Category: Life

Life

Grounded

Karen

Now, now, don’t let the title fool you. This isn’t yet another story about my ongoing struggle with my 15-year old son. That story is getting old (telling it and I’m sure ya’ll are getting tired of hearing about it).

No, this story is prompted by Absolutely Bananas’ Monday writing prompt: Travel Horror Stories. You know me, ANY excuse to write and I’m on it. 😀

I’ve never been an easy person to travel with. I don’t know, I used to get SO FREAKED OUT when we travelled. I mean, anal-freaked out. Did we have enough toothpaste? What about sunscreen? Did you pack the bug spray? For some odd reason, I thought it would be the end of the world if we had to shop at a foreign Wal-Mart. Pfft. What an idiot.

Anyway, my first horrific travel experience was my honeymoon. We flew to Cozumel, Mexico. We flew, to a different country. Okay, one, I had never been out of Missouri at that point, so just leaving my home state made me hyperventilate. But the country?! And of course, I had never flown before, so leaving the ground?! Someone hand me a tranquilizer! Needless to say, I cried when we first landed in Cozumel. I was in a different country and all I heard was Spanish. I was totally out of my element, a new bride starting a new life and I pretty much lost my head. Luckily, my husband, being the calm and rational man he is, patiently helped me adapt and we ended up having a good time (though I packed all the wrong clothes – it was stinking HOT there and I left the area with second degree burns – but hey, it’s all good. *grin*)

But that experience broke my travel cherry (wow, that sounds crude, doesn’t it – my apologizes) and from that point on, even though I’ve been nervous about traveling, I haven’t been as freaked out by the experience. For example, the husband and I went on a cruise for our tenth anniversary and I didn’t freak out once (though I did get sea-sick – but that’s another story).

And then, we started taking the boys with us when we travelled. I purposefully waited until they were older before we attempted such a feat. I knew me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle two small children and keep myself under control in the process.

We’ve been to the Florida beaches four times (Pensacola Beach, Madeira Beach, St. Petersburg and Sanibel Island), the Rockies and Washington DC and the boys have done great all the times we’ve travelled.

But the first time we took them on a plane, was a nightmare. Not because of anything they did, but because … well, let me start at the beginning.

I’m from Springfield Missouri. And contrary to what others may think of the area, this is a GREAT place to raise a family. We’re about 250,000 strong and we have plenty of space – our city isn’t stuffed into a small area, our crime rate is low, our schools are pretty good and our cost of living is CHEAP when compared to the rest of the country.

But we’re small. And our airport is no exception. (In fact, when we returned from our Washington DC trip a few weeks ago, we had to exit the plane on stairs as opposed to those cool exit, uh, thingies that they wheel out to the plane. Why? Because we were the last flight into town for that evening and everyone had gone home. I felt like I had walked into a 1940’s movie.)

So, the airplanes that leave our airport? Are small. And unreliable. There are a lot of “mechanical issues” (like not being able to find the oil cap and having to “borrow” an oil cap from another plane – yes, that really happened).

Me and my family are in the Springfield airport. And we’re eagerly waiting to board our plane to Dallas, because we have a connecting flight to catch to Tampa. (I think we were heading to St. Petersburg, Florida that year – but all of the Florida vacations are sort of blurry, so I can’t swear to that).

We board the plane.

And we wait. And we check the clock. And we continue to wait. And now we’re beginning to sweat (literally because they haven’t turned the engines on and there’s no air circulation and we’re all starting to get cranky and just a bit sick) because now the time we should have taken off has come and gone. Still, we wait some more. And finally, they tell us there’s a “mechanical issue.” And though the hubs and I aren’t terribly concerned about this, (it happens), this is the first time the boys have flown and start to freak out.

Now I’m stressed out. Why? One: we’re not going to make our connecting flight if we don’t leave immediately, and Two: I’m trying to act all “oh, it’s no big deal” to the boys so they will calm down but I’m thinking in the back of my head, “uh oh, just what IS this mechanical issue – are we talking something serious, or did a flight attendant over sleep?”

Thirty minutes go by and they finally have us disembark – they are going to bring us another plane.

Okay, by this time, our nerves are frayed. And we’re not exactly thrilled about them bringing us another plane – I mean, how RELIABLE is this airline’s planes now anyway? But we’d rather fly on a new plane than take a chance on the old plane, you know? After another thirty minutes, we finally board our new plane and head off to Dallas, Texas.

We land in Dallas and we have to RUN to catch our connecting flight. We’re terribly late and I know we’re probably not going to make it, but I’m praying there’s been a delay and we’ll be able to board anyway.

No dice. Our flight has taken off without us.

Now we’re stuck in Dallas and aren’t sure what to do. The boys are scared and we’re getting the run around. “Check in with such-and-such. You’ll be put on stand-by,” etc. Any seasoned travelers out there KNOW about the airport runaround.

So now, we’re on standby and incredibly frustrated. After all, this wasn’t our fault. It’s the airlines’ fault and they aren’t really bending over backwards to help us. In fact, we’re ignored most of the time. And this just makes my blood boil. Every time a flight takes off for Tampa, we’re in the terminal crossing our fingers that our names will be called.

The day wears on and the number of flights begins to dwindle. Our chances of getting to Tampa that day are looking grim.

It’s time for the LAST flight to Tampa to leave for that day and we’re on pins and needles. We’re tired from running from terminal to terminal and nervous about being trapped in the Dallas airport our entire vacation. The boys are getting tired (they are only 11 and 9 when this happened), and still, no one will help us.

They call our name.

But they only have two seats available.

We’d have to split up.

GD goes berserk and starts to do the big boy cry (you know, tears in his eyes, trembling lower lip but he’s trying hard to keep it together because you know, it’s not COOL for boys to cry). We refuse and tell them there is no way we’re splitting up.

They give the two seats to some other people on stand by.

That’s it. No more flights to Tampa that day. We’re shell-shocked and numb. What do we do now? We have two small boys who are bone-tired and they are telling us that it will be mid-morning before the next flight leaves tomorrow and then there’s STILL no guarantee we’ll get on that plane.

The husband snaps. He DEMANDS that someone help us, after all, it’s their fault we’re in this situation to begin with. The airline directs us to their ticket counter and the airline finds us a hotel to stay the night in (they pay for it, of course). In addition, our not being assured a seat on the next day’s flight is not good enough, we’re on vacation after all and we’ve already wasted one day of our vacation, so the hubs puts up such a fuss that the airline books us four seats on ANOTHER airline’s flight.

Good enough. We now had secure passage to Tampa.

We arrived at the hotel. Since we didn’t have any change of clothes (no toothbrushes or any health and beauty aids), we bought the bare essentials at the hotel and slept in our underwear. We arrived at the airport the next day in rumpled clothes and looking pretty rough, but we didn’t care. We were on our way to Tampa.

Our flight, on another airline, took off without a hitch and we arrived in Florida. We had a GREAT vacation and we laugh about that trip to this day. So though at the time, it was irritating and a bit scary to be stranded, we definitely walked away with a family story that will likely be passed onto our grandchildren. 🙂

I have purposefully kept the airline’s name out of this story. Can you guess which one it was?

________________________________

Here’s another writing prompt idea:
Fiction Friday
Don’t let the name fool you – it’s a writing exercise you can use any way you wish – everyone is welcome to participate.

Life

Riders, Beware

Karen

(This was originally published on my old (self-hosted) blog January 6, 2006. I miss my old blog. *sigh*)

Here we are, beginning a brand new week and I’m left wondering, where did the past two days go??

Weekends are usually pretty quiet here, we spend the days catching up on housework, talk about working on those pesky little projects (but never start) and in my case, take a nap, wake up and then waste two hours trying to make my brain wake up so I can actually get something accomplished before Monday rolls around.

The weather was perfect – sunny and mid to upper 60’s. We took advantage of this to go motorbike riding on Saturday. Hubby only has 400 miles to go before he can ride faster than 50 mph. I’m sort of dreading that day, truth be known. It’s comforting now to know he CAN’T go any faster for fear of damaging his brand new engine.

He hasn’t taken it on any trails yet (I don’t think he can stand the thought of marking his baby up) but that hasn’t stopped him from exploring the back roads. He took Mushroom King out first,

and then came back to take Game Dude. (By the way, Game Dude DID wear a helmet. This was taken after they got back).

I had just put on my hiking boots and jacket when the doorbell rings.

It’s my mother-in-law wanting to borrow our heavy-duty needle and thread (hubby had to stitch our torn awning from our old Jayco pop-up trailer). We got to talking about her upcoming cruise (I’m so jealous!) and pulled out our cruise photos. I WANT TO TAKE ANOTHER CRUISE!

We’ve only been on one cruise; we went to the Caribbean on our 10th wedding anniversary. I figure our 20th wedding anniversary will be here in four years, plenty of time to save up money, right? (EDITED TO ADD JULY 14TH, 2008: I think we’re actually going to take GD on a cruise for his graduation present in three years. I’m working on convincing the husband that we MUST go to Hawaii for our 25th anniversary in 2015. Think I can wear him down in seven years? 😀 ).

While talking about what clothes my mother-in-law should take on the cruise, hubby and Game Dude pull up on the bike. We go out to meet them. I jokingly taunt my mother-in-law to ride hubby’s bike.

I NEVER DREAMED SHE WOULD ACTUALLY DO IT!

Imagine my surprise when she calmly, as if she’s done this her entire life, takes the helmet from my hands, hands me her glasses, and puts on the helmet.

I about had a cow. For once, I was speechless. My mother-in-law is a classy lady and I never, in my wildest dreams, EVER saw her on a bike, let alone a dirt bike. Not implying of course that people who ride bikes aren’t classy but….oh, you know what I mean.

Hubby is thrilled and I have to admit, my respect gauge goes up several notches. The boys are tickled that their grandmother is going riding with their dad.

When they get back, her cheeks are flushed and she’s laughingly smoothing her hair down (and I must say, she’s the ONLY woman I know who doesn’t have helmet hair. HOW DOES SHE DO IT??).

We bid my mother-in-law a fond farewell along with well wishes for a safe and fun cruise. It’s now my turn to ride.

We traveled down numerous side roads until we finally ended up at the Nature Center. The parking lot is packed and I can’t help but sit up a little straighter when several people stop what they are doing and look at us. It’s a curious phenomenon – people on motorcycles are simply fascinating, either that or really stupid. The expressions on people’s faces are rather blank, as if in a trance. Are they envious? Are they wondering what sorts of people ride bikes? Are they wondering if we’re cold? Are they worried we’ll crash? Do they think we’re insane? Or all of the above?

Next, we zoomed toward the lake. We rode around the perimeter and through some neighborhoods I hadn’t been to before. We rode along a road right next to the lake and I nearly broke my neck looking at a series of trees growing sideways and over the water. It was the weirdest sight and I wished I had had my camera so I could show you what I’m talking about.

Bikers are a tight-knit breed. We saw quite a few people out on their bikes Saturday and everyone waved at us as they passed. It’s like we’re in a secret club – a club we weren’t aware we belonged to.

On our way back around the lake, we noticed several cars parked along the road and people running across the street. Hubby slowed and when I finally figured out what was going on, I caught my breath.

It was an accident.

A motorcycle accident.

You know the old saying “someone just walked across my grave?” That’s what it felt like. A coldness crept into my bones and I shivered.

I couldn’t really tell what happened as we skirted the scene quickly but carefully, but it looked to have involved a woman on a pink scooter. The woman was lying face down in the grass along the side of the road and she wasn’t moving. Several people were crouched down next to her. There wasn’t a police car in sight, so it must have just happened.

Hubby and I returned home, silent and thoughtful. When we dismounted the bike and took off our helmets, we just looked at each other. The first words out of my mouth were:

“Thank God you didn’t have one of the kids with you.”

Hubby just nodded. We quietly discussed what we thought might have happened. Judging by the skid marks, it looked like something pulled out in front of her and she lost control of her bike. Hubby had wanted to stop, but there were already so many people there we would have just been in the way.

We made an agreement not to mention the incident to the kids.

As Hubby and I got into my car to go get some frappicinos at Starbucks, we heard sirens. Lots of sirens. Again, we just looked at each other. Should I mention this was the VERY reason I was against him getting a bike to begin with??

On our way back, we noticed about six cop cars blocking the road in front of us, their sirens silent, the red and blue lights lazily rotating.

We looked at each other.

The police directed traffic around the accident and as we passed by, we noticed it was ANOTHER motorcycle accident.

There were two guys sitting on the side of the road, one guy had his head in his hands, the other guy was staring at some point to his left. A car was parked along the side of the road, one tire perched carelessly over the side of the curb.

The motorcycle was on its side, twisted and mangled, a lone helmet sitting a few feet from the guys, but no sign of the motorcycle driver. It was eerie.

True, one of the guys sitting by the side of the road could have been the driver, but somehow, I don’t think so. Judging by the shape of the bike, I would bet the driver had been hurt and already shipped off to the hospital.

Another officer was out in the street with a large brush, sweeping broken glass to one side of the road.

Again, hubby and I looked at each other. We were silent the rest of the way home.

Hubby broke the silence when I drove up into the driveway. “I think that’s enough riding for one day.”

I heaved a sigh of relief and nodded my agreement.

**UPDATE: The husband just came home for lunch and told me he read about the motorcycle accident in the paper today. He knew the guy! He had done some business with him at his previous job.

The car was going southbound, the bike guy was going northbound (and speeding, according to the article). The car turned left, never seeing the bike guy. The bike guy couldn’t avoid him, hit the car, flew over the car and landed in the road.

The man died.

He was my age, too. And we passed the scene shortly after finishing our bike ride. Is anyone else creeped out by this?

***UPDATE 2: I’m happy to report, two and a half years later, that the husband has not had one accident on his bike. In fact, he’s pretty anal about being OVERLY cautious – I’m not complaining. However, he still hasn’t taken his bike on the dirt trails yet and doesn’t plan on doing so. He’s now thinking about trading in his dirt bike for a street bike. *sigh* Men must play with their toys. All I can do is stand back and pray.

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Life

Bang for Our Buck, Bad Sunscreen, Take Time for Yourself

Karen

Random thoughts that aren’t quite good long enough to devote an entire post to:

  • We bought fireworks. And we spent $50.00, which isn’t as bad as last year when we spent $80.00. We spent nearly half of that on this fancy-schmancy “Dirty Dozen” package which are these cool balls you drop into a tube and then fire off and watch explode into the kind of explosion you see at the bigger fireworks show. We’ve bought the Dirty Dozen for the past three years now and have never been disappointed. Other than that, we stuck to fountains and roman candles. We tend to stay away from the spinning, shrieking crackers that are unpredictable and inevitably zero in on one of us so that we’re running and screaming down the street in an attempt to get away from it. We’ve had too many close calls these past years and we’ve learned our lesson.

    Also, word to the wise, even though it clearly says on the package, DO NOT HOLD ROMAN CANDLES IN YOUR HAND. Seriously, don’t be tempted to hold it in your hand. We have ignored that advice for years and last year, GD was holding a candle and nearly had his fingers blown off when it exploded in his hand. Heed the warnings folks, use a tube or some sort of bottle.

    When I was uploading a couple of videos to my YouTube account, I stumbled across this video, it’s GD holding a roman candle:

    Vodpod videos no longer available.
    AGAIN, DO NOT DO THIS! VERY DANGEROUS! VERY STUPID!!

    Not one of my more stellar parenting decisions, let me assure you.

  • The boys and I tried to go swimming yesterday. Only when we got to the pool, it was closed – on a beautiful, sunny, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky, hot summer day. To say I was peeved would be putting it mildly. We walked up to the entrance to see what the heck was going on. Apparently, this particular pool wasn’t busy enough to warrant being open every day, so now, it’s only open Thursday through Sunday.

    Swell. I bought swim coupons, people. It works out to be ten swims for me and the boys. I haven’t had a chance to use one of those coupons yet because the weather has been too wet and cold to go swimming. And then we went on vacation. And now we’re back and ready to enjoy summer but our pool is closed. AAARGH. Oh sure, we could go to another public pool, but quite honestly, I hate every other public pool because A. they’re busier than snot (is snot busy?) and B. the kids are mean and I’m spending most of my time trying to get our balls back (because I usually end up throwing the balls at the boys so they can dive for them).

    To add insult to injury, I lathered myself up with Banana Boat sunscreen, which I’ve had for the past two years, and it must be bad or something because I didn’t smell like delicious coconut, oh no, I smelled like burnt plastic.

    UGH. I nearly gagged. But I endured the smell thinking, “Oh well. I’ll just sweat it off.” No biggie, right? Wrong. Since we didn’t get to go swimming, I had to wash it off when I got home because I couldn’t stand the smell of myself. Afterwards, I made a special trip up to Wally World (translation: Wal-Mart) and bought some fresh sunscreen. I never realized sunscreen went bad?

  • I’m still working out to Turbo Jam. I think I’m going to insert the keywords Turbo Jam in nearly every one of my posts because that seems to be what’s bringing people to my blog. I love Turbo Jam. Turbo Jam is awesome! I wish I could do Turbo Jam everyday.

    I’m ESPECIALLY loving the “Punch, Kick and Jam” session. It’s 45 minutes long and a bit more athletic than the other workouts, but MAN. My arms feel like rubber after doing it. And I have to be honest, folks, you really CAN tell a difference in your body after a few sessions. If you can muster up the energy to do it (and remember, your energy comes from your MIND – as Chalene Johnson likes to remind us – love that woman), then by all means, do it.

    This reminds me of an analogy I was going to share with ya’ll: You know when you’re on the plane and getting ready to take off, the flight attendants do their spiel about if the cabin pressure drops, then an oxygen mask will drop from the compartment above and if you have a small child next to you, you should put your mask on first and then help the child? When I first heard this, I was horrified. What?! How selfish! I thought.

    But then I thought, wait. That’s smart. Because if you don’t take care of yourself first, then how can you expect to be CONSCIOUS enough to take care of the child? I mean, if you pass out, then who’s going to help the child, right?

    Well, the same can be said for taking care of YOU. Both physically and mentally. If you’re tired all the time, or feel blah, or ugly, or depressed, or stressed or yadda yadda yadda, then how can you expect to be in any condition to take care of your children to the best of your ability? You say you don’t have time to work out? Make time. Exercise. Not only are you clearing out the cobwebs, you’re giving your body an energy boost AND you’re setting a good example for your children. And just like anything else you don’t want to do, once you start exercising, I’m betting you start enjoying yourself and I can guarantee you’ll feel better about yourself when it’s over.

    And just don’t take care of your body, take care of your mental state, too. Take some time to slow down, relax, breathe, do something you enjoy doing without your kids around. Give yourself a mental break – we all need them. Stop beating yourself up and thinking, “but isn’t that selfish?” It’s selfish to ensure you’re functioning on all cylinders so you CAN take care of your children? Don’t you think they are benefiting from a rested, and more patient, parent?

    I don’t mean to be preaching at ya’ll, but I’m getting a bit tired of reading about how mothers all over the blog’o’sphere are feeling guilty for taking a little time to themselves. Just because you have children doesn’t mean your needs disappear. In fact, your needs magnify ten-fold. But we’re so conditioned to think we’re being selfish or bad parents if we take the time out to refresh and recharge …

    It just irritates me. Stop feeling guilty. Take some time for yourself. Your kids will survive (and in fact probably need time away from YOU, too) and the world will continue to revolve.

    Okay? Okay. Lecture over. 😉

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Life

D.C. Trip – Day Five (Final Day)

Karen

Need to catch up?

Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four

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Day Five – Wednesday

Did you breathe a sigh of relief when you read the title of this post? Go on now, you can admit it, you’re getting tired of hearing about our trip, right? 😀

I apologize if this has been boring for some of you, but considering I blog to journal my life, and our vacations are a big part of our lives (because we’re homebodies, for the most part, and when we get out, it’s a big deal to us), I, of course, have to chronicle our adventures and record my thoughts about said adventures.

That and if I don’t write it down? I’ll forget it in like two weeks. *sigh* I WISH I were kidding.

We had done so much by this time that we were sort of at a loss as to what to do next. I had mentioned something about the National Geographic Society’s Explorers Hall (NGSEH) being fun because the book described it as such:

It’s like walking through a couple of National Geographic TV specials. Located on the first floor of the National Geographic Society’s headquarters, this small collection of exhibits showcases weather, geography, astronomy, biology, exploration, and space era castles under siege, to imaginary monsters and manipulated photographs.

Doesn’t that sound like something a couple of teenage boys MIGHT be interested in, if only for an hour?

Uh, no. Either the person who wrote this review was on crack and IMAGINED all of these cool things, or the NGSEH changed their exhibit because when we got there? It was the entire history of China.

Now, nothing against China, or it’s history, but we weren’t expecting to see huge photographs of cute little China children or read about the history of trade relations with China. We were expecting … well, I’m not sure what we were expecting, but it wasn’t what we saw.

Oh sure, the model ships were cool to look at …

National Geographic Museum

… but other than that? Snoozeville.

To top it off, this exhibit was on the ground floor of the NGSEH headquarters, which meant, it was swarming with business people … trying to go about their, er, business, and here we were, in the middle of them all, smelling like warm flesh, gritty from sweat and dressed comfortably (i.e. like tourists, i.e. sloppy and without one thought to fashion).

Can we say … AWKWARD? I couldn’t WAIT to get out of there. I felt so embarrassed and totally out of place trying to be a tourist and navigate myself through the sea of suits. I think we might have stayed for 20 minutes, tops. We zipped right out of there and back onto the streets faster than it takes you to fast forward through a National Geographic special (oh come on, you KNOW you do it).

We found ourselves back on the streets of D.C., in the business district, with nary another tourist in sight. I’m telling you, it was weird and we all felt pretty uncomfortable. And we were getting that snooty once over that people give each other whenever they are feeling superior to one another.

It was close to lunch by this time so we thought we would grab a bite to eat. We went to Potbelly. This was a new place to us, we had never even heard of the franchise before laying eyes on it, but we went in, ordered some sandwiches (which were DELICIOUS, btw. I had a tuna sandwich on toasted wheat bread – doesn’t that just make your mouth water??), and sat down to eat our meal. About ten minutes later, the whole place was crawling with suits. And our table was near the door, which meant we were literally surrounded by D.C. business people.

*sigh* I’ve never felt more self-conscious in all my life.

We quickly finished our meal and headed back to the Metro station. We hopped on, transferred lines, and hopped back off at the Archives Station (we really were becoming pros at the whole Metro system).

FINALLY. We were back in the land of tourists and I began to relax once more. We walked to the National Archives and got in line. The line wasn’t too bad when we got into it, but as per usual, the line increased about ten-fold shortly after we arrived. (This ALWAYS happens to us – we arrive someplace, it’s not that crowded and then *BAM*, suddenly the place is packed! It’s like, “Oh look! The M family has arrived! And they are so cool! We MUST do what they are doing so their coolness will rub off on us!” Seriously folks, it’s kind of creepy how everywhere we go, it gets busy. I’m sure it’s a coincidence, or is it ….? Sort of like how every time we go to a new restaurant, and we like it and we SAY we like it, it goes out of business three months later. Weird.)

So, we’re in line at the National Archives and we’re about to see the Declaration of Independence. The Archives hadn’t been on my list of must sees and I don’t really know why. I guess I was thinking the boys wouldn’t really be all that interested in seeing actual documents of our nation’s history …

Oh, how wrong I was.

Continue reading “D.C. Trip – Day Five (Final Day)” →

Life

Out the Door …

Karen

I didn’t have a chance to write an update last night … well, that’s not true, I had a chance, but I was simply too brain dead to form any coherent thought. And I don’t have time to update now, the hubs and MK walked over to George Washington University to check out the bookstore (he wants a GWU hat for some reason) and GD and I are at the hotel room, making ourselves presentable.

We toured the National Museum of Natural History yesterday and though it was interesting, I think the hubs got a little impatient with it because we’re not exactly advocates for the evolution theory and that’s basically 3/4 of what the museum is all about. But it was interesting to look at all the fossils and rocks and I think the kids enjoyed it. More on that later …

We’re getting ready to tour the Air and Space Museum. I predict that will go over a lot better.

We read in the paper that one of the Metro lines, the one we rode yesterday, derailed. We haven’t said anything about this to the kids, we don’t want to freak them out, but suffice it to say, the hubs and I are a little more nervous about riding the Metro today. More on that later …

ACK! I’m out of time. The hubs is waiting for us so come back later if you get a chance! I have some pictures to show you and another TRHILLING story about getting lost – again. 😀

Life

Damn Weather

Karen

Oh. My. Freakin’. Gosh.

What the hell is going on with our weather? Excuse my profanity (trust me, I’m holding myself back here), but seriously, WTH? We received three more inches of rain last night. I’ve heard thunder rumbling the heavens for 48-straight hours now. If you watch our radar? Ugly little green blobs keep REFORMING, just one on top of each other and right over Springfield.

HELLO?! *knocks on heaven* It’s now officially summer. Could we please have some summer-type weather? I mean seriously, what is up with this cool, moist air? Do you NOT realize that I just paid $50 on swim coupons and that I only have until August 17th to use them? That works out to 10 swims for me and the kids – 10. And if this stupid weather continues it’s spring-like behavior, I’ll be lucky to MAKE three trips, let alone 10. Which means I won’t be able to cash in those coupons … and that money will be wasted because the coupons are only good for this summer only …

And we all know how CRANKY I get when I pay for something and then don’t get my money’s worth. *major, scary growl*

I seriously need to stop watching radar because it’s seriously pissing me off. Want to know what I’m talking about? Go to Accuweather.com or weather.com, plug in Springfield Missouri and just WATCH the radar – you’ll see what I mean! It’s maddening to get my hopes up because things LOOK like they are clearing away, only to check it ten minutes later and WTH, where did that angry green and red blob come from?!? And … and … is that *gasp* THUNDER I hear in the distance … AGAIN?!

AARGH!

And yet … and yet … I sort of HAVE to watch the weather right now. Why? Because we’re leaving for Washington D.C. tomorrow and I have a schedule, a touring strategy, that MUST be adhered to because God forbid I have to rearrange our sight-seeing schedule.

Here’s our TENTATIVE touring schedule:

Saturday: Arrive in late afternoon (to isolated t-storms – OF COURSE!). Settle into hotel room, hunt down a grocery store and stock up on breakfast and lunch foods to put into our kitchenette. Get our bearings, recoup from traveling all day.

Sunday: Go to Arlington Cemetery at 8:00 a.m. (the earlier we arrive at these places, the less likely we’ll have to wade through a sea of touring bodies). Tour the cemetery for about two hours. Cross the Arlington Memorial Bridge (and this is assuming pedestrians can cross the bridge, if not, we’ll take the Metro) to the Lincoln Memorial, then the Vietnam Veteran Memorial, then stop somewhere for lunch (hopefully we’ll find someplace cheap), see the Washington Memorial and the White House, head back to our hotel room. Notice that Sunday will be spent all day outside – there is a 40% chance of rain Sunday, so I’m thinking I may have to shuffle some days around here.

Monday: Get in line at 8:00 a.m. at the Bureau of Engraving and nab tickets for a tour between 5 – 7 p.m. (The Bureau of Engraving only holds tours in the morning and evenings and if you don’t grab a time ticket, you don’t get in). After we get our tickets, head over to the National Air & Space Museum and spend a few hours there. Go back to hotel room, have lunch, rest up and go back to Bureau of Engraving for our evening tour.

Tuesday: Sleep in. Go to National Museum of Natural History at 10:00 a.m. Spend a few hours touring the place and then go to the Old Poll Office Tower to see the tower and have lunch. After lunch, to go the International Spy Museum (because I will most likely reserve some 3:35 tickets and we’ll need to go at that time).

Wednesday: Sleep in. Go back to the National Air and Space Museum (because apparently this place is huge and this is the ONE place my husband really wants to spend time at so I want to make sure we see everything) and spend a few more hours. Then head out to the National Geographic place because I think the boys would really enjoy walking through the exhibits.

Thursday: Is open. We only have the morning to do something as our flight takes off in the afternoon. So we might not really get to do anything other than check out and head to the airport, but we’ll see how it works out.

Friday: Unpack, do laundry, catch up on email/blog/sleep.

We actually have quite a few gaps between exhibits that we can probably squeeze in some other stuff, but I don’t want to make this trip TOO taxing so we might just head back to our hotel and veg by the pool. We’ll see.

This is a tentative schedule, of course. I’m not as rigid as I make myself out to be. But I do like to have some sort of tentative plan so we’re not running around, bumping into each other, like the three four stooges and saying, “What should we do now? Where should we go now?”

I hate that. It’s such a waste of time.

I’ll be spending the majority of today cleaning house, running errands (must remember to take movies back to Blockbuster – hate late fees), doing laundry, emptying camera cards and making sure all cameras (we’re taking FOUR! Our Canon, Powershot, Pentax [I use that one to shoot short videos] and our video camera) are fully charged and have extra batteries, and of course, packing. I used to get so carried away with the clothes but HELLO, most places have a washer and dryer somewhere and it’s just so much easier to throw a load of laundry in as opposed to lugging around extra clothing. As long as I remember something nice to wear to dinner and our swimsuits, we can wear the same pairs of shorts and t-shirts all week (that sounds gross, but you know what I mean).

Uh oh, I just checked our hotel’s amenities – it doesn’t list laundry options. This could be bad. Oh well, I can’t worry about that right now *makes a dismissive gesture*.

I plan on blogging our adventures. I have a few blog entries set to pre-post, but I’m apologizing in advance now because posts might be a bit sporadic this week and will most likely not appear until the evening when we’ve stumbled gotten back to our hotel room for the night.

I’m really looking forward to our trip! I’m NOT looking forward to our flight. Though I’m not exactly afraid of flying, it’s not something I would choose to do on a regular basis. We’re flying out of Springfield, which is always sort of an iffy venture because we’re a small airport and things inevitably get delayed (mostly due to equipment problems, but we won’t dwell on that).

Oh look, it’s pouring rain again.

Damn weather. We’re going on vacation, PLAY NICE, will ya?

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Life

A New Addiction

Karen

I have found a new addiction. It’s going to be expensive and time-consuming, but I’m afraid I just can’t help myself. I can feel myself being sucked into the sheer habit of it and I’m powerless to stop it.

I don’t want to stop it.

My new addiction?

Reading “Unofficial Guides” to fun new places.

Okay fine, just one unofficial guide for now, but I can see many more trips to the bookstore for these babies! I can just feel the heat from my pocketbook searing a hole in my purse right this very minute.

The hubs and I went to Barnes & Noble last night. Actually, it was his idea. In fact, he has a bad habit of just suggesting off-the-wall spontaneous things all the time. “Let’s go play tennis … Want to have a nightcap at that new sport’s bar? … Let’s fly to Vegas … Let’s go for a ride on my motorcycle …” and on and on.

Most of the time, I just laugh him off. He’s rarely ever serious, he just suggests those things because he’s been programmed to think that if every single waking moment of his life isn’t filled with something to do, or if he’s not being productive, then he’s not making the most of his time and to him, that’s one of life’s most deadliest sins.

RELAX DUDE! Enjoy the fruits of your hard work. The man doesn’t know HOW to relax – it drives me batty …

Where was I …

Oh yes, my new addiction.

After dinner, the hubs and I started talking about our upcoming trip to Washington D.C. What were we going to do? What sites did we absolutely have to see? So of course, we sat down to research places online when he suggested, “Why don’t we just go check out the guides at B&N?”

My spine immediately stiffened. My eyes lit up. My breathing became erratic. Make a run to the bookstore?!

Are you insane?

I grabbed my purse and panted like an eager dog for a long overdue walk.

I think my husband had time to get in a blink or two before I zipped out to the car and impatiently waited for him to catch up with me.

I’m quite sure that will be the last time he suggests an impromptu trip to the bookstore. *big grin*

I had to force myself to slow down once we got there and wait for my aging (HA! Kidding honey!) husband to catch up with me. When I’m anywhere NEAR a bookstore, my pulse quickens and I find myself having to consciously slow my speed-walking stride down to a more normal pace. My husband laughs at me when I get like this. “Are we in a hurry?” he asks.

At which time I laughingly shrug him off and say, “Well duh! Of course! There are BOOKS to buy.”

Silly man.

Where was I …

Sorry. I’m getting sidetracked just THINKING about making a trip to the bookstore. That’s how pathetic I am when it comes to books. Oh heck, who am I kidding, I’m just pathetic, period.

So, we’re at the bookstore … *Homer Simpson voice – Mmmmm, bookstore* and we head to the travel section.

I must admit, the travel section is not usually where I hang out when I go to the bookstore. We don’t travel much. In fact, it’s safe to say, we DON’T travel. We’re homebodies and are quite satisfied to BE homebodies. So the one time a year we DO go anywhere, my usually organized, controlled mind takes a vacation because I’m out of my element. I’m not a seasoned traveler and yet, I want everything to go smoothly and of course, I want to make sure we get our money’s worth and aren’t blowing money on unnecessary things …

It’s a nightmare for someone like me – having no idea what to do or how to control the situation. So I like to arm myself with all sorts of information whenever we go anywhere … just in case we find ourselves in a horrific travel-induced situation we have a backup plan, you know? Of course, then we DO have a terrific story to tell afterwards. Like that time we got stuck in Dallas …

ARGH! I’m getting sidetracked again. I’m having trouble staying on target today. I have so much on my mind right now I’m having trouble compartmentalizing it. (Whew, that was a long word to type).

SO, WE’RE IN THE TRAVEL SECTION AT BARNES AND NOBLE. And we’re looking at the half million travel guides to Washington D.C. Now we have a fresh problem, which one do we want to shell out $20 bucks for? They all look the same. I pick out the “Unofficial Guide to Washington D.C.”

handbook and start flipping through it. I’m liking the tips I’ve seen thus far when my husband holds up a book, his face animated and eager and says, “Let’s get this one. It has pictures!”

*SIGH*

I swear, men are such children sometimes. So, in my consoling mom voice I say, “That’s great honey. But does it have any useful information in it?”

He shrugs and like a dejected puppy who has been denied his favorite chew toy, he reluctantly puts it back on the shelf. He nods to the book I’m holding, “I’ve heard the Unofficial Guides are pretty good.”

And I have to admit, I like the tone of the book. It’s informative, but not stuffy and I really dig the little tips sprinkled throughout the book.

We buy it. And I’LL be the one to read it because you see, there are too many words for my husband. He requires … visual aids when he reads. *cough*

I devoured half the book last night. And I would have finished it if I my family hadn’t physically pried my butt from my chair and forced me to go to bed.

It was fascinating. I learned so many things about Washington D.C. that information is oozing from my ears and dribbling down my neck. For instance, here are some fun facts:

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