A wonderful several days away, reconnecting and connecting, unexpectedly having new tires for Christmas, and then circling through middle PA to hug on previously unmet precious cousins before heading home under the watch of a beautiful sunset.
Good trip, wonderful peoples (=wonderful times), wrapping up 2009 in a hug of love, true & special. The only thing missing from the family “reunion” was NANny and Miss B.
More later- it’s bedtime for travelers.
Happy 
I know I owe so many stories and updates, but as our changed life trudges on each day, the things I’ve missed sharing are being overlaid by many other things.
Somehow time is very different here from time in Florida. I’ve been told that some of the difference is the fact that we are so much further EAST than before, even though still the same time zone. In a way that makes sense, that is, when I have time to think about it.
There I could see the Space Shuttle launches blaze against the sky; here I’ve seen Air Force One (or Two or maybe 17, I’m not sure, but I KNOW it had to be one of those!), many helicopters, swooping heavy planes, and a fighter jet or so.
The snow is still with us. We finally quit being dweebs and got out and about in the local climes just yesterday, but then also again today. Each time we headed out to do something just a few miles away, but with the different acting of TIME and the way “few miles” here just absolutely eats UP Time, every venture out soaks up the entire day (starting from when we begin to get ready to go out through our exhaustion and flopping down seeking [sleep] upon our return.
And we move most of the time as a unit — we have the one vehicle, almost every outing is a new adventure to somewhere we’ve visited never or rarely or just need the support or the navigational assistance, so anyone left at home is … left at home; not good.
So, by the time motivation has reached GO (meaning, usually, that Chick has reminded me sufficient times that if we don’t go we won’t get back), then:
(Chick gets in quickly with little to-do; she’s far more coordinated and motivated and dexterous!).
I don’t know if the hardest part of loading up is getting W strapped into his car seat (he now REALLY hates a 5-point harness and the restrictions thereof) or squeezing me, my coat (whether ON, OFF, or draped), my purse in (and where to put that???), and getting belted and focused on going.
At least the white car has been good about just cranking up, ready to move. Chick had to remove several feet off of it yesterday and then she set about shoveling enough of the drive to get us onto the 1-lane road beyond.
She had been VERY smart in suggesting that we park just on the first part of the drive rather than pulling all the way down closer to the house or halfway down where the tiny ’sidewalk’ starts next to a break in the fence. By following that thought, there was far less snow that had to be heaved out of the way than otherwise.
Still, she spent several hours trying to make this happen. We have no snow-type tools (most of my yard tools were given away when we moved, anyway), so she started first with a plastic dustpan to scoop away the mounds from the car itself.
Then she tackled the access from the drive to the pick-up-truck-with-plow-attached-to-front scraped lane by trying to rake layers from the top down with our friends-the-owners’ leaf rake.
Then she trudged out to a snowed in tool shed (found when we had the incident wherein we met a neighbor – a story still owed here), had to scrape away snow from in front of its door to even peep in to see if there were actually other tools that could be useful – she was able to grasp a regular heavy shovel.
Then she used another tool we’d been gifted with
(some hearty friends who had gone stir crazy from being kept in in DC and had already roamed as far as Annapolis before calling and saying they were going to come by, and bringing coffee beans, potato chips, and the only ’shovel’ they could find: a spade)
so Chick worked with that, too. By the time she came in, she was soaking, not from snow but from perspiration from her hard work. Snow is not light when one wants to move it, no matter how lacily delicate it looks as it flutters down from above.
But the point yesterday in getting out was to take W to get a Santa picture, his very 1st.
We had looked and looked for a Santa for several weeks and had delightedly found one planning a ‘visit’ to a local fabulous nursery this past Saturday for a few hours only. It was a ‘bring your own camera’ no-pressure event, just what we had hoped to find. The “Blizzard of 2009″ meant that Santa’s reindeer couldn’t land there that day, and when I called to check, no rescheduling was happening.
So a friend of Chick’s let her know that she had found “Santa”, but he was at a mall in Annapolis. She was heading there with her several boys and suggested we meet up and do the deed together.
We had planned to leave at ~11 am, but Chick was still outside attacking the snow. 12, 1, 2… I finally had to dress W and myself WARMLY to go outside to try to find her because I couldn’t see her out the windows at all, and I was worried she’d been overtaken by a snowbank.
The precious girl had done the most beautiful and perfect act of snow removal, urged on by a sense that she needed to do the world’s best job to impress me. I was awed and would never have done 1/3 of what she did. But it steamed her up, wore her out (and today she is a giant knot of sore muscles). However, we’d missed heading to Annapolis to meet up — her friend called to see where we were, and was still in a long, long line of cars inching down the access ramp heading for jammed parking with a few thousand other people.
That was enough for Chick to hear — she is NOT one for crowds and inching traffic, nor was she comfortable about what driving conditions we might encounter. She trembles at the thought of Black Ice, as any right-thinking person would. Between us we decided we needed to find something closer and less of a trek (although the miles weren’t a great many, there was still the Time-eating factor of them to consider).
We both began to search and make phone calls. We located a few; in our ignorance of local geography and where places we are, we have no concept of location (to which we always have to add 20-30 minutes to unwind the small, twisting roads from our riverside lodge to get back into real time civilization). So every possibility was hunted on a map, usually via a Googling of the address with resulting notice of what the timing for travel would be on a good day (“…is 17 miles, estimated travel time is 1 hour 13 minutes…” YIKES!). We were getting downward facing spirits.
Then we came across one that was only 11 miles away, no Beltway required, only 47 minutes of travel, and they had a whole “Santa Experience!” notation on their web page. Chick emailed her friend, still in traffic circling Annapolis, to let her know we were going to try for that nearer target instead. Almost immediately she got back a warning that we should NOT go to that mall, she wouldn’t go even with her husband alongside her. She obviously felt that was “NUFF SAID” as she didn’t elaborate.
Now our curiosity was up. What could she mean? What was wrong with the place? In pictures it looked old and a bit tired as other ‘original’ malls in other places we’d lived would look. We weren’t interested in shopping (NOPE!), just wanted a Santa Picture!!!!
We rippled thoughts back and forth before I finally said, I’m just going to call the mall and ask them what this could mean. And I did. I spoke to the nicest lady with whom I pondered the vague warning we’d been given. I’ve worked with malls enough to know that sometimes there are incidents that can create a higher alertness for awhile, a greater sensitivity about things. But she told me there hadn’t been any of these – no robberies, no break-ins, no purse-snatchings. Hmmm, we hmmed together.
She asked what area we were in, and when I told her, she suggested another mall that she thought might actually be closer to us, but, she told me, we were certainly welcome at their mall, too. A profoundly nice conversation, I thought.
But… closer?? AH! We looked up this new possibility, found it was a straight shot down a road we know, and… their web site indeed noted: SANTA EXPERIENCE!
We headed out. There had been significant effort placed into this mission, what with Chick’s physical labor, our usual preparation for going out, the number of Chick’s friends who had tried to help scour the entire DC metro area for Good Santas, the interviewing, the mapping, and now the GOING.
W couldn’t really care, but at 8+ months, he’s not supposed to worry about these things. That’s OUR jobs. We knew that it’s one of those things you can’t go back and fix later. If you want to have Santa pictures for the boy starting with his first Christmas, you have to attend to that BEFORE Christmas – after which Santa’s back at the North Pole and not sharing 2009 photo opportunities with anyone else.
We want to try to create some traditions with the 3 of us.
Ever since Pop died in 2003, things have been so changed and different from Our Family Traditions of more than half a century. The Christmases since have not been anything any of us could rely on for comfort or joy, and the last 2 for sure were some of the saddest, darkest times as Snowy’s disease, at 2 different stages, poured acid over any attempt to mime a Happy Christmas.
So, as we start over with a reshifting of the generational numbering, we want to find those things that can become our way:
It’s just a bit hard this year because of our actually being jobless, homeless, dazed & confused, grieving, a bit chilly, having little that we can call our own (other than all those battered boxes lumped into the storage unit) to gather round us with the relief that familiar things can provide.
We look at W and are relieved that he has no idea of the panic and fear that Chick and I are living with, that is never far from either of our thoughts and is the shadow that lives behind our eyes.
So far he has been so blessed with love and caring and people who absolutely adore him and his merry eyes, now-toothy grin, and happy face.
He has been blessed with the beautiful and well-loved clothes that have come gently down to him from other loved babies in Chick’s interwebs community (and which are likewise passed lovingly on when he quickly outgrows them, the long-limbed little lad!).
He has been blessed with a curious mind that is fascinated by everything he comes across as he studies it from all angles and ponders it in his developing mind, so avid to touch and look at and know.
He has been blessed with an incredible mother who is even more beautiful as she cares for him in the most astute and embracing ways, giving him foundations of love and comfort and ability and potential, fighting for him in so many ways that he will never grasp in years to come how hard it was for her but how determined that he would have what he needed no matter what dragons of ineptitude and bureaucracy she had to take on.
I love my tiny little family. Just to have them here, near, with me is what means all the world to me.
We have no Snowy and Pop to protect us against the worst challenges the world tosses at us as we once did, and how little we grasped then what that meant and what it took from them. That’s just a generation for generation thing. They never knew what challenges WE would face taking care of them as they transitioned away, and I would not have wanted them to know what would be asked of us anymore than they would have wanted us to know what was asked of them.
So, I’ve gotten off-track being sad for a few. I’m sorry – it never gets far enough away that I can forget it more than a flashing moment.
HOWEVER, I will move along in my wandering story to share that we DID find Santa, a wonderful, charming, self-bearded, quiet, and delightful fellow who didn’t seem to mind how much he was put upon by the lines of children, infants, parents who were stacked up to have a claim on his lap once a photo package was selected and the face mugging began. We saw some interesting folks in the line, chatted with a few of them, made big eyes at each other over some of the sights we saw, and then it was ‘our’ turn.
I was to put W with Santa so that Chick could try to snap some extra pictures with her camera while the official photographer was taking the ones for us to choose from (extra snaps were allowed as long as you were buying a photo package, too). We weren’t really given time to make proper introductions and a casual handing off of the baby from my arms to Santa’s. Oh, no. There was a long line waiting, and the niceties were not necessary where commerce was involved.
W was taken aback at being plunked into the waiting arms of even this darling fellow, and his face quickly began registering a scowl. I started waving jingling car keys, the photographer started waving a stuffed white bear, and, with Chick, we all began chanting W’s nickname trying to ‘charm’ him out of his consternation.
He started doing his new trick of arching his back and straightening his legs that usually meant he could just slide right out of unsuspecting arms, but Santa was a pro and kept him in hand.
Then W commenced to ‘riding his horse out of there’, which is his rocking motion learned on my knee and brings him a sense of being in control of his situation, so there were a series of shots of his blur in various locations around an arc centered on Santa’s knee.
Then suddenly he stopped for a moment (snap snap snap snap!!!!) before he turned and just gave Santa a look, then touched his (REAL) long white beard, and they acknowledged each other as 2 proper individuals.
Then W was through with the whole thing, as was Santa, as was the Photographer, as were Chick and I.
We grabbed up our baby, moved along to the Pay Now desk, paid, waited a few moments for our pictures (which Chick had been able to select 2 to combine in our Photo Package from a computer screen), and then we moved away from Santa’s set to where we could look happily at the pictures and the expressions and the memories these would evoke, with laughs, from Chick and me, and in years to come, hopefully, W, who will swear he remembers this although his knowing will come from the oral tradition we will give him of the experience. And, lo, our first little Small World Christmas tradition of this new era has begun.
We are leaving tomorrow for a few days visiting in my father’s home state. We’ve been invited for Christmas Eve dinner at the home of the family of another of Chick’s dearest friends (who is one of W’s godparents), and we’ll be part of a huge family crowd, big tree, yummy eats, loud laughing conversation, peace, joy, happiness, the possibility of a sister’s engagement, sharing, and love that night.
With a special rate for a few days, we will stay in nearby lodgings and just absolutely WALLOW in heat, hot baths/showers, CABLE TV, opportunities to focus on some of our pursuits (including job searching) that are made easier by not being cold.
Then, by the most amazing alignment of the stars, all 3 of W’s godparents will be in Philly for a few moments at the same time so we have set up to get together with them in ONE place so they can enjoy the Boy and the Boy can enjoy them and another tradition will be born.
After that, my squinting at the trails we’ve made on the map of Maryland since we’ve been here had me note that we had come unwittingly close to the PA line at least once at a place that makes a straight line North to the town where one of Pop’s cousins lives, one who had loved and been loved by both Pop and Snowy when they discovered each other a number of years ago (another story), and with whom there had been much connecting and keeping in touch over those years.
Even after first Pop and then the cousin’s husband had died, the two ‘gals’ kept writing and talking with each other. It has been hard on Cousin E for Snowy to drift in mind over the horizon and then to pass away. So, when I saw the ‘proximity’ (only adds another 2-1/2 hours to the return trip) of her hometown to ‘us’, I suggested that we check in with her to see if she would be up for a few hour visit from 2 Girls + a Boy. And she seemed to like that idea. Ah — another tradition can begin!
Thus, we will wander a bit more in the next several days, but happily so, and hopefully return even MORE recharged and ready to embrace and prosper with this upcoming New Year that everyone swears will be better than the one it succeeds.
Blessed be!
P.S. Christmas Eve is Chick’s birthday, and I’ve requested her ‘permission’ to repost the Story of how Chick Came To Be Born for “2 days only”, so watch for that to appear sometime on Christmas Eve. She thinks it is her story and one she should control. I reminded her that it was really MY story (ha ha) and she just shows up at the end. So, hopefully she will forgive, as I always feel an electric sense of excitement and joy as her birthday nears and I remember, as I always do!!!! the events of her birth.
