The House That Keeps On Giving

In a previous post (The Hunt For Home) I wrote about some of the wonderful things that led us to choose this particular house, in which to create a home for our family. Once we moved in, however, the house had a lot more in store for us than we originally thought. I didn't even know how to begin telling you about it, so I just made a "Ten List".

1) "My God, it's full of stars" (It's a movie quote, can you tell me which one?). Although it's thee number one fastest growing area in the state, our town is still pretty small, and as close as we are to shopping centers and major streets, our neighborhood is dark at night. Neighborhood porch lights only do so much when the houses are well spaced apart, and being out of the city limits we have no public street lights. It's gets a little creepy, yes sir it does. We have wild animals around here, and I can get a little freaked out just having a quick cigarette on my back porch past sunset. But you know what else?... We can see stars for miles, even the little baby ones that sometimes make you wonder if they're really there, or if your eyes are playing tricks on you. We can see comets (when they come), and we will see meteor showers (when they happen). We have a perfect view of the moon every night, and it's spectacular.

Doe feeding on the seed
she had spilled from the bird feeder

2) By the way, in case you skimmed past that, let me reiterate... "we have wild animals around here". How awesome is that? The deer walk a path right between my neighbor's house and ours. Sometimes on his side of the shrubbery, sometimes not. Sometimes they eat the seed right out of our bird feeder. There's also a fox that walks the perimeter of his territory in the wee hours, and apparently our side of the shrubbery is part of that perimeter. I've heard talk of coyote around these parts, and I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if there were ever a black bear in the area. On a smaller, less dangerous note, there are plenty of songbirds in the yard, and my son saw a groundhog up by the railroad tracks.

beautiful tracks

3) Let's talk about those railroad tracks, that run across the road about 300 feet from our back porch. There may be days when it doesn't run at all. And there may be days when it runs two or three trips in eighteen hours. And every time it's about to come up on an intersection, it blows the whistle. That's how we know that it's time to gather at the back door and watch it go by. I know that sounds silly, but I love that train. Man, there is nothing on this earth like a melancholy mood punctuated by the lone whistle of a distant train in the deepest darkness of the night. It makes one think of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, and Little House on the Prairie (or is that just me?).

4) You know what else reminds me of Little House on the Prairie? Kind and generous neighbors who stop to chat, and help you out with gardening supplies, and keep an eye on your place while your out, and bring you fresh eggs and home grown garden fare... and who don't yell at you when your dog gets out of your yard and into their chicken pen. Especially if all she wanted was to roll around in the poo and make a couple of feathered friends.

5) When we toured the house, Hubsy was concerned that it might be a little small, and we both wondered how we were going to get all of our belongings inside, without it looking like an episode of hoarders. However, being a house of the eighties, I'm convinced that there must have been some lycra-spandex woven into the drywall, because the house just seemed to get bigger and bigger, the more stuff we stuffed into it. It's bigger than you think. (Ha! That's what he said!)

6) There's history in my own backyard... well, the whole neighborhood, really. You see, my neighbor with the chickens lives in a most fabulous turn of the century historic house. Built in ... I think it was 1809(?). It sits there, cockeyed to the main road, looking all antebellum, and reminding me that once upon a time all of the surrounding property (including our house) was once just acreage upon acreage of farmland, tobacco probably, settled by simpler people in a simpler time. Well, it might not have been quite so simple, but theirs are the shoulders upon which we stand today.

7) Another great thing about this house in this neighborhood is that it's simply NOT our old house in our old neighborhood. That house was just as full of bad memories as it was good ones, and those walls were beginning to haunt some of us. But upon breaking out, our once "monster teen" blossomed into an almost unrecognizable actual human being. Her "new attitude" made it possible for us to bestow certain freedoms upon her, to which she stepped up again to prove her maturity. We've all taken a lot of pressure off of each other, thus allowing us all to be more relaxed and enjoy this family circus!

Rare white peacock feeding after a rain shower

8) Thinking back to that wild animal thing, I'd like to comment on a few domesticated animals that cross our path here... Peacocks, precisely. My neighbor has raised the prettiest peacocks, and we see them all the time, especially after a rainfall, when they wander out into the front to feed on insects in the freshly wet grass. He even has a rare white bird that has been featured in magazines. Even when we can't see them, we hear them throughout the day. It sounds like a game of Zoo Tycoon (if you've ever had a flourishing peacock exhibit).

9) Location Location Location. We seem to be sitting at a crossroads of nature's elements. The front of the house witnesses the rising sun every morning, and the back porch watches it set. We also watch the moon as it practically follows the same path. There is a nearly steady breeze that sweeps across the back yard from north to south, and back again! My indoor plants are thriving in the windows, for the first time in years, and those summer evenings in the backyard are ever so enjoyable!

10) The sound of silence? No. The Sound of Music. Okay, just sound. I've mentioned the train and the peacocks, and the songbirds, but there's also a tone of silence. In the wee hours, or on a cool summer morning, or even just past dusk, there is a perfect peaceful stillness all around us. The occasional car on the passing road just sounds like a rippling wave. But the house itself seems to have a sound barrier built in, for as loud as I cranked my tunes this afternoon, I couldn't even hear the stereo from the front garden... with the windows open! Likewise, from the inside you can't even tell there is a lawn mower hard at work. And I haven't even mentioned the vocal acoustics in the upstairs shower!

The Hunt For A New Home

My little circus is now residing under a brand new Big Top.

With Hubsy's new property being twenty some miles away, we finally made the decision to relocate (flee from the hood).  We'd been talking about it for the past year, but this time we made the firm decision to do it, and to do it now.  

No really, I mean now... now... RIGHT NOW!  (If you're not familiar with what I am referring to, please see #6 of this post about my Bipolar "mood personalities").

It took me two days to find this house.  I mean, it wasn't hidden under a rock somewhere.  But even if it had been hidden in the farthest back boondocks of the internet, I would've found it.  We were destined to find it; we just didn't know it yet.

It was the second listing in the search results that met my housing criteria, but I wasn't particularly pleased with the curb appeal in the photo, so I moved on.  No biggie.  I wasn't going to jump on the very first, or second house I found, you know.

I must have looked at fifty houses over the course of two days, in various areas surrounding our targeted town, but nothing really jumped out at me.  I didn't think I was being picky, but we had a did have a certain criteria in mind.  Okay, so our "criteria" was really nothing more than a hopeful list of dreams... what would we have, if we could have anything?

1.  I really want each of my kids to have their own room.  First of all, I am sooo done with the fighting and the drama over who snores or talks in their sleep, who won't turn down the music late at night, and who really made that mess.  Besides, these girls need a place to freely express their very different personalities.  A comfort zone, a safe zone, a no-fly zone.  The teenager doesn't want to stare down Dave Coulier and Taylor Swift in the conscious hours that are the darkness of her emo-punk existence.

2.  It has to be a house.  No more duplex, and certainly no apartment.  No more sharing a wall, backyard, or driveway with anyone who will not be equally as considerate of noise and decorum, and have at least an equal amount of common sense.

3.  And if it's going to be a house, it sure would be nice to have a bit of a yard.  As a family, we love spending time outdoors, but we're also kind of homebodies, so we need a private space of our own.  And a place for the dog to roam freely.  And I've wanted a vegetable garden forever.  Yeah, we need a yard.

4.  Our new home must be just a hop and a skip from Hubsy's new workplace.  No more gas guzzling, time consuming jumps back and forth.

5.  And lastly, we need a stunning price.  One of the benefits of this move has got to be that it benefits our bottom line.  We need to save money.    

So, back to the top of the list, and back to that second house.  The one that had a stunning price, a separate bedroom for each kid, a quarter acre of land, a mere mile from Hubsy's workplace.  Well this time, I decided to view it on Google map... and I should have known never to judge a book by it's cover. It was an adorable, little country house with a huge corner lot yard, everything on my wish list ... and a terribly ugly front porch. Uh, I think I can deal with that.  Oh yes, the Universe has led me to this house.

It took nearly a week of email tag, scheduling and rescheduling, to get an appointment for viewing. By the time the agent and I got our calendars synchronized, there was another interested party sniffing around.  As much as I wanted the house, I was already becoming annoyed with it, but the sudden competition spurred a sense of conquest.  We jumped on it, signed the lease, and moved in. Oh how I wish it had been as easy as it sounds.  But that's another story.

Otherwise Known As Camping

Every circus has a tent, or two.  We barely had one. But with a stocked cooler of water & beer, and a package of hot dogs, we embraced the onset of temporary insanity and left the safety and comfort of our modern amenities for an adventure in temporary homelessness ... otherwise known as camping.

Punkin Testing The Tent

We love spending time outdoors in our local state parks, so when a friend invited us to tag along on an overnight excursion, we jumped on it.  It would be a hands-on learning experience, to let us know what lessons or future purchases we would need to someday become true campers... outdoorsmen... survivalists.  After all, we are halfway through 2012.  Isn't it time we get prepared? 

We would be camping in a large grassy yard, next to a lake, and behind a travel trailer that had become a permanent structure on the lot, that we would have access to.  The girls would be sleeping safely in the trailer, and Hubs and I would share a super-single sleeper tent, that seemed to be roomy enough for two.  Notice I said "seemed", but that's an issue I'll revisit later.  The trailer also had a lovely thing I like to call "plumbing", and mankind's greatest gift to itself... air conditioning.

True to it's recent reputation, the day was hot.  Hot, like Buster Poindexter eating a tamale on Liz Taylor's tin roof... hot.  As soon as the cars were unpacked, and the tents set up, we high tailed it to the lake beach for a refreshing swim.  Okay, so the water was about eighty degrees, but when the heat index is one hundred and fifteen, even a warm bath is somewhat refreshing.

We had a blast floating up and down on the swells created by passing boats and jet skiers.  Punkin discovered fresh water clams buried in the sand, and recruited Bee (our hostess) in digging up a small bushel.  We practiced our people watching, most of whom were in rare form.  Let's just say it was evident that Lake Royale was no South Beach.  After a few hours, we retreated back to the campsite in search of food, however that hunt became a search for the campsite!  But this episode of LOST was one of the best parts of the day... an extra hour of riding in the back of Jay's pickup truck, along those little country lanes!  Jay even did a little off roading, accidentally of course, but that doesn't negate the enjoyment.   

Malibu and Vegas

We coaxed a true summer feast out of two small gas grills:  hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob roasted within the husk, and baked beans, with watermelon and potato chips.  The fire pit was fueled, and the beer began to flow.  It was about that time that the party crashers arrived. 

Party Crasher

No, not "Vegas and Malibu",  the friends from Raleigh that showed up with bags of graham crackers, Hershey bars, and marshmallows.  I'm speaking of the wolf spiders that crawled out of the grass to investigate our tent!  The "smores smugglers" were a welcomed addition to the evening, partly because I'm quite fond of them, and partly because they offered me a ride back to the city if the spider situation got out of hand.  I did not take them up on it, but I almost wish that I had.

Quirky Docksiders

After a little conversation (and some quirky behavior) on the dock, we headed back over to the lake for a belated fourth of July fireworks show.  (Yaaay, back into the pickup truck!).  We stood at the end of the dam, where we could watch the techs lighting the fuses by hand, and the explosions were right over our heads.  Of course, we had to stand in the grass for an hour, because we didn't think to bring chairs.  Not even a blanket or a beach towel.  Seating became a major issue for me by the end of the night.

With spiders on my mind, and an unbelievable ache in my back, the night took a darker turn for me at that point.  Irritable and moody, I climbed onto the hood of the car to rest my throbbing feet, and watched as everyone danced around, and even through (I know, men are idiots) several colorful fountains of sparks.  The girls battled each other with sparkler swords.  The firepit popped with firecrackers, and glowed in a mist of red and green smoke bombs. When the smoke cleared and the sparks died out, most of the group disappeared into the darkness on the dock.  Hubsy fed the fire until it satisfied his latent pyromania, and then vanished into the darkness behind Bee and the Jayman, leaving me alone and frustrated.  I would have joined them, but again, no seating.  Every chair on the dock was "occu-pado", and my legs were as heavy as "hippo-pados", so I waited.  Upon Hubsy's return, he listened to me vent, and like a snake oil salesman, he suggested a remedy to cure my most pressing ailment ...  full sobriety.  On such a sweltering day, I opted to keep bottles of water nearby, rather than beer, for the entire day.  Now it was late, and I was thinking "Better late than never!"

The Princess and the Sugar High

I must take a moment to mention that my girls were handling this whole experience very well.  They, too, think fondly of our friends, and they thoroughly enjoyed being allowed to sit among the adults and participate in the mature conversation (although mature might be pushing it a little).  I'm sure that deep inside they were engaged in some serious Darwin-like observation, and making mental notes of everything said and done.  They were living it up on the temporary reprieve of their soda restriction, and the marshmallowy gooeyness provided by Vegas, the self proclaimed "best smores maker ever".  By the way, who ever decided that smores were the perfect snack on a camp out was probably not sober at the time, either.  If you should decide to partake of this decadent dessert, make sure to be near a water source, or bring plenty of wet wipes!

Men and Their Fire

When much of the crew left the dock and retreated to the comfort of the trailer for a while, Hubs and I confiscated the dock chairs, and set them up around the fire, for some comfort of our own.  Since the battery of Jay's truck was wearing down, from playing the radio all day, Hubs turned it off and turned on the music player on his Kindle Fire.  Malibu and Vegas headed back to the city, and Bee and Jay joined us on the lawn.  The kids were sent to bed, and they reluctantly obeyed, although popped out a few more times to test the waters.

The rest of the evening was reserved for the remaining adults.  We shared a few scary stories in true campfire style, but it didn't take long for us to realize that, at some point, we had morphed into the walking dead.  The time had come to test the tent theory, and my theory had been disproved.  The super single sleeper tent was not large enough for Hubs and I sleep, even uncomfortably so.  The body heat of two adults who had been active in the sun all day turned the small space into a sweltering tropical dungeon.  After about thirty minutes, we were clambering to get out and worship what I came to know as "Sweet Mother Oxygen".  Indeed the night air was sweet and cool with a slight breeze coming off the water.  We sat on the dock in the small hours of the twilight, listening to a flock of geese honking and squawking in the darkness, and trying to figure out if our eyes were playing tricks on us, or were we really seeing little critters on the lawns around us.  We completely enjoyed the peace and serenity of our environment, until deciding to seek slumber from the reclining bucket seats of the car.  It came complete with air conditioning and soft music.

I managed to coax twenty minutes of rest out of the night.  Hubsy was blessed with a solid two hours.  At six in the morning, I went inside for the benefit of ... plumbing, and discovered that, while the Princess snoozed soundly on the sofa bed, Punkin hadn't had a minute of sleep either.  And so the first fireside meeting of the Biancos was called to order, and we second and thirded the motion to get the hell out of there!  Not wanting to seem like ungrateful campsite flee-ers,  we cleaned up the area of scattered debris from the previous night, wrote a farewell note, packed up, and headed back to, what I have come to call "Sweet Mother Home".  Does anyone see a pattern developing here? 





Remembering Our Brush With A Tornado

Spring is on it's way, and in some areas of the country, we're forced to think about the kind of weather Miss Spring brings with her.  I was gently reminded yesterday, when we found ourselves under a tornado watch, about our brush with the beast last April.  My daughter also published a blog post about severe weather conditions, that spawned tornadic activity near her home in Texas.  Here is a link to her post ... and here is mine:

It was the end of April 2011, during that whole tumultuous spring that sent severe tornadoes whipping across the whole country.  It started out just like any other lovely spring day in the south.  Every person in the neighborhood, under fourteen, was playing outside in the court.  Leaving every adult in my house free to pursue Internet gaming happiness.

We never would've known about the tornado watch we were under, if it hadn't been for kids next door being called inside by their parents.  I called my own youngins inside, and we gathered around the television.

****

A watch before a warning.

A watch means that weather conditions are favorable for something severe to develop.

A warning means that the severe conditions have formed and are coming your way. 

****

It's kind of scary, when the station replaces regular programming with continuous weather coverage.  Especially when you can tell that it isn't a produced segment, but actual live coverage.  The weatherman travels back and forth between the computer equipment on his desk, where he constantly checks the national weather service, and the green screen where he shows us the storm tracking radar.  You can hear phones ringing in the background, and people shuffling about.  Once in a while, he'll stop reporting, because there's a new warning being issued, and he has to read the report, while on the air, and then figure out how he's going to report it to us.  Then they start showing us live webcam footage from traffic cameras around the county.  That's when we heard that the storm system moving in was spawning multiple tornadoes along it's path.

It was probably no more than fifteen minutes from the time that we heard about our tornado warning, until the tornado watch took effect.  That's when I began to prepare our safe room.  The laundry closet, the most internal room of the house, which is perfectly tucked under the staircase was the best place to be.  I pulled out the carpet shampooer, and the kitty litter box, swept the floor, and filled the space with pillows and blankets.  I put new batteries in the portable radio, and laid them on the dryer, along with the rechargeable flashlight, and some candles.  When I thought I was through, my son pointed out that the walls were covered in shelving that held heavy tools and my sewing machine, baskets and boxes of loose hardware, and bags of stuff that I've been holding onto to sell on Craig's List.  If a tornado does come near our house, those walls are going shake, and all those hazards are going come down in our heads.  So, we quickly set to work dragging all of it into the dining room.

Then the weatherman began to describe funnel clouds in neighborhoods that we were familiar with, not far from us, and moving in our direction.  I remember how frightening the colorful radar pictures seemed, with the enormous green area, filled with large spots of red, and purple... right before the power went out.  As soon as we turned on the portable radio,  the DJ began calling out the names of the streets that we travel down on a regular basis, that were acting as a highway for the funnel clouds.

Hubsy stood by the back door and watched the weather change right before his eyes.  I joined him occasionally, between anxious pacing, setting up the safe room and getting the kids settled into it, gathering up the things that I couldn't bare to lose (my laptop, the family computer tower, camera, household managements book with all of our important documents in it, and flash drives of all my ancestry research and decades of family photos).  The sky grew more ominous by the second.  The wind blew hard in spontaneous spurts.  We could hear tree limbs breaking and falling onto the forest floor.  The rain was beating hard against the windows.  Then, rather suddenly, our view through the forest was seriously diminished.  I could not see anything past the treeline.  There was no debris, and it didn't seem like rain, but more like the air became visible.  Visible, rumbling air.  When "they" say that it sounds like a freight train coming, "they" are not kidding.

And then it was gone.  The sky became clear, and grew bluer and bluer by the moment.  Rays of sunlight were shining down on the street.  Birds began to sing.  Ironically, it felt very much like stepping out of a funnel cloud and into the Land of Oz.  I had never seen the world look so beautiful, and I had never felt such a sense of joy and gratitude, although it took hours for the nervous trembling to fade.

Flash forward nearly a year, and I don't feel any more prepared than I did that day, even though I've cleaned out my laundry room a bit, and I have a bigger box of supplies.  I guess we're never really prepared for that kind of destruction. There's a reconciliation that takes place in the mind.  You have to admit that you are powerless over nature, and regardless of the preparations, if the storm wants us, it's going to take us.  But you also can never be lulled into a state of complacency.  So, you do what you can, and ask God for help with the rest.  And in the meantime, C'Mon Spring!      

            

Grandbabies Make For The Best Week Ever

My oldest daughter (otherwise known as my Texas Gal) and her husband, recently spent four and a half fabulous days with us, as she does every odd year, with even years belonging to her father. I thought, perhaps, the best way to sum up our visit, would be to "top ten" the highlights.  So here you have it (in no particular order)...

1)  Hubsy and I got to meet our new baby Grandson, Levi, for the very first time.  He's five months old, which is the very age our first grandson, David, was when we met him for the first time.  There is a world of difference between the two boys.  At five months, David immediately disliked anyone who couldn't offer him a tasty breast on demand (which was all the time), whereas Levi seems to love everyone, regardless of anatomy.  Levi gurgled and cooed and laughed, whereas David screamed ... and screamed some more.  Needless to say, this visit was far easier on the ears, than the last one.

2)   Approximately twenty five consecutive hours after they arrived, David, now two years old, warmed up very nicely to these two strangers, who called themselves Grandma and Grandpa.  When he opened his eyes on the morning of the second day, I waited for the cry.  But instead, he crawled right over his parents, who lay sleeping on the air mattress on the living room floor, and right into my arms.  That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.  Another one formed that evening, when David ran straight to his Grandpa, all smiles, as he walked in the door from work.  On another day, he ran to the driveway, excited to greet Grandpa at the car.

3)  Hubsy left work early one day, and the seven of us used those extra hours to bowl a few games at the local alley, not including Levi (who slept through much of the commotion), and David (who assisted some of us with our throws).  I lost my breath and bit my tongue whenever the little guy tried to pick up a ten pound ball, and carry it to the lane.  That's when we stepped in to assist him.  Because the whole family applauded whenever he rolled a ball, he clapped for us too!

4)  Since the boys are being raised on a poultry farm, surrounded by chickens, ducks, and geese (not to mention pheasant, turkey, peacock, and quail), I thought it would be fun to take them to the lake, to feed our local ducks.  I didn't realize that just before leaving the farm for vacation, David had been attacked by a rooster in a "fowl" mood, leaving him terrified of animals.  So David didn't chase the ducks, but the ducks chased whoever had the bag of bread, and David's Daddy chased my Punkin... right into the lake!

5)  David's new fear of the animal kingdom had him running and screaming every time our dog or cat came into the room.  Though, as long as he felt safe in someone's arms, he showed great interest, and would point and laugh.  For a few days, I had to keep the pets locked up in my bedroom, but by the end of their visit, it was the dog who was terrified of David!

6)  For evening entertainment, we broke out a new family game, Apples To Apples.   You should've seen us... seven people, ages 10 to 40-something, rolling on the floor in laughter so deep, it was actually painful.  Laughing at ourselves, at each other, and at Waco TX and Andy Warhol.  During one session, it took us a while to realize that David wasn't happily talking on his toy cellphone, but was actually having a conversation with his grandmother in Texas, on his daddy's very real cellphone!

7)  My twenty eight year old son in law, who is somewhere around ten at heart, is a real down home country cowboy.  A redneck.  An outdoorsman.  A survivalist.  If he can't hunt it, shoot it, skin it, build it, raise it, wreck it, or ride it ... then he just has to climb it.  He climbed to the top of the kiddie playhouse, the jungle gym, and even to the roof of the pavillion!  I think he had more fun on the playground than the little ones did. 

8)  Now that Levi is discovering that he has some control over his own tongue, I spent some wonderful moments on the floor, "la la la-ing".  Although he couldn't quite get it down, he sure did try, and my silly vocalizations made him smile and coo.


9)   David is learning to talk, but he really only makes one sound.  G-go.  It's his version of "gonna go".   He will surprise you with other words occasionally, like "daddy, doggie, please, hello, and go away".  But if you prompt him to repeat what he had said, all you're gonna get is G-go.

10)  As Punkin and Princess enjoy dancing with The Michael Jackson Experience on the Wii, we got David to bust a few moves as well.  My daughter tells me that he usually sways to music, but this time he was really jumpin', and he even "got low" ... real low ... rolling on the floor, low.

We hosted our visitors just one month after my mother hosted us, for our vacation.  Now I know why she gets so sad when we leave.  I cried for two days after watching my daughter and her men drive away.

Our Last Blast of Summer '11

Within the span of seven days, the kids have gone back to school, we've had an earthquake, and a hurricane.  I have lots to tell you about all of that, but I'd much rather take a few moments to re-live our last blast of the summer.

Keeping with tradition, we took our annual long weekend excursion to Baltimore, to visit with my family. It's a cookie cutter vacation, meaning it's typically the same every year, but believe me, we have no complaints what so ever. Mom's place is as clean and organized as the best hotel, and even comes complete with mini shampoos and extra toothbrushes. If I didn't know her better, I'd be wondering where she hides the staff. Here are ten the highlights:

1) We left straight from Hubsy's workplace, and took the six hour drive by night.  That way, when Hubsy opened his eyes on the very first day of his vacation, he would actually be on vacation.  It was well worth it.

2) This time, we added an extra little day trip to the itinerary:  a tour of the infamous Gettysburg Civil War battlefield, led by my father, the amateur historian, and Confederate at heart.  (This experience will be the focus of my next posting).

3) Mom's pool is a great place to catch up on some parent/child bonding, but I repeated the word "Polo" so often, that I got a little goofy with it.  "Marco" was henceforth followed by Aspen, Obsession, Brut, or English Leather.  The whole thing ended up being nothing more than a Freudian game of word association.  Peanut butter led to jelly, which led to grape... nuts... vasectomy.

4) A hostile takeover of the local Olive Garden, by twelve members of the paternal clan.  Daddy and Second Mom, Little Bro and his two little impkins, Little Sis and her new hubs, plus my fam of five.  A bottle of wine made it's rounds, and I had my annual vacation margarita.  Daddy teased the waitress as often as possible.  My favorite quip went something like "I don't like this wine, and I'm going to send it back, right after you pour it and I drink it, and you pour it again."  

5) After dinner, the troupe headed over to Little Bro's place, where we enjoyed the hilarity of the toddler's musings.  For instance, being invited into her princess castle, to be hit with  the soft spoken announcement of "I got poops".  We giggled for hours about how the usual offering that accompanies an invitation, would be coffee or wine.

6) One of the best parts are the night swims, when the air is chilled and the water is warm. Turning on the pool lights, and turning up the music makes it feel like a real party!

7) Catching up on the family gossip.  I never get involved in the dramas, but I do like to hear about them.  It's nice to be reminded of where I come from, and why I choose to live two states away!

8) Bailing a hundred gallons of water out of the pool, with every bucket and can we could find, to lower the level enough for Mom to re-glue some loose tiles on a near dry surface.  For two days, we obsessed about those tiles.  It was such an event, that as we left Baltimore, I called from the car to tease her about some possible loose tiles in the Harbor Tunnel!

9) The annual crab feast!  It's the only time I ever get to express the Chesapeake gal in me.  The kids love to eat 'em, but I always have to guide them through the process.  Hubsy thinks it's just disgusting, but enjoys watching me chew on shells, slurp on that spicy seasoned juice, and dig out the yummy innards of an ocean floor scavenger.

10) Playing with Bob the Owl.  He's the yard guard, keeping birds from gathering around the pool, and rodents from nesting in the shed.  I decided that Bob needed a vacation too, and so I invited him to join us in whatever we were doing at the time.

The time is short, but it's just enough to recharge and refresh our outlook, and after being surrounded with Mom's near perfect decor, I actually return home a little excited about cleaning my house.

Bob's Got The Right Idea!

More About My Boy Growing Up

My baby Boy has become a man, and it happened right before my eyes.  It was a moment that has been under construction since the day he was born, but now it is complete.  There was even a spokesman who announced it, pronounced it, and deemed it official.  One moment, he was a boy.  He had a bedtime.  He had homework and chores to do.  But his responsibilities were small, compared to the heavy burdens that can often plague the adult life.  His tassel hung to the right.

And then, with a stroll across the stage, the receiving of a document, the offer of a handshake, and a few words spoken... everything changed. Well, okay, maybe not everything.  But it sure does seem like it, when you're caught up in the "Pomp and Circumstance" of the high school graduation ceremony.  But there are little things that have become part and parcel of our daily family life, that have suddenly ended.  There will be no more checking The Boy's progress on the SPAN account. (Student Parent Access Network: where the school displays a student's assignments, grades, attendance and disciplinary records).  He will no longer be the first one up in the morning, and the first to leave the house for the day. Certain teacher's names will no longer be a dropped into daily conversation.  And I will miss the sound of the Principal's voice in those near daily automated phone announcements. 

Of course, my baby boy is still lurking within this new man who occupies space in my house.  He'll still be asking me what I'm going to make for dinner, or if I'm going to make a family lunch, or what's available for an afternoon snack.  He'll still say "I know" when I gently remind him of a household chore that's on his schedule, that he'll eventually forget to complete... even though "he knows".  He's still going to argue with his little sisters, and complain about the noise they make or the mess they leave.  And of course he'll still be relying on me and Hubsy for the rent, electricity, cable TV,  internet access, and food.  Now, instead of nagging him about homework, I'll be nagging him about job applications, as his label has changed from "student" to "unemployed".  Some things never change.  Except the tassel now hangs to the left.

On another note: It was a difficult day for Hubsy, having had the old "snip snip" just the day before.  (You know what I'm talking about, right?).  As he should've been home with his feet up, instead he hobbled from the parking garage to the Performance Center and back again.  He sat upright, putting pressure on those lower regions, for two hours.  He stood up and sat down, and stood up and sat down, for the National Anthem, the senior's grand entrance, and for several people who just had to walk back and forth down our aisle.  But he suffered in silence, with a smile on his face.  No matter what part of his body was bruised and swollen, this was an occasion that he wouldn't have missed for all the ice and ibuprofen in the world.

Congratulations, and much love, to both of my men!