Update On Rick's Grandfather

Dickie may be living his last 24 - 48 hours. At 3:30 today Rick is on a plane to Boston, then he will drive with his sister to Kent, CT. I should know more after Rick visits with his grandfather.

It's 2008

I wrote post. It was whiny - like "call the whambulance" whiny. And since I won't pull a Huckabee* and tell you how embarrassingly whiny it was, then show it to you anyway, I will write another post.

So far my 2008 has had a very physical focus. Stress and other factors have made me hyper-aware of my body: its size, shape, how it feels. This feels vain and egocentric, and I hope that I can turn this awareness into something more positive than a constant chatter about how I feel.

I am not a fan of New Year's resolutions, for all the obvious reasons; however, I am a fan of occasionally taking stock of things, and making some goals (this may just be a semantic difference).
So my goals for 2008:
1) Save more money, which goes with not buying any useless crap: I hate that I look through catalogs, like Crate and Barrel, and want stuff. These catalogs actually have seasonally themed furniture collections. As if people buy a new couch each season so that their living room matches the crocus flowers, and then the fall foliage.
2) Do not go crazy: Yes, sounds straight forward, but I know I have jammed a lot of school and professional goals into the first 6 months of 2008, and I need to remember that the crazy schedule will be temporary, and well worth the effort.
3) See more of family and friends: I moved very far away from many of my loved ones. And as I haven't really had time to find a new social group I want to put serious effort into maintaining existing friendships. This may be the most difficult goal for me as I tend to follow "out of sight, out of mind" when it comes to family and friends. Aging grandparents and the realization that I really care for my far-flung friends has made me want to abandon my social laziness. Hopefully this blog helps a bit.

* I do like the phrase "pull a Huckabee". For me it not only means hypocritical, and "having it both ways", but also implies a certain level of stupidity, as if no one would possibly notice your contemptible behavior.

XMas Journey

So, as Diana has already alluded below (I still think it's weird that earlier stuff comes below in blogs, above in most anything else...), our return trip should have been about 9-9.5 hours, and ended up taking more like 11.5. Here's the interesting part of the story.
We said a tearful goodbye to my grandfather at his condo in Kent at about 10:30 and got on the road. Traffic was pretty steady down through New Jersey until we got about 1/2 way across the north-south traverse. Then it slowed down quite a bit. We briefly toyed with the idea of taking I-95:
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because it's about 1.5 hours shorter if there's no traffic, instead of the Eastern Shore:

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but changed our mind after the first 5 words we got from the Sirius Radio DC Traffic report was "heavy traffic all over DC". So we stuck with the route we had used on the way up, across the mind boggling 20 mile bridge/tunnel:










This initially seemed like the right decision as the traffic moved steadily. We got to the bridge/tunnel at about 8:45pm, thinking we were on the home stretch. We started through the toll, and were stopped by the gentleman in the tollbooth, which perplexed us since we have an EZPass and had been tollbooth-small-talk free for our entire trip. We were perplexed until the guy told us that we couldn't go across the bridge due to the fact that there was a wind advisory in place, and we had the rocket box on the top of our car. When there's a wind advisory no one with anything on the top of their vehicle, in the bed of their vehicle, or towing anything is allowed across the bridge. He kindly informed us that we could wait for the wind to subside, go around, or if we could unbolt the rocket box, we could put it in the "wind van, which comes around once in a while and will take stuff across for you". He then directed us to the rest area, where we could see LOTS of other vehicles in a similar predicament. We drove over there and quickly confirmed on the map that it would take about 5 hours of driving to go around (via Annapolis, MD and DC). I then used the little tape measure I got in my Christmas popper to confirm that while we had about 6 feet of cargo space in the back of the wagon, the box is about 7 feet long. So we got aggravated and were thinking we were kinda SOL. In the meantime we chatted with some nice folks that had just come across the bridge the other way, and were trying to find the leash in their car so they could walk their dog. We lent them ours while we scratched our heads. Then Diana had a clever idea. She suggested that she sit in the passenger seat with the dog on her lap, and I drive. This way we could move the passenger seat ALL the way forward, and maybe we could get the rocket box in the car. So I unbolted the box from the top, we talked the dog walking folks into giving us a hand, and we put the box into the back. We were still about 8 inches short. So Diana suggested cranking the seat back forward. Well, this got the box inside, and resulted in this:

We then jumped in the car, with Diana's head basically over the dashboard, and with the dog unhappily on her slanty lap. We drove through the same toll (unfortunately the guy didn't even notice it was the same car, so we didn't get to show off our big brains and willingness to drive in compromising positions). The ocean where we could sea it was gnarly! With good sized waves. I still don't think they should have kept us from going across with the rocket box on the top, but oh well.
When we got to the other side we stopped as soon as possible and took the box out and put it back on top:

We then continued on our way, getting home about 11.5 hours after our original departure.
Nothing says Christmas like traffic and long road trips!

We Did Make It Back

We did make it back from Kent, CT. While not a restful holiday, it was an important trip. Rick's grandfather, Dickie, started hospice care after fighting cancer for over 20 years. His full-time care giver is amazing. Oh if you have a wood burning fireplace I highly recommend these for a festive touch; Dickie's most asked for favor was to throw more on the fire.

Hmm, I started writing a list of Dickie's accomplishments, but is sounded too much like an eulogy, so I stopped.

Rick has started, and promises to complete a blog entry about our 11.5 hour drive home on Wednesday. Should have taken 9 hours. It didn't.

And I did get my wished for reading of Dylan Thomas's 'A Child's Christmas In Wales'. My favorite part:

Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge footprints on the hidden pavements.
"I bet people will think there's been hippos."
"What would you do if you saw a hippo coming down our street?"
"I'd go like this, bang! I'd throw him over the railings and roll him down the hill and then I'd tickle him under the ear and he'd wag his tail."
"What would you do if you saw two hippos?"

Start of the Christmas Holiday

Car is packed. Sirus radio is installed. Snacks are available. Osa is ready to jump in the back seat. I think we are ready for Christmas 2007. We arrive somewhere in New York State today and stay with an old friend, Steve Austin (nope, not that Steve Austin). Then Saturday we head to Kent, CT. Saturday evening is a middle school reunion for Rick. Sunday is his mum's famous Christmas party complete with carols.

Then we actually get to relax on Christmas eve. My only holiday wish is for a repeat performance of a Child's Christmas in Wales by Frank Delaney who joined us last Christmas. The accent does wonders for the story.

Well, maybe one more holiday wish: to not stuff myself with more meat than I eat January - October combined during our Christmas holiday in CT.

Happy Holidays Everyone!