Seven Quick Takes -- Why Does Vaction Make Me So Tired??!

Seven Quick Takes are hosted at Conversion Diary.

1) We got back from Stratford about noon on Tuesday. We had a wonderful, restful time, but I got up at 6:30 AM so that I could pack. This is actually a good thing for me; for the first several years I insisted on packing the night before, thereby effectively cutting our stay short by 12 hours or more. How can you play Trivial Pursuit or read a novel by candlelight if games, candles, and books are all packed up?

2) Unfortunately, when I got home there was immediately a LOT to do. Some of it was the "whipping the house back into Mom-acceptable shape" that happens every time I leave, but a lot of it was the seven loads of laundry we brought home with us. Yes, we wear a lot of clothes in Stratford. Actually, I wear a lot of clothes. I have quite a bit of lounge wear I've accumulated over the years, and in a house with a teen-aged boy it rarely gets an outing. So I take a couple of outfits per day to Stratford and wear it all there. (Have I mentioned that the appeal of Stratford is doing NOTHING?!! We sit in the room, read and play board games, watch a movie, rinse in the Jacuzzi, and repeat. We go out for breakfast and dinner, and sometimes sit in a coffee shop while they are "doing" the room. Ahhhhh...)

3) I wouldn't, I suppose, really have needed to do all the laundry immediately (especially the stuff I won't wear again for a year..) But one of the things that makes our household work is assigned laundry days. Back when our six kids were all under 16, I was getting buried in the mountains of laundry. So we instituted "girls' laundry day", "boys' laundry day", and so on. They learned the job, I wasn't so stressed, and it was all good! But "my" laundry days are Tuesday and Friday, and even with only Kelson at home, woe to the person who does laundry on the "wrong" day. So I got it done on Tuesday.

4) Aside from getting up at 6:30 -- which I NEVER do on vacation, and as rarely as possible otherwise -- another reason I was tired by the time we left Stratford was the stairs. Bentley's Annex, where we stay, is an old, elevator-free building. Mostly we stay on the lower floor, but this year we had to change our reservation, and our favorite room wasn't free. I was reminded again why stair-climbing is considered such good exercise. And climbing down laden with too-many clothes and books; whew!

5) The week since then hasn't been normal, either. On Wednesday this part of Michigan got its small share of the Snowpocaylpse/Snowmageddon going on elsewhere. (A shout out to Tracy with three inches in a Gulf Coast state, and to Miriel and our friends David and Lauren who are awaiting another 10 inches outside D.C.) By Michigan standards this wasn't much of a blizzard, but the timing was such that schools were closed. Kelson went back yesterday, and today is the first day of mid-winter break. So I am seeking in vain for a nice, routine, day. The choir even has this weekend off, so Sunday will also be different! And did I mention that break includes Monday?

6) Tuesday, of course, is Shrove Tuesday. In some places that means "Carnevale"! Here in the Detroit area people celebrate with paczki, overgrown Polish jelly doughnuts. (In a sad misunderstanding of the point, they've been on the shelves for more than a week...) I will be making the more restrained German faschnachts I grew up with.

7) And Wednesday, of course, is the beginning of Lent. This year I am not giving up chocolate, or fiction, or lunch on weekdays. I am giving up the mess in my house, and the boxes that all our books reside in. Even before we moved, I knew that my "Lenten discipline" would be making my new house fully home -- and clean and organized to boot. I wish that didn't make me tired thinking about it... But tomorrow is a sleep-in Saturday, so my hope is to begin the week with more energy, and Lent with a heart open to more grace. I'll keep you posted.

Gone, and Back, and Gone Again (No Aliens Involved)

So I last posted on a Tuesday, and on the Thursday afternoon I drove to a town about an hour south and got on a bus. 51 other people and I then rode all night to get to Washington D.C. early in the morning so that we could participate in the March for Life.

Of course, many other people were also doing this. Our bus stopped in Breezewood PA about 2 AM, and there was literally a bus arriving and leaving about every minute. Our stopover lasted about 15 minutes longer than planned because there were so many buses needing to refuel. As an avid reader of British novels, I was reminded of the phrase that for certain events "there were special trains 'laid on'." I had thought before about the logistics of hiring buses, but never about having so many of them converging on the same place at the same time. There was a behind-the-scenes "cast of thousands".

If you got your information about the March from a standard media source, you may have thought that the entire march was merely thousands. According to an experienced police officer that one of the people on our bus talked to -- yeah, about 450 of those thousands. The thing was MASSIVE. Certainly bigger than I imagined, and I have been relying on alternative media for years. (Click here to see a short film about the media response to the March.)

And then, after standing for a couple of hours listening to the pre-march rally speakers, and spending TWO hours walking the mile-and-a half from the Mall to the Supreme Court building --because it was shoulder-to-shoulder and nose-to-back --, we got back on the bus and rode all night back to Michigan. I wasn't the oldest person on the bus (he had me beaten by almost 15 years), but I have decided that when I do this again, I am going to take several days and stay with family or friends in the D.C. area. But worth it?? Absolutely! It was beyond encouraging for someone who has been involved in this movement for 25 years to see the enormous numbers of kids who weren't even born then who turn out for this march. (Fifteen or so of them were on our bus.) A friend who also went wants to take the youth group she leads next year.

I was (not surprisingly) pretty tired for the next few days. And then our son-in-law Larry had to travel on business, so Branwen came to stay, with Daniel and Matthew. I am not at all repentant for not posting during that time -- reading Madeline and the Gypsies over and over was far more important! I could have posted in the last day or two, but I didn't. And tomorrow Roger and I leave for our winter week in Stratford. So I'll be scarce again, but I promise you, aliens have nothing to do with it! (Unless you count Canadians... but then we'll be in Canada, so I guess we'll be the aliens..... oh, never mind....)

Of Time, and Distance, and Going "Home"

One week ago yesterday I was on my way to my fortieth high school reunion. One week ago today I was at a family get-together with all the relatives from both sides of my family who could make it. One week ago tomorrow I was making the 9 1/2 hour drive back to Michigan.

I was born in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, a town of less than 10,000 sitting nearly on the Mason-Dixon line. Although we only lived "in" the town for less than a year (when I was six), we lived nearby enough to attend the same small country church my mother was raised in, to which my brother and SIL still belong. The exception to this was the year I was five, when my father took a short-term job in southern Maryland. We all felt as though we had moved to the other side of the earth, it was "so far" away. I just checked the distance on Google maps -- it's 117 miles. From 1984 to the early 90's, Roger's daily commute was longer than that. Arwen and Rosie live 90+ miles away, and we think nothing of running down to see them for a day. Expressways make an enormous difference!

When I was growing up, with 1950's ideas of distance, I thought that Detroit was incredibly far away. Now I live an hour north of Detroit, 520 miles from Waynesboro. With six kids in the car it used to take us nearly twelve hours to drive from here to there. These days, with 70 mph limits and drastically reduced pit stops, we regularly do it in 9 or so. On the other hand, when my parents were alive we used to try to visit Waynesboro three times in each two years. When we were planning this trip, I suddenly realized it had been over two years since we'd been there at all. (My brother and SIL did come to see us twice in that time, something they couldn't do when the folks required care.)

So it seems that both years and miles go by more quickly as I age. This is not a new concept, of course, but it's different when you experience it. It seems impossible that I have been out of high school 40 years, but 2009 --1969 = 40, whether I like it or not. And things both here and in Waynesboro change. There were fewer people at the family get-togther than I ever remember at similar gatherings. My parents' generation is all but gone, my children's generation is busy and scattered -- only Maggie and Tommy of our six were there -- and my cousins and my grandchildren's generation will never know each other except perhaps on Facebook.

When we were planning this trip, both Roger and I realized that we were "homesick" for Waynesboro. Since I was a small-town girl -- 60+% of my graduating class still live within 20 miles -- this is not too surprising for me. But Roger grew up outside Grand Rapids, and never went to Waynesboro until the summer before we were married. Furthermore, my brother's current house wasn't bought until after my folks were gone. But the sense of family makes it a part of home.

So "home" is there, and "home" is here, and nothing looks quite the way it did when I was a kid. And we are in the process of finding a new house to "keep" home in, since the state "made us an offer we couldn't refuse" to buy us out for the very long awaited construction project. ( I know I posted about that, but I can't seem to find the post. If I do find it I'll link to it.) And because this world is changeable, I have to live with that. But I am very grateful that (God willing) in the end I will recognize my True Home, and time and distance will be only a memory.

Off to PA!

Tomorrow morning early (around here we call it "zero-dark-thirty", thanks to Roger, my former Coastie) we are leaving for a week in Pennsylvania. We will visit my brother and sister-in-law, climb a bunch of rocks, pick up Maggie from her summer internship, attend my 40th (!!!!) high school reunion, have an extended-family potluck picnic, and drop Tommy off to visit a friend in Pittsburgh. Another eventful week, but this one should be much nicer! I'll see you all on the other side...

Where I'm spending my weekend

I have an actual post percolating, but I hurt my finger while trying to modify a $6 lampshade to fit an antique lamp that only $60 lampshades fit, and I'm typing with three fingers instead of my usual four. But I'm going to have a great weekend hanging out with these folks and their parents, and will be back next week, unless Daniel's baby sister or brother arrives!

Eleven and a Half!

Roger and I have a tradition that goes back at least five years and maybe longer. Whenever one of us has had too much same-old-same-old, or when things are crazy busy, or when we suddenly get a burst of the "I'm so glad I married you feeling", we will say to the other one "Nine!!", or some other number. This is a reference to how many months it is until our next scheduled Stratford visit.

As I said in my last post, we have been going there every January for ten years now, and I don't think I can possibly convey how many good feelings come with every repetition of "Six" or "Four". It doesn't even have to be a small number; just knowing that our Stratford week is coming is a guaranteed day-brightener. In fact, when I was seeing a counselor for my anxiety-panic disorder, one of my best relaxation scenarios was going mentally step-by-step through settling into room 201. (Yes, we are such creatures of habit that we ask for the same room every year. We've only had a different one twice, and one of those is exactly the same layout, just one flight up.) The window to 201 is the one right above the sign on the picture of Bentley's Annex above. The pictures in the link are actually of room 201 :-D !

And what do we do after we've settled into room 201? (The candles go here, my underwear goes in this drawer, put the DVD's on that side of the desk.) NOTHING!!! Or at least, as little as possible. We go out for breakfast and dinner, and sometimes for coffee if they haven't done the room while we were out. (Actually, as a person who likes coffee best as a flavoring, I always have a caffe mocha -- theirs are the BEST.) Sometimes we do some shopping -- we have a bookstore we're partial to (Callan Books on York Street; they don't seem to have a website.) -- and sometimes we take a walk through the snow. (There is almost always snow, but that's OK. It wouldn't be OUR Stratford week without snow.) But usually we spend our time in the double Jacuzzi reading books and drinking ginger beer. When our skin starts to pucker, we get out and read some more, or play Trivial Pursuit, or watch a movie. (This is usually a "chick flick" -- I have the best husband in the world, who humors me. He watches "guy movies" with our sons.) If we get hungry, we eat some cheese and crackers, (or kippers for Roger!) or have a piece of shortbread. Three full meals a day would be too much when we're not doing anything. And this year we did even more nothing than usual, because we were still getting over the flu. Some nights we went to bed at 8 PM!

This year our shopping was curtailed a little bit by the strong Canadian dollar. Some years when we exchanged our money at the border, we got half-again as much Canadian. This year, it was a tiny bit less than our US amount. But we made sure we had enough for Callan's, and two of our other favorite places, Rheo Thompson Candy
and Distinctly Tea.

Rheo Thompson is a Stratford institution, and while all their candy is wonderful, we tend to over-indulge in mint smoothies and dark chocolate ginger. And Distinctly Tea ...... well, I think I've already mentioned that I've raised a family of tea snobs. Cold water brought to a rolling boil (but not for too long), brewed exactly so long in a warmed pot, and has to be good tea. Currently Katie and I are on an "single-estate tea" kick. It's a really good thing that American tourists who stay more than 48 hours in Canada can bring back a lot duty free!

So that was our week in Stratford -- sleep, eat, rinse (in the Jacuzzi!), repeat. And all I can say is -- "Eleven and a half!"

Off to Stratford

Anybody who lives in this (eastern Great Lakes) neck of the woods has probably heard of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. It's hard to miss the aggressive advertising (Canada wants your tourist dollars!), and the hokeyness of the fact that the town really is named Stratford, and really is on the Avon river. (Lots of places in Canada are like that, actually; named for the old country by homesick immigrants.) Although the quality of the theatre productions is excellent -- or so I've been told; I've never seen one -- Stratford in summer is a tourist trap of the highest order. Where else could a simple diner-class restaurant call itself "The Elizabethan" and serve spaghetti with meat sauce and salad (on the same plate!) as the lunch special and be loved by budget-minded theatre-goers?

Stratford in summer is definitely avoidable. The theater season lasts from late April to late October. The streets are crowded, hotel rooms cost big bucks, parking is hard to come by. And then there's January! In January, Stratford is a pretty, snow covered small town. Hotel rooms are half price, even the premium ones like in Bentley's Annex. Not every interesting little shop is open, but the ones that are are nearly deserted. You can hold a conversation with the proprietor, if you like. The posh, expensive restaurants shut down for the winter, but there are wonderful options like Bentley's proper, or Fellini's, or York Street Kitchen. Roger and I have been going there for at least a long weekend every January since the winter of 1999. And we leave tomorrow!!