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Recent News... Just for Pope Gregory... |
2002-01-02 - 11:23 a.m. I can sleep when I'm dead� I dash home from work on Thursday and find my house has already been invaded. Mom has retrieved the keys from their hiding place and my nephew, Ryan, is busy exploring his new kingdom while my brother and sister-in-law put up the baby gate. Seventeen month old Ryan even remembers his aunt - at least he doesn't run screaming and is willing to play. They settle in while I make a pot of beef stew for dinner. Time to catch up on all the gossip and chat and chat. We finish dinner and then, the shameful truth comes out. My Mom and S-i-L are Survivor fans, and they want to watch the show before we open presents. Since I avoid reality TV like the plague, I hadn't noticed that 'Big Tom' (part of the current tribe) is from Rich Valley, Virginia, very near my hometown. He's a cattle and goat farmer. Ginger teaches and takes classes with his wife, so she has to watch. Mom: You remember, Tom - he sold us Surprise. Me: The Rich Valley farmer on Survivor is the same man who sold Dad a goat for your birthday present when I was 14?! My world just got a lot smaller. Tom's currently doing tours of the local county schools on the theme 'Reading, the key to survival.' So we cut big pieces of peanut butter pie and settle down to watch Survivor and Big Tom is funny as hell. Then we come to � Presents! In a boring move, we got everyone sweaters. Hey, Scotland has a lot of gorgeous wool, so it was a natural present pick. Mom's has a fuzzy Scotish cow on the front (which looks like a yak to me) and is right where little Ryan can rub the fuzzy cow on Nana's chest. Hmmm� hadn't thought of that twist when I bought the gift. The next day, we load the gang in the Tahoe and visit Rob's family where Ryan discovers Darby's dog has infinite eagerness to catch the toys he throws. This sort of thing must be what people did before cable. Seven adults handing the child toys to throw for the dog. Mom joins my in-laws and Darby for lunch at the Vienna Inn (Oh-la-la says Mom, knowing Darby always picks fancy places to eat. Darby laughs and says Well, this place is a little different. The Vienna Inn is a hole in the wall along a local bike path that serves kickin' chili dogs.) and a trip to the National Arboritium (newly reopened and well worth a look.) Meanwhile, we kids swing by my Dad's work to meet him for lunch and presents. Dad is a cemeterian, and his office is in the cemetery's funeral home. So here we are opening his presents in a funeral home. Felt a little weird, even for a gravedigger's daughter that's used to this sort of stuff. We saved our presents for the restaurant. Dad's girlfriend, Trudi, joined us - Dad didn't warn us about that part so she scared the dickens out of my brother by walking up to him and exclaiming You must be Thad! Little Ryan didn't remember his granddad, so there was no interest in sitting on his lap. Hey - it's a little kid - if they don't see you often, they're scared of strangers. Dad took us to an Italian restaurant near Seven Corners. For those of you not familiar with the area, it's a point four roads come together and make a big mess of an interchange. Dad decides we should follow them and then proceeds to skate the yellow lights, make abrupt zips across three lanes, and generally loose us. We did - a U-turn and a cell phone call later - make it to the restaurant. I yell at Dad You are done with the leading! No more leading - you're bad at it. We finish lunch and Rob (our magnificent chauffeur) drives us around the edges of DC and past the Pentagon - my brother really wanted to see the crash site. As a bonus, Ryan gets a little nap on the road. Then I prove my love for my sister-in-law by taking her to Tyson's Corner mall. I don't like malls or shopping and I really hate Tyson's. But she loves to shop. The arbortium tour group drops my Mom off to meet us and we spend a couple hours browsing. My brother was unprepared for the crowds. I know how he feels. Malls would be nice places if there weren't people in them. Saturday, we went downtown. We stopped to visit one of Thad's friends, Jason - who is a professional firefighter in DC. We toured the station and posed Ryan with the truck (he wanted no part of the hat or sitting on the engine, thankyouverymuch). We caught a quick lunch at McDonald's (cause nothing good is open on the weekends) which was crowded and tense. Then we went to Air & Space. Let me tell you an aerospace engineer's view of Air & Space. I hate it. I hate it because it's very crowded. I hate it because everyone always wants to go there and I've been way too often. I hate it most of all because of the "You're an aerospace engineer - you can be our personal tour guide and explain everything about everything and lead us through the museum" angle. I tried to talk them into going to the art museum but not happening. Besides, my brother did point out art is sort of a moot point for someone who's colorblind. We caught the IMAX film "The Magic of Flight." We'd really hoped to see "Everest" but that only plays late Friday nights over at Natural History. Then we spent a while wandering the incredibly crowded museum. Ryan, on his second day of missing naptime, got fussy. Really, he wasn't bad for a toddler in a crowded museum, but he's usually such a good baby his parents aren't used to his fussiness. We went over to Pasta Plus for dinner, but made it just fifteen minutes too late to get a table easily. So another long wait. Poor Ginger, because fussy Ryan only wanted his mother so she had to hold him through most of dinner. And something disagreed with her because she really wasn't feeling well after dinner. We hurried through the meal as much as possible and took queasy mom and exhausted baby home. Both feel asleep in their clothes. I showed Mom a bunch of our U.K. pictures before bedtime. Really, we did too much. I thought is was a chancy plan, pushing a 17 month old like that. But we'd originally planned a three day visit. Since they ended up only coming for two days, they wanted to do things both days. Next time, we have to plan more down time. I love being an aunt, but I still don't want my own children. Whew. My family headed home Sunday morning and baby boy was fussy as anything. Poor kid, someone was standing on his enough button. I took a nap, then finished up some dying projects. Alan, Gen and Rob came back from the HP movies just as I started the dye bath. Bliss! The movie was sold out so they bought tickets to a later showing, including one for me. Ah, the gods do love me, cause I was sulking about missing the movie - but I was in my PJs just finishing my nap when Rob was leaving. And, they tracked down a new bookstore where Rob bought me a lovely manuscript book. They keep me company while I work on the dyebath till I get to the rinse stage where we can leave the fabric soaking in dye fixative while we go to the movies. My second viewing of Harry Potter was just as good as the first. Then, there was dinner and a brief tack surfing excursion.
New Years Eve was spent working on the 12th night projects. Gen came over and kept me company/worked on stuff until it was time to head out for the party at Shane & Gina's. And a most excellent party it was. There was enough for for ten times the people we had, and Lauren (the mute) was actually talking. Christen's wife, Michelle, made a great round of Alabama Slammers. And Christen fell enslaved to a bottle of his favorite Scotch we'd brought along. We finally delivered Kevin and Jake's birthday gifts (we got Kevin a road atlas, cause anyone that goes to upstate New York without a map �) and their Christmas presents. Props because they were brave enough to actually buy Rob some of the Japanese animee off his Amazon wish list, becoming the first people besides me to do so. His family just stares at the words 'Gundan' or 'Lodoss' and picks something different. I got the DVD for "12 Angry Men" and a t-shirt of the Empress Theodora mosiac in Ravenna. Theo goes skipping around the house Look! I got 12 Angry Men and t-shirt that says I'm an empress! My friends are very patient with me. They didn't understand, so they stuck to their usual response of 'smile and nod indulgently'. Midnight came and went with lots of hugs and love. Happy New Year! We finally went home sometime around 3 am? I think? Unfortunately, my body insisted on waking up at 9 am, so I wandered around in the desperately-needing-a-nap state most of the day. Gen and Kirsten come over to do more 12th night sewing (go for the embroidery machine). I left them to it and took a nap before kind Alan brought over the Red,Hot & Blue dinner delivery. December's was so busy with holiday and illness I could use a couple days off to just sleep and watch DVDs. I haven't gotten to view any of my Christmas presents. What does Meng say? I can sleep when I'm dead � � � � 
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