Take Away

Dear J-

Has everythng been prepared? Am I forgetting something? Paranoia does not take a vacation, and I always seem to forget one thing or another by the time I’m ready to start time off. For instance, yesterday I rode the whole way to work in relative peace until we got close to the plant and I realized that I’d forgotten my site badge, meaning half an hour of delay by going up and getting a temporary badge (and that’s when the office is open; if it wasn’t I’d be looking at the wrong end of two hours back and forth to home to retrieve it).

When I started the outage shifts I was on time and never missed a beat; after four months of odd hours and long hours I’m missing a certain attention to detail, let’s say. There’s a thousand instances where I could have done better or something more and I suspect that we’re having a two-hour meeting in the middle of the day as punishment (I suspect for my own sins) and recalibration. Either you’re amused by the leadership craft and set a good example or you’re cynical and bitter about it, guarding everything jealously and fiercely.

A couple of my cousins went to this wedding alone: no spouse, no kid(s). I understand that rationally: the kids are too young to travel on such a long flight (though Calcifer did much better than we expected, except when he was tired and refused to nap, but that’s just me probably tooting my horn: paranoia takes no breaks) and the wedding is a long thing to sit through, coupled with the ceremony, but I think I still had way more fun — with kids and taking fewer pictures — than without them would have been. And besides, I would have missed them like crazy the whole time we were gone. Maybe that’s what I can’t prepare for knowing I’m heading into the last six, er, five weeks at home. When did I become important enough to be busy? Yeah, like my ego needs fluffing.

Mike

Advertisement

Next Friday

Dear J-

We’re giong on vacation again tomorrow and I’m interested to see how figgy deals with it tonight. If the past is any indication of the future we’ll be packing and moving stuff into the car at the same time that she keeps popping out of bed, too wired and excited about the trip to sleep and too exhausted to venture much further. At this point we’ve only taken the one trip with Calcifer so he has no idea what’s in store except that he’s going to be strapped to the seat for a few hours and that’s going to make him crabby during, but at least he won’t have any anticipation of the trip. We’ve tried to keep it quiet so figgy doesn’t ramp up but she’s been telling the other kids at daycare so that particular secret is out of the bag.

In fact every other line on Tuesday must have been about the trip, since the teachers all came up to me and said that she’d been talking about the trip all day. I understand her obsessive nature, as I see it in myself, but this forward kid who’s not afraid to let her emotions out bare is someone I don’t recognize. Last night was a bit of a struggle, as lack of sleep made us both crabby: the less inclined she was to do something the stricter I got and instead of bending gracefully we both snapped. I’d take stuff away for crying, which made the crying worse, but there I was trying to make a point and … y’know what, after the night’s sleep it seems so petty and ill-advised given that neither of us is taking any lessons away from that. You want to make the point that crying isn’t going to garner the sympathy that it did when you were four months old but at the same time you have to pick your battles carefully.

I’m looking forward to getting enough sleep on this trip. Between a forced lack of connectivity (i.e. no Google Reader with its hours-long obligation to read me, read me, read me some more and no tumblr to consume the remaining scraps of free time) and the obligation as guests to conform to our host’s bedtimes, I think I’ll get more rest than I bargain for. Not a bad choice, certainly. Plus it’ll hopefully give me the strength to fight off this first achy cold of the season, which has felled three members of our family in quick succession (figgy, Calcifer, and now me). Drive on; I’ll see you tomorrow.

Mike

First Land

Dear J-

Short on time today so let it be mercifully brief: almost more photo than words.

1. Let’s not forget who was scared of Chewbacca growing up.

2. Thank God for these older kids who are actually helping hands. Calcifer still wants the ice cream but he’ll have to work for it.

3. Anaheim (or maybe just this South Harbor Drive area) feels like Las Vegas to me but instead of a slot machine in every store there’s some Disneyana kiosk behind the register.

Good night — sleep now as figgy is still well wired past ten.

Mike

Back There

Dear J-

It’s back to work with me and I’m still digesting that particular tidbit after nine days filled with kids and no time left over. The combination of late nights and later mornings has made me acutely aware that there are only twenty-four hours in a day and any attempt at cheating will be met with swift retribution. You can not subtract enough hours from the day before having a big crash somewhere and I suspect it’ll be work that takes the brunt of it today when my body deciides to siesta after lunch. Stranger things have happened after extended vacations, and only HR knows how much left I am being forced to take this year after having worked the last four being told of the virtues of one week a year.

I suppose the point of vacation is to recharge and refresh but I’m looking forward to work today for the former. The twenty-seventh iteration of the same demand from my game-obsessed daughter makes me wonder if it’s just me being a horrible person for saying no or just the repetition that’s unbearable. We got her what amounts to an electronic nanny for the trip — a Leapster handheld ‘educational’ system (I’m sure it’s effective but so far all it’s taught is how to turn on a movie and watch in the intense manner of the young) — and I can see why the temptation for something like a GameBoy is so high for parents trying to carve more time out of a hollow pumpkin day.

One of my coworkers likes to call the day before coming back to get up to speed on everything that’s going on and now I understand why. When you flip the switch and shut the work part of your brain off even temporarily there’s an awful lot of rust that builds up afterwards. At the moment, between age and responsibilities I can’t even begin to imagine retirement. If you’re supposed to have lots to do in your life then we’d be set right now but what do we go back to after the kids grow up and go? It seems like forever away but we’re already having to make preparations for figgy to start kindergarten in 2012 which is a milestone I thought impressively distant … four years ago.

Mike

Fly Change

/Dear J-

It’s technically the last day I have off, since I’m officially working from home* come Monday but it feels like the first day again; in the past eight days, I’ve been a newly re-minted parent (Thursday), single dad (Friday night), family warrior (Saturday haul-home), bsrbecue operator (Sunday), shopper (Monday and Tuesday), host (Wednesday), chauffeur (Thursday) and finally just exhausted all the time. It’s been great, in other words. I’ve snapped a lot more than usual in the past week and have surprised myself with what I am incapable of (rising with short sleep intervals has apparently gone right out along with naps and luxurious sleeping in: it is no coincidence that everything I think about has to do with sleep lately).

Yesterday I figured out a way to fit all six souls into the car: the third row in our Mazda 5 isn’t equipped with LATCH/ISOFIX anchors, but it still has a seatbelt, and the particular car seat we have for Calcifer (Grace SafeSeat) has a built-in belt anchor. Thus when figgy’s in the second row, Calcifer sits directly behind, and there’s just enough room to tuck a stroller in the dramatically smaller cargo area, and fit four adults in the remaining four open seats. It’s hardly ideal, but we’re all friendly and as a result we’ve gotten to and from Irvine without anyone risking permanent deformation. Key is to stay flexible and work around, around, around when you have to and when you can.

I’m almost ready to declare the transition period over, as figgy has taken to nigh-mutiny as Calcifer embeds himself into our lives. Today she’s demanded (and mostly gotten away with) murder as far as snacks and TV and game playing have gone; we don’t want to upset her apple cart any further, but we’re starting to tighten down as well, though. The way things were was comfortable for everyone. The way things are now, we’re settling into a new routine that doesn’t necessarily treat everyone the same, but as fairly as we can manage. This week has been a bit artificial in terms of the help we’ve gotten and extra work we’ve had to pull together, but it seems do-able and, given our experience with figgy, things will definitely get better and brighter (and more fun, ever more fun: figgy has a deadpan sense of humor) as we keep flying through the changes.

Mike

* Ironic thing is that even though we worried about and asked for and got the virtual private network encryption key (it dangles from the end of my keychain, in fact, and generates a numeric combination in shifting patterns) the laptop isn’t set up to use that particular piece of software, and so I’ll be heading in to work on Monday specifically to get the laptop working like it should have been.

Wound Down

Dear J-

It’s the last day and I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the reality of tomorrow:  it’ll be another long night of class and driving — I plan on being out of the house from 0445 to 2100 — with homework that I haven’t done yet, either, naturally.  I spent most of the day uploading photographs from the trip, which gave me a chance to relive those moments, good and bad, and watch them in great relief and detail (though apparently not enough — I got the count wrong on figgy’s generation, which is now up to three plus three plus two plus one plus two plus one plus one — thirteen).  It was nice to go places this week.  It was also nice to have another day reserved to get out and do things on our own, too, from buying clothes (tomorrow is dress-like-a-cowboy day at the daycare) to watching a movie (Toy Story 3, well recommended to bring some tissues, though).

Better not to dwell on the future, nor wallow in the past.  Now it’s time to sleep and wind this week down gently; the rain earlier this afternoon broke the heat, finally; the past few days I’ve kept adding more and more water bottles to my load (it looks like it’s full of camera gear, but I was down to one extra lens and four water bottles by the end) and we’ve still managed to drain them all dry by the end of the day.  Tomorrow’s going to be fun again in a different way, as long as I make it so.

Mike

Last Night Out

Dear J-

The evil folks at Disney made it possible for guests of the hotels to break into Disneyland an hour early today (Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays too), so we had to take advantage of that — up by 6 and out the door to get in line by 7. We went on a couple of rides (Peter Pan and the Matterhorn Bobsleds) in order to take advantage of the early start but all it ends up really doing for us is making for a long day — we got back less than an hour ago after taking a short break during the worst part of today’s heat, so we are looking at twelve hours of pounding pavement with our feet.

It’s also the last night were spending in foreign beds; between the swim and walking I’m just about ready to keel over, so no trouble falling asleep tonight. I’m strangely heartened by the fact that figgy identifies more with the pirates than the ever-present Princess line that Disney keeps pressing into the minds of young girls (clearly it’s working, as she thought my cousin’s wife was a princess, not just a bride). So if you hear a few rounds of Yo ho yo ho, a pirate’s life for me in the near future, don’t be surprised by the little girl. Back to normal Tomorrow, and unlearning all the bad vacation habits, okay, but there’s the one habit — dreaming the implausible improbables so we can keep everyone safe.

Mike

Dark Night

Dear J-

We’ve had a long day — up at 4 and out the door by 5 in order to meet up with the rest of everyone (which turned out to be my parents, an aunt, and a cousin) by 1:30PM or so. I didn’t think I was driving that fast, to be honest, so I’m not sure how we got here this quickly, even with two meal stops. Right now is quiet time as I provide the room with a nightlight while waiting for another cousin to roll in tonight. Strange that I’d work so hard while on vacation.

As soon as we got her out of bed, though, figgy was up — she must have slept as badly as the rest of us last night thinking we’d be on vacation the next day. I’m beginning to understand the need to take time off work (and I had been planning on bringing my pager — ha ha, suckers) and recharge your batteries. It is work. It is enjoyable work.

Mike

Size Class

Dear J-

Back in Washington, the state used to classify school athletics by enrollment; AAA schools had a thousand students or more, AA schools were five hundred to a thousand, and so on until you got to the B schools, whose exact numbers I don’t remember, but I believe were less than a hundred students in the entire high school. The really big schools were all from the major centers — Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, and the Tri-Cities — and our town was big enough to support a AA school (I think our exact number was close to eight hundred when you counted in the 9th graders?), And our town was not huge by any stretch — eight thousand people inside the city limits, maybe a total of ten including the borders of the district.

Some of the B schools, though, had to draw from two or more towns to even field teams; that’s where you’d hear of names like Almira-Coulee-Hartline, Tekoa-Oakesdale, or St. John-Endicott (whose St. John contingent called “Emptysquat” to emphasize just how small the town was), and they were all, almost without exception, east of the mountains. This is the background that shapes my perspective; I knew about cities and subways but only as a theoretical exercise; a determined bicyclist could make it across town in fifteen minutes, which led to thoughts of becoming a bicycle messenger in a place with no demand for one.

In comparison the county and corridors we travel (fifty miles of city along I-5) are asprawl with concrete and streetlights; I still goggle at it every so often to remind myself of the St. Johns and Coulee Citys of the world, where time stood still for us one week each summer. With any luck we should be able to find ourselves someplace a world apart yet close in my mind, some time this summer; the unexpected reminders of home are always waiting to ambush my head.

Mike

Visualization Exercise

Dear J-

I keep thinking of Palm Springs lately; this is right around the time we went last year, and the sultry weather has put me in mind of the desert, with cool nights and blasting days.  Palm Springs was a lot warmer at night, though (the place we stayed had the thermostat set to run the air conditioning wide open, it seemed); coming down through the canyon this morning I could already feel the chill setting in to my hands.  Plus if I keep thinking of Palm Springs hopefully I can remember how those agenda-less days and nights were instrumental in keeping me sane.

On our “date night” (we went with my sister-in-law and her family; we swapped babysitting duties on successive nights) rather than hit up the casino, as they did after dinner, we went to the bookstore to browse magazines; it’s funny, the things you take as little luxuries.  Growing up whenever we had the misfortune of going shopping, we’d usually end up either at the magazine rack or in the computer section (this in the days when Commodore and Atari ruled the department stores, but you couldn’t get any time on the 2600s sitting in their shiny boxes) by ourselves, which seems unthinkable now.

I’d never been to Palm Springs before last year and had an odd view of it, thinking that it would be full of golf courses and old people in ice cream-colored clothes.  Instead I found a lower gear, life lived at a slower pace.  It’s a valuable lesson to hold close this week, before we flip the switch to longer hours (this year it looks like we’ll miss every holiday) on Monday.  Now I close my eyes to let my mind walk me away into the desert somewhere along the shifting sand and broiling heatm feeling the weight slip my shoulders for good.

Mike