What An Ending!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Vacation always ends the same; we spend the last two days packing everything we have, including all the new crap we’ve bought. This is interrupted briefly by the moments when we weigh each bag to ensure that we are within the fifty pound limit. No matter how hard we try we cannot take everything and therefore we leave a pile of stuff to be donated, stored, or returned to our storage locker. There are also those little bits which inadvertently get left behind.

Our plane left early on the morning of the 31st. We loaded Mom’s car, then drove it down to Leschi to pick her up. After that we were off to the airport. It was perfect timing all the way around. We got there with about two hours to spare, checked in, went through security, and sat around for very little time before taking off. Maybe it was easier because we left Zachary with his grandparents…no, it was definitely easier because we left Zachary with his grandparents.

The last week of our stay, the Zman got to go to a week long camp sponsored by the Seattle Tilth. He got to play in the dirt, examine bugs, plant seeds, and pick his food right out of the soil. He had a great time and could hardly wait to go back each day. After we left on Thursday, Anne took him to camp and my sister picked him up. He got to spend a few days with her and Nancy before going off with Grandma and Grandpa. Next week he goes off to Science camp at the Pacific Science Center. On Friday Grandma will fly to Venezuela with Z in tow. She will stay for about ten days and then head home. We are excited, especially because she is the only person we know who has seen every single house the two of us have lived in.

Anyway, we left for New York on Thursday, arriving in the early evening. Unfortunately, we didn’t fly out until Friday evening. Fortunately, we had reserved a stay at a Bed and Breakfast in Brooklyn so we jumped in a cab and headed right there. It was stupendous. It was a beautiful old Brownstone in a quiet little neighborhood. They welcomed us with a smile and a cup of tea. Our room was comfortable and roomy and it even had a Jacuzzi tub!
We had a bath and went off to a jazz club down the road. We sat right up front, next to the guitarist and ate a wonderful meal while we listened to good music. Afterward we walked around the neighborhood, finally sauntering on back to the B&B.

We arrived in our room to find music, candles, rose petals on the floor, and a full tub. We had no choice but to soak in the luxury once more before heading off to the Land of Nod.

After a glorious breakfast with the other five guests we walked to the train to find downtown Brooklyn. Once there we shopped for last minute items. After carefully stuffing them into whatever crevice we could possibly find, we jumped into a cab for the airport.

J.F.K. sucks! Have I mentioned that before? Every time we fly through there we are delayed for one reason or another. This time it was two hours on the tarmac waiting for who knows what. We touched down in Caracas sometime around midnight. We were worried because we couldn’t remember whether we had worked it out with our driver to pick us up. We found our bags, secured a cart (no easy task) and waited in line at Customs for days. We were finally waved through to the throngs of taxi drivers waiting to take advantage of poor helpless fools like me. After two scans of the crowd, I spotted Miguel waving madly to us. We sighed relief and followed him to his car.

Miguel is our regular driver; he takes us to the airport in Caracas whenever we need him to. He is as sure as clock work. He drives a tiny bit fast sometimes, but then, so do most of the people of this fine country. He whisked us off to our apartment, unloaded our bags, and waved goodbye. Everything went so smoothly! I even had my keys in hand so it was only a matter of loading everything into the elevator and up to the seventh floor.

We arrived on our doorstep at 3:00 Saturday morning. I unlocked the gate and then the Spider Lock. All that was left was to turn the knob, walk inside, and fall deeply into sleep. But alas, the knob wouldn’t turn. We never lock the knob and therefore we don’t carry the key; it sits in a metal bowl on the counter in the spare kitchen. I can picture it in my mind, but that’s as far as I am going to get because it is 3 a.m. and I have just traveled four thousand miles to be locked out of my own apartment.

I walked to the school to see if perhaps the security guys had a spare key. They didn’t. The only option left was to call the woman from the school that takes care of these things. I couldn’t justify calling her at 3:00 on a Saturday morning simply because I didn’t have the right key so we fell asleep in the hallway until we heard people stirring. We made a phone call and two hours later we were finally inside our apartment. The first thing I did was find the knob key and put it on my ring.

Today we are unpacked and relaxing. We have grocery shopping to do, but the car battery is dead so we’ll put that off until tomorrow. We are here and we are childless. It’s a grand opportunity that we are rarely afforded. We had an amazing vacation. It was so vast an expanse that I am hard pressed to remember all the details. Everything went so well until the end…

MJR

I'm Back...Back in Seattle Again

Monday, July 21, 2008

Back in Seattle again (It sounds better if you sing it to the Aerosmith song "Back in the Saddle Again").

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind. Our friend Steph and her son Aiden came out to Bear’s Lair for awhile. They flew into Burlington Vermont and stayed for about a week. It was great fun for all, though it was also rather exhausting. Aiden is a very energetic four year old.

He and Zachary got along great! They blew bubbles, played in the sand, swam in the lake, threw rocks in the creek, had naked races around the cabin, and they even got to visit Santa Claus. They both loved the fact that they could pee anywhere they liked. They were forever going off to find a new spot and mark it as their own.
We took a great trip to North Pole, New York; the summer home of Santa Claus. There were reindeer to feed, carnival rides to enjoy, musical shows, an icy cold pole, and, of course, the man himself. Zachary had a blast. He could hardly contain his excitement. Aiden, on the other hand, enjoyed himself, but couldn’t quite understand why we were visiting Santa Claus in July; a noble question, indeed.

Carrie’s cousins and aunt came up and joined us for a few days before we headed off. We bade a sad farewell to Bear’s Lair on Saturday, then drove most of the day to reach Small Town, New York. Here we visited more Niebanck relatives, including Zachary’s Great Aunt and Uncle. We were welcomed into their homes and given food and shelter for the night. It was a wonderful opportunity to get re-acquainted with long lost relatives.

The next day was flight time. We packed and repacked our bags, searching for the right weight for each. We arrived at JFK with plenty of time and boarded our plane on time. We pulled away from the Jetway and sat on the tarmac for two solid hours before finally taking off. I hate JFK. There always seems to be a line of planes waiting for take off and we always have to wait hours on end inside the metal tube with nothing to do and nothing to drink, just sitting in those oh so comfortable chairs so that we can turn a six hour flight into an eight hour flight.

Now we are in Seattle staying at a friend’s house. It’s a little chilly for us, but we are happy to be here. There is family to see and friends to visit. Unfortunately, there are also dentist appointments and doctor’s appointments as well. I am sure we shall persevere. It seems hard to believe that vacation is almost over, although I am a little tired of living out of a suitcase. I am sure I will not elicit much sympathy when I say that eight weeks is a long time to be on vacation, but it is true.
MJR

Pride of Ownership

Monday, July 7, 2008

What a fantastic week.

We finally arrived at Bear’s Lair. It’s a little wooden cabin nestled back in the woods. It requires a bumpy one and a half mile ride down a dirt road to get there. There is a lake, no electricity, and lots of tranquility. Of course there is a lot of work at first, but it is good work as it is for the cabin, for the family, and for posterity.
My brother-in-law and his wife came up last weekend. It was the first time she had ever been there. She is a city girl all the way and therefore not entirely comfortable with such rustic living. Carrie and I worked to make sure that everything would be comfortable for her. Normally, we prefer to use the outhouse on the property, but there is a bathroom with a flush toilet so we set that up for her use.

Zachary was so excited to have his aunt and uncle there for the weekend. We took Aunt Jess on her first canoe ride ever, explored the woods, threw rocks in the creek, and built a fire every night. We cooked S’mores, read stories, and played tirelessly. In the end I think everyone had a good time. If we’re lucky, Aunt Jess may return for a second engagement.

Now we are alone once more. Today we have ventured off to town to restock, check email, etc. Saranac Lake, New York is a beautiful little town that has everything we could possibly need including a Laundromat. It would be easy to laze away a day here doing a lot of nothing, but having fun doing it. The allure of Bear’s Lair is too strong to keep us away for long, however.

There is always something that needs doing at the cabin, but it never seems to feel like work. We are forever in need of kindling, the roof needs to be cleaned off, dead trees need to be cleared and cut into smaller pieces, and the list goes on. The beautiful thing about this labor though, is that it never really feels like work. We are working for the betterment of the place and it is ours. Well, at least partially ours; the entire Niebanck clan holds some share in it, but it is the closest thing to a home that we have. It’s comforting to know that it is there, waiting for us, much the same as it always has been.

It makes me long for a permanent home even more. There never seems to be easy answers for anything. I love it here; I love having my own space, I love having the freedom to do what I please, I love that pride of ownership. Having looked at the price of land on both coasts, I know that we could easily afford a down payment on a house with a piece of land and oh boy are there some gorgeous places to settle. Settling would be nice; I figured out that I have lived in twenty-one houses over the course of my forty years. I’ll hazard a guess that that is a little above average.

You know what? I’m going to stop thinking now and find my way back to the cabin by the lake. I think I hear a cocktail calling my name and I am certain that I need to dive into the cool waters of Union Flow. Forget the future; I need to focus on the present…at least for the next few weeks.
MJR

Nothing Like New England

Monday, June 30, 2008

Man, I could really fall in love with New England.

We have been these last few days in New Hampshire visiting an old friend of mine. Charlie is 35 now with a wife and two kids, but I met him when he was three. I have tutored him, I have babysat him, I even got him work once. Now he lives in Hawaii and works as a teacher. It’s funny how life twists.

There were several years in the middle when we lost touch. By the time we caught up again, we were both working as bus drivers. We each ended up there after attempting college and failing at it. We hung out occasionally for some years until he moved to Hawaii. We went to visit him just before Zachary was born. He was trying his hand at school once more and I had finally completed my Bachelor’s. Within a year of that visit we moved to New York so that I could become a teacher. Charlie got his certificate just a short time ago.

It’s odd how lives can intermingle and even mirror each other without any overt plan. There are those, it seems, to whom we are eternally tied. We can struggle against it and even attempt to break those ties, but in the end the ties remain. I never in my life would have imagined that I would be in New Hampshire, visiting Charlie and his family, and yet, there we were. It was a good visit; a reconnection with an old friend and a past life. Having moved around as much as I have, I seem to have lost contact with most of the folks who have passed through my life. It’s refreshing to spend time with someone outside my family who has known me so long.

We hung out with Charlie and Beth at her parents’ house in a tiny little burg in the middle of the state. Part of the house was built in the eighteenth century, the rest added on through time. Carrie and I pitched a tent under an awning on top of a deck overlooking the river. The first night it poured buckets of rain and got us thoroughly soaked. The next day we hung everything up in the barn to dry and wandered off to the “Touch a Truck” event at the town hall.
Touch a Truck was just too cool. There were dozens of vehicles in the parking lot next to the hall. There were ambulances, police cars, a semi, tow trucks, a tanker truck, a track hoe, a bulldozer, a cement truck, and fire engines. We got to climb in and on every single one of them. It was the first time I had ever been allowed to sit in the front of a police car! We checked everything out. Zachary, Jamie (4), and Cooper (~3) had a blast. They couldn’t get enough of it. We even got to climb out to the bucket at the end of the giant ladder atop the fire truck.

It rained again that night so we put Zman in with the other two boys and tried our hand at camping once more. None of us got much sleep, but we sure had a good time. I saw a black bear in the early morning hours of today. Needless to say, Carrie drove out.

We landed in Vermont at a tiny little hotel that we have all to ourselves. We had a nice Chinese dinner and a beautiful stroll through town. I also managed to pick up a guitar to practice on while we vacation. After looking at housing prices, we are both seriously considering a move to Vermont. Who could resist this place? It’s gorgeous and only hours from Bear’s Lair. Who could ask for more?
MJR

More Travels

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Wow, am I glad I only have one child!

Susanna and Andrew have three children; one four year old and twin two year olds. They all need attention and they all need it NOW! Fortunately Zachary and Elias got along well and played quietly together. Elias has a huge collection of Thomas trains and that kept Zman busy for hours.

We laid low, barbecuing and relaxing. Andrew and I journeyed to the park and gave the ladies some time to themselves. It was a good opportunity to get to know him better. They seem happy in rural Connecticut, and why not? Columbia is a beautiful, quiet little burg. Their house is an old schoolhouse with a big yard that backs onto a little forest of trees. There is a stream nearby and deer come out to play occasionally.

Last night, Susanna and Andrew went out for dinner to celebrate their wedding anniversary. The three of us went to the movies. Zachary had never been to a theater before so we felt this was as good a time as any. We saw Wall – E. Z was a little overwhelmed, but he really enjoyed it as did I. It is a very good film with a message for all. We had been commenting on the general obesity of the people of the U.S. and this movie reflects on that as well as other current travesties. Zachary laughed and cried and got a free watch for attending opening night. It was great fun.

Today we leave for New Hampshire. It has been a good visit, although the house is rather small for eight people (especially when half of those people are under the age of six). The kids were good spirited and didn’t seem to mind sharing their house too much. Zachary certainly enjoyed having someone his own age to play with.

Being there makes me yearn for a home. I’m jealous of those with a house and a yard. I want to settle down somewhere. I want a dog. I want a shop and a place that is really mine. Our apartment is very nice, but it is an apartment. Our contract doesn’t allow us to have pets of any kind. The furniture belongs to the school and there is not really any art on the wall. We are comfortable, but not entirely happy. I thoroughly enjoy the adventure of living overseas, but I am tired of moving. Maybe it’s time to live in the States and travel abroad rather than live abroad and travel to the States.

I think I’ll have time to ponder these things as we make our way through rural America and end up in the solitude of the Adirondacks. It is certainly foremost in my mind today.
MJR