colorado trip October 2012- day one

I'm sure I've already conveyed my Willy Nelson-like enthusiasm for being on the road. So I was surprised at myself when I realized that it had been so long since we have taken a trip as a family, that Sophie, who just turned two, had never been out of the state of Utah.  That seemed unfathomable to the older children, some of whom had been on as many as three continents before their second birthdays.

  I also realized that on previous road trips I was lacking something that I am now not..teenagers.  

So the whimsical, enthusiastic, easy going travelers of my memory, I realized, had perhaps grown past that stage and progressed on to the it's a holiday, can't we stay home and sleep phase. Nonetheless, Thursday October 11, Granddad and the kids and I loaded up the van and were gone by eight o'clock, only slightly behind schedule.  We were headed to visit Anne and Eric in Alamosa, Colorado.  

As I said before, when I travelled that way in April, I love that drive.  I am so taken in by the beautiful streams all throughout the state.  They make me wish I owned a tackle box and boots.

The first day of driving was the most challenging day of the trip...getting re accustomed to hours and hours in a small space with siblings breathing and doing other objectionable things.  Between the inter familial tension, and the stress of really not being sure if there would be any desk clerk crazy enough to allow our family to stay in their motel, and if so would it result in my financial ruin, somewhere at about ten thousand feet elevation I really started to question what strange notion had inspired the weekend's endeavor.

 I tuned in to the music playing over the van speakers. We had arrived at Billy Joel, neutral territory, finally something agreeable to preteen girls and their teenage brothers. There is a moment in New York State of Mind, 

  It comes down to reality, And it's fine with me 'cause I let it slide

Don't care if it's Chinatown or on Riverside...

that makes me feel that it is impossible that I was not a New Yorker in another life. Suddenly it was easier to let of the ridiculous expectation that my children would actually want to be in a van together for eight hours, without trying to kill each other.  My New Yorker fantasy is one of my cerebral alternatives to giving in to the temptation to become... beyond discouraged. 

 And so when I returned to the muted sage and red-brown earth and beautiful explosions of golden leaves, I felt a renewed sense of we can do this.

Granddad and I decided that we would investigate at the smaller, local motels to see if they would allow our large group to rent two rooms for three nights.  We found the Valley Motel in Alamosa.  The owners, a family from India, were very hospitable. They allowed us to see the rooms before.  We rented two suits, which included a full-sized kitchen that were very large and only sixty-five dollars per night. We were so relieved! The facility is aging and rustic, but the staff is friendly as were the other visitors. It reminded me of  family trips of my childhood.  We often stayed in locally operated places along Route 66, or on the way up to Maine, sometimes in Canada.

This was a welcomed relief as well.

After dinner, the big boys camped out in Granddad's room and I had the rest in mine.  We slept three or four to a bed, with some spilled out on to the floor, but everyone was happy because there was Disney Channel.  As I squeezed into an open spot at the foot of one of the beds, the little ones engaged in that favorite motel pastime, jump from one bed to the other.  The resulting vibrations took me back to 1980-something again, when I would beg my parents for a dime to put in those little boxes by motel bedsides.  If you were lucky, and the box was working, the bed would shake for a good five minutes or so, at which point you were just as happy to have it stop. I wonder who invented those, and what else they came up with.

This was Friday morning. The Valley Motel has a great, family friendly continental breakfast.

glass houses

No one thinks their baby has the face of a bully.... Well, maybe in that picture he does.

But how about this sweet face?

No one tries to raise the meanest kid in the third-grade, or starts September saying "Hey, let's really get to know the vice-principal this year."

But we parents make mistakes and the kids we raise make their own choices too, sometimes better, sometimes no better, than ours.

So what is great about blogging? Finding supportive comments, sharing "blog love," as some say, with other blogs. It makes me feel so happily connected to new and old friends, family, even when I am here in Beijing, feeling somewhat home bound with the kiddos. Compound fever is what I'm feeling.

Yesterday I had a bad blogging day though. I linked on to a blog I had been looking forward to reading for some time, a blog of a friend that I admire very much, but I was sad to click away.... not feeling the blog love. There, on the page, was a discussion of a school incident, and the more I read, the more I realized that my son was involved. Although no names were mentioned, I recognized the circumstances. I felt hurt that the matter was discussed so publicly, and that his part in the incident was exaggerated. And, there were already five comments, and their angry stream of energy, from people who had no idea what really happened, but were ready for an adrenaline rush anyway...

... so quick to jump on the angry train with half the story...

And I thought..."Man...maybe I need a new hobby."

"Don't we have anything better to do?" I wondered.

Then moaned... more compound fever..."Maybe we don't."

It's my own fault, this compound fever, I mean. As I've mentioned before, I have driving-in-China- anxiety, so my options are limited, since my personal parameters are 'no left turns.' And, I hate to shop. Shopping is a sure ticket to adventure in China. But adventure...is kind of overrated anyway, and not even such a regular occurrence in everyday ex-pat life.

Sometimes I just feel compound bound. What I would do if I could, is not here. Voice lessons. Someone to compliment my German, criticize my French. I'm just a nerd. That's my idea of a good time.

I also think about the years I lived in Augusta, Maine, when Sam was at-home and too active to be so. Grandma and I would go to the Lithgow library, the kids' museum, the Maine State Museum, the McDonald's with the play ground...(remember those?) and even Walmart was just the right amount of adventure for some days. I just miss having easy, cheap, fun stuff to with my kids at home....and of course, we miss Grandma.

So I talk to Rob about do I really want to spend another year here. And that is a stressful discussion at bedtime. And I really can't sleep because I'm thinking about the comment that I just had to leave on my friends blog in response to her story about the incident, wishing I hadn't felt like I needed to do that...but still feeling like I needed to do that.

And I was wishing that I could crawl back to the 1970's, to when we girls chased the boys and the boys chased the boys and it wasn't harassment, it was kind of fun. And the schools didn't need the in-house lawyer to explain to the children the legal ramifications of keep your hands to yourself... or don't play too rough . I wanted to go back to my childhood bedroom to the window nook where I kept my record player and listened to music for hours on the floor, not worrying about how to raise my children, or where to raise my children, or how to manage embarrassing issues among friends...well maybe I did worry about that last one.

One of my favorite albums from the 70's was Billy Joel's Glass Houses. I loved the song All for Lena. I loved the cover of the album, Billy Joel in front of that strange glass house. I asked my parents what that was about....people in glass houses don't throw stones. I still think about that picture of Billy Joel when I think about that saying. And I thought about that album and that saying last night when I thought about the incident, because all mothers live in glass houses.

And now to turn to the bright side of China-life. Dinner last night and the night before was prepared by our new ayi, Zhang Ayi.

And although Sam swears that he hates any meal that falls under the heading of 'Chinese food', I had to cut him off after his seventh spring roll, so I think he'll survive. Zhang Ayi and Cui Ayi work together now. For lunch, Cui made these shredded potatoes that we ate with these pancakes that are effectively tortillas, so we will use the extras for burritos tonight.

Further on the bright side, the sun did something different today. It shined. And, the sky even had a new look, blue. Even though I complained to Rob about the same-old-same-old clubhouse routine, Grant had a particularly good time this morning playing with his friend in the playroom, and it was the first day that he actually obeyed when I asked him to not open his box of chocolate soy-milk and spray it all over the store floor, before we pay for it.

And, I bought a bag of barbecued flavored Corn Nuts, just for more nostalgia's sake. They took me back, not quite so far, to lunch time at Santa Barbara High. Remember walking down to, was it De La Guerra Street, to the Italian Market? That's in case you're reading Amy. Remember those amazing Italian Subs with pepperoncini inside? A perfect meal with a Strawberry Kiwi Koala drink. What ever happened to those Koala drinks? Corn Nuts had to do when we didn't have much money. I was sure they had a little protein.