Drive On

I've confirmed my near-constant suspicions that Jill cannot be trusted.

Jill is my GPS.

I've been wary of her directions ever since her predecessor, Emily, and then she herself joined our collection of devices.  Her choice routes are almost never MY choice routes (why, oh why, with the constant insistence that I travel in the local lanes of the highway, rather than the express lanes, even when I'M NOT GETTING OFF!?), and her continual inability to account for the occasional (or in my case, nearly constant) red light when calculating the ETA is always a source of frustration. Yet she is my only source of directions on the fly if I find myself in unfamiliar territory. So we struggle along, Jill and I. And sometimes I even humor her, taking her directions, even when I'm pretty sure mine are better. If only to avoid the endless chime of "Recalculating." But I also secretly think it makes her happy, as if inside that little black screen is an actual person who is mentally screaming "idiot" at me as she politely asks me to make a U-turn when I've disregarded her directions.

Why wax poetic about my GPS? I've been making the trek back and forth between our Maryland house and a nondescript hotel near the Dulles airport in Northern Viriginia this week. The Department of Defense (my employer), along with lots of other government agencies, has eliminated all "non-essential" overnight travel in a mostly-admirable attempt to save money and cut down on misuse of funds. No one wants to be the next group slammed in a new article about conference-attending employees drinking champagne in bathtubs with strippers. I  get it, I do. I don't like being part of the well-behaving majority that is getting punished for the sins of a few, but I do get it. Unfortunately, it means that my colleagues and I now have to drive back and forth from our homes to attend the research review meetings hosted on behalf of our own office - not an easy feat when you live in one of the traffic capitals of the nation.

To make my 8:00 a.m. meeting start time, I rush, rush, rush to get out of the house so that I can sit, sit, sit with thousands of my best friends on a packed highway. The morning ride in isn't too bad - I have a steaming mug of coffee and NPR to keep me company. It's the afternoon that's much worse. I turn on the car and set Jill for Home, and then I eye the little red circle on the left hand side that tells me the length of the delay I'm about to  encounter. It goes something like this: Car on, route set. Delay reads 3 minutes. I glance over 20 seconds later, and we're hovering at a 5 minute delay. Not too bad, but we're only getting started. Within about 5 seconds, the GPS is registering a 30 minute delay.

And I haven't even left the parking lot yet.

I then watch as the delay fluctuates wildly between 20 to 49 minutes from moment to moment, up and down, up and down. I don't have much else to do as I sit on the entrance ramp for the D.C. beltway, waiting for my turn to wrestle into the slow moving traffic. Occasionally I call M. with an update, trying to figure out if I'll make it home for dinner, for back-to-school night at school, for bedtime.

I know the way, of course. These meetings are almost always at the same hotel, and I've been driving to it for years. But I bring Jill along with me to give me reassurance when night has fallen. Her voice is more pleasant then, when the cars aren't squished around me, but my fear of not seeing the road, or an obstacle, or the exit ramp presses in, making my hands grip the steering wheel tightly. I hate driving at night. And during the daylight, when traffic is at its worst, I imagine I can count on her to re-route me when the delays get too bad. That's why I had her on yesterday, when traffic was already looking ominous, and it took me 15 minutes just to traverse the ramp between one highway and another. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as an "alternate route" until after the Potomac - one must cross it to get from Virginia to Maryland, and opportunities to do so are few and far between. Three crossings, in fact, and I kid you not, one of them is an actual auto ferry boat (the lines of cars waiting to get on. THE LINES. This is not an actual, sane option), while the other brings me far north of where I actually live. So I have no choice but to cross the Woodrow Wilson bridge on the D.C beltway, regardless of traffic conditions. After, though, there's at least one other route choice that involves leaving the highway that could take me home, one I've never actually driven, but I know it exists. I figured Jill would tell me if I needed to use it. I crawled along, flipping radio stations (could we PLEASE play songs other than "Blurred Lines," PLEASE?), for 4 miles. Jill was happy with my progress, and complained not a whit.

And then, of course, when I was ON TOP OF the alternate route exit, she decided to re-route me. Onto the exit ramp that was 0.1 miles and 5 lines of traffic away. Thanks, Jill.

Needless to say, I did not make it. Didn't attempt it, even. Just crawled along with half of humanity on my original route. Eventually I spotted a pair of cars stopped in the middle lane of the highway. It's too hard to say if their presence was really a major factor in the traffic or not - was the traffic worse because they were stopped? Or did they have an accident because the traffic was worse than usual? Everyone flowed around them with minimal issue, and little change in speed. Possibly because we were all already going so slowly.

Interestingly, I saw a car stalled in the exact same lane and spot on my way home today, too. This time, Jill didn't try to re-route me. Maybe I'm training her.

The sad thing is that in both cases, none of the traffic reports I heard mentioned the stopped cars. It's a bit invalidating when a drive that should have been 40 minutes takes 2 hours, and not one bit of it bears mentioning on the radio. Which is probably just testament to the idea that speeds of 12 miles an hour are pretty much par for the course around D.C. at commuting time.

Tomorrow I head back to my office via my usual 30 minute commute. I think I'll leave Jill at home.

Back to Life

Back to Reality

Come on, you were thinking it too, right? A little Soul II Soul?

Moving along. Yes, we are back from a great, fun-filled, altogether too short (even though it was 8 days!) vacation in Maine. Yesterday found us, yet again, cursing the New Jersey turnpike (common theme of every return car trip from up north) and scrambling for alternate routes. But we made it back, safe and sound, only 4 Lucy meltdowns and 12 hours after leaving Lake Sebago. And we are back to reality with a bang - a kitchen full of ants (gah!), last-minute brown bag lunches for the kids with the scraps of bread I managed to find in the fridge, a weird beeping noise coming from our Verizon internetty-box-thing, a less-than-functional air conditioner in M.'s car, hundreds of e-mails to sort through, and piles of luggage contents to put away.

But first M. and I made our vacation last just a teensy bit longer with Thai take out and a (far-too-expensive) bottle of wine in front of the TV last night. Austerity be damned, I guess!

I have over 200 photos to sort through for a proper debriefing (assuming I get around to doing one). But I will share a few photos now from our first day of vacation, which was perhaps the most horrible and also most glorious. From 4:25 a.m. on, we spent about 9 happy-ish hours in the car with the kids (yes! I said happy! Good moods all around, and the kids were really good!). Then we hit the Saturday afternoon Massachusetts/N.H./Maine beach traffic, and groaned through the last 3+ hours of our trip. It was painfully slow, and we got to my parents house about 2 hours later than I wanted to.

Within minutes, we had swim suits on, coolers packed, and we were off on the boat for an early evening cocktail cruise and swim. We anchored the boat just off shore, and jumped right into the lake. All the stress of the drive was rinsed away in the just-the-right-temperature water. The kids goofed around with my parents, my brother, and his girlfriend, we had some snacks and drinks, and we watched the sun get lower in the sky. It was the perfect start to a vacation, really.

 

Who gave this kid a license?

 

Even scarier :-)

 

 

 

See? Relaxing.

Maine, we will be back!!

Travelin' (Day I Can't Remember)

The theme this week at daycare is "On Vacation," and tomorrow all the kids are going to bring in suitcases and whatnot, and pretend to go to Jamaica. Lucy's class made passports, and the kids were told to pack their own bags - no help from parents allowed.

 

You should see the stuff they have in these bags. Guaranteed there are no socks, and they both almost forgot underwear. But Finn has a ghost stuffed animal and Lucy grabbed quite a bit of jewelry, so all set, right?

I think I'll probably do the packing when we leave for Maine at the end of the month.

The sad thing is that Lucy is convinced they actually ARE going to Jamaica.  She's already managed to melt down on us when we've tried to correct her, so we've resorted to nodding and agreeing when she tells us about the plane she's going to ride on tomorrow. We'll let her teachers take the hit on that one.

Speaking of going on planes and vacationing (a bit), I spent the past Saturday, Sunday, and Monday up in Massachusetts with my family. I flew up for my grandfather's memorial service, and the timing was such that it also allowed me to join in on a casual bachelorette party for my friend Helen, who's getting married in a couple of weeks. Even though I was up for a sad purpose, I absolutely loved seeing so much family and hanging out with friends I don't get to see enough.

Here are some photos from the bachelorette part of the weekend. My sister Stacey stole my thunder by posting a lot of these on Facebook already, but I'll take photographer's liberty by posting them again:

 

The bride in her mandatory accessories

 

We decked out the Mom-mobile we drove

 

From left: Amy, Natalie, Helen, Kristin, Stacey, me

 

First stop was Chauncey's Creek in Kittery Point, ME, for waterside lobstahs and BYOW (bring your own wine)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wearing a bib and playing with her food... :-)

 

 

 

The second stop was a scenic overlook for some more pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They "made" my sisters and me pose like Wilson Phillips on these rocks

 

The third stop was at the New Hampshire state liquor store (not pictured, but awesome), then it was on to ice cream at Benson's:

 

 

 Finally, we headed back to my parent's house for some presents, pizza, games, and movies (Pitch Perfect, which I still love, second time around).

I'm super excited to come back up in just a week and a half - this time, M. and I will be driving with the kids all the way up to my parents' place in Maine, and then we'll head down to Massachusetts by ourselves one night for Helen's wedding. Can't wait!

Wet 'N Wild

Lucy just scared the ever-loving crap out of me. I was on my hands and knees down in the basement, sopping up water that leaked out of the dehumidifier when I emptied it (every. freaking. time. with the leaking water - whussup, dehumidifier??).  It was half an hour or more since I had tucked the munchkins into their beds, and I was (am) alone - M. on an oh-so-convenient "business trip" or whatnot. FACT: He strolled around Burlington, VT and ate Ben and Jerry's ice cream tonight. Does this sound like a "business trip" to you?

Where was I?

Oh, right - I'm muttering to myself as I scrub the carpet and suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, hear a voice right near my ear saying "I'm scared, Mommy." Oh, ho, ho! Who's scared now, little girl?!! Lucy had appeared, silently (why can't she be this quiet when *I* want her to be quiet?), right in front of me in her little wispy nightgown, like a creepy Victorian ghost.

I tucked her back into bed, and now I'm having a gin and tonic.

I'm doing my typical "M. is away, must be super mom/housekeeper/awesome person" that I sometimes do while he is gone.  I've cooked healthy meals. I've taken out the trash. I've bathed the children.  I've done laundry, and PUT IT AWAY (this never happens).  I've played catch with Finn, and taken them both to the special playground I never take them to because it's, in my mom eyes, too dangerous.  Also, our cleaning lady is coming tomorrow, so I spent a high percentage of Sunday and another hour or so tonight CLEANING ALL THE THINGS.  I should note that I would probably do this every time the cleaning lady comes, but this impulse is usually kept in check by M., who would prefer to NOT clean all the things in anticipation of her visit.

And by "clean," I really mean "throw things away."  This is something M. NEVER lets me do - the man is a hoarder, I swear. But since he's gone right now... Bwa ha ha ha!!  (evil laugh. Did that come off as an evil laugh?) I am 1000% certain that he will NEVER miss anything I've thrown away, and yet I know he would have stopped me from doing it.

Bottom line, the house looks nice.  It will cease to look nice by about 5:32 tomorrow evening, which is about 2 minutes after the kids and I will step through the front door.  But for now, it looks nice, and it pleases my soul.  My sister would make fun of me for this, right, Kristin?

One thing I am not doing as part of my crazy-lady-overachiever efforts is exercising.  That's because I'm limited to treadmill-running while M. is away, and my treadmill currently looks like this:

All folded up and moved to the middle of the family room.  Why?  Home owner suckery, is why.  Water in the basement!!!! Gah, what a nightmare! This is the same basement carpet that we had replaced less than two years ago when we had a freak water leak from our newly installed HVAC system (I don't think I blogged about this, as I can't find an old post to link to).  This time, the water was coming through the wall/ground of the house. The ground outside that wall is actually our neighbor's backyard (oh, the joys of townhouse living...) - we've had a lot of rain the last couple of weeks, and clearly it's not draining well.  THEY are not getting water in their basement, but WE are.

Last Tuesday-ish, on a day when there was much rain of the pouring kind, M. and I were turning lights out for the night around 11 pm when we discovered wet carpet beneath our feet over by the treadmill.  The same treadmill I had been running on earlier that night, obliviously.  It was too late to do anything about it that night (other than grump or stew), but the next day launched our "Oh f*ck, how do we deal with this?!" scrambling effort.  Which involves:

Step 1: Argue with husband, who thinks this is no big deal.
Step 2: Go to work. Google lots of things.
Step 3: Find convincing link that describes some stuff to do. Send to husband, who agrees that yes, actually, maybe something should be done. Even though the "something" involves scary-ish DIY stuff that we've never done before.
Step 4: Leave work early. Buy dehumidifier from Walmart. Go home, soak up some water with towels, assemble dehumidifier and turn on; also, aim fan at wet carpet. Pray.
Step 5: Let husband poke around in neighbors yard, where he discovers they have an in-ground drain/catch basin. Clearly someone's had water issues in the past.
Step 6: With much trepidation, pull up wall-to-wall carpeting in one corner of the room. Spy wet carpet padding, wet carpet, and gross, black-ish carpet tack strips.

Step 7: Cut away wet carpet pad, and pull up gross carpet tack strips that crumble at the slightest touch. Notice husband's sexy black socks and shorts.

Step 8: Scrub concrete with soapy water.

Step 9: Flatten out carpet. Run dehumidifier and fan continuously.

Step 10: When rain threatens, fold carpet back from wall again.  Notice that yes, water is still coming into the basement when it rains hard.  Poke around again in neighbors' yard.  Realize their drain is not draining.

Step 11: Make plans to install new drain for neighbors, who are clueless and can't be trusted to do it (Note, drain is not installed yet, what with the aforementioned business trip and all).

Step 12: While kids are rotting their brains with TV, spray a water/vinegar mixture on carpet, let sit for a few minutes, and scrub with dry cloths.  Sprinkle baking soda EVERYWHERE.  Let sit, then vacuum.  Gross musty smell? Gone.

The carpet looks and smells better:

But it's not fixed yet - still need to put down new carpet pad, and figure out how to install new tack strips and stretch the carpet over them. We may need to replace some of the molding, too. BUT, none of that is happening until we make sure we have this leaking water problem fixed.

Oh, to be a renter right now!

Any commiseration stories to make me feel better?

Holly Jolly

Christmas, In Brief:

We had two - one with just the four of us, and another extended one that involved my entire family, separated by a rather lengthy car trip. Fun was had all around, and we even got sleep! Except that night in the hotel when all four of us shared one room, and Lucy coughed a lot. But all the other nights, sleep! And fun! And presents, oh so many presents. M. and I did exceptionally well with the gifting, I think. I got him a new hobby (beer making!), and he got me, among other things, a fabulous new winter puffy coat that magically doesn't make me look puffy, and a tripod. There was a little snow, there were a lot of cousins, there was even some church time (ack! we survived, but barely! Note to self, next time, don't sit in the balcony!). We drove home on Thursday (a very long, long drive), and we're now faced with the prospect of reintegrating into real life again tomorrow.

Christmas, In Photo:

I could go on and on, but instead, I shall overwhelm you with photos and go to bed, because it is late. I have no photos from our little Christmas at home on Saturday morning, these start with Sunday afternoon in Massachusetts:

 

My mom dug out my wedding dress and veil for Lucy. The dress is sadly pretty stained, but the veil looked as beautiful as ever. Doesn't she look saintly?

 

Since it came down to her ankles, I wouldn't let her wear it for very long.

 

Tried to capture an "artistic" photo on the sly.

 

Looks much better without flash. Would prefer it if Finn was in focus instead, though. Too bad he moves so damn fast all the time.

 

This is my two-year-old niece Josephine. Isn't she cute?

 

This is what the kids wore on Christmas Eve. Lucy is wearing an old dress of mine, a velvet jumper. Finn wore this sweater for exactly 5 seconds after we walked in the door from church, then whipped it off in favor of the Angry Birds T-shirt he had on underneath it.

 

Needless to say, I didn't have much luck getting them to pose prettily for me.

 

My mom and brother somehow managed to color coordinate on Christmas Eve.

 

After a big dinner, stockings were hung (by the chimney, with utmost care, of course). Finn is the only grandkid to have a stocking knitted for him (by one of my dad's co-workers) - such privileges are often afforded to first grandkids. Everyone else had to pick a generic stocking from a pile.

 

Lucy picked the one with Rudolph (or "Redolph," as she likes to call him).

 

Then my brother read all the kids "The Night Before Christmas."

 

They MOSTLY listened intently, and there were only a couple of potty breaks and other random interruptions.

 

The kids fell asleep, stockings were stuffed, and morning came. Surprisingly, not as early as I thought it would. We actually had to go into Finn and Lucy's bedroom to rouse them. Here are the kids waiting to bust into the closed family room to see if Santa came. Santa had zip-tied the door shut just in case there were any midnight wanderings...

 

Once the stockings were emptied and the Santa gifts were properly played with, we all got out of our jammies and moved down to the living room to open family gifts.

 

The display of gifts was a tad overwhelming in an "embarrassment of riches" kind of way.

 

Lucy waited patiently to open her gifts, and helped Bumpa with his.

 

Finn got a little antsy that he had nothing to open (since we had already exchanged gifts, he had fewer than his cousins), but finally scored with a new Angry Birds backpack and the Lego Star Wars game for his Nintendo DS.

 

My dad got a new hat.

 

Some of you may have seen a similar photo on Facebook - me snuggling with a happy Lucy.

 

All the girls received a sack of girly princess things (nailpolish, tiaras, rings, wands, necklaces) from my brother and his girlfriend. Here is Penny modeling the tiara and wand.

 

My siblings and I gifted Mom with a couple of rustic looking hand-hooked pillows for the Maine lake house - the moose was a must.

 

Me and my oldest cutie.

 

The night before we left Massachusetts, I headed over to my wonderful friend Natalie's house for a little kid-free get-together. Here is a photo of my two sisters (Stacey on the left, Kristin on the right).

 

And one of the group of us - me, Amy, Stacey, Natalie, Kristin, and Helen in the front. It's hard to believe that we've known each other for almost 30 years (since first grade!!).

 

Back in Maryland, I unpacked one of my gifts from my mom - a real, honest-to-goodness, Le Creuset dutch oven - and made a pretty kick-ass vegetable soup. I love, love, love this pot!!

 

And M. started his first batch of beer.

 

In just a few weeks, he won't be holding a Sam Adams, he'll be holding a... hmm, a what? Clearly, we need to come up with a name for this brewery. Anyway, soon he'll be holding and drinking his own homemade beer (and so will I! I get extra bonus points for helping M. start a new hobby that ALSO benefits me!).

Hope you all had wonderful holidays, too. See you next year!