house, more convinced that storage would not be as big an issue as I'd imagined, and that we would spend hours outside enjoying the landscaping and the incredible deck and patio.

I realized that this house feels like home already because it reminds me of all the homes E and I have lived in and loved. Our first house was a brick rambler, and this one is as well. The hardwood floors, heavily wooded lot, brick fireplace, and big windows remind me of our Cape Cod, and the dark stained cabinets, brick sidewalks and fan-shaped patio made from pavers remind me of Belgium.

The inspector found some issues we'll have to resolve before moving forward, but I'm confident they can be worked out.  I haven't posted photos because I don't feel it's quite appropriate to do that before we close on the house and make it our own. For now, it belongs to W and A, but when it becomes Chez V, I'll open the front door and take y'all on a tour.

July 17, 2007