Age is Just a Number

Traveling Trivia

Who can guess this skyline? 

Hint:  we probably passed this on our little road trip.

Over the River and Through the Woods…

First, thank you, to all of you who prayed for a safe trip. Yes, our trip was safe with not a single incident. Somewhere on the dark roads of Georgia, after "traveling" with a pickup truck for a while, he pulled alongside and did some sort of gesture – it did not seem unfriendly, yet was unrecognizable – and he suddenly sped ahead at light speed never to be seen again. Huh.



Road Trip Summary:

The first 2 hours into Kansas were after dark, however the next day I found Kansas rather enjoyable. The open spaces with dotted farms and clusters of trees…I imagine those people to have a pretty good life.    Missouri, aka Misery (okay, if you must, The Mother is from there), is mundane. My goal was the ginormous Arch, of which I have never seen, so we stopped near sunset for photo ops.   Then on toward Kentucky, after a slight road mix-up on the Illinois side of St. Louis which led us through very interesting neighborhoods of which caused us to be happy to get back on the right highway. They don’t put many tax dollars into Illinois roads; avoid if you can while traveling in a Pod. Kentucky and Tennessee are just plain beautiful states. We plan to go back, and since my To Do list includes a tour of Churchill Downs, we hopefully will.     Georgia, eh, and we managed to be in Atlanta at rush hour.  In Florida the hotels seem to lag on the upkeep side.   However we did drive through the Everglades – I have fond memories of trips as a kid. My dad always did adventurous vacations that included stops at alligator farms and air boat rides in the Everglades, and tours of Mr. Audubon’s house in the Keys. We arrived in Pembroke Pines exactly 45 minutes behind schedule. We washed the 5 pounds of yellow and red bug goo off the front of the car, and jumped into the pool. 


Stats:

We drove 2207.4 miles, through 5 significant Metropolitan areas, averaging 30.something mpg, eating 3 bags of chips, 1/2 bag of sunflower seeds, 1 bag of popcorn, 1 bag of Werther's Originals, 1 gallon size bag of homemade oatmeal cookies, drinking 1 case of 1+ liter size bottled water, eating at 2 Waffle Houses, listening to 2 books on tape, watching 2 movies, crocheting 1/2 a scarf in 3 days.

How to do a Road Trip

Any Questions?

Trowel Trades

I finally made the connection today why I have thought of so many things related to Dad this week; his birthday is on 9/11 and he would have been 91 now. He was a bricklayer. As with many things he did, he was highly skilled. It just seems so old fashioned to think about someone doing manual labor like he did.

My brother decided to go down that path after – even at one point being an ordained minister – trying other ‘careers’. He too has become very skilled in his profession. Recently he was involved in a restoration project in New York of a Frank Lloyd Wright complex. Here is a picture of just a small part of one of his latest projects – he’s the dude on the right…

A Wing and A Prayer

Or in this case, a Miata and a Prayer. We’ll be driving this:



to Florida shortly. Yep, 3 or more days in this little thing. I was coining the phrase "Death Rocket" to coworkers until one made several appeals that I refer to it as something else…maybe I should. Okay, it’s "The Mazda".

I admit, I have some trepidation. This is a little car. An 18 wheeler could run over the top of us and he wouldn’t know the difference. We may not either. We could run into – no pun intended – the same fate as my nephew, the owner, when he ran into a horse that was hit on the road late at night in the complete dark on an Indian reservation. Okay, so we’re not driving across any reservations that I am aware of, but we’ll be going through places like southern Kentucky and Tennessee and Georgia where, according to Hollywood, the word cousins take on a whole different meaning.

I love road trips, but I haven’t experienced one strapped into a cocoon with only enough room for my water bottle and couple carrot sticks. The trunk won’t even close on an upright inflated bag of chips. Believe me, I’ve already tried. In this car, the Laptop will mean literally that, on my lap for the entire time it is not in the trunk. I even thought it might be handy to lose some number of pounds, but rationalized myself out of it when I figured we’d need the weight to give gravity a hand on the highway.

So, I ask all of my devoted and consistent readers to lend a few prayers for safety and no hitches for this trip. We’ll be thankful and send a postcard.

Breads on the Go!

You may or may not know this, but spouse-man wants to be a baker when he grows up.

                                                    

Many moons ago, when we first got together, I introduced him to all kinds of culinary horizons – up to that point his diet consisted of a great deal of hamburger helper, pop tarts and soda – and he had never eaten a fresh strawberry. Yep, that’s the kind of creative culinary delights he experienced in his prior marriage. This is in no way suggesting that my culinary views are superior – just…different. (Really, what good wife in America does not fix strawberry shortcake one time in the summer?) Different, for example, in that I buy giant bags of wheat straight off the truck from Montana, grind it into fresh flour and make my own bread. It wasn’t long before spouse-man took over this task, in fact I don’t even remember the recipe anymore. Soon after, he took on other baking experiments; most successful. While I still am the main cook – he the main bottlewasher – he has become quite handy in the kitchen.

Thus the interest in becoming a baker. Last year he discovered an artisan bread baking school in Italy. Yeah, I see your ears go up. It was tough NOT to scramble around to look for a credit card, pack a bag, and hit the Buy Now button on Travelocity – in that order. Alas, responsibility kicked in and we haven’t left the continent yet. Sigh. But the seed is planted. After all, I did promise him a trip to Italy when he graduated from college.

In pops an email from Carl this week. I don’t know Carl personally, but he is somehow associated with this school in Italy. He is warning us that they are setting dates for next year’s classes and wants to know if spouse-man is still interested, and interested enough to help him (and other interested parties) plan the timing. I am salivating, if not for the bread alone, this because me/moi/I am allowed to come along for some token price just to be a guest. Get out the ballet shoes ‘cause my toes need protection from all the hopping around I am doing! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…save enough money in a year to do this trip!

So Carl signs off with:

…..I’ll note your dates and get back to you soonest

In haste, as there are breads on the go

Regards

Carl

....Stay tuned....

Together-ness, or Alone-ness

While listening to Scott teach last Sunday about Going it Alone or Together the image of a story my dad told me flooded into my mind from who knows which archive buried in my brain.

He was in the Army in WWII and happened to be a smoker at the time. One day while in the middle of Africa he decided to quit. No patches, no support group or special gum. He just decided in his mind that he was done smoking. He told me that "the guys" would taunt him and try to get him to smoke – shaking their packs at him and other nonsense. After getting enough of it, at some point, while driving a truck ( I think an ammunition truck!) down a dusty road, he pulled his gun on one of them and told him "if you do that again I’ll shoot you".

I heard many stories from my dad about how he used brute force to solve his problems, so it didn’t shock me in any way to hear that. He was raised in rough times; in an orphanage, in foster homes, out on his own…on into the Army, nearly mortally injured, sent home to recover or die. What I was always impressed by – meaning, as a kid I was truly Impressed – is that he was able, by his own strength, to make up his mind and just do it; he set his mind and the task was done. I inherited that trait. I have always been proud of that trait.

Play - alone.
Move out on my own – alone.
Go to college – alone.
Take care of business – alone.
Make small and large decisions – alone.
Home repairs, car repairs, bodily damage repairs – alone.
Live – alone…. All until my late 30’s.

The toughest challenge is to live with another person well. I became aware on Sunday just how much my dad’s example has penetrated my character; how much it has possibly hindered my relationships, how much it has probably hurt me.

Going it alone has advantages, as Scott said. My mood affected no one – it didn’t bounce off anybody to come back and nail me. Life wasn’t so messy, it was simpler. It was soooo much simpler. I once told spouse-man the best vacation would be if he went somewhere with the girls for a week … and I got to stay home. Is that bad?

Now I am wondering and pondering about 1. being Proud of the trait and 2. the Trait itself. It is difficult to reach out and depend on other people, especially when God gave me so many physical talents and abilities to do things myself. Reaching out emotionally has netted great, great disappointment in the past. I find that people are quick to jump in to help with material things when someone is in need, but shy away from helping relationally - like schools of fish when you dip below the surface and swim near them. So I wonder how many others out there inherited a similar trait - one that keeps all of us hovering at a distance like a school of barracudas?

Dive Anyone?

More pics from Saipan.  Here is my brother and sis-in-law diving on a WWII site.  You can see part of an anchor in the second pic.  Life is tough on the other side of the planet!

New Shoes

They just make you want to go fast and turn on a dime don’t they? All shiney, and a new label that isn’t worn … you just breathe easier. Yep, we got four and they are made by Goodyear. Our car acts like it just got a tune up, she runs so well. New shoes - we’ll feel safe for the next 80,000 miles.

Oh! You thought I meant for MY feet. Well, I did just pop into Famous Footwear and find the cutest pair of end-of-summer sandals for $2.50. Yep, less than lunch. We’re all spinning on a dime.

Observing

After spending 7 lucky years of hurting and praying, praying and hurting, not necessarily in that order or consistency, experiencing exactly what Stephanie tells us about in her recent post about Trust, I am observing, and being open to a changing relationship between spouse-man and his oldest daughter. I have not yet healed from or built trust back, nor has he. It will take time.

A year ago when she got her driver’s license and car, she’d swing by our house in that newborn sense-of-freedom flurry, and we saw her more in that first month or two than we had in a year. She had a new boyfriend we didn’t meet until 6 months or so into it; earlier this year. We’ve watched her struggle with getting into college partly because of that "I want to do it myself" attitude, and partly because of The Mother’s lack of knowledge of anything pertaining to gaining knowledge. We’ve heard her say that she needs to "get out of that house" (The Mother’s) in frustration and in the same sentence tell us that she needs to "play the game" though because The Mother is going to "pay for" tuition. I’ve noticed – with detached faint joy - that she has called her dad somewhat frequently - more recently - in her efforts to get college information, and we’ve been severely dismayed by the fact that she wasn’t able to get her mother’s cooperation in obtaining financial aid – the cheap government kind. In the end, the end being actually getting herself settled into her dorm and starting classes, it appears that The Mother put her efforts into cosigning on a private loan with high interest…and the interest starts now thankyouverymuch. I won’t even go into other promises we’ve heard second-handed-ed our way that might make a head shake a little.

We were invited last evening to have dinner with her at her dorm/cafeteria where, she claimed, they serve pretty doggone-good food. And sure enough, the food wasn’t bad, and there was evidence that lunches and breakfasts were pretty good too. She has done pretty good for herself in that she works at the dorm which nets her free room and board. Amazing, free room and board, a loan for tuition and books – where DOES our child support go anyway? Yes, still. That aside, we visited for a whole 2+ hours. Yes, we sat down, met some of her friends, ate, had conversation, and I had hope. She is growing up and growing out of the clutches of her mother’s direct influence – to some degree. I have reservations, I admit, as she jumps when her mother calls her home to run an errand or fill in where she stops. I’ll bet as soon as school gets a bit busier those trips may decrease over time. When she gets older, molds her own life; not so many trips home. But she invited us over to eat and that’s cool. Spouse-man meets her after her class some days on his way to his. As we made our way to our car she looked back and asked if she’d see him tomorrow…That’s cool.