The agency I work for graciously provides "Continuing Professional Education" for its employees each year. Half of our employees attend one week, the other half attend the second week. I ordinarily attend BOTH weeks because I am usually an instructor for at least one class, if not two. This year, however, I put my foot down and did not volunteer to instruct because the training conference was going to be in Philadelphia, and I really, really wanted to bring my kids with me. They were old enough to stay in our Hotel Room during the day while I was busy with classes, and we could stay through the weekend and do touristy things, and what better city to do touristy things than Philadelphia! So historic! So educational!
Well, I wound up instructing again, but for one week only. I was well aware from our Yellowstone trip, that the 3 of us can only stand about 7 days of "non-stop togetherness." We flew out early one Monday morning, and returned the following Monday. It was...interesting!
My kids were really great about meeting my co-workers. I gave them quite the Lecture in the airport about hand shaking and eye contact. I made them "practice" and chastised them for "shaking hands like a girl." Consequently, both of them have adopted steely-gazed, bone-crushing handshakes. Most Excellent!
I taught a class entitled, "Intermediate Excel" with a concentration on creating and customizing charts and graphs. I showed up to the classroom early on Tuesday, so I could load the "class exercises" onto the 25 Loaner Laptops my agency rented, so class participants could have the opportunity for "hands-on" practice--which is the ONLY way to teach a class involving computer software. Unfortunately, I realized that my agency is still using Microsoft Office 2003, and the Loaner Laptops all had Microsoft Office 2007, which is very, VERY different. All of the printed Training Materials were designed using screen shots of Excel 2003. I frantically tried to learn Excel 2007 in 30 minutes, to no avail. Consequently, the first class I taught, sucked. My co-instructor and I spent our lunch hour re-vamping our entire approach. Showing people how to do stuff on Excel 2007 was kind of pointless, since they would be going back to their offices and using Excel 2003. Quite a conundrum, but we worked our way through it, and actually got "rave reviews" from the Class Evaluations we looked at the end of the day.
After my work-day was over, I dragged my kids to not one, but TWO Group Dinners with my co-workers (both of them held in Sports Bars--gah! Obviously, I will never be in the running for any "Mother of the Year" awards!) I was very proud of their "meet and greet" skills when I introduced them to about two dozen co-workers. They were very patient and well-behaved (albeit bored) the entire time. Perhaps the stern whisper in their ears beforehand of "do NOT embarrass me or I will never let you have access to the XBox or the internet ever again" had something to do with it...
And then Friday came around, and my work obligations were over! It was our time to be Tourists! We walked and walked and WALKED! We visited Museum after Museum. It was HOT, and we were sweaty, and our feet hurt, and I was my usual incompetent self when it came to reading a map, so we got lost and walked more than we should have. Also, imagine the "shock value" for my sheltered tribe that has never left the suburbs except to go to Yellowstone. Downtown Philadelphia was quite a shock! As I walked with them to a CVS to buy some snacks one morning we passed not one, but two Homeless people, one of them with make-up smeared all over her face and obviously crazy, and the other beating the crap out of a pay phone, yelling obscenities. As I hurried them past, noticing the shocked looks on my kids' faces, I said, cheerily, "Welcome to the Big City!" and my son said, with great seriousness, "I don't like it here." His Facebook posts throughout the week were most amusing. He is a young man of few words, with great focus:
1) Philadelphia smells like cigarettes.
2) Gawd--there is nothing to watch on TV in this hotel!
3) Dear lawd--there is no place in this city to get Dr. Pepper!
4) YESSSSSSSSSSS! I found some Dr. Pepper in this city!
5) OMG! Again with the no Dr. Pepper!
By Sunday night we were all sick of each other. I suspected that if I even dared to mention visiting another museum/historic site Monday morning before heading to the airport to catch our late afternoon flight, they might have conspired to smother me with a pillow while I slept. So instead I told them they could "sleep late" and we would just relax and pack up and then head for the airport.
We never did manage to get tickets to actually go INSIDE Independence Hall, but we did "walk around it." We also never bothered with the Liberty Bell. Perhaps that means our journey was misspent, but I think not. We had a limited amount of time, and I didn't want to spend it standing in line or trying to force my petulant, reluctant children to get out of bed early in the morning. We spent a good amount of time in the Visitor's Center which had great displays full of information about both landmarks, and since my kids had already covered some Revolutionary War history in school, they were able to follow along and (hopefully) appreciate and understand that we were walking along the same land that was the Birthplace of Democracy. They are still too young to understand the magnitude of that, but they are astute enough to recognize that Philadelphia is VERY different from their Hometown. I didn't think that actually standing in the same room where the Declaration of Independence was signed was as important as reading about the events leading up to that Declaration and understanding what life in Colonial America was truly like. As we walked from Independence Hall to Betsy Ross's House to Christ Church, we talked about the "Founding Fathers" and WHY people came to America in the first place. We walked across sidewalks naming the signers of the Declaration and their occupations. Business Owners, Tradesmen, and Farmers. Ordinary, hard-working people who just wanted to make a living, support their families, and NOT have to turn over 50% (or more) of their income to someone who was already WEALTHY and never worked a day in his life because he was the Son of a King.
And that was when I shut up with the history lessons because it dawned on me that when my children enter the workforce, they will likely face a 50% Tax Rate because their wages will have to subsidize Health Care for All, Bad Mortgages, National Debt, and America's "obligation" to be Caretaker of the World when it comes to Natural Disasters and Dictatorships.
At least it means they will never leave me--they will never be able to afford to.
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