Tales from the Home Front

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.

Yellowstone Vacation

Back from vacation, and I currently have over 300 digital photos to sort and organize, so I can order prints! Yellowstone is amazing, awesome, incredible, beautiful, and fascinating!

We saw snow-capped mountains.

We saw geysers and molten, bubbling mud.

We saw craters filled with brilliant blue water, emitting clouds of steam that smelled like rotten eggs (we blamed the smell on my son, accusing him of farting too much in public places.)

We saw Lake Yellowstone, which, to desert dwellers such as ourselves, looked like the ocean, it was so big!

We saw waterfalls and canyons.

And, of course, we saw animals!

Elk!

Bison!

And (my favorite part of the whole trip) a Mama Grizzly Bear with her two little cubbies--a mere 5 yards from the side of the road!

We took these photos from INSIDE the car, keeping a respectful distance! When Mama Bear noticed the "Paparrazzi," she quickly retreated for the hills! So, we had to take a picture of her backside, and no, Mama Grizzly Bear, that outfit does NOT make your butt look big. You are perfect just the way you are! (And your babies are ADORABLE!)

We also saw a moose, and two bald eagles sitting in their nest near the West Entrance, but those pictures are on my daughter's camera, and I haven't uploaded them to my computer yet.

We got snowed on, missed Old Faithful (who chose NOT to perform on schedule, and we got bored--and cold and wet, since it was SNOWING--so we chose not to wait around anymore, and we dissed him.) We also trashed our rental car--seriously! In a mere Six Days my kids got it as dirty and full of trash as my 6-year-old Toyota! I spent entirely too much money on souvenirs--I kept thinking that this might be my only chance to visit Yellowstone, so I needed a T-shirt...and a hat...and a bumper sticker...and some magnets...and a water bottle...

We discovered that Idaho is full of potato farms (miles and M.I.L.E.S of potato farms), and that Jackson Hole, WY is EXACTLY like Santa Fe, only "whiter" and lacking cultural/historical sensitivity and integrity. I drove the Teton Pass not once, but FOUR times, with white knuckles the entire way (NOT a fan of 10% grades on narrow mountain roads with sheer cliffs on one side, no guardrail, and hairpin curves.) We invented new "games to play in the car," like a new version of "Slug-a-Bug" involving punching the person next to you every time you spotted an LDS church while driving through Southern Idaho and Northern Utah (ha ha--aren't we funny and full of religious intolerance!) We also amused ourselves during the long drives in and out and around the park by tuning in to comedy stations on Syrius Satellite Radio. I believe we can recite the stand-up routines of George Lopez, Bill Cosby, Jerry Seinfeld, Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, and Bill Engvall by heart.

Yellowstone is full of people who are not Americans. I think we were the only Americans present last week, or at least we were the only ones speaking English without an accent! Yellowstone is also full of men sporting ridiculously large and expensive camera equipment. Every time I passed a middle-aged man on a trail sporting a zoom lens the size of a Civil War-era cannon, I thought to myself, "compensating for something?" Ha ha ha!

As I was "reflecting" on this vacation--my first "real" vacation with my kids in 10 years--I realized that this is also probably the first time since I was on maternity leave that I have spent 24 uninterrupted hours a day with my kids for more than 5 days in a row.

About two hours after we returned home, I drove them over to their father's house and dropped them off for the rest of the week because we were sick of each other.

Oh, just kidding--it wasn't because I wanted to, it's just that I had to go into the office in the morning, and they are on summer break and wanted to stay up late and sleep in. But it makes for a funny joke, right?

Wow! These things called "Vacations"? I think I like them! Must take more!

Vacations and Ungrateful Children

When I was a kid, the only "vacations" we ever took were obligatory trips to Arizona to visit the relatives. My sister and I spent most of our time feeling BORED, but we always looked forward to the trips because at least we got to get out of town, and our Mom always made the long car trips fun by packing the station wagon (aka "Family Truckster") full of snacks and games and puzzle books. Outside of the obligatory annual trip to visit the relatives, the only REAL Vacation we ever took was a trip to Disneyland when I was in the 4th grade. So, while my childhood was quite comfortable and idyllic and wonderful, it was also mostly devoid of fancy, expensive Vacations.

Fast forward a few decades. Now I'M a parent and, of course, I want my kids to have everything AND MORE than I had growing up.

I haven't taken my kids on a "proper" vacation in YEARS! In fact, the ONLY Vacation my kids have ever experienced was a trip to Disneyland when they were small that was largely financed by my Brother-in-Law. Neither one of my kids remembers it.

A few years ago, my daughter came home from school with one of those Time Magazine-sponsored "articles," and it was all about Yellowstone. She was totally enthralled by the idea of taking a trip there. Her timing couldn't have been worse. I was newly-divorced and right smack dab in the middle of a custody evaluation, struggling to pay both Alimony AND Child Support on top of Attorney Fees and rent, utilities, insurance, etc.

Despite having a good-paying job, I was BROKE. No vacations for us! I substituted Cub Scout Family Campouts and trips to visit my sister at my Grandparent's Cabin instead.

But, I never forgot that glossy, promotional, tree-hugging, environmentalist propaganda (ha ha) that my daughter brought home from school. A VACATION to Yellowstone became my GOAL!

It has taken me 4 YEARS to find myself in a place financially where I can make this trip happen. I am dedicating a good $2,500 to this trip, half of it funded by my income tax refund, and the rest of it funded by funneling $100 into a Savings Account every pay period for the last year or so. My Dad gave me the PBS National Parks DVD set for Christmas. I have spent HOURS online working out the details and finding the best possible accommodations. I have rented a car for the first time in my life. I have cashed in Marriott Rewards points to get a night of free lodging on our return trip home. I have purchased memory cards and rechargeable batteries for our digital cameras. I have checked weather reports and made lists.

I am so excited I can hardly stand it!

And my kids?

DON'T. CARE. AT. ALL.

Even my daughter pointed out tonight at the dinner table that she wanted to go to Yellowstone "in the 2nd grade."

Parenthood is a thankless job.

I would like to take an Alaskan Cruise someday. My kids don't want to go on a Cruise. I'm still siphoning money into my Savings Account every pay period. So, next year, I'm going on that Alaskan Cruise, and I am NOT taking my kids with me.