I will do my best to take some presentable photos of my kids this weekend, and post them for my deprived family. I had high hopes for the daycare Christmas party, at which Santa made an appearance. Last year I got pictures of each child sitting with Santa, and while Lucy WAS crying, it was only a little bit, and still made for a cute picture. This year, she can't stop shouting "Sa-ta" (Santa, obvs.) excitedly everytime she sees a likeness of the Man in Red, so I thought her clear enjoyment of the season would make for an even better picture. Alas, our track record with posed photos held, and though I dressed both kids up in adorable Christmas-colored ensembles, Lucy apparently refused to get near Old Saint Nick. And by "refused," I mean "screamed in horror." Apparently she likes her Santas to be of the non-living variety. Finn apparently did great, per usual, but I haven't seen a picture yet.
In the meantime, I shall follow up on my quiz from yesterday:
1) My relatives were part of the Underground Railroad - TRUE. And I think I'm NOT misrepresenting anything here, but please keep in mind that this is information I learned prior to college/grad school drinking, two pregnancies and motherhood, thus all memories from that time are susceptible to fuzziness. The Jenkins family of Andover, MA was known to be part of the Underground Railroad, helping escaped slaves hide on their way to Canada. Harriet Beecher Stowe even stayed at the Jenkins house not long after writing Uncle Tom's Cabin. All this is true, I just couldn't find a family tree online to verify that the William Jenkins that did all of this is actually an antecedent of my grandfather. But I am about 87% sure that is true. Andover was not that big a town at the time, so the likelihood of many Jenkinses is low. Also, William's house was on 89 Jenkins Road, and I know my family had a homestead on Jenkins Road (which we no longer have), so it all SEEMS to match up, despite my doubt in my synaptic connections.
2) I hitchhiked in the Pyrenees mountains - also TRUE. I was thirteen, and the story also involves a mountain-side fire, lots of blisters, getting picked up by what I hope was an entomologist who was wearing a belt of vials with bugs in them, and cramming way more people than I thought possible into a small white VW Bug(ha! a bug - never saw the joke in that before). I was with my sisters and our host family daughter Paloma, and we were supposed to be taking "a shortcut" to get back to her parents' car once our mountain picnic had ended. Oh, and I spoke very little actual Spanish. I won't go into more detail, but it was a very, very interesting experience.
3) I had my first car accident the day I got my driver's license - FALSE. It was the day AFTER I got my driver's license. And all I have to say about that is that parking lots are scary. In particular, the parking lot behind the CVS in Andover is far too small for the number of spaces and rows they have crammed in there. Also, I was clearly lacking in the part of my driving education that involved teaching me to check the front corner of the car when backing out of a space, rather than just staring fixedly out the back window of the car as I was doing. Also, lucky for me, there was an actual person inside the car that I hit, as he was apparently just waiting for his wife to pick up a few things in the store. So I got to do the "exchange of information" in my nervous, fumbly, 16-year-old way, except that I didn't even know if I HAD any car insurance, and certainly didn't have an insurance card. I had to call my mom (my memory tells me I did this on the way home, but that can't be possible because I didn't have a cell phone then, you know, BACK IN THE DAY) and ask if she had put me on the car insurance yet. Luckily, she had, though nothing ever came of the accident (seriously, it was a TINY dent. And the car was not nice to begin with).
4) I've met two justices of the Supreme Court - TRUE. On separate occasions. I met Justice Kennedy when I was in grad school - I'd won a scholarship, and the foundation that gave it out held a reception for us IN the Supreme Court, and Justice Kennedy shook my hand and gave me a medal. I met Justice Souter when I was a tween or young teen, I can't remember exactly how old I was. My sisters and I had traveled down to D.C. for some sight seeing with my grandparents, and while there, my great-aunt, who has lots of GOP connections and is involved in New Hampshire state politics, arranged for us to meet her friend Justice Souter in his chambers. My super-shy self imagined asking him his opinion on abortion (knowing that he was a conservative jugdge) but didn't actually say anything. I just let my sisters do the talking, per usual. I'd like to kick that girl, the girl I was then (and still sometimes - often? - feel like). OK, maybe flaunting dubious Democratic stances (and by dubious I mean that there is no way I was informed enough to really decide if I was a Democrat or not at the age of 12 or so, and yet I had decided I WAS. I still am one, though I am hopefully a little better informed, and so I am not calling Democratic stances THEMSELVES dubious) was not a good plan anyway, and thus better off left unexecuted. But think of the questions I COULD have asked! Like "Have you ever changed your mind on a decision after the fact?" or "What is your favorite part of your job?" or "What case stands out most in your memory?" Had I been enterprising, I could have turned this into a seriously good project for History class, or Social Studies, or whatever the hell I was taking then. I was not enterprising, though.
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You won a scholarship in grad school??! How did I miss that?
ReplyDeleteexcellent post. I didn't know any of that about you, though I may have heard the car accident story before...
Happy Holidays! If it makes you feel better, G is also super excited about Santa but only when not actually in his presence. And she refuses to go see him. :)