Friday Night Leftovers - Vacation Edition

* I ate so much Lobster this week. I love Lobster! I would have eaten more fried seafood, but with the Gluten Free thing and all, it makes it pretty difficult. P ate fried clams a lot lately. He says the East Coast is the only place to get fried clams, other places they are fried frozen clam strips. Not the same thing at all.
* V has been so ill this week, but acting normally. She got sick last Wednesday and Thursday with horrible diarrhea, stayed home from School Friday and seemed fine, was sick on the plan on Saturday, and had episodic diarrhea continuing through Tuesday. We ended up taking her to ER on MDI and they were just so darn nice. They too thought it was a virus and said that I was doing a great time of keeping her hydrated. Thankfully she has improved and no diarrhea has been absent for the last two days.
* Now that the diarrhea has stopped, V has a terrible, hacking, choking cough.
* Maine is so incredibly beautiful. Craggy, rocky, and watery. I grew up in Northern Michigan and I bet the winters are pretty similar here. Yuck. 80+ inches of snow a year is too much!
* We haven't been at the cottage much since we've been out doing things. It is very nice. I brought along Toy Story 2 for relax time and frankly, I can't take any more of it. I can quote it by now. I should have brought Toy Story 3 as I've only seen it once.

On Vacation

We are in Maine! And the weather has been wonderful, with the exception of today I've felt decently, I've eaten Lobster six times, I've seen some absolutely gorgeous scenery, and our cottage is really lovely.

The biking today almost did me in, I've gotten more mosquito bites then I have had all summer, and Victoria has had three days of diarrhea.

It's really been nice being on vacation though and I'm just sitting here resting.

Friday Night Leftovers

broken

I was gone for 4.5 days to visit my mother up North. P was gone to backpacking. When I got home around 7:00 pm on Sunday night the refrigerator was making a loud noise. P though the (already broken) ice maker was trying to make ice. It wasn't. The fridge contents felt cool, but not cold. I didn't think to check the freezer.

Yesterday I called and found someone to come over "sometime between 2-6". Okay then. I got him to narrow the window to 3-6 and I left work today at 2:30. Right now I'm waiting for him. The fridge is only four years old.

Last night I opened the freezer and it was basically a soup. I didn't have a ton in the fridge but the freezer was loaded. I had a large bag of tilapia and shrimp in there along with carefully cut and frozen fresh Farmers' Market vegetables. They all were a mushy mess. I threw everything away plus all our condiments. P brought dinner from the Coney Island last night. I didn't have anything to put in V's lunch really. I gave her a warm juice, warm carrots, a non peanut granola bar, and a Graham cracker with soy butter.

There are also no cool drinks and three trash bags of rotting food.

September 11th, 2001

Today is September 11th 2011. Ten years ago our world was horrifically, inexplicably changed by hate. P and I had been living in England for over a year. It was in Grad School and stayed home that day (a beautiful, mild, sunny day) because the tree trimmer was coming to trim out chesnut tree in the back garden and I needed to let him in through the locked gate. I can't remember what alerted me to what happened and when as we were five hours ahead of New York. The tree trimmer was taking a tea or smoke break or something and made some remark like "bloody Americans deserved it". I called P at work and immediately turned on CNN, which I watched the rest of the day. P came home and watched with me and several of our relatives back in the states called us that evening. It was frightening to be so far from home and witness the events. Several of our fellow expats called each other and expressed our feelings.

THe next day I went back to my University Department and not one person said a word to me except our cleaning/tea lady. (At university, there was a lady whose job was to set up "tea" every day promptly at 11:00 am which includes two pots of tea, yucky biscuits, and three press coffeepots, sugar and milk. She washed all the mugs afterwards -just water- and wiped and put everything away.) She was an old British lady and said, "I know who did this, the Japs did it". She had lived through WWII. I was so disappointed that not one person expressed a condolence to me for the tragedy that our country went through. (What hurts was when there a big earthquake in Greece, and we had a student from Greece, they all expressed sympathy and took up a collection for the victims). The majority of people in that department were jerks.

The following week I was in a large British SUpermarket and Prime Minister Tony Blair (I really liked him) decreed a moment of national silence for the victims. Every single person in that supermarket stopped what they were doing for three minutes and were silent out of respect. That was so touching. I don't think one person knew I was American and how much it meant to me. I was touched. When we came home that holiday season, I was awed by the large displays of patriotism everywhere. THe next year on September 11th, I hung up a giant american flag in our window (we lived at a main intersection).

Labor Day Weekend

I took Friday off (school was closed) and since it was a billion degrees out (actually 98 F) I did laundry in the a.m. while I let Victoria watch Snow White in the morning. She really liked it, kept asking me what was going on, but seemed frightened by the man trying to kill Snow White and the Wicked Witch. P came home early and then took us out for Mexican for lunch. Then we left (traffic was really heavy) and stopped at the Outlets on the way west. I got to stop at the GAP outlet, my favorite place. It was pretty picked over with it being back to school, but I bought a pair of skinny jeans for myself, and a pair of tan work trousers pretty cheap. I got V a pair of their leggings and a long sleeve matching top and few other items. Then I ran into Gymboree outlet and they had their plain long sleeve T-shirts for $5.99 in basic colors. I bought cream and lt pink in a 4T plus a tiny onsie with a giraffe for P's niece as a baby gift The Children's Place didn't have too much, but I got V two pairs of super nice winter tights for $2.99 each and a Halloween shirt for $3.99. P bought a new belt at the Leather Outlet. My, we are exciting?

We made it to dinner w/P's brother in GR. It was his 40th Birthday and he was a bit down. We didn't make it to P's mom's until 9:30. Everyone slept in. The next afternoon we went to the playground next to Lake Michigan and V met another little girl and played and played with her. It was nice to go to the playground and enjoy without having to run home to make dinner, etc. We went to the ice cream parlor after that and then watched the Lake Michigan CarFerry come in from the lighthouse pier.

On Saturday we again got a late start. P wanted to take V on a Go-Kart ride and I was worried about the danger, but they were the only ones on the track and she loved it! and went to the Mac Woods Dune Rides at Silver Lake. Silver Lake is absolute stunning with the white dunes and blue sky. V loved the ride and would put her arms up down the hills like she was on a rollercoaster. We then went horseback riding. At 3, they preferred that V ride her own pony tethered to the leader. I was concerned about her falling off and having the thigh strength of a long ride. She did wonderfully!!!!! Her pony was named Ladybug and she sat for the entire hour ride without making a peep. Unfortunately, my horse "Fred" was kind of a jerk and kept stopping to eat. Towards the end of the ride he took off in a completely different direction and I finally got him to turn, but then he decided to run off and join a completely different group and follow them back to the stable. Afterwards the owner said I wasn't stern enough with him! It was the end of the day and I think he was just starving. We went to P's grandma for dinner and she insists on cooking and she is 90. We had local fish fried with no spices. Half the fish was burnt and half was raw. I started doing the dishes and she was mean to me because I "didn't use the correct side of the sink and I was using too much water". Then we walked down to the Lake.

Sunday we decided to come home so we could sleep in our own bed. V insisted on crawling into the bed with us and the bed was super soft and we all slept terribly the duration of the trip. We stopped at the Zoo in GR where we discovered that V's fear of dogs and cats has extended to all animals. Super great. No zoo's or farms for a while. We had dinner with P's brother and his girlfriend and finally arrived home at 9:10 pm. Didn't sleep well and ended up taking off today to catch up and rest. I'm tired. I wish the pics were better, but it's all I've got!