Boston, Briefly

A few interesting notes from Boston:

We decided not to use the city's bus since you wouldn't even see it if it showed up:

Refrained from sitting on park benches:

Walked the freedom trail:

despite the trail running cold:

Studied the blank walls at the art museum in case there was a deeper meaning (budget cuts?):

Learned a new way to save your parking spot:

(apparently if you dig the snow out of a parking space and then have to leave it, you just put a lawn chair or stool there and both the space and chair will be there on your return.  Hmmmm.)

Mark gave the British Chap thing a go (love the burns baby)...

AND...took Mark's photo at the Boston Marathon finish line just in case he fails at his attempt this summer to qualify for it:

Boston, albeit briefly.

The Taming of a Turbo Tourist

I'm a sucker for a road trip, especially the impetuous last minute kind.  I'm also infamous for inviting myself along on any adventure that comes up on my radar, which is why many of my friends are tight-lipped about their travel plans.  They know I'll invite myself along.  Just ask my friends Keith and Kathy who ended up having me as a self-invited crew member for an entire month on their sailboat. I'd like to think that they didn't suffer that bad having me along since I swabbed a lot of decks and stood watch at crazy hours of the night. But the thing is, this world is so dang fascinating to me that I just want to see it all. And I'm willing to awkwardly invite myself along on someone else's adventure just to see it. [Be forewarned.]

Mark was my most recent victim of self-inviting when I learned he had a business meeting in Boston. I didn't hesitate to tell him to book TWO tickets. I have no problem wandering streets, trains, or subways all by myself in a strange city while my poor husband is stuck in meetings all day--all in the name of adventure.

Here's what I've recently learned about Boston:

There are no crowds in January.  

This photo might offer some speculative reasons as to why I had this incredible town all to myself...15 degrees of  Brrrrr!

Notice an extreme lack of city traffic in the background. I happened to arrive right in the middle of a giant Atlantic snowstorm. But I bundled up in layers of hats, scarves, gloves, sweaters, coats, and boots (things we Oregonians like to call "accessories"-but they are definitely necessities here) and I made Boston my oyster. Albeit my frozen oyster.

"Turbo Tourism" is a rare breed of traveller whose methods usually drive leave-no-stone-unturned-read-every-sign-and-plaque-at-a-leisurely-pace sight-seers bonkers, and sadly I would be guilty of the former not the latter. I'm a Turbo Tourist who likes to come and conquer--mostly because I have a terribly long bucket list of places to see that will take several lifetimes to accomplish.

But after getting started on my Boston quest, I found it to be too rich to take at such a fast pace.  Like wolfing down gelato.  Some things just need to be basked in.  I found myself lingering in the King's Chapel inside incredible box pews which were owned by wealthy families of the time and wandering the grave yards where history's revolutionaries were buried as well as the gravesite of Elizabeth Pain who was believed to be the real life Hester Prynne from The Scarlett Letter. I even spent half a day loitering in the splendor of Boston's public library enamored by it's rare book collections, including sermon books, family bibles, witchcraft books, and even a room completely filled with a cache of over 6,000 books on Joan of Arc. I was in history-geek heaven, a turbo tourist reformed.

I spent a very snowy part of the week wandering the town, chatting up Haitian cabbies, and learning Boston's subway system "The T", almost by heart.  And when the weekend finally came, the snow began to thin on the sidewalks and, at long last, both Mark and the warming sun made their first appearance.

Once Mark was in tow I resumed my usual stealth travel mode-we only had two days left and our Boston clock was ticking. We commenced by walking the length and breadth of the Freedom Trail at a pace that would have qualified us for Boston's famous Marathon; we toured "Old Ironsides" from top to bottom, walked to Paul Revere's house, and stormed up Bunker Hill like a bunch of Red Coats prepared to do battle.  Then we finished off the day by skimming Boston's Museum of Art for pieces mostly from Colonial America while museum curators stood perplexed watching Mark and I whiz past the vast array of Egyptian artifacts in the Ancient World exhibit and snub our noses at the Modernest Photography displays without even so much as a glance.  We were hellbent to spend our last days taking in Colonial Boston and leave the rest to the summer tourists.

By the time our Boston Blitz was over and we arrived at the airport for our 6 hour flight back to the west coast, we were in love with Boston...snow and all.  There's got to be something magical about a place that can temporarily tame a turbo tourist like me.

Cat Tails are Flammable

Here's some handy advise to any of you who may have been gifted a lovely scented candle for Christmas:

Please be advised that it is not a good idea to light your new candle and set it on your bathroom counter while applying your make-up.  Especially if you happen to own a cat who likes to lounge on said counter and watch you with its back toward your lovely new burning candle and proceeds to swish its tail back and forth across the flame.  It is quite possible that while you are otherwise preoccupied at your mirror trying not to pinch you eyelids with your eyelash curler and ignoring the stupid cat, that the melodious smell of "Hawaiian Breeze" you anticipated wafting throughout your bathroom will unexpectedly smell more like "Seared Cat Tail".

...Which, in turn, will make your already estrogen-imbalanced cat get even moodier...and your bathroom stink.

Love Notes

The two younger kids have been writing more love notes. They've got quite a History of Love Notes and you'd think by now they'd run out of creative ways to jot down an affectionate "I love you mom" but there seems to be no shortage of these little twilight tokens waiting for me on my pillow each night.

Chloe continues to pen more and more, shall I say, quite unique declarations of love.  She has apparently abandoned the hum-drum savoir-faire of a classic Shakespearian love expression and developed her own unconventional style.

Of late, Chloe's notes fall under six very unique love categories:

Bizarre:

(This one was written around Halloween, and now I wonder if we may have watched a few too many thriller movies with the kids.)

Random Bizarre Lists:

...and Koala Bears?

Subtle Complaints:

Subtle Requests:

Not so subtle Complant AND Request:

Luckily this complaint was aimed at the school for planning a field trip the day after school got back in from winter break.  

Apparently Miss Chloe would have scheduled it at a better time.

Funny:

And now it's clear that Chloe's loyalties for the Beavers

ended when they lost the playoffs.

And from time to time

Good Old-Fashioned True Love:

Connor, in stark contrast, sticks to the tried and true declarations, the kind that make you feel warm and fuzzy instead of confused and perplexed (but highly amused)--like Chloe's notes tend to do.

(one of Connor's favorite baseball pitchers)

The U.K.?  

That's real love right there, don't you think?

Awkward OR agreeable, you gotta love a love note.

Washer Wars: A Magnetic Mystery

Over the last couple of weeks I've spent a fair amount of time INSIDE of my washing machine.  The interesting news is that I've discovered I can fit inside a washing machine, the futile news is, really, when would that little absurdity ever come up naturally in a conversation?  "Hey did you know I fit inside a washing machine?" Of course IF somehow I did manage to figure out how to wedge that bit of hooey into a conversation I'd leave out the part that it's a huge front loading washer in order to give off a deceitful impression that I'm super skinny and possess serious flexibility skills.

But the reason I've been spending quality time inside my washer is the real scuttlebutt.  Over the last two weeks something major has been banging around in my washing machine every time I run a load.  I toss in a bunch of clothes into an empty machine, turn it on, and sometime during the washing or spinning cycles the most ferocious banging sound thunders from my laundry room.  This is no ordinary clink of a few playground pocket rocks mind you, it's an earth shattering

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I'd know the sound of playground rocks when I hear them.  I'm an expert in playground rocks and what they sound like in ANY household appliance--including blenders (which is the very reason I firmly believe boys of any age should not watch infomercials).  I've got a jar full of playground rocks in my laundry room.
One curious month several years ago, I decided to collect and put into a jar every single rock that came out of my washer or dryer for 30 days, just to see if it was really that bad.  It was.

This "30-days-of-rocks-in-my-laundry" jar still sits on a shelf in my laundry room.  It reminds me of the exact reasons why motherhood has driven me occasionally insane and what a fabulous mother I am for having not killed any of my children...yet.

So the recent unidentifiable ear-splitting clash inside my washing machine for two weeks strait had me declaring war on whatever it was.  After each load and accompanying thrashing, I'd throw myself into the thing and give it a thorough groping as if I was working airport security.  And what did I find?  Nothing.  When I'd run another load, guess what I hear again?

Bang! Bang! Bang!

And as soon as I heard it, I'd be there waiting for the end-of-cycle buzzer and throw the door open expecting to find a toaster or a hub cap or something inside the tub.
But what did I find?  Absolutely Nothing. 

Again I run another load.  Bang! Bang! Bang!  Wait for the buzzer, throw open the door, pull out all the clothes, just sure I was about to find a set of fireplace tools or perhaps a skateboard but nope, I always found nothing. Just me inside a washing machine and the echos of a thousand curse words.

I was officially more agitated than the appliance.

Look for yourself...do you see ANYTHING on the bottom of the tub here?

Nothing. 
For two weeks I was driven insane.  I was officially at war with an unknown enemy.  I needed a battle plan.

I decided to run yet another load but this time I was determined not to wait for the buzzer.  I just stood there staring down that machine like I had challenged it to some sort of high-noon western quickdraw. With hands at my side ready to rip the door open at the slightest sound.

It took ten full minutes, but there it was Bang! Bang! Bang!
Out flew my pointed index finger and in heated frenzy I put the thing on "pause" and clawed all the wet stuff out, and dove head first inside the danged thing once again.  This time I decided I wasn't coming out until I solved the mystery. Water was seeping onto the floor but I didn't care, a casualty of war.

Now you'd think that living on Planet Earth with all that gravity business that a simple check of the lower half of the tub like I had been doing would have been adequate.  Alas it was not.  However reasonable it thought it was to assume that whatever it is banging around in there would surely be found resting at the bottom of the tub...underestimated one important force of nature...

The Boy-Factor.  Rock loving, magnet loving boys.  MAGNETS! Like an idiot, I never bothered looking anti-gravity UP.  Why would anything be stuck to the top of the drum?  Unless of course it was a giant magnet.

AH HA! See it now??

Yep, there it was all the time...somewhere on the TOP of the drum each time I checked.

The mother of all magnets.

A huge, heavy, bang-inducing magnet.  For two weeks this thing drove me mad.  

So what did I do with the thing?  I looked up at my jar of aggravating playground rocks and just shook my head.  I thought my machines and I had seen it all. Then I went in and stuck it back in Connor's room on his metal wall. I figured if he ever left it in his pocket again and tossed his pants into the wash, it would only be fair to use it to magnetize him to the wall for a lengthy Time Out.

Next time something bangs in the dryer, I'll be looking down for playground rocks (or toasters and hubcaps) and UP for gargantuan magnets.  Until then, I'm pleased to know I can fit inside a washer.

Washer Wars, another domestic triumph.  

Temptation

10 Lessons Learned in 2010

1.  Hefty cinch-sacks make a mighty fine substitute for a gas cap.

I learned this one on my long road trip across the country this past fall.  However, it would have been even more helpful if I’d been able to figure out a substitute for a missing credit card.

2.  The handy nature of the word “CUSS”

This very handy new word came by way of the comment section of my blog (Thanks Daisha!)  It’s a little gem of a word. 

After blogging yet again about my pernicious penchant for swearing, she suggested that if I was really trying to curb my cursings that I simply replace these boisterious belchings with the word “cuss”.  I’ve tried substitute swear words before but the “darn” and “heck”s would just not satisfy my need to release all that tension out of my mouth. But after giving this handy little “cuss” word a try, I’ve found that it works, really well. The hard “Kuh” sound seems to roll harshly enough off my tongue that it’s just about cured me of the real thing.  Just about.

3.  Never rub your eyes when you’re eating HOT Cheetos.

4.  We are not the Partridge Family

During a recent trip up to Seattle to visit Mark’s mom “G-Ma”, she bought us passes for a place called “Experience Music Project”.  It lets visitors, well, experience music.  And experience it we did, but I’m fairly certain it was not in a way I think the good folks behind the “project” intended.  

The EMP is a place filled with famous instruments played by legendary musicians (most notably, Seattle native Jimi Hendrix), displays of music memorabilia, and interactive music lessons.  Sadly, there’s also sound booths where you can do everything from mix music or try your hand at jamming on drums, guitars, or sing...or form an impromptu band and make a music video.

I didn't even think to take pictures of my kids while we were there.  I was too busy holding my hands over my ears insulating them from the bedlam.  I never worked up the nerve to unplug even one ear long enough to operate a camera.  I just followed my poor talent-impaired kids around...

• Chloe headed strait for the vocals and sung her little off-tune heart out.  
• Mitchell headed to the guitars and surprised us by not being too offensive and informed us he took a guitar class at school (hmmm.  Apparently we weren’t paying too much attention to his school schedule that year).  
• Connor headed strait for the drums-my all-time favorite instrument EXCEPT for when it is done badly. My dad used to play drums in a band, which garnered him a mob of crazed groupies, while Connor groupies consisted of a hand full of reluctant family members all huddling in the corner of the sound booth like we were practicing a grade school earthquake drill.  

It was a frightening day in which I learned once-and-for-all that we Skillmans, will NEVER be the Partridge family.  I don’t think there was ever a day in which I took more aspirin. 

However sad our lackluster musical abilities are, cheer up, I learned something positive too...

5.  You're never too old to find a new talent.

At 49 Mark has discovered something new...running. He’s always been into cycling but a few years back he decided to try running in the winter months because it was just too cold to ride.  Mark’s not really a big distance cycler, instead he prefers to climb up steep roads on his bike.  The downside of that is that when you reach the summit in the wintertime the coast back down is a very breezy and chilly one. So he switched to running and it turns out he’s pretty good at it.  

When summer came he neglected his bike and kept right on jogging and started entering races.  He placed second in his first triathlon.  Over the past year he crosses the finish line with impressive times and now has quite a plethora of awards. Who knew?  He'd never run before.  

Finding a new talent at 49 gives the rest of us waaay younger people hope.  I think Mark likes being the old guy that can outrun kids half his age and I wonder if perhaps his quick-ness is more about feeble feisty-ness.  Whatever it is, I’m pretty impressed...

...not impressed to run with him, but impressed nonetheless.

6.  If you inappropriately mis-label moving boxes when you help your friends move, they may not ask you to help them ever again.

My poor friends may have had a bit of trouble making friends when they relocated to their new home, especially if their new neighbors offered to come and help them unpack the new house. 

Unfortunately for my poor friends The Petersens, they had a move AND a wedding that took place just one day apart.  So while they focused on the wedding, I came out and helped them pack. 

What I did not tell them when I offered to help is that when I get ahold of a moving box and a permanent marker-well, some sort of demon seizes me.  These two things together, boxes and permanent markers, create an uncontrollable temptation.  

When I began packing, it with all the good intentions I could muster.  I even occasionally wrote encouraging notes and little friendly memos and left them inside the taped up boxes.  Then as my memory would fade I began intermittently forgetting what I had just taped up inside the box and couldn’t recall exactly what I was supposed to write on the outside. So I’d start writing “I forgot what’s inside”.  It gave me a case of the giggles.  Not the funny “ha-ha” kind of giggles.  I got the devious kind from whence all trouble-making comes.  From there I moved on to labeling their stereo system as 
“8-Track Tape Player and John Denver collection” and then another box as
“embarrassing items from your medicine cabinet”. 

But this box got me in the biggest trouble, but I couldn’t help myself.

…And now they will never ask me to help them again. 

So sad, because my head is abuzz with a lot more scandalous ideas and I've got a fresh marker ready to go.

7.  If your husband is not a big TV watcher, you may not want him to be in charge of your car rental needs. 

I found this out the hard way.  I had flown down to the Vegas area to help mis-label and move boxes for my aforementioned friends.  When I flew in they picked me up at the airport and the plan was for Mark to fly down a week later and rent a car to drive for the rest of our stay. 

Seven days later, Mark shows up in one of these:

My mouth hung open when he pulled up.  Apparently he doesn’t see very many commercials on TV or he’d of seen this one:

Dear Mark: Surrender the man card buddy, you shouldn’t have needed a commercial to figure out that you don't wanna "get with this".


For the remainder of our visit, I rode around in the passenger seat with dark sunglasses and a hat.  I am now searching high and low for a green track suit for Mark, he's certainly "do da dippity" earned it.

8.  Don’t take Ambien if your long distance flight requires you to change planes midway. 

Especially if the change is made someplace like say, El Salvador, and you may just need to be sharp enough to recall some basic high school Spanish to navigate successfully to the next plane.  However, if you insist on popping one anyway (or possibly two), bring along a really good friend and assign them to be your designated driver flyer.  If they're a really good and loyal friend, they’ll help you transfer to the right airplane and you’ll wake up on a beach somewhere and have absolutely no recollection on how you got there.  But you’ll be happy and well rested.

9.  If you put your cat on a diet, it will get very grouchy.


10.  The most exciting yet debilitating news of your life is the day you find out you're going be a grandparent.
This sort of news is one of the hallmarks of life.  An exciting time.  But no one prepares you for the inevitable realization that happens about five minutes after you get such a phone call.  After the initial rush of jubilee, one very horrific realization overshadows:  

You're officially OLD.

Now, if you happen to already be OLD when you get this sort of news for the first time, it may not come as such a blow but when you just recently stepped into your forties, the moment you hear such news your vision suddenly blurs (or in my case blurs worse), you get short of breath, and a half dozen gray hairs suddenly spring out of your head in utter fright.  


Things that freak me out about being a grandparent:

• Being married to a grampa. Ewww!
• What the cuss are these grandchildren going to call me??  Grannie? Grandma? Oh Heaven help me come up with a more youthful sounding grandparent name.
• Accidentally slipping into grandmotherhood with one of those tell-tale hairdos and suddenly preferring comfy shoes.

Things that will be fabulous about being a grandparent:

• Making my own children jealous by spoiling the baby rotten.
• Buying baby clothes that I'll never have to wash and put away.
• Enjoying a baby without any of the poop.
• Knowing the pain and suffering this must be causing my own parents who have to add a dreaded GREAT in front of their names.  Hehehe.
• Boring friends and strangers with baby pictures!

And while we're on the subject of pictures...here's the first of many...

Tree Killer

Our Christmas Tree shriveled and dried up within three days of putting the thing up.  We watered and watered it but couldn't figure out why it was sucking up so much water and dying anyway.

Then we noticed the dang cat has actually taken a liking to something Christmasy...the tree.  Edward has discovered that it can be indoors yet feel outdoors by standing under the tree...

all day long. 

It's been sitting under the tree 24/7 since we put it up.  Unfortunately for the tree, it began balding and completely died up by the time we realized the cat was drinking all the water from the tree and giving its real water dish the snub.

Kid Scratcher, Lazy Lounger, Christmas Music Hater, and now we can add TREE KILLER to the long list of "Edward Scissorhands" evil misdeeds.

...and now, I'm off to take ornaments off a prematurely balding dead tree.

The NEW Parable of the Talents

At Christmastime our church likes to put on a little informal Christmas concert starring the kids.  They ask all of the children if they'd like to sing a carol or play an instrument or do something musical with their family.  They ask EVERYBODY so that everyone feels included.  The problem is, that the Skillman family, who have no musical talent whatsoever,  really truly don't mind being excluded from this sort of thing.  Really.  But each year these do-gooders always insist we do something so we don't feel left out.

So a few years back, in serious desperation and under great duress, we went searching for a talent.  ANY talent.  After looking high and low, and really really low, I remembered a friend that had chimes cut from metal pipes.  It looked like just the thing for our family to attempt.  It wasn't too serious of an instrument, and really, how hard could it be to bang a bunch of pipes with a few metal rods?

Hard.

First, right off the bat, let me just warn you: if you're a family prone to physical outbursts and unruly bantering, it may not be a good idea to try an instrument that gives each person in your group a metal object with which they could bludgeon another family member with should they get frustrated or annoyed.

It was a solid hour before we managed to get through a short little song without a single mistake.  A long bruised up hour.

Yet, last year our first performance went off without a single glitch. We called it our Christmas miracle.  But...instead of acting like professionals by taking a silent bow and returning reverently to our seats, we were so surprised that we actually pulled it off that we dropped our own jaws in awe and wonder and then started giving each other hearty congratulatory high-fives.  We totally blew our cover and everyone knew we were shocked at our own expert performance.  Not only that, we'd disrupted the reverent tone of the whole event by our high-fiving and excited gyrations like the kind you see in an END-ZONE.  Not real churchy if you know what I mean.  Our stunt pretty much chased the spirit out of the room like some sort of reverse exorcism.

This year they actually asked us back again.  (There seem to be no limits to the kindness of Christians). So out came the #@!% bells and another round of horrific chime practicing and metal bludgeoning commenced.

Last Sunday was the big day and our performance turned out...uh...unique.  This year Mark forgot a couple of notes and luckily Connor, who in practices could NEVER get it right, suddenly got the hang of it and would casually tap his dad's bells when he'd forget.  It got to be pretty comical.  Mark would miss a note, Connor would hit his dad's pipe for him and then Mark would audibly say "Oh!".

ting, ting, "Oh!" ting, ting,"Oh!"

As you can imagine, we were quite the spectacle. However, the good part about being so bad was that there were no congratulatory high fives or lewd victory dances at the end of this year's meager performance.

Perhaps this is the year that will get us uninvited from these types of things.  All indications point to our family getting shunned next year because the gal in charge came up to Mark afterwards and said, "Maybe you should bury that talent."

Apparently, our family has single-handedly maxed out Christian kindness AND changed the biblical thinking on whether or not one should hide their talents.