Category Archives: Travel

just the three of us again

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I’m so far behind on blogging and reading other people’s blogs, I feel like I’ll never catch up. The family visit is now officially over. To sum up the rotten air travel luck that my family had:

* My sister sat on the runway at JFK for 4 hours before her 6-hour flight to Seattle. I’m not sure how she endured that without throwing herself out of the emergency exit door with no parachute, but she did. You can probably guess the kind of mood she was in when she arrived, but she was fine by the next day. I wouldn’t have been, I think I would’ve been grumpy about that for weeks.

* My brother flew home on Sunday, and the airline lost his suitcase. It still hasn’t turned up. How does an airline lose a suitcase on a non-stop flight? One can only wonder.

* My parents were supposed to fly home yesterday, but their flight was cancelled. Which was really no big deal, since it meant that they got an extra day of Grandbaby Time, so they weren’t too terribly inconvenienced. They left early this afternoon instead.

I love having my family around, and this was a really great visit, although poor Catie is exhausted. I guess it’s the over-stimulation of having so many people around, and everyone talking to her and trying to get her to smile and laugh all the time. She’s totally worn out. Last night she woke up screaming every half hour, which she hasn’t done in forever. She didn’t need anything as far as I could tell. I’d bring her to bed with me, she’d fall asleep in about two minutes, I’d put her back in her crib, and we’d start all over again 30 minutes later. Finally at 2:30 a.m., I told Dave that she was going to sleep in our bed, and he agreed. She didn’t make a peep until 8:30 this morning.

Now I’m worried that we’ve established some sort of precedent and she’s going to expect to sleep in our bed every night, in which case she will be sorely disappointed. Mama needs her elbow room, and I don’t particularly enjoy waking up to someone trying to grab my nose and yank my hair out. Crazy, I know, but that’s just me.

home again

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Obviously we survived the flight home from San Jose. It was pretty uneventful, except for the stupid satellite lot where we parked our car, which promised to have vans every 10 minutes, 24 hours a day. And we waited 45 minutes for a van. With the baby. Who had been good all day, and was starting to get very cranky. I was enraged.

To be fair, it wasn’t entirely the parking lot people’s fault. There had been one van that came by earlier, but the other people who were waiting saw us with all our baby gear and bolted for it, so by the time we got to the van, there was no room left and we had to wait for the next one. Jerks. I hope they all got speeding tickets on their way home.

The trip did, however, accomplish one goal, as far as deciding whether or not we could move to the Bay area someday. The conclusion that Dave and I came to? Probably not. The minute we got back to Seattle, we were both like, “Ah, trees! And clouds! We’re home!”

It’s not the weather, which was honestly fine the whole time we were there. The lack of trees was sort of unnerving (no shade! anywhere!), although I could deal with that if I had to. Really, it’s just the idea of dropping over a million dollars on some teeny-tiny house that doesn’t seem very realistic. Our financial stability is already iffy with me not working. I know that people somehow do manage the cost of living down there, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how they do it.

Also, a lot of the people seem kind of tense. You’d think there would be sort of a laid-back, west coast, surfer dude vibe happening, but there isn’t. Especially not on the freeways. I complain about Seattle drivers, but man, they’ve got nothing on the Bay area. I could see myself developing a major case of road rage if I had to battle that traffic on a daily basis.

That’s not to say we won’t relocate someday. Dave and I are kicking around some ideas on that topic, although I don’t know if they’ll turn into anything. I do love the Pacific Northwest, so no matter where we go, I’d be sad to leave. But we’ll do what’s best for our family, and in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, we’ll make it work.

Anyway, now we’re in trip recovery mode: tons of laundry needs to be done, the fridge needs to be restocked (you’d be surprised how much stuff can go bad in a week), and the litter boxes… man, y’all don’t even want to know about them. We paid the teenager across the street to feed the cats while we were gone, but I didn’t ask her to tend to the litter boxes, and hoo boy, they are scary now. So there’s tons o’ fun to be had for me!

claim to fame

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Today, an internet rock star held my baby:

Amanda is a total sweetheart, just super-nice and easy to talk to. And her kids are gorgeous. Genoa is so cute, and constantly on the move – she wants to walk, walk, walk everywhere. Alex is really funny, and way chattier than I expected. Most kids I know don’t really talk to adults, but he has no problem with that. And I learned quickly that I don’t speak Little Boy – he mentioned something about a crane, and I thought he meant a bird. Um, no. Construction equipment, duh. I suppose that if I ever have a little boy, I’m going to have to learn that stuff pretty quickly.

Oh, and I now have a major case of Camera Envy. And Christmas is a loooong way off. Rats.

There’s not much else to report. Monday, Cate and I lounged around the hotel and did nothing while Dave was at work. Yesterday, mommy & baby drove around to explore some more neighborhoods, and that night we all went to dinner with my aunt. It’s always fun to catch up with people in my family, so that was a good time.

Oh, the story I forgot to tell. So, we’re staying at an Embassy Suites. If you’ve ever been inside one, you know they’re all the same: a big center atrium with rooms all around the perimeter, and 4 elevators – two in front and two in back. After we first checked in and got our luggage to our room, Dave and Cate went to lie down for a nap, and I went back to the car to haul in our stash of groceries (the perk of having a mini-fridge in the room).

I noticed that there were about a dozen or so kids on various floors, running around the perimeter hallway. I didn’t think anything of it until I was trying to get on an elevator to go downstairs. It took well over five minutes to get an elevator, and when it finally stopped on my floor, it was going up instead of down. Fine, whatever. We’re on the fifth floor. A girl who was probably about twelve years old got on the elevator at the 6th floor, pressed the buttons for both 7 and 9, then jumped off at the 7th floor. Since she had also pushed the button for 9, I was confused and said, “um, what?” as she was getting off, and she kind of giggled and ran off. Little brat.

So that’s why the elevators were taking forever. The kids were jumping into an elevator, pressing a whole bunch of buttons, then jumping off at the next floor to run around to the other end of the atrium and do it all over again. Meanwhile, the elevator has to keep stopping at every floor. Either that or they’d hit the elevator call button and dash away, so it would stop at a floor and there would be no one there.

Another five minutes later, I’d had to stop on every. single. damn. floor. And I lost it. It had already been a long day, flying with the baby and everything, and I had just had enough. Finally, these two little boys got on the elevator. They were maybe 9 or 10 years old. As one of the kids reached for the buttons, I said in my best stern mother tone, “Don’t you dare touch a single button on that elevator.”

They both stopped dead and stared at me. I went on: “It has taken forever for me to get downstairs on this elevator, I am sick of this stupid little game you guys are playing. Where on earth are your parents? I’m telling the manager because this is bullsh*t.” Sometimes cursing in front of kids seems to be a pretty good way to get their attention. It worked, I’m pretty sure I scared the crap out of them.

And I wasn’t bluffing, I really did tell the manager. As I was coming back in with the groceries, I saw a couple of hotel security guards at one of the rooms. Since the kids were all around the same age and of various races (and because there were so many of them), I’m guessing that it was some sort of school or church trip, and the chaperones weren’t staying on top of things. Who knows. But I was kind of proud of myself for the fact that I was able to get children to listen to me. Whaddya know, apparently I’m really an adult. I’m also proud of myself for not hauling off and smacking them upside the head, because believe me, I was tempted.

beach trauma

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We flew in to San Jose on Saturday, which was one of those nightmare “everything you do only makes you an hour later than you should be” experiences. But we finally got here, settled into the hotel, and both Dave and Cate took naps. (I had consumed way too much Diet Coke, there were no naps in sight for me.) That night, we got to meet up with Cat, Tony & e-baby for dinner, which was great. I almost never get to see them more than once a year, so twice in less than three months is a real treat.

Yesterday, Dave and I went house-hunting. It’s an idea we’re kicking around – if he wants to stay at his new job long-term, it may require us to relocate to the Bay area. It’s not necessarily my preference. I love Washington, and I have friends there, so moving isn’t something I’d be terribly excited about. But if it’s important for Dave’s career, then that’s what we’ll do.

The problem is, the housing market here is so insane – we tend to think that the Seattle area is expensive until we come down here, and then it’s like, “wait, a 2 bedroom, one bath bungalow for $850K? Are you KIDDING me???” For what our nice big four-bedroom house on two acres is worth, we could maybe get a 2-bedroom condo in a sketchy neighborhood here. It’s unbelievable.

So we drove all over the place yesterday, and definitely found some places where we know we absolutely don’t want to live, but we found a couple of places that we could stand and which we might possibly be able to afford without selling any of our internal organs or our future children.

We ended up in Santa Cruz, which is one of the places where I would absolutely love to live – it’s a beautiful town, and there are parts of it that we could possibly afford, although the commute wouldn’t be very practical for Dave. While we were there, we went to the beach to dip Cate’s toes in the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt4GgZLFJoo

As you can see, she was not fan of the beach at all. Hopefully we didn’t traumatize her too badly, but we thought it was pretty hilarious.

Oh, and I surprised myself at the beach with my maternal instincts. There were dogs running around all over the place, playing frisbee and whatnot. After we filmed that video and Cate was still screaming, I lay her on a towel on the sand to try to calm her down. This little Boston terrier came over, probably just to check out the small screaming creature on the beach. I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm, but without even thinking about it, I yelled “no!” and shoved him away. Um, what? I normally wouldn’t touch a stranger’s dog, but I didn’t know the dog, I wasn’t sure if he was gentle or not, and my Big Ol’ Mama Bear instinct kicked in and told me to get him the hell away from my baby. His owners – two guys who were several yards away – saw me and called the dog back, and I thought about apologizing to them for pushing their dog. I know I didn’t hurt him, I just felt kind of rude. But then I decided that maybe they should have been more vigilant about making sure their dog wasn’t around any little kids, so whatever.

Oh, and remind me to tell y’all about how I scared the bejeezus out of some punk kids at our hotel. I’m pretty proud of myself for that one.

P.S. Pics from the trip so far are here. I’ll keep adding to that set as we take more photos.

not really a vacation, but…

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Dave has to go to California for work next week. Seeing as our two-year anniversary is on Tuesday, and I didn’t love the idea of being alone in the boonies with the baby for a week, I decided that Cate and I would tag along with him. I already know that she does pretty well on planes, and it’s only a two hour flight, so why not? His company is paying for the hotel and the rental car, all we have to fork over is the plane fare (which really isn’t that bad from here to the Bay area). I’ll drop him off at work in the morning so Cate and I can have the rental car during the day, and oh, the fun we will have.

So, we’re flying out on Saturday (as in, the day after tomorrow), and coming back next Friday. Turns out that my cousin Cat is also in the Bay area this week for work, so we’ll get to see her, Tony and e-baby before they leave. Woo! Also on the agenda: dinner with my aunt, meeting up with a girlfriend from college, and I’m retardly excited that Cate and I have a playdate with the lovely and talented Amanda, who I’ve had a blog-crush on for years.

Of course, this also means that we’ll be out of town on my very first Mother’s Day, so my plans for the day will have to be postponed a week. (More on that later.) But that’s ok, we’ll just pretend that Mother’s Day is on the 20th instead of the 13th. Works for me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have about 50 loads of laundry to wash, I need to get a copy of our house key made for the teenager across the street (she’s going to check on the kitties for us), and oh yeah, the baby is screaming. The fun never stops!

back home again

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The trip to Mississippi was so much fun, and this post would be a mile long if I mentioned everything that happened, so I’ll try to keep it (relatively) short with some highlights:

  • I scored a ton of baby clothes, courtesy of my mom. At least half of them involve ruffles across the butt. They’re hilarious.
  • My dad and I took Cate for a lot of walks around the neighborhood. My dad walks at least 2 miles a day, in addition to his daily golf game – not bad for a 71 year-old guy. Since we went on his usual route, he got to stop along the way to show Cate off to the neighbors, which he loved. It’s so funny to see what a softie he’s become in his old age.
  • My parents, Cate and I had dinner with Sally and Larry Ferrari. Sally is just as funny in person as she is on her website, so if you ever have the opportunity to meet her, I highly recommend it. We ate at a place called Hamil’s, which was a buffet of all kinds of old-fashioned Southern food. I managed to resist the urge to shovel the fried okra into my mouth by the handful, but I think I probably talked with my mouth full. A lot. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until afterward, I just could not. stop. eating. Go me with the fabulous first impressions.

    Oh, it was also funny trying to explain to my dad what a “blog” is and how Sally and I sort of already knew each other even though we hadn’t technically met in person yet.

  • The second stop on my meeting-other-bloggers tour was to have lunch with Danielle and Emily. Emily is such a cutie with her big blue eyes and 2 bottom teeth. She’s one of the smiley-est babies (yes, I just made up a word) I’ve ever met. It was a lot of fun.
  • After lunch with Danielle, I had the most surreal part of my trip: since I was in the neighborhood, and Cate was asleep in the car seat, I drove past my old school, where I went from 2nd through 11th grades. The school closed down in 2000, so it’s been sitting there abandoned for the past several years. The playground is all overgrown with weeds, the buildings are falling apart, and the gymnasium was gutted by a fire a few months ago (apparently vagrants had been living in there). It was so bizarre, like seeing something from your childhood in a dream. I can’t say I felt sad about it, since I don’t have very many happy memories associated with the place. It was just strange.

    Interesting tidbit: before my school bought the facility in the early 80’s, it had been a White Citizens’ Council school. It’s ironic that the neighborhood surrounding the school is now almost entirely African-American. There seems to be some sort of poetic justice in that.

  • Continuing with the baby-oriented theme, my sister and I met up with a couple of her friends who have babies too. One was her former college roommate, who has a baby girl exactly one month younger than Cate. The other was a friend who now has three girls: a 9 year-old, a 6 year-old, and a 9 month-old. I’m exhausted just writing that sentence, I don’t know how she does it.
  • One little self-discovery that I made on this trip: in the past, I’ve always been very tense when I go to Jackson. Growing up there wasn’t a happy time for me, and every time I’ve gone back to visit, I’ve emotionally gone back to that very insecure and unhappy place. But it didn’t happen. I’m not sure why – maybe it’s my age, the fact that I’m married, that I’m now a mom, or maybe it’s a combination of all of it. But I was totally fine and happy this time. Weird.

    One of the nights that I called Dave to check in, I told him how I was surprised to feel completely un-stressed, and he asked if that meant that I wanted to move back to Mississippi. Um, NO. Even though his salary would take us a lot farther there than it does in Washington, and he works from home so theoretically we could make that work. And it would be nice to live closer to my parents. There’s still the issue of the heat and the bugs, and the fact that I absolutely love the Pacific Northwest. So I think we’re staying put for the foreseeable future.

  • The flight home was pretty easy – I had nice flight attendants, Cate slept most of the way, fussed very little, UNTIL. About 15 minutes before we started our descent into Seattle, it occurred to me that it had been about 5 hours since I changed Cate’s diaper, so I’d better hurry up and do that before she soaked through her little outfit. We grabbed our supplies and headed off to the restroom. (Cue the music of impending DOOM.)

    I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before, but Cate has a tendency to pee the second that I undo her diaper and she feels a draft of fresh air on her bits. Normally I’m on the lookout for it, and I’m able to catch the stream in the already-wet diaper. No big deal, right? Well, this time I thought I had caught it, but I was sadly mistaken. And I didn’t realize that the flip-down changing table in the airplane restroom was slightly tilted. And my changing pad is waterproof. So the pee went all the way up her back, thoroughly soaking her outfit, and made a little puddle right at the back of her head. She had pee IN HER HAIR. Oh my good lord. Eww eww eww. I tried to clean her up with wet paper towels and baby wipes, but seriously, how gross is that?

    Our plane got in at 10:45 p.m., so it was after midnight by the time we got home from the airport. I hadn’t been planning to give Cate a bath the minute that we got home, but after the pee incident, that plan changed. I started calling her Pee Head, and Dave came up with one even better: Catie Urinatey. I’m afraid she might have a new permanent nickname. Poor kid.

    • So now we’re home and settling back into our routine. And I have to go catch up on a week’s worth of blogs that I’ve been missing. Whee!

    blogging from Mississippi

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    I know I’m overdue for an update, but I’ve been having a blast visiting with my family and all sorts of other cool folks. Cate and I are headed home tomorrow evening, and we’re both missing Dave a lot, so we’re very much looking forward to seeing him.

    Until I get a chance to recap this whole trip, you can see the pictures here.