One Cobble at a Time

My kids have been excited about the trip to Seattle for more than a month. They announced “We’re going to Seattle!” to anyone who would listen. But for all their anticipation, they really had no idea what to expect. When we arrived at the Strohl house, Patches and Gleek’s fondest dreams were realized. There were kids to play with and new toys and a dog and cats. Kiki’s joy was focused on the dog and a promised dip in the hot tub. Link got out of the car and found himself faced with a strange house full of strange people, cats which would make him wheeze, and a large, friendly, bouncing dog. Link wanted to get back into the car and drive back to Boise.

The next hour for Link was filled with fear and anxiety. He shut himself into one of the downstairs rooms and lay on the floor crying quiet tears. He’d been so looking forward to the trip and now he’d arrived and it was full of worrisome things. At first I did not realize what Link was doing. I was busy talking with the Strohls and getting settled. Then I looked around and only found three of my four kids. The Strohls, wonderful hosts that they are, took the dog to go stay at a neighbor’s house for awhile. I carried Link upstairs and sat him on my lap. I didn’t force him to talk to anyone. I didn’t try to make him happy. I didn’t try to show him all the cool things about the house. I just required him to sit where he could begin to acclimate rather than huddling and feeling miserable. Within 15 minutes Link was starting to feel comfortable. Within an hour he was down on the floor playing Legos with the Strohl’s son. The next morning we reintroduced the dog, which gave Link a little renewed anxiety, but not much. He had another moment of anxiety when we returned to the Strohls after two days in a hotel. But over all he adapted well and once he was comfortable he had a great time.

Watching Link’s anxiety and helping him overcome it made me realize that Link doesn’t get exposed to new experiences as often as he should. He is content to play at home or with a few familiar friends. He makes friends slowly as people become familiar. Most of our trips involve staying with relatives. Link’s whole life keeps him in a comfort zone. When he is forced outside that comfort zone, he reacts with fear and anxiety. The world is not always going to provide him with comfortable experiences. If I do not teach him how to deal with things that make him anxious, I will have failed him as a parent. I need to consciously expose Link to things which will be good for him, but which he doesn’t necessarily want to do. I need to choose these experiences carefully. The important thing is to teach him how to deal with anxiety and fear, not to make him miserable. We’ll be taking another family trip to new places, possibly next year. That is good, but I also need to provide smaller experiences here at home. I’ll have to do some thinking to figure out what they might be.

We arrived at my sister’s house in Boise on Monday March 26. My sister’s house is a familiar and comfortable place. The kids all disappeared to play with cousins and I had leisure to look around at the things my sister has changed since I was last there. She has done quite a bit of re-decorating. Her front room in particular has taken on a very comfortable and finished feel. I noted in particular how most of her wall decorations were things other than framed pictures. She had candle holders and floral arrangements and wire artworks. I really like that. Now I want to do more with my walls than just hang framed pictures on them.

Then on Wednesday March 28 we arrived in Seattle. The Strohl’s house is beautiful. Every room was clean and had objects in it whose only purpose was to add beauty to the room. But the house was also definitely arranged for people and kids to live in. I did not feel like I had to carefully not touch anything. Donna also had candle holders and wire things on her walls. The guest room where we stayed had a canopied bed and a little table and chairs with a fountain trickling quietly in one corner. It was like a peaceful little sanctuary. Several times during the visit I retreated down there to just sit and soak up the tranquility. A chorus of frogs sang outside my window only adding to the beauty of the place.

I sat in that place and thought about my house. My house isn’t beautiful. It has some beautiful things in it, but mostly the house itself is a container for my things. I realized that I want my house to be a Place. I want it to have character. The only way for it to acquire that is for me to put some time and effort into making it beautiful. I need to do some remodeling. Nothing major, just repainting and adding small touches here and there. Also I need to do some cleaning. I realized that if I’ll just scrub things a little more often, that will go a long way toward making my house more beautiful. I made plans to start on the scrubbing as soon as I got home and to evaluate how much money we can afford to put toward home improvement projects.

Then on Tuesday April 3 at 2 am I arrived home. I walked in the front door and was greeted by warmth and the smell of home. The surroundings were uncluttered because I’d picked up before we left and I was able to settle into this place that is mine. Being home again made me realize that my home is not ugly. It is a little worn and needs some renewal, but it is a good house with potential to be a wonderful house. I still remember having a delivery guy glance in our front room and ask if we are artistic people because our front room seemed artistic. I like that. I want my home to tell about me. I want my home to be welcoming and comfortable and beautiful. And like anything else, I’ll only achieve that as far as I’m willing to put in some work to make it happen.

Since our return from Seattle on Tuesday I have been asked “how was your trip?” more times than I’ve bothered to count. Usually that question is immediately followed by “Did you have fun?” These questions seem easy to answer, but they’re not. How was my trip? Did I have fun? Well there was definitely some fun involved, but I can’t say the whole trip was an unmitigated delight. I could have done without getting lost 3 of the 4 times I drove in the Seattle area. I learned a lot the challenges of combining a family vacation with a business trip. Some things worked other things didn’t. The kids and I got to go new places and see things we’d never seen before. Seeing those places with my kids was really good, but it was a very different experience from going by myself. This trip was not often relaxing, but it was definitely a good thing to do. I fully intend to do “vacation to new places” again, although I think next time I’ll arrange for Howard to be on vacation too. He worked the convention all weekend.

All the places we went and things that we saw sparked a bazillion thoughts in my brain. There were many blogworthy ideas and events. Thus far I haven’t blogged any of them, but I took notes and over the next week or so I’m hoping to go through them all and get the entries written. I’ve discovered that I really need mental space to process my experiences and to write about them. During the whole trip to Seattle I ran from event to event until I crashed into bed at night. Even in the times that I scheduled as “down times” for the kids, I was still on duty watching to make sure that kids didn’t drown in the hotel swimming pool or squabble over property rights. It wasn’t until the long drive home that my brain was able to process all the things that happened. I drifted half asleep while my mind wandered then I’d wake up and make notes about my brain wanderings. Then I’d drift some more, then write more notes.

Upon my arrival home I had to unpack everything and re-settle us all into being at home. That was Tuesday. Yesterday I had to spend all day catching up on accounting and the quarterly financial reports required by the state and federal governments. Today I am going to do some spring cleaning and I’m going to do some blogging. Fortunately the spring cleaning keeps my hands busy, but allows my brain space to roam and compose entries. So the two things should go well together. Perhaps when I’m done writing all the entries I’ll finally have a concise answer for “How was your trip?”

I have washed 12 loads of laundry today and there are still about 3 loads to go before I am done.

Today I am drifting and sniffling and coughing and assimilating an overwhelming pile of experiences. The sniffling and coughing are because of my cat allergies. The house where we stayed had cats. The drifting may be a result of coming down off of the allergy medication load or it could be because I spent 14 hours in a van yesterday. We pulled in at 2 am this morning.

Despite being drifty I’ve been working steadily on unpacking and laundry. By Friday I want there to be no remaining evidence that we went on a trip other than happy memories and a few new things stowed away neatly where they belong. I also intend to scrub out the interior of my fridge because we forgot to dump half a gallon of milk before we left. Mmmm. Yogurt.

The pattern for today has been work a little, then sit while I identify what I need to do next. Then I close my eyes for a minute. One minute stretches to 5 or 10 while my brain wanders. Then either my thought train winds to the end of its path, or some external noise reminds me that I have more things to do. I get up and do the next thing. Repeat.

Most of my brain meanderings today have been pondering on redecorating my house. Not just pondering, but planning. In my head I am picking out paint colors and cupboards and baseboards. I know that I won’t have money for any of this for awhile, but my brain stubbornly keeps demolishing things and rebuilding them better. I’m not sure where my brain thinks I’m going to have the time to do all of this remodeling either. Mostly I’m letting it plan, because then the plans will be there waiting for me when I do actually have the time and money.

“Decorating my house” was on the list of things that I don’t do. Apparently a piece of my brain has decided that need to change. But not today. Today I am doing laundry and stowing suitcases and sanitizing the fridge.

I’ve never chauffeured myself around in a strange city before, which is probably the source of my blithe assurance that it can’t be that difficult. I would probably have been just fine if I had not assumed that general directions would lead me where I wanted to go. Silly me. The 10 minute trip from hotel to convention center took nearly an hour and a phone call for help from our local friend.

Kiki was attempting to help me navigate and was reduced to a hyperventilating, huddling, bundle of pre-teen tears in short order. That was harder to deal with than being lost. Especially since we were never far lost. I had a very solid sense of where I needed to be, I just needed to find the right roads to get me there. Oh and those roads needed to not be One Way in the wrong direction or closed for construction.

We did not actually stay very long at the convention. We stopped by to say hello to Howard and the Blank Label crew. We also stopped at the Girl Genius booth long enough for Kiki to go gaga and get handed a fee copy of one of the books. Howard gave a Schlock book in exchange.

Then we were off to the aquarium. I found it with no trouble at all because I’d researched in advance. The trip from the aquarium to the hotel should not have been a problem, except that I was looking at the wrong hotel on the tourist map. I went straight to the location, but it wasn’t the right hotel. Once I actually located our hotel on the map, getting there wasn’t a problem.

The lost-while-driving experience is engrumpifying because getting lost isn’t something I do. I plan ahead. I use my good sense of direction and I get where I intended to go. Honestly I was only truly lost once. The rest of the time I wasn’t where I wanted to be, but Ihad an idea of what to do next. The one lost moment was sitting in the parking garage for not-my-hotel and having no idea where to find my hotel. I didn’t want to need help, but I called Dan once again to help me find my hotel. While he was looking it up, I rummaged through the van and finally located the map with our hotel circled on it. Instantly I could see a clear path to the hotel. I had Kiki call Dan to tell him “never mind” and we drove straight to the hotel.

The next time I lose my way in a city, I think I’ll try to do it without four bored and over-tired children in the car. That would make a we’re-having-an-adventure mindset easier to maintain. I can think of few things more annoying than a chorus of “can’t we just go to the hotel?” when that is exactly what I’ve been trying to do for 45 minutes.

We are now in our hotel. We’ve reached the point in the trip where Howard has to work and I’m on my own with the kids. I’m not certain what the kids and I will do tomorrow. There are some options that don’t involve driving in a strange city, but I’m not sure they are the preferred options.

I hope that we can manage all of us in one room without causing problems for Howard. If we can’t, then tomorrow I’ll have to de-camp and take the kids to the Strohl’s house.

The Schlockfest party last night went really well. I was glad for the chance to visit with our contingent of local friends.

I’m offline for the duration of the stay at the hotel, except for a few snatched glimpses at email using the hotel business center.

One of the disadvantages of being on an interesting vacation is a lack of time/space to post things as I would like to.  Dan has generously provided a laptop that Howard and I are free to use, without which I would be completely offline until my return.  I want very much to write everything as I go, but I am finding it difficult to create the mental space necessary for composing thoughtful entries.  This is not a fault of the house or the hosts, it is just the natural consequence of having many new things going on at once.  

It has been a wonderful quiet morning.  We had a good breakfast followed by a homework time, a dip in the hot tub, and a craft.  My kids are in heaven.

I hate being allergic to cats. I hate wheezing up when I visit people who have them. It is alarming and uncomfortable to have my lungs constrict and my energy ebb. Most of the time I don’t think of my allergy at all. It is a non-issue. But this trip we are staying with the Strohls who have 3 cats. We’ll be visiting with Pi and Kreely who have cats.

I wish I could love and snuggle the cats. I wish I could tussle with dogs. I hate seeming to be fussy or reluctant about animals. But the truth is that I am. I don’t touch the animals because I know the consequences.