Oklahoma City Move

Frank and I just got back from helping Robin and Jeremy and Autumn move into a larger home. The move made me reminisce about a time in January in 2003 when Robin set out to Oklahoma from California, on her own, to pursue a engineering job with the FAA.

Robin in January 2003 in front of Mayflower moving van.

That day was very traumatic for me, sending off my first born. A couple days after the moving van left, Robin and I flew out to Oklahoma City to await the arrival of all her worldly possessions – well, almost all her possessions. I still remember the phone call to make the airline reservations for those flights. It was in the wee hours of the morning, when phone lines are least busy. I reserved two flights out. Then, when I was talking to the attendant and I told her there was only one return flight, and my voice broke.  I explained why and she understood, having just sent her oldest son off to college. She really could empathize, so we cried on each other's shoulder, feeling a close kinship while each of us realizing how ludicrous the situation would seem to the uninitiated.. two batty, middle-aged women who do not know each other from Adam, crying on the phone, in the middle of the night, over an airplane ticket.

Fast forward a decade later and here is Robin, standing in front of a different moving truck, this time, holding her eleven month old daughter, Autumn.

Robin and Autumn in September 2013 in front of moving truck.

And here is the new home they are moving into. They needed more square footage because of the paraphernalia that comes with a new baby.

The rear door is open because Autumn is asleep in her car seat in the back.

See that turret on the far right?  Robin and Jeremy already have a picture of their princess in a tower. There is a small stream at the rear of the property. Jeremy is so smitten with his precious daughter that I would not be surprised if he installed a moat in the front of their "castle"!

Look closely and you can see Autumn, nose and hands pressed to the window pane.

Jeremy had to be on travel for his job and did not arrive home until a couple of hours after the moving truck left. Was that excellent timing or rotten timing?  I guess it depends on your point of view. He did not miss the move on purpose so Frank and I felt very much needed and appreciated.  Doing that move on her own while caring for an eleven month old would have been very inefficient and darn near impossible for Robin. We arrived the Wednesday before the Saturday move, fetched boxes, tape, and packing materials from Loewe's on Thursday, and packed boxes and carted clothes through until midnight on Friday. The truck arrived bright and early Saturday morning and in four hours, the furniture and 40+ small, 25+ medium, and 12+ large boxes were moved. After Jeremy's arrival, we spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday and Monday emptying and refilling the boxes as we shuttled between the two houses with multiple loads.

Despite our best efforts, not everything got moved over or unpacked as needed, so a bit of improvising was necessary at times. No bowls or teaspoons had come over so Frank and I ate ice cream out of zip lock baggies. This  may be lots of laughs, but it is very messy and ill advised. Autumn had her rice cereal from a wine glass... stirred, not shaken in non-elegant James Bond fashion.

This is rice cereal, not rice wine.
It is not sake either. Sake is technically rice beer since it is brewed.

An inescapable downer part of the trip was that Autumn got some sort of stomach flu and passed it on, big-time, to Grandma and Grandpa. She caused Frank and me a sleepless Monday night in the bathrooms instead of the bedroom and a totally lethargic Tuesday recuperating from the exhaustion. Fortunately, we had Wednesday as a low key day of recovery, with minimal unpacking, before having to fly home on Thursday. Autumn is now recognized as being Patient Zero and her nickname of BBG, for Ba-By-Girl, was temporarily re-dubbed as PBG for Pestilent-Baby-Girl. As an aside, the origin of the BBG nickname was a take off on Frank's PPD moniker for our dogs, which, of course, stands for Pup-Py Dog. Amazing... the weird traditions you unwittingly pass on to your kids...

The new home has a wrap around porch and an expansive screened-in sun room at the rear. A highlight of the trip was viewing the lightning bugs from the sun room in the evening. Frank and I watched them one dusk. Frank and Robin shared a father/daughter bond doing that one night, too. We made up a game to play with the lightning bugs. Do you know when you go to the eye doctor and they run that machine that flashes tiny spots of light in various locations to check your field of vision? You press a button for each spot you see, when you see it, and a "Feep" sound is emitted. Lightning bugs are surprisingly like those tiny, ever-elusive moving pinpoints of light.

"There's one off to the left! ... Feep!"
"Oh, there are two up to the right! ... Feep, feep!"
"Just saw one down there by the lamp post! ... Feep!"

Spotting lightning bugs is like nature's eye test.

Indulgent first time grandparents that we are, we foolishly bought – and stored – a rocking fire engine for Jeremy and Robin's kids-to-be a couple years ago, long before they were even expecting. (Jeremy had been a fireman at one point in his career, so it seemed so appropriate.) Shipping it out to Oklahoma from California was neither easy nor cheap and the amount of disassembly to send it there was non-trivial. But Grandpa took it apart and he and Jeremy reassembled it at the other end. Judging by the looks on Frank's and Autumn's faces, it was worth it!

A proud and pleased Grandpa looks on while an adoring Autumn rocks away.

We got up at 3:30 am on Thursday to catch a 6:00 am flight from OKC. We arrived at SFO at 7:30 am after an uneventful 3.5 hour flight. We will take several days to recover but are very happy and pleased to have made the trip.  Jeremy and Robin thanked us many times over. It was so nice to be needed and, moreover, to be appreciated for it!

Boston Trip: Thursday Gloucester and Home

We drove to the Fisherman's Memorial Statue (1925) along the Gloucester coast, just about 15 minutes away from our inn in Rockport. Names of those who had perished at sea are engraved along the surrounding low rock wall.  Many of the men had the same last name and made us realize that wives, mothers, sisters, and cousins often lost all male members of their family in one fell swoop. More names had been added as late as the early 2000's. We took our obligatory photos of Frank and me at the site.

Me in front of the statue of the classic sea captain.

I think Frank looks as noble as the man steering the ship.

We then got back in the car and continued the 50 minute drive to Logan airport, returned the rental car, and waited for our direct flight back to SFO. Since I had read everything I'd brought with me I browsed the magazine stores at the airport for a book to read. I chose Low Pressure, by Sandra Brown, mainly because it was one of the cheapest ones at the news stand and everything else seemed to have such dark themes (cancer, drug addiction, divorce). It also involved a tornado and with Robin living in tornado alley in Oklahoma, it piqued my interest. It was a very gripping book and you do need gripping to pass the time on a flight. It certainly was not the opposite of dark, but I liked it a lot.

I recommended this gripping novel.
It probably does not count as high literature but hey, it was a good read.

I digress, but I want to relate this short story. Yesterday morning I was telling Frank that I had just come off reading three good books in a row: The Tale of Halcyon Crane, The Fate of Mercy Alban, both by Wendy Webb, and Low Pressure by Sandra Brown.  Wendy Webb has a third book but it is not coming out until January 2014. I was lamenting that I was not into anything good right now. Frank checked e-Bay for books by Sandra Brown. Wow! Was she ever prolific! Closing within 16 minutes was an e-bay auction item for 30 of her books, a mix of hardcovers and paperbacks with the current bid at $12.50. The coincidence was so uncanny we figured it was word from above. Frank put in a last minute bid and won them all for $15.50 + $12 shipping.  For less than $30 we got 30 books. This deal even beats the $0.01 books on Amazon since each of those has $3.99 shipping. I suppose the library would be even cheaper yet but I am notorious for racking up late fees. The library will get them as we finish them, though.

The plane flight west is longer by an hour than the flight east due to prevalent wind direction. The mini-TVs in seat backs were non-functional so we did not get to capitalize on that little perk to pass time. Maybe next time we fly I will load a video onto the iPad. Anyway, although the flight home seemed long, I had that good Sandra Brown book to absorb my attention.

It was a relatively smooth flight and we landed on time and undid our steps to get back to the car in Long Term Parking. We'd written down our parking space but I was glad I'd taken this photo with my cell phone so we knew where to get off the parking lot shuttle bus.

Taking a photo with your cell phone is a good way to remember where you parked the car.

It is good to be back home. Getting home reminded me of the old nursery rhyme. I don't know why.  Maybe it is just stream of consciousness technique- as if I have a technique.

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

To market, to market, to buy a fat hog, Home again, home again, jiggety-jog.

This post concludes my blog series on our Boston trip. What I initially determined to be three posts for three sections of the trip turned into nine posts. It is a little over two weeks since our return so I guess I did OK, not great.

Today is Labor Day. Holidays have much diluted meaning when you are retired. After I figure out Dropbox for the photos I am going to go sew. Autumn needs her grandma to bring her at least one new dress when we visit this month to help her mommy and daddy move into their newly purchased bigger home.

Boston Trip: If This Is Wednesday, It Must Be Rockport

After breakfast with Dick and Linda, we programmed our GPS, Maggie, to lead the way to our hotel by the sea, The Seaward Inn in Rockport. It was a gorgeous day, with blue skies above and little traffic to contend with.

This photo is my feeble attempt at an artsy way to portray the feel of the road on our journey.
That is Maggie in the upper right portion of the car's windshield. 

Along the way we saw windmills right by the side of the road.  They seemed so incongruous there sandwiched in among the trees on flat terrain and so near the vehicles. Frank and I are used to seeing banks of windmills along the sweeping golden hills of California and not in a so densely built up region.

Can these windmills really be exposed to much wind in their flat, shielded location?

By way of contrast, these windmills are part of a wind farm situated in the sweeping hills of the Altamont Pass
near our home in California.

We arrived at the Seaward Inn and felt it would be a restful and calming stay, judging by the rocking chairs beckoning from the front porch and the beautiful ocean view shimmering in from all six of the windows in our two room suite.

Rockers on the front porch were a great place to relax and catch the sea breezes.

We watched the sailboats from the swivel rocker pair by the window
before setting out to explore the headlands and downtown.

The extra room gave a panoramic view of the grounds and Sandy Bay
and provided an out of the way place to stretch out our suitcases.

The Seaward Inn is the lower red star near the mid bottom of the map. We set out on foot to explore downtown, near the H on the map, by taking the garden path and headland path along the water's edge. We returned on an inland route along Main Street.

Seaward Inn is at the lower red star at the mid-bottom of the map.
Downtown is at the H, an enjoyable walking distance from the inn.

The path was well-marked.

Frank is on his way toward the headlands portion of the path.
At the headlands you are at a scenic outcropping overlooking the bay.

Once in town, we bought ice cream and ate it overlooking the boats that were moored and watching the folks that were coming and going.

We sat in the backyard of the ice cream store, enjoying our treat for both the taste buds the eyes.

We strolled throughout the seaside artists' community of Rockport, looking in the shops and boutiques at glassware, jewelry, pewter castings, pottery, hand crafted clothing, paintings, and sculptures. We ate a fish dinner at a bayside restaurant and decided to head back leisurely to the inn. We happened on a second downtown ice cream parlor. We did not eat there but we photographed its sign as a tribute to our daughter Robin.

I just love the whimsical sign for this ice cream parlor.

Frank and I played a game of Scrabble in the lobby before retiring for the night. He beat me but just by a few points. I claim that is because I was nice and let him try for another word and not forfeit his turn when he misspelled raisins,"raisens". He claims if I were really being nice, I would not have pointed that out. The next morning we had a window seat for breakfast in the dining portion of the first floor area. We also spent some time before leaving reading and relaxing in the bay window, soaking up the ambience and view. Although we were there less than 24 hours, we were so glad we'd made the effort to squeeze in the slow paced down time for ourselves here in Rockport.

Frank and I spent our last enjoyable hours at the Seaward Inn
by sitting here and reading before heading off to Gloucester and the airport.