Livin' it up, retiree style

Did I mention that January was "travel month" for me? I know we just got back from California, but we took off again for Florida, where we are visiting my stepmom. I have to get all these family visits in before I'm too pregnant to travel (and before I have a baby in tow).... It really has nothing to do with following the sun or anything!

In any case, my stepmother (Laura) lives in central Florida, about an hour and a half north of Orlando, in a gigantic retirement community that I've concluded is kind of like college for old folks (minus all the academics, and plus some pretty fantastic facilities).

Yesterday Laura took us by golf cart all around town, which was quite the little adventure (especially considering it's a cart that seats two, and she and I plus George=3, plus baby in my belly=at least 3 1/2!)... George sat on my (disappearing) lap at first, and then I came up with the idea to have him stand up in the back and strap him in where the golf bag goes. That worked quite well for awhile, and he thought it was pretty fun!


There are golf-cart paths all over town, and golf-cart lanes (like bicycle lanes) on many of the main roads.... Here's a golf-cart bridge over the highway:

Our destination was one of the shopping/dining/congregating centers, on a lake. It looks like a charming, old (but very well kept up) village that you might find in the Florida Keys or maybe somewhere in the Caribbean. But of course it's all been built since like 1990. We went out to a gazebo at the end of the dock and had a lovely picnic lunch that Laura had made for us.

(Just out of the picture is a place with a long outdoor bar, where people were starting up with Happy Hour at about 3:00. Hey, no need to wait till 5 if no one's working!)

We window shopped until we got tired, and then piled back in the golf cart and headed home. After a nice nap, we headed out (in the car this time) to what turned out to be a great Mexican restaurant for some early bird specials. When dinner was over we strolled up the street to another "town square" area where there was live music and dancing. There were probably 200 people there--maybe more. What fun! There was a stand that was selling all kinds of drinks, and lots of people were partaking, but from what I could see everyone was having a great time either way.

When we first arrived, a whole bunch of people were doing a line dance, and I thought George might really enjoy giving it a try, so I asked him if he wanted to... he said that he did not. Undeterred, I offered him a bribe (we all know by now that I'm not above that! and besides, I just *knew* he'd love it if he gave it a try). 5$ if he went up there and went for it. He was clearly quite tempted, but the dance ended before he could decide. Fortunately, a few songs later he had another chance, and he ran right up there. (This is a kid who volunteered to do the hula at a Luau for 500 people in Hawaii a couple of years ago, so don't think I was pressuring him to do something that was totally out of character for him.) Well, this was probably the most complicated line dance I've *ever* seen. I watched intently the whole time and I never figured it out. Poor George was really floundering and at one point started to leave, but one of the old folks encouraged and convinced him to stay. (Plus, I figured, he wanted to stick it out to make sure he got his $5.) This other lady looked like she was kind of taking him under her wing, motioning to him at certain parts, which I thought was really sweet. Until I found out it wasn't true.

When the song ended, he stormed off the dance area and headed straight for the back of the crowd. Then he burst into tears and said that he was totally humiliated! Turns out the lady who was gesturing at him had scolded him, and told him that he was going to make her fall! How terrible do you think I felt?! At least the other person who had talked to him (when he tried to leave partway through) had in fact told him that he was doing great and he should stay, but when I tried to console George with that, he countered "That's just the type of thing that grownups say to kids to make them feel better. It wasn't true." Ok, so he was having trouble with the dance itself, but he really did look adorable out there! But yes, I felt just awful, and told George I'd double his bribe to $10 *plus tax*. That did actually get him to stop crying. It didn't make me feel much better, though! Humiliating my kid for my own amusement. NICE. (Come on, though; doesn't he look cute?!)

Anyway, apart from that incident(!), it was a great day, and today was lovely as well. Laura made us pancakes in the morning. Later, she had some things to do, so George and I drove the golf cart to the club to swim and lounge around in the sun. Glorious! And I didn't even feel out of place in my skirted (maternity) bathing suit! Tonight we had dinner at home (delicious lamb curry) followed by Lexicon, a really fun word/card game.

Tomorrow we're going to play shuffleboard, which we are very much looking forward to. Then another early bird dinner.

I could really, really get used to this life....

The next day, we're off to Disneyworld. If you think that the fact that we've just been to Disneyland dampens our excitement for that, you are incorrect. We can't wait!! I haven't been there in over 20 years and George has never been, and we are rarin' to go. We've already studied the map and figured out all the rides we want to hit. I'm sure I'll exhaust myself again, but oh well--I can sleep on the plane the next day. Or maybe when I get home. Or, actually, maybe when I retire.

Bittersweet

I had an amazing day with George today. But by the end of it, I found myself feeling a bit wistful....

The day started out in the desert, at my mom's. It was our last day there before heading back to Orange County, where we're staying overnight at my brother Drew's and then flying back home to the great white north.

We were considering stopping off at Disneyland's California Adventure, Disney's other theme park out here, on the way to my brother's, solely because we had free tickets to it. Which we got last week when we went to Disneyland with several members of my family (if you are CA residents, as they all are, you get a free ticket to the other theme park to be used on a separate day). A few Disneyland pics:

(Mom in front of the Matterhorn)

(George and Cousin Ryan, waiting for the Tiki Room)


(Drew, my mom, Ryan, and George on the Jungle Cruise)

Honestly, we've been to CA Adventure before and haven't been too impressed with it. But *free* tickets....

George is so sweet--even though he actually really wanted to go, at first he said he didn't. After a bit of probing, I figured out that he was just saying that because he didn't want me to tire myself out too much. He saw how exhausted I was after Disneyland last week, and he was worried about me! What a kid. Anyway... I just hated to let free tickets go to waste, so I told him we'd stop by for only a couple of hours.

As it turns out, we got such a late start leaving my mom's that we got there just about two hours before closing time, which was fine because a) there really aren't all that many rides there and b) this would ensure that I would not let myself get overly tired. And it's just as well, because when closing time rolled around I would have totally been up for staying longer, but I know that would have done me in. And with a cross-country trip tomorrow, and then band practice on Thursday, and then a gig on Friday, well, let's just say it worked out very well that I had no choice but to cut it short.

In any case, it was a marvelous couple of hours. It really was. He was such great company. We went on several rides, my favorite being Soaring over California, where you are taken on a simulated glider ride over various parts of California. A totally safe and non-bumpy thrill....

We had been to California Adventure I think twice before. Both times with free tickets. The first time was kind of a disappointment, because he was too little to go on half the rides. But I actually still have some very happy memories of that trip, especially of him playing in a couple of "play-place" type areas that they do have for younger kids. The second time was more recently, and he was big enough to go on the rides, but he was too scared for some of them. This time, he was really looking forward to going on some of the scarier rides, but the thing is, expectant mothers are barred from all of them. (At nearly 6 months I could pass for a woman with a paunch, but couldn't be less interested in a roller coaster at this point!) I told him that if he really wanted to we'd see if he could go by himself, or we'd try to find someone in line who would go with him. He was thinking that he might like to try that, but said that first he just wanted to go on rides with me, which I thought was awfully sweet (especially given how little time we had).

Turns out, that was just as well. The third ride we went on was a giant, swinging ferris wheel. The cars are on rollers, so they slide/swing back and forth quite dramatically (yet very smoothly) at certain points. This made us scream! Mostly with delight. But by the time we were coming around to the bottom, George asked if we could get off. (It was time to get off anyway.) After that, he was pretty much cured of all desire to go on the fast/scary/looping roller coasters.

(Roller coaster left and center; thrilling-enough ferris wheel to the right...)

We also had a lot of fun in the Toy Story 3-D shooting gallery. You ride around in a little cart, while wearing 3-D glasses, and you stop in front of screens with various scenes and targets on them (like you would see in a carnival shooting gallery). It keeps track of your score for you, so at the end you can compare how you did with the day's and month's high scores (we thought we did pretty well, until we saw that we had about 1/6th of the daily high scores. And about 10% of the month's high score....)

After the crazy ferris wheel George was ready for some old-fashioned playtime, and I was happy to sit down for a bit, so we went to one of the play areas. It's a gigantic (and I do mean gigantic) sort of wooden jungle gym/obstacle course. One of the earlier times when we were there I remember he got away from me and I was pretty freaked out because it was so big and there were so many people, but he's older now so I just turned him loose in there and told him to meet me back at the bench at the entrance when he was done. Funny--this time he was the one who got a little freaked out, because at a certain point he wanted to leave and couldn't find the exit, and was also afraid that I'd be worried about him! Sweet.

After that we wanted to get something for dinner, but the park was closing and the only food place that was still open was the ice cream place. I asked him if he wanted to wait and get something outside of the park, but he was starving, so I said what the heck, and we had ice cream for dinner. (It was delicious, if not-so-nutritious.)

We made one more stop on our way out, at one of the stores, where I got him some little cars, which he's been very into lately. He was so appreciative, and so non-greedy about it all--it made it really a pleasure to spend what was a pretty reasonable amount on him (some or even most of the stuff in those stores is way overpriced, but the little cars were fine).

While we were in the store, and the day was just about over, I was suddenly overcome with bittersweet emotion. It hit me that this was one of the last times *ever* that it would be just the two of us.

For perhaps even the majority of George's life it's been just the two of us. When he was very young, his father was living with us for a few years, but was not around a whole lot many/most days. After he and I split up (amicably, ftr), I was officially a single mother for several years. And even though I'm now married and have two stepchildren who spend plenty of time with us, George and I have a *lot* of time where it's just the two of us, since he's homeschooled and I work from home a lot. So we are accustomed to long stretches of time at home and about town together where it's just us. And beyond all of that daily time, because of our uniquely flexible schedules, for George's whole life he and I have taken regular trips out to California to see my family, pretty much every year.

But all of that is about to change, because soon there will be another little one in the mix. And this one will not have a parent in another home that he goes to sometimes. Of course, sometimes Bob will take Ace (did I mention that's the baby's in-utero nickname?) somewhere for a morning or an afternoon and George and I will have a little alone-time, but that will be the exception far more than the rule that it has been.

I asked George, in the store, how he felt about that and he actually said that he's excited about it. He added that he's particularly looking forward to reliving his childhood "from a different perspective". I hope he still feels that way after Ace is born. I think he will, actually.

In any case, big, big changes ahead for us.... So I'm extra glad we've had this time.

Bon voyage to my big brother!

Today my oldest brother, Michael, is setting sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a 47-foot sailboat with a crew of 4, including himself, and his son. Wow. I'm excited and a bit scared for him, and also immensely proud of him. While I generally agree with the old adage that one should never say never, I'm fairly certain this is something I myself would never, ever undertake!

This is the last big ocean crossing on Michael's trip around the world onboard his yacht Traveler. He left home in Southern California in the summer of 2007. The trip was supposed to have taken 2 years, but for a variety of reasons they got off schedule at a few crucial points and then had to wait out hurricane seasons and such, and ended up a full year behind. His girlfriend Barbara, a very experienced sailor, was supposed to have been with him for the whole trip, but she was only able to get a 2-year leave from her teaching job, so she had to leave the boat and go back to California at the end of this past summer. (She'll be joining up with him whenever she can, during her breaks.)

I have met up with him twice on the trip: the first time was in Hawaii, back in July of '07. That was at the end of the first leg of his journey, from LA to Honolulu, which he sailed as part of the Transpacific Yacht Race. My then-boyfriend (now-husband) and George and I were supposed to have stayed on his boat with him while we were there, but ended up overlapping with him for only one night, because that crossing took a full week longer than expected! There was no wind--all of the boats were late. He actually won second place in his class, and it was a huge thrill to be able to meet him at the finish line. My other brother, Drew, and his family were also there, but their trip was shorter than ours and so they were (alas) long gone by the time Michael and crew arrived.

On our last morning there (and our only morning there with Michael), we went out in the boat off the shore of the stretch of beach where my grandparents spent the better part of about 20 of their golden years. My grandmother had died four and a half years before, and my grandfather had died several months before. We anchored the boat and held a really sweet memorial service for them. This probably isn't legal, but we then dropped their (tightly sealed) urns overboard--Michael had brought them with him from California--so that their ashes could be together, out from their favorite beach, forever... or until some scuba diver mistakes them for a lost treasure and takes them back to shore!

(Here is an article about the 2007 Transpac Race; the second half of it is all about Michael and gives an account of many of the troubles and mishaps he faced on the race. Also, if you look at the pictures to the right, he's the guy in the yellow hat who is kissing the ground.)

The next time I met up with Traveler was in January of '08, in Tahiti, this time with my sister, Melissa. What a blast that was! (And not just because I was so glad to get away from the upstate New York winter;-) However, it was on that trip that both Melissa and I realized that we would definitely not be accompanying Michael on any of his major crossings. Now, keep in mind that both Melissa and I do have some experience sailing, though it was admittedly (for the most part) many years ago. But we were both quite confident in our seaworthiness. In fact, we were kind of looking forward to the 14-hour, overnight crossing--from Moorea to Huahine--that Michael had planned for us. After all, the shorter 2- or 3-hour crossings up to that point had been a piece of cake.

Michael had a schedule set up for the night crossing whereby we would all help in overlapping shifts. Either he or Barbara would always be on deck, and for most of the time either Melissa or I would be there to help. He would take the first shift by himself, so the rest of us could get a few hours of sleep right off the bat. Sleep indeed! Ha. We ran into very rough seas soon after leaving port, and you really would have had to be in a coma to get any sleep.

At first, I was ok. I came up on deck to take my shift with Michael. But I wasn't able to be as much help as I would have liked, given that I was hanging on for dear life. Michael actually strapped me in so I wouldn't fall overboard, and at a certain point he really wanted me to try steering. I wedged myself in as best I could, bracing myself with my feet, and tried to steady myself enough to hold the helm more or less in place. Not only did it not go very well, but I started to feel quite seasick. It was bad. I had to jettison my pride and ask Michael for a Dramamine! I knew this would make me very sleepy and would render me even more useless, but I was sure by then that I wasn't going to be any help at all anyway. I took the little pill, and went back down below deck, making my way (which took great determination) all the way to the front of the boat, into the v-berth, which was about the size of a queen-or a king-sized bed at the widest point. I wedged myself in so that I would be thrown around as little as possible and set about trying to will myself to sleep, which I knew wouldn't really work, but I had to try.

Throughout the night, as I desperately tried to keep control of my nausea and to keep from being slammed against the walls of the v-berth, I was vaguely aware that my sister had gone up on deck. I was almost too miserable to feel ashamed that she was up there helping while I was down below not contributing a damn thing.

I should add that every time the waves crashed against the boat--which was with unrelenting frequency--the sides of the boat would creak loudly, and I became convinced that the boat was going to split apart and we were all going to be swallowed up by the ocean. My main thought was actually for my mom--I felt so bad that she was going to lose 3 of her 4 children in one shot! But believe it or not I actually took a bit of comfort in finding some humor in the situation, thinking about my brother Drew (he always seemed to have suffered a bit from "middle-child syndrome" when we were younger)--at long last he would get to be Mom's undisputed favorite!

After many hours of this, which included a couple of very challenging trips to the head, I ventured back up on deck--I decided it was time to try again. As I staggered/climbed up, and poked my head out, the first person I saw was Melissa, who greeted me by pointing her finger at me in what seemed to me a rather accusatory way and saying "YOU!" I was starting to mutter something like, Yeah, I know, I really wimped out, I let you all down, I'm sorrrrry! But she cut me off and said "I can't BELIEVE you pulled that off, lasting all night without throwing up!" Turns out she had been up there all night not helping with the sailing, but--strapped in, of course--tossing her cookies over the side of the boat!!!

I was actually feeling a little better by this point, and also probably buoyed a bit by the pride in having at least fared better than my big sis. So when Michael insisted that I try taking the helm again, I was ready. I managed slightly better this time--though not because the sea was any calmer. At this point, Michael was dead tired, and Barbara, amazingly, wanted to go back down below deck to MAKE BREAKFAST. Seriously, I could not even stand in one place (let alone walk even a few steps) without engaging all 4 of my limbs. I couldn't imagine how she could possibly think about preparing food--or eating it, for that matter. But prepare she did. In fact, she made an omelet, and hash browns, and BACON, and COFFEE!! Which she and Michael ate and drank without spilling any of it. Wow. I'll never understand how they did it.

Soon thereafter we made it to Huahine, our destination, and once we were in the harbor it was calm enough for us all to catch up on sleep, and for Melissa and me to recover from our nausea... though I'm not sure that even now we're quite over the humiliation we both felt at having fallen apart the way we did! In any case, it was enough to cure us each of any daydreams (delusions) we might have had about joining him for the Atlantic crossing!

So now here he is, almost two years later, setting out on that crossing. If you're curious, you can read about his thoughts in the hours before his departure on his blog. He's leaving from the Canary Islands (where he actually stopped by the chapel where Christopher Columbus attended mass before setting out on the same crossing) and will be heading for Barbados. From there they'll head to St. Lucia and then island-hop around the Caribbean for awhile before taking the Panama Canal over to the other side of the continent, arriving back in Southern California sometime next summer.

Michael, you are crazy, and wonderful, and brave, and I love you. Safe travels, big bro.