Sad and Beautiful World (Original Blog 2004-2008)

Life, Death, Birth, and Exhaustion

Today was a full day! Trisha didn’t get here until 10pm last night, and we immediately went over to Denny’s to get food. Omelets, that gave each of us horrible stomach pains almost immediately.

Went to bed around 2am, couldn’t fall asleep for about an hour, then woke up at 8am. John came to pick us up a little after 10 and drove us to the abandoned administrative offices of a steel mill—a huge three-story U-shaped building of broken glass and peeling paint. It was fantastic…took tons of photos and of course took some self-portraits while in various states of undress and no dress. Even Trisha got naked so we could take photos of us together. I’m really excited to work on them and get some uploaded, but it will probably not be until tomorrow night when I’m home. Then I’ll be uploading shots from today for a few weeks to come, a little at a time.

While we were there, my father phoned to give me some sad news. My Great Aunt Sarah, the last of that generation on my father’s side, died last night. She was 94 years old and was pretty damn strong up until this past year, when a series of falls and some other issues had her in and out of the hospital a few times, then living with her daughter. She was ready to go, and finally this past week her kidneys began shutting down. The good thing is that she was home and with family when she went, and who could ask for much more than that? It is still sad, however, and I’m really upset that I can’t be at the funeral tomorrow because I will be driving home from here. I’m also missing a memorial poetry reading for my friend Sandy Crimmins, who died suddenly in July.

Anyway, after several hours shooting photos, we went to get lunch at a Mexican place and warmed up. Then we went to get coffee at a French bakery, but we were all too full for dessert. On the way to drop us back at our hotel, John pulled over in front of a house and said he had to talk to someone for a minute and he’d be right back. Trisha and I sat in the car wondering what was going on. After the door opened and shut twice and we couldn’t see anyone, it opened again and John motioned for us to come over there. Turns out he decided to introduce us to this woman Susan early, even though we had plans to get together with her and another woman Christina that evening! He got the poor woman out of a bath to come to the door, but she was happy to see us.

We came back to the hotel at 4pm and rested for a short time and washed up before Susan arrived at 5:30 to take us out. We picked up Christina and then stopped to check out an overlook that had a beautiful view of the city, and then went to the South Side to find dinner. We had a lovely time, in spite of the fact that Trisha and I were both deliriously tired by this point. We were dropped back off to our room a little before 10 and we both got right into our beds, where we now sit relaxing and watching TV and/or writing blog entries. Tomorrow we’ll get up leisurely, check out by noon and then hit the road. I’m not looking forward to the drive back as I’m still recovering from the drive here. A weekend is really not long enough for this distance, but I’m really glad I came. Meeting Trisha has been fantastic…she is everything I expected and more, and we have had a great time hanging out together.

On a final and important note, today is also my mother’s birthday!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Mommy!! I love you!!

Pittsburgh!

I’m in Pittsburgh! I think I forgot to mention it here. A woman I know through Flickr who I’ve really wanted to meet agreed to come to Pittsburgh (which is about halfway between us) for the weekend.

It was a long drive, through two separate instances of snow! The first was acceptable as I was very high in the mountains and it was a dense fog area, but the second instance just pissed me off. The rest of the time it was raining, until I got to within about 40 minutes from my destination, when it finally got sunny. The drive was longer, however, because of my own stupidity during which I followed the ‘business’ route rather than my own directions because there was a sign for a Red Roof Inn.

Turns out it was a different Red Roof Inn. And I spent time lost just trying to find that wrong one! Sigh.

So now it is almost 7pm and I have been here for an hour, showered, and relaxed. My friend Trisha should be here by 8 and we can walk over to the Denny’s to get some food, then back here for a fun night of girl talk.

Tomorrow my friend John, who took me to the abandoned house the last time I was in Pittsburgh, is picking us up in the morning to take us to another abandoned place. The house is no longer there, sadly. Then for dinner we’ll meet up with two local Flickr women for dinner. Sunday I check out and hit the road to come home again.

I hope to have lots of interesting photos and of course some risqué self-portraits. Heh.

I picked this hotel for the wireless access, but it turns out I had to buy a T-mobile “hot spot” card for ten buck a day in order to use it. I bought it, obviously!

This is right up there with my most interesting posts ever, huh?

Home Again, Home Again...

We’re back! It was two days of total relaxation, mostly due to the fact that it was too damn hot and humid to do anything. We were at a cabin with NO air conditioning this time—normally this cabin does not require any because it is up in the mountains—but we had to go stay there for the week the area broke all records for high temperatures. Sigh.

At least we brought a fan.

Pete was grateful that I had convinced him he could steal away for a little while as soon as we got there. I was grateful for a chance to see that gorgeous baby and spend time with Cecily and Charlie peacefully.

And guess what? I got birthday cake after all, complete with candles, because Cecily is that fucking awesome.

We took Tori for her very first ‘swim’ at the community pool (we were renting a cabin in a community). At first she was pretty pissed off about it, but she got used to it soon enough—it was too steamy not to. The second day she actually had this clear moment that Cec and I witnessed of ‘getting’ the water. Her little body relaxed and a look of calm came over her face as she accepted and even began to enjoy the cool wetness of it.

  (This isn't that look)

So that was it, really. We swam in the pool, ate, sat around, ate, and tried to sleep in scorching temperatures on mattresses that felt like slabs of cement. We even played Texas Hold ‘Em for the first time because Cec and Charlie had watched some of it on Celebrity Poker and wanted to try it out. We didn’t play for real money, but just so you know, I won. J

Arrived home this afternoon and it took hours and hours for the a/c to make the house feel even remotely bearable. It is supposed to be cooler tomorrow, but I’ll believe it when I feel it.

Oh God, I’m writing about the damn weather. This most certainly means it is time to say goodnight. I will be uploading many baby photos to Flickr tomorrow. Maybe I’ll come up with something interesting to say soon. A girl can dream…

The "Hike from Hell" or Part II of our Vacation

We found a hike listed in our welcome book that said its highlight was a waterfall and wading pool, and all agreed that sounded perfect. We drove up to the Blue Ridge Parkway to try to find the end of the trail, which proved to be quite difficult. After one turn-around, we parked at the overlook it was supposed to be across from, and found it a little ways down the road.

S. was not feeling that well to start out, getting the beginning of a cold and sneezing a lot. On we went, though, hot and sweaty and down hill. About 40 minutes in I was worried we were pushing our limits as far as being able to make it back, when the path got steeper. We could hear the water. We were past the point of no return and had to push forward. We had to find that water. My knees were screaming in pain at this point; the knapsack straps on my shoulders soaked through with my sweat. Finally reaching the water, we looked at each other: this is it? It was a teeny tiny series of little falls trickling down through rocks and some pools—I still wonder if perhaps the ‘one’ was further on—but it was enough for us to cool off. Shoes off, shorts and shirts off down to our bathing suits, and we squatted and splashed and cooled ourselves in the freezing water. The dogs drank and drank.

It would have been a lot more pleasant if it weren’t for the constant barrage of flies landing all over us anytime we stopped moving for 1 second. We had not used bug repellant. We hung out for half an hour or so before we figured we should start heading back. I wet my hair and got my shoes on. The kiddo began our steep climb back up whining, but I urged her along; sympathizing but making it clear that this sucked for all of us but we had no choice. Onward and upward we huffed and puffed—even the dogs were practically crawling. We took a lot of breaks on the really steep inclines and finally eased up a bit. I then forged us ahead by singing songs, calling out marching sound-offs, and panting. S. marched along behind me with Pete and the dogs lagging behind. When we finally saw the parkway at the top, I ran up and did a Rocky victory dance while singing “Flying high, now!”

We overdid it. We got back to the cabin and had ice cream as a reward. Pete went to lie down and passed out for an hour or so. I showered and watched videos with S. who was getting more and more stuffed up; used tissues were piling up around her. I made frozen pizza for dinner and we all gathered to watch another movie, played a couple rounds of Yahtzee! before bed. We all slept extremely well!

The next day we took it easy, all achy and sore from the day before. We didn’t get out of the cabin until after 2, when I thought a nice stroll around the nearby lake would do us some good. Instead, Pete saw a path going up that said ‘cliff overlook’ and we thought we’d go up there and then come back along the lake. STUPID. I knew in my gut it was a mistake, but up we went anyway. I started sweating. I was getting angry—I had not intended to do any sweating! Finally Pete turned around and said, “This is ridiculous.”

“Duh,” I thought. And we turned around. Pete felt obligated to do something else since we had paid for entrance into this park, but I felt no such need. I would donate money to a park. I was ready to leave. We went to the cabin office to check out their ‘good clean video’ selection and got Toy Story. I noticed that they had several of the Left Behind series as well as, oddly, the whole first season of MacGyver. Is there something about him I don’t know?

We played cards and I beat their asses over and over again in 7Up (a version of Rummy) after Pete made dinner for us. The next day we packed up. I went to check out our neighbors who were three middle-aged couples with motorcycles and a van from Ohio. They were doing day trips on the bikes but had them on a trailer to get there. I offered them our milk, ice cream, eggs and butter, for which they were grateful. We checked out and decided to take the Blue Ridge to the Skyline Drive on the way home, a drive that added far more hours to our trip than I had imagined, but at the first lookout we saw our biker friends who took a photo for us.

After an hour or two on the Skyline, we realized it pretty much all looked the same after a while. It was beautiful to be sure, and the place was literally swarming with butterflies. We hit the right point in their migration—I’ve never seen so many in my life aside from exhibits at natural history museums and the like. The clouds came in low when we were up there, so we drove through white mists and the air cooled…it was peaceful exquisitely peaceful.

We were all proud of ourselves and especially of the kiddo for doing so well on this vacation. Being all together all the time can be stressful and difficult, to say the least, but we all rallied to the occasion and we showered my daughter with praise for how amazing she was in the car for so many hours.

This Saturday she leaves for a week with my parents. They arranged a tour through a seniors organization called Elderhostel that has trips for grandparents and grandchildren and they are all very excited about it—a trip to Mexico! I’m jealous, but Pete and I will enjoy the break and are planning to go away for a few days with Charlie, Cecily, Tori and all our dogs.

Not the most exciting of trips, but a relaxing one. Next I can tell you about the embarrassing things I’ve done since we’ve returned!

"Took hold of my sweetheart and away we did drive"

We left later than I would have liked the morning of the 15^th, but what can you do when you’re trying to corral a husband, a daughter, and two hyper dogs? I had woken up at 6:30am in a panic thinking of what needed to be done, but I was the only one who woke up with this sense of urgency (I admit, I’m a bit of a control freak).

With the group of us, we ended up stopping very often, and each stop took at least 20 minutes so the dogs could pee and stretch their legs and Pete and I could have a cigarette before getting back in the car. This combined with generally heavy congestion on the roads made the trip take far longer than I had anticipated.

My daughter did great in the car, staying chipper, helping out and being polite. We only had a few moments of raised voices (her and I), but Pete helped keep us in check. The dogs were perfect. We played “Who am I?”, sang songs, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Then—15 miles from our destination—traffic came to a dead stop. Pete had been driving for only half an hour or so after we got into North Carolina. We watched as people started getting out of their cars. We were very low on gas but had enough to make it if it wasn’t for the stop, so we had to shut the engine and open all the windows to swelter. Word passed down: a car had flipped over. I groaned, imagining we’d be there for hours and hours and we were already running late. It was 5:30pm and we were supposed to be checked into our motel and at my friend’s baby shower by 6.

A miracle happened, and traffic began moving after only half an hour! North Carolina rules! I am absolutely certain that if we had been on the NJ Turnpike we would have sat there for at least four hours. We checked into our motel, changed into our bathing suits and head right back out to my friend’s. They have a great house with a nice pool in back. Jenn is a college friend who’s been down in NC with her husband for 8 years, and this was my first time visiting her. Their baby is due in September. Two other girlfriends from college were there as well, one with her one-year-old son. Local friends rounded out the group with a bunch of kids. Diving in to that cool water was ecstasy. My muscles were begging for it after the long drive.

We spent the next day hanging out at their house again and also on Monday for breakfast and lunch before driving through the tobacco fields of NC up route 29 to Virginia. It was a beautiful drive as the sun began setting towards the end, up and over mountains on switchbacks. We found the cabin office and nobody was there. After immediately thinking we were screwed (ever the optimist, that’s me), I noticed an envelope with my name on it. Inside were the key and a map to our cabin with a little note from the owner. We found the cabin—lovely, clean, spacious, air-conditioned, and a lovely creek running behind it. Forced ourselves back out to get some Mc D’s and go grocery shopping, both of which ended up being done inside the biggest Wal-Mart I’ve ever seen. My daughter had a minor meltdown over a happy meal toy she desperately wanted and didn’t get—a Pirates of the Caribbean chest with a key—and she fell into tears after a while of whining about it saying, “I don’t know why I want it so much!”

She was exhausted. She has not forgotten about the chest, however, and has dreamed about it and still covets it. We tried at another on our way home the last day, and the guy gave her two toys, but she didn’t want them. Neither one was the chest.

We got back from grocery shopping at around 9:30 that Monday night and put on The Muppet Movie (we had brought videos for the provided VCR)—too tired to finish it. We had some major moth problems that almost ruined the whole trip for my kiddo, but we survived. It was comical, really. Every time Pete caught one and tried to set it free outside, two new ones would come in. We finally had no choice but to start the slaughter. The toy she did get was an inflatable sword, which turned out to be perfect for this sort of thing. So it all worked out.

What I hadn’t gleaned from the website of the cabin office when I booked our reservation was that it seemed to have a “Christian” theme. We noticed in the guest book left in the cabin that a lot of the entries were signed, “God bless you” and “Love in Christ”, etc. Several guests were pastors. This would not have seemed odd except that the welcome binder the owners leave for the guests had a message on the first page which read, “We hope your stay is an enjoyable one. We are dedicated to the building of strong marriages and family togetherness” and goes on to say other generic things followed by, “May God bless you. Your hosts, ___ and ___.”

They had a note on a bulletin board listing various services that mentioned they had a selection of “good clean videos” available for rent in the office. We didn’t necessarily mind any of this, it just made me wonder if I would have been allowed to stay there when I wasn’t married. It made all of us kind of want to leave strange messages in the guest book, such as “The patio out back with the fire pit was perfect for our ritualistic sacrifices!”

Tuesday morning, after still not sleeping well and waking up extremely early (I never sleep well away from my own bed at first), we had a mellow morning aside from one freak-out Pete had that almost turned into a fight. He took a bath and felt better, and we set out for what sounded like a lovely hike. The highlight of the hike was to be a waterfall and a wading pool. I will continue this tomorrow with ‘Part Two: the Hike from Hell’…because this is getting long and I fear boring you all to death!

There are photos of the trip on my flickr page in a set, which you can see by clicking on the image below:

"You're gonna start to sweat"

Greetings!

I gave up on the whole ‘beach vacation’ thing for now. I kept running around in circles, occasionally smacking into a brick wall, and decided to change tactics all together. Either the places were too expensive or dogs weren’t allowed at all or they were only allowed during the off season.

Instead I thought about cabins and mountains, and found a great place for very little money! It is located 2 miles off of the Blue Ridge Parkway, near Shenandoah and pretty much half-way between Durham and home. It is a roomy air-conditioned cabin that allows dogs, is fully furnished with a kitchen and is on a property that has 8 other cabins spread throughout; a large pool for cabin-dwellers to use, a creek running through the property, and a large lake ½ a mile away that allows dogs. It should be great. See the red star? That's where we'll be.

Map of Lyndhurst, VA 22952-2832, US

We leave for North Carolina early in the morning on July 15^th and stay at a dog-friendly motor inn for two nights, then head to Virginia on the 17^th to stay for three nights before coming home. I’m excited, finally, to have it organized.

In other news, Pete and I have been talking about getting more exercise for months now. Pete says he is in the worst shape of his life, and I’m not moving around too much either. He takes the dogs for walks two or three times a day, but he ambles. I mostly take them out in the mornings now and let him sleep in (no sense in both of us getting up really early to see the kiddo off to camp). We try to get them to this park with hiking trails where they can run off the leashes at least once a week, and had promised ourselves we would do it twice a week, but things always seem to come up; raining, too hot, too busy, etc. When we do go, we walk for a little over an hour.

We hate the typical exercise—neither of us are the types to go to a gym or go jogging—so we’ve been talking about doing something ‘fun’ together. Tennis was the best we could come up with, but we had no rackets. My parents still had one in the basement, it turned out, so we needed only one more. The day after we got the basement racket, Pete FOUND an old tennis racket in the park walking the dogs. Spooky. It is usable…not a great racket, but what the hell do we care?

Have we played tennis yet? NO. Too hot.

Pete started walking the dogs to a park further away, about an hour trip there and back, in the evenings, but again…rain for days and hot weather have tempered that. Yesterday we went out to do some desperately-needed yard work (a neighbor actually guilted me into it), and I swear I almost died. Pete was very worried because I turned bright red and looked awful, apparently. We took a rest and drank copious amounts of liquid, then went back out to finish one part. The yard isn’t done, by any stretch of the imagination, but it is improved.

We felt pathetic, however. I have this Pilates tape that I was using a couple of years ago that is great…a low-key workout where you get to be on the floor the entire time, but effective, and only takes about 20 minutes. Once I learned the routine, I could do it while watching TV or a movie. The funniest thing every was a few weeks back when Pete agreed to try it. We were laughing way too hard for it to do much of anything—Pete is just not built for Pilates.

This morning I found new resolve, however. I get up at 7am to get my daughter’s lunch ready, make coffee, and wait with her on the porch for the camp van to pick her up. I had some coffee and then after she left I took the dogs out for a 30-minute walk. I came back and popped in that Pilates tape and did it. When it was all over, it was only 9:30! I had some more coffee, read my book for a bit, then came upstairs to wake Pete up. I feel pretty good.

I am going to do this every weekday morning, and allow myself the luxury of taking the weekends off. Do me a favor, and ask me in a couple of days if I did my Pilates that morning, okay? Keep me honest, people. I need it!

On Sickness, Soccer, and Scheduling

 

Sigh.

That good old heat and humidity are getting to me already, and it’s only just turned summer! I better buck up.

Kiddo was curled up on the couch this morning at 7:30 when I came downstairs to get her ready to go to camp, complaining of a bad headache. One look at her and I could tell she was sick, and feeling her head confirmed it. Her temperature was 101 when we checked it! It’s almost 11:30 now and she’s on her second movie and has drunk one big glass of cranberry juice and seltzer, eaten half of a half of a bagel and taken one ibuprofen. She still has a fever, but I’ve been treating it with cold compress until I can give her more meds at noon. She has no other symptoms, really, except general aches and the headache, so I’m not sure what is going on. It may just be total exhaustion and sun exposure from starting camp this week.

Pete and I had planned to go over to Cecily’s house so we could watch the World Cup on their cable TV and I could get my Tori fix (I’m WAY behind and seriously going through withdrawal over here), but obviously that is now scrapped.

Yesterday I spent hours online trying to organize a trip we have planned to North Carolina. We are going to a baby shower on July 15^th in Durham, NC and I want to plan a mini-vacation around it for the whole family—including our doggies. My daughter’s last day of camp is the 14^th, so we plan on driving down that night and staying in a dog-friendly motel for 2 or 3 nights first.

That’s where I got stuck. I was looking into us driving up to Chincoteague Island and staying there for 3 nights and visiting Assateague Island. I ran into issues when I tried to figure out where dogs are allowed. Assateague is split between Maryland and Virginia, and apparently in Virginia there are no dogs allowed on the island because that part is a wildlife refuge. I ended up going in circles and trying to find other areas to stay that had beaches on the Easter Shore, but wound up getting very confused and tired and frustrated by the whole thing. So now nothing is booked yet and really should be.

Any suggestions are most welcome! All we want is a few days near a beach where the dogs are allowed to romp.

I should get back to the patient downstairs and check on her temperature. I was feeling crap yesterday and the day before with aches and pains and general ‘blah’s’…wonder if I was sick?

"Let the four winds blow around this old cabin door"

We had a lovely weekend despite the fact that I am sick yet refuse to admit it. Oh wait, I guess I just did.

I thought it was allergies, and took an allergy pill Friday but it didn’t do anything.

I though it was a cold, then, and bought DayQuil on Saturday but it didn’t do anything either.

We left for the cabin after my daughter’s parent/teacher/kid conference in the afternoon…got on the road by 4pm. The conference was sweet…me, her father, and Pete all went with her and for some reason she became all shy and turned bright red as she read to us from her portfolio. The teacher loves her.

We kissed S. goodbye and she went with her dad while we loaded up the car with food, dogs, and our bag. We went to a place much further than we might have picked otherwise because we did this as a last-minute idea. So I ended up driving almost across the entire state to get to Cook Forest State Park six hours later. It should have taken a little under 5 hours, but once it got dark there were several things hindering our journey: Darkness, a massive number of trucks, and rain. Add to that the fact that the directions were wrong…when we got off the Interstate we should have been 13 miles from the cabin. Unfortunately the directions told us to turn the wrong way so we went 15 miles in the wrong direction before I stopped at a restaurant to ask for help.

I left Pete in the car with the dogs and get out, noting there is only one other car in the lot. I walk in and see 4 people, mostly teens, standing around the counter smoking. They glare at me as I enter. Once I explained where we were trying to go, they told me they had never heard of it—not a good sign—but tried to decipher where it might be. I mentioned the town I thought it was a part of and they laughed, telling me I was “way off”.

“Are you sure it’s in that town?” the only adult asked.

“No,” I said, “I’m not sure of anything anymore!” and we both laughed harder. I was deliriously tired. Pete isn’t driving right now because we still haven’t figured out if his UK license is actually legal here. He can’t get a US license until he has a SS# (since 9/11), and he can’t get an SS# until his status adjustment is complete!

Anyway, I was tired.

We went back the way we came for 15 miles and pulled into a motel parking lot. I went in and asked the girl there to look up the cabin site for me on her computer after she told me she had never heard of it either. I stupidly had forgotten to write down the phone number of the place. Thankfully, she found the site and I wrote down the number, got back in the car and phoned the owner on my cell. She was very sweet and told us how to get there, surprised to find out that the website directions were incorrect.

We got to the cabin, finally, and checked in. It was very quaint and nice, with a huge fire place and a very comfortable couch and beds. We lit a fire and put a DVD in…yes, this place had satellite TV and we rented a DVD player from the owner for another two bucks a night. Being that I was hacking up bits of my lung every 10 minutes or so, we enjoyed resting on the couch and watching a LOT of movies. Some we brought and some we found on the TV. And we ate. I ate constantly, in fact. Something about the mountain air makes me starving all the time no matter how much I eat.

I discovered that evening, however, when I went to wash my face, that the hot water smelled bad. Not just a little bad, either, but like the largest quantity of the most rancid eggs you can imagine—like we were in the sulfur mines. Even the cold water smelled a little bit like sulfur if you ran it for too long. All this, and Pete still decided to shower in it the next day! I could smell the rotting eggs throughout the cabin.

We woke up early on Saturday and found it was raining, but we had to get to a store for the cold products we hadn’t brought with us, and we had to get to that forest for at least a short walk. We managed to do it, though I was in mild agony for the entire walk. I had taken the DayQuil before we set out, and was waiting for the effects which never came. My body felt like lead trying to walk up the hills, but I did take some photos and appreciated the mossy beauty that this—the oldest forest in Pennsylvania—had to offer.

We went back to watching movies that afternoon, and then Pete cooked spaghetti bolognaises for dinner—which I ate twice. The next morning we had to think about leaving already, but thought we had plenty of time until Pete looked at my watch at the same time that I looked at the satellite TV clock and realized SHIT, this is the weekend we change the clocks ahead an hour! All of a sudden we only had half an hour until we had to check out. We made it with no time to spare, and the drive home was much better—no rain, less traffic, and under 5 hours. Taking a shower was pure bliss.

Starry Starry Night

Last night I was speaking with my Aunt on the telephone. Her and my Uncle just got back from a three-week trip to Israel, and she she was still reeling from it all. They went for my Uncle’s high school reunion…his family moved to Israel when he was young and he attended high school and did the mandatory military service there as well.

My Aunt has never had a passport before this trip, so this was a major event. Life-altering, one might say! It was lovely hearing the joy in her voice as she recounted some of the highlights to me—and brought some of my own memories back as well.

The summer I turned 16—holy shit that was 20 years ago this summer—my parents sent me on a ‘teen tour’ of Israel through a local Jewish organization that booked such journeys. It was an incredible time…I had finished my sophomore year in high school; another year in which I proved that I was a loser with few friends. I had high expectations of this trip—that I would be transformed and make friends fresh, that I would lose weight (I totally didn’t need to, but that’s teenage girl life for ya), that I would come back a new woman.

It was 30 American teenagers from various parts of the country, with 3 college students as our only chaperones. We were going to a country with no drinking age. I was about to embark on a journey into ‘fitting in’ through drinking and drugs that would last for the next 10 years. Because of this, there are a lot of gaps in my memories of that 6-week tour. I have many stories to tell about that summer, though. The time on the kibbutz (two weeks) is one of the fondest memories of my life. It was so marvelous, in fact, that I was certain I would go back to volunteer and live on one after high school. I almost did go after my first year of college when I decided to drop out for the first time. An increase in violence during the first Intifada and the withholding of finances from my parents changed my mind.

What I want to write about today, though, is one night in particular on that kibbutz. If I could remember what the name of it was and/or where exactly it was, I would be sure to tell you. I cannot.

For those who may not know, here is what Wikpedia says about a kibbutz.

The particular kibbutz that I was on was a fairly large one and had several different ventures going to make money for the community. They farmed tea, hay, and other crops, as well as raised chickens for egg production and even had a latex factory (I never saw inside it, but we of course all joked that it was a condom factory. I have no idea if it was).

While we were there, they had a festival one night to celebrate the harvesting of the hay crops. All the hay had been baled into giant bricks and dotted the fields from which they once grew. Most of the work on the farmland was done before the sun came up because of the oppressive heat of the day. We would wake up at 3 or 4 am, have a light breakfast and go out into the fields to work, then come back for a full breakfast around 8 am, then work again until lunch. We pseudo-volunteers were allowed to stop after that, but the real workers continued for another few hours before ending in the afternoon for siesta time.

The night of the festival, we waited until the sun went down and then were taken to the hay fields along with everyone else. We were to walk slowly behind a large flatbed truck, tossing up the bales of hay onto it as we passed them. Some stayed on the truck to stack the bales. When it could fit no more, we gathered at the shelter where the stacks were stacked even higher—several stories high—by men strategically placed at various levels with ladders or on other levels of hay. A huge party was set up under the shelter with music and food and lots of laughter. I remember no details of that party except my emotion, which was a pure joy I had never remembered feeling before.

The one detail I remember most was when we were walking behind that truck in the field. Looking up, the sky was exploding with stars. There was no light pollution to get in the way of the perfectly clear summer Israeli sky. Even the planetarium at home did not show this many stars, I thought. I didn’t think it was possible to see so many at once—it felt like a dream, like I could reach out and scoop some up into my hands and see them shimmering there like fairy dust. The most beautiful sight I had ever seen, and I was instantly humbled. I was, to my complete amazement, all at once connected to the world.

I would not feel even a hint of this again until years after I got sober.

"You're the other half of what I am, you're the missing piece"

Wrapping up my recap of my trip to France (it already seems like ages since I was there), on that Saturday (April 16^th) we drove to La Rochelle. It is about an hour and a half trip from Couhe, through field upon field of yellow flowers and open spaces. You know that scene in Mary Poppins, where they jump into the chalk drawing that Burt created and they enter into that fantastic world with carousels and horse racing? Driving through the countryside of France feels like that, except what we have jumped into is a chalk rendition of a Cezanne or a Monet…traveling through an Impressionist landscape.

La Rochelle is a beautiful harbor town by the ocean, full of street vendors and shops and tons of cafes and restaurants. We strolled along the harbor and past some cafes that were very crowded and made our way inland a bit, where we found a café that had free tables so we could get our caffeine fix! About halfway through our ride, I had gone silent as thoughts of work started to creep into my brain. The night before I had not slept well because of thinking about that ‘send-off’ I got from my boss. She had got under my skin far more than I had realized, and I was pissed. So as we sat in the sun Pete asked why I was so quiet, and I began to unload. I just cannot stand feeling so trapped, and I got very upset talking about it—to the point of tears. Because every time someone who loves me and means well says, ‘try to hold out until ___’, I cry because people do not understand that I reached the breaking point long ago. The thought of this dragging out past the summer is enough to make me sob.

Pete and I calm one another, and always seem to balance out our neuroses and freak-outs perfectly. He gets upset or worried, I calm him, and vice-versa. So Pete calmed me down, and we talked specifics about our finances and how much we need a month to live. We came up with a game plan that I can live with, and then we were ready to shop.

We walked a lot, searching every child clothing store (and here there were a LOT of them), and finally I gave up on the idea of the black and white dress and bought my daughter a linen spring outfit of cropped tan pants and a white tank shirt with a bit of embroidery on it. It is very chic and beautiful, though of course now I don’t want her to wear it anywhere normal! LOL. And I spent more money on it than I would EVER spend on an outfit for myself. Ever. But I just gave in to the fact that things are more expensive there and this is my kid we’re talking about. Normally we get clothes from Target and shoes from Payless (both of which rock), so I figured what’s the big deal of one splurge. Am I over-defending this? ;-)

Later we stopped to eat at a place facing the harbor, and neither of us knew what we were ordering because the menu is of course, all in French. I ordered what was called 'filet mignon', but it was not an expensive cut of beef but rather little cuts of PORK! This, it turns out, is yet another example of Americans bastardizing a foreign language (can’t wait to get another email from somebody claiming I’m a Francophile who hates America). “Filet Mignon” does NOT mean beef. “Filet de boeuf” means what we think of as mignon. “Mignon” actually means ‘nice’! Anyway, it was tasty, but not what I expected. Pete had duck, because he knew the French word for duck is 'canard'.  For dessert we each had a plate of these puff pastries filled with ice cream and covered in chocolate sauce. Heavenly.

We had a long drive back through pitch-black roads and went to bed, content.

The next day (our last full day) we went in search of Roman ruins. Pete had this map of old Roman roads so we wanted to find one and take the dogs walking. We had many wrong turns and false starts, until we eventually decided to drive further to find the ruins at Sanxay instead of worrying about the walk. There was supposedly an old amphitheater and two other ruins near this town. According to the map, these ruins were in the town, but it turned out it was a bit of a drive past it. It became comical as we kept seeing signs for it pointing ahead, but never getting there! Finally we found it, and we parked and walked down this path towards a tourism welcome building, where a man came out talking French. We said we spoke English, and he went inside and out came a woman who told us in English that it was too late to go down to the ruins!! We could see one from where we stood, so I used the bathroom and took a picture, and then we had to leave. The dogs were terribly disappointed. We found out that in August they hold outdoor opera there, which sounds wonderful. We’ll have to go back one day.

Monday the 18^th we had to get up at the crack of dawn in order to make the journey back to Charles de Gaul…a three-hour trip of a drive for ½ an hour followed by a 2.5-hour train ride. We got to the airport and made our way through the vastness to get to my check-in spot. Pete went to get me some food and coffee, and as I waited to have my suitcase searched all of a sudden this woman in front of me in line with her family turns around and says “SARAH?? Sarah (my last name)???” Can you imagine the odds? Turned out to be the woman who was my manager at a restaurant where I waited tables at 11 years ago! She still lived in the same area as me and was on her way back from a trip to Paris with her husband, sister, and niece. Small world, indeed.

When my suitcase was getting searched I had a small panic as I realized that the woman might find some, er, accessories I had brought for Pete and I. Nothing illegal, but definitely things that are embarrassing! Thankfully, she didn’t pull anything out. Pete came back with sustenance for me and after I checked my suitcase we went to sit for a while before we had to part ways. Saying goodbye at airports is something we’ve become good at, but hate it more and more each time. We are praying that we only have to do it one more time (he’s planning to come visit again at the end of May/early June) before he can move here (immigration-willing) in July.

We daydreamed together about the day when we can get on a plane together to go somewhere and get on it again to return to OUR home. I ached for him the entire flight back.