There and back again (tl;dr)
We arrived back home last night, trading pleasant 58F California weather for wind chills around 11F. Ahh, winter. :P
The trip was ... mixed. Two didn't want to go at all - he doesn't like my mom, he didn't want to be dragged to her church (Unitarian Universalist - I wanted him to see what an open-minded congregation looked like), he didn't want to go to my family's Christmas Eve party and talk to people he doesn't know very well, etc. Given how argumentative he'd been in the days leading up to the trip, I braced myself for a lot of battles, but thankfully, he did keep it to a reasonable minimum. Unfortunately, although MiniPlu was perfectly fine with all those things, even she had had enough of my mother by Christmas Eve. My mom is kind and supportive and well-intentioned, but I agree that there's something in her mannerisms that can get annoying in short order. Plus, as she gets older, she needs more to be done for her, and she gets more set in her ways, and that requires some patience.
Anyway, the outbound trip on the 22nd went smoothly - in fact, Philly airport had astonishingly short lines. But the flight was packed full and westbound takes longer than eastbound, so it just felt like a long trip, even though I slept for some of it. We took BART to the area near my mom's, walked to our hotel to check in, then Mom picked us up and took us straight to the rental agency so we could pick up our car. We spent the evening with her, all of the 23rd - we also saw The Last Jedi with her - the morning of the 24th, all of the 25th and about half of the 27th. Two and my mom got into a spat on Christmas Night when wanted him to move two of his stuffed animals that may or may not have been in the way of her walker, and he said he'd do it "soon" and when he didn't respond more promptly she threatened to throw them away, traumatizing him. Yes, he was probably blowing her off and my mother doesn't deal well with power struggle issues, but still - that wasn't the best response, and it only emphasized to Two the reason why he doesn't like my mom at all in the first place: he feels she's hard on him. (Of course, she's probably "hard" on him just *because* he can blow things off and also because since he's the messiest, she's more likely to be constantly asking *him* to move things so she doesn't trip on them.) He did give a real effort in the beginning of the trip, helping with dinner and setting the table and such, but by Christmas Day he was feeling really put upon, even when just being asked to lean back and turn on the lights for the dining room table.
The Christmas Eve party - which to me just "makes" the holiday - it never really feels like Christmas without it - was also mixed. We went to the City early so that MiniPlu could take pics of the "Fuller House" house, which was less than 10 mins out of our way, then arrived at the house on time to help set up the party. Unfortunately, some of the cousins in charge this year are a husband/wife who drive Will crazy, especially the husband, and said cousin had pushed all of Will's buttons before we'd been there an hour. That, plus the fact that Will was feeling a little under the weather - tired and overheated - put him in a poor mood for much of the party. I still spent time chatting with people, and definitely enjoyed that but I was torn when Will said he felt a little abandoned, since I wasn't just staying at a table with him, where he'd taken refuge. He complained about the annoying cousin all the way home, and between that and the kids complaining about my mom, it definitely tainted my enjoyment of the holiday. Sometimes I wonder if it's really worth it to keep going out for the holiday, if this is how people feel about it.
(On a more positive note, the four of us took the time before the party officially started to explore all of the house, including the "off limits" parts that are now storage or offices. All the way up to the turret - where MiniPlu climbed the steep ladder in a pair of heels. :-D )
Christmas Day - except for the fight between Two and my mom - was all right. The three of us (minus Two) went to 8a Mass, then picked up Two from our hotel and spent the rest of the day with Mom. After breakfast and presents, I picked up my aunt/uncle from BART and they joined us for lunch and a good chunk of the afternoon. Actually, MiniPlu and I slipped away for about an hour mid-afternoon to walk to my friend Kim's mom's house, which is just a few blocks away from my mom's house. Kim just had a new baby at the end of Nov, and since she wasn't yet taking the baby out in public, visiting at her mom's house seemed the best way to get in a quick hello and a peek at the baby. MiniPlu and I each got a turn to hold the baby, who slept the entire time.
Christmas dinner - once I'd taken my aunt/uncle back to the station - was quiet, just the four of us. MiniPlu made dinner as part of her present to Mom - a lemon-herb foil-packet chicken, plus rice and broccoli. (I helped set up the side dishes, then left her to supervise them.) There was, alas, the fallout between Two and Mom after dinner, but there was, at least, an uneasy truce by the time we left.
We didn't see Mom at all on the 26th. She was busy in the morning, and we had plans to spend all of the afternoon and evening in SF with hamsterwoman and family. We had planned to meet at the zoo at noon, but both parties ran a little behind, and then we had a terrible time parking at the zoo - once you enter, you are committed to the $10 parking rate, so there's no point in just heading back out to find street/beach parking nearby. We circled and circled and kept JUST missing spots - other people were lurking, turn signals on, already claiming the spot as someone pulled out. But we finally found a spot - thankfully nearby - and met up with hamsterwoman (A) and her daughter, L, at 12:40p. The zoo closed at 4p, so we didn't have quite as much time as we would have liked, but we did manage to see most of what we wanted: giraffes and kudus, tigers and bears (adorable black bear cubs and elderly grizzlies), snoozing lions, playful penguins, monkeys of various sorts, Rainforest critters, red pandas, koalas and wallaroos, etc. The zoo had put fir trees in many of the enclosures as a plaything, scent stimulant, etc. Most of the creatures seemed to be ignoring it while we were there, but the black bear cubs were heroically trying to climb it - hilarious given that they were only a little bit smaller than the tree in the first place. :D We did try for a Big Cat keeper talk, but, alas, the big cats in question (lions on that particular day) were not interested in wandering in from their usual enclosure. As the keeper put it: "They're big cats. We can't force them to do anything they don't want to do." So, that kind of fizzled. But we did get to see the penguins being fed - especially amusing when penguins were stealing from each other, and a seagull attempted to get into the act, as well. L and A chatted in Russian as we walked, and I was pleased that I still understood a fair amount of their conversation, despite being woefully out of practice.
We closed out the zoo at 4p, squeezing in a trip to the gift shop on the way out. And, yes, Two ended up with a new penguin stuffy, why do you ask? :-P Then we went to the Hamster House for some warming tea, exchanging presents, and general socialization. A's husband, B, was working on a paper (math professor) and their son, O, had been recovering from a cold, so they had skipped the zoo but were happy to emerge for this part of the visit. And I realized one of O's gifts had never made it to their house. (I later reviewed the shipping info, and I'm prepared to swear it wasn't in the box it was supposed to be in. Will double check, but I'll probably end up re-ordering it.) But he was a good sport about being one gift short, and everyone seemed to like what we gave them. MiniPlu got John Green's latest book, a lightweight owl scarf and beautiful fluffy blanket scarf, some neat jewelry and cute socks, as she got both her Christmas gift and her long-overdue birthday gift. Two got some art supplies, cute penguin socks, a penguin stuffy and a twiddly keychain from Georgia (the country). Will got shot glasses for his collection from the Hamster clan's recent travels, and I got a book, a belated birthday card printed in Georgian's interesting squiggles, and, OMG, right now I'm so tired, I'm drawing a blank on the rest. *feels dreadful* I'll update this once my brain kicks back into gear. But, anyway, we were all pleased.
Around 5p we decided to walk a few blocks to the pub-type place we ate at last time, which has a large booth in the back, perfect for our party of 8. We had a nice visit while we ate, although Two isn't terribly social and O was feeling under the weather and didn't talk too much. B took O home after dinner, and the rest of us walked another few blocks to a very nice ice cream place. TMI ALERT, TMI ALERT! Unfortunately, we're coming to realize that Two really cannot have frozen things right after a large meal - it's like he gets brain freeze but in his stomach. Last time this happened was the day of my black belt test, and you may recall the disaster that was Will's car, as a result. This time, Two gave us some warning that he was starting to feel poorly, and we made our way out of the shop and most of the way down the block before he returned his dinner onto the sidewalk. Thankfully, Will had been the one to be with him while the three of us hung back a little. And Two miraculously didn't manage to get anything on him (or Will), but it does seem to give him a killer headache after, like the acids get into his sinuses or something. /TMI
We were all a little more quiet on the jaunt back to their house, of course, although at that point Two was perfectly fine, just subdued. When we got back, A graciously gave MiniPlu a lesson in stoichiometry (chemistry), as she has a test coming up and wasn't understanding it. MiniPlu never really did fully adjust to Pacific time, so she was starting to droop badly at this point, but she seemed to grasp the concepts well enough, despite the fatigue. We finally left around 9:30p, and both kids zonked in the car almost immediately. We had an uneventful trip home, but it was only after getting settled into bed in our hotel that I realized we had forgotten to take pictures of the Hamster clan. :(( Oh well - next time, I guess.
We popped by Mom's house after breakfast on the 27th in order to do some final laundry and visit a little before heading out to have lunch with an old college friend of mine whom I hadn't seen since I graduated 24.5 years ago. He works in the City, so we agreed to meet in Berkeley - roughly halfway - for lunch. Unfortunately, the place we'd picked for lunch ended up being closed - as were many shops and eateries right near (UC Berkeley's) campus, as it's winter break for the university. G had wandered around the block in search of other options and suggested we try a poutine place - where you could get pretty much anything on earth on top of fries. The result was tasty (I got butter chicken, MiniPlu got Philly cheesesteak, Will got some other sort of chicken topping, etc) but very very heavy. Anyway, G didn't have a lot of time to spare, so most of the conversation was "So, tell me about the last 24 years."
After parting from G, we walked around Berkeley for a little bit, but I was disappointed in Telegraph Ave, which used to be full of quirky shops and was covered in street vendors - tie dye clothing, woven bracelets, funky buttons, pot paraphernalia, etc - but although many of the weird shops were there, some of them were closed either for the semester break, or permanently, like the street had fallen on harder times, and we didn't poke our nose into many of the others. And we saw a grand total of 3 vendors, all at the same intersection. Not sure if that was, again, because of the semester break, or some other reason, but it was disappointing. We did get MiniPlu a Berkeley shirt at the campus store - she's been starting a college tshirt collection - and walked around a small section of campus, which she enjoyed, then went home to help Mom take down her Christmas tree, finish the laundry, return the rental car, have a final dinner with Mom, then took a cab back to the hotel (because Mom announced, only 2 days prior, that she didn't want to drive us to the hotel at night - which, ok, fine, but give us more warning next time) and finished packing to go home the next day.
Our flight home was miraculously not super-full, but the airport was, in general, really chaotic, from the lines to tag your bags, hand over your bags, and get through security. We ended up being encouraged to be in different security lines twice, although I'm not sure this ended up saving us much time. (On the other hand, we ended up in line behind a trans woman, and had a nice chat with her.) MiniPlu had been randomly assigned TSA-Pre for both flights. On the outbound trip, this just meant she got to keep her shoes on and went through the plain metal detector instead of the backscatter machine. At SF, though, irritatingly, she was told she was in the "wrong line" and would HAVE to take off her shoes and go through backscatter since she was in the regular line, despite the TSA-Pre label on her boarding pass. Um, ok, but she's a minor, and I'm not putting her in a separate line by herself in this madhouse! And she wouldn't have had any ID of her own, either. So, that was one of the stupidest policies ever, but I guess it all turned out ok. Still, we had significantly less time at the gate than we normally do. Will took the kids to find breakfast, but it took them ages to find a place that a) Two would agree to and b) didn't have a monstrous line. By the time they came back, Will was grumpy and it was almost pre-boarding time. In fact, once Two and MiniPlu went off to the bathroom and came back, we were already standing in a boarding line and they had to rush to join us. But all's well that ends well, and the flight was fine.
My Last Jedi review will have to wait for another time.
And now that this has taken way WAY too long to write (and read), I'll just leave one Yuletide-related comment: I received this delightful fic as my Yuletide gift, featuring Kronk (Emperor's New Groove), one evil lair Secret Lab, a pissed-off kitten, and Kronk's shoulder devil/angel. Go read!
The trip was ... mixed. Two didn't want to go at all - he doesn't like my mom, he didn't want to be dragged to her church (Unitarian Universalist - I wanted him to see what an open-minded congregation looked like), he didn't want to go to my family's Christmas Eve party and talk to people he doesn't know very well, etc. Given how argumentative he'd been in the days leading up to the trip, I braced myself for a lot of battles, but thankfully, he did keep it to a reasonable minimum. Unfortunately, although MiniPlu was perfectly fine with all those things, even she had had enough of my mother by Christmas Eve. My mom is kind and supportive and well-intentioned, but I agree that there's something in her mannerisms that can get annoying in short order. Plus, as she gets older, she needs more to be done for her, and she gets more set in her ways, and that requires some patience.
Anyway, the outbound trip on the 22nd went smoothly - in fact, Philly airport had astonishingly short lines. But the flight was packed full and westbound takes longer than eastbound, so it just felt like a long trip, even though I slept for some of it. We took BART to the area near my mom's, walked to our hotel to check in, then Mom picked us up and took us straight to the rental agency so we could pick up our car. We spent the evening with her, all of the 23rd - we also saw The Last Jedi with her - the morning of the 24th, all of the 25th and about half of the 27th. Two and my mom got into a spat on Christmas Night when wanted him to move two of his stuffed animals that may or may not have been in the way of her walker, and he said he'd do it "soon" and when he didn't respond more promptly she threatened to throw them away, traumatizing him. Yes, he was probably blowing her off and my mother doesn't deal well with power struggle issues, but still - that wasn't the best response, and it only emphasized to Two the reason why he doesn't like my mom at all in the first place: he feels she's hard on him. (Of course, she's probably "hard" on him just *because* he can blow things off and also because since he's the messiest, she's more likely to be constantly asking *him* to move things so she doesn't trip on them.) He did give a real effort in the beginning of the trip, helping with dinner and setting the table and such, but by Christmas Day he was feeling really put upon, even when just being asked to lean back and turn on the lights for the dining room table.
The Christmas Eve party - which to me just "makes" the holiday - it never really feels like Christmas without it - was also mixed. We went to the City early so that MiniPlu could take pics of the "Fuller House" house, which was less than 10 mins out of our way, then arrived at the house on time to help set up the party. Unfortunately, some of the cousins in charge this year are a husband/wife who drive Will crazy, especially the husband, and said cousin had pushed all of Will's buttons before we'd been there an hour. That, plus the fact that Will was feeling a little under the weather - tired and overheated - put him in a poor mood for much of the party. I still spent time chatting with people, and definitely enjoyed that but I was torn when Will said he felt a little abandoned, since I wasn't just staying at a table with him, where he'd taken refuge. He complained about the annoying cousin all the way home, and between that and the kids complaining about my mom, it definitely tainted my enjoyment of the holiday. Sometimes I wonder if it's really worth it to keep going out for the holiday, if this is how people feel about it.
(On a more positive note, the four of us took the time before the party officially started to explore all of the house, including the "off limits" parts that are now storage or offices. All the way up to the turret - where MiniPlu climbed the steep ladder in a pair of heels. :-D )
Christmas Day - except for the fight between Two and my mom - was all right. The three of us (minus Two) went to 8a Mass, then picked up Two from our hotel and spent the rest of the day with Mom. After breakfast and presents, I picked up my aunt/uncle from BART and they joined us for lunch and a good chunk of the afternoon. Actually, MiniPlu and I slipped away for about an hour mid-afternoon to walk to my friend Kim's mom's house, which is just a few blocks away from my mom's house. Kim just had a new baby at the end of Nov, and since she wasn't yet taking the baby out in public, visiting at her mom's house seemed the best way to get in a quick hello and a peek at the baby. MiniPlu and I each got a turn to hold the baby, who slept the entire time.
Christmas dinner - once I'd taken my aunt/uncle back to the station - was quiet, just the four of us. MiniPlu made dinner as part of her present to Mom - a lemon-herb foil-packet chicken, plus rice and broccoli. (I helped set up the side dishes, then left her to supervise them.) There was, alas, the fallout between Two and Mom after dinner, but there was, at least, an uneasy truce by the time we left.
We didn't see Mom at all on the 26th. She was busy in the morning, and we had plans to spend all of the afternoon and evening in SF with hamsterwoman and family. We had planned to meet at the zoo at noon, but both parties ran a little behind, and then we had a terrible time parking at the zoo - once you enter, you are committed to the $10 parking rate, so there's no point in just heading back out to find street/beach parking nearby. We circled and circled and kept JUST missing spots - other people were lurking, turn signals on, already claiming the spot as someone pulled out. But we finally found a spot - thankfully nearby - and met up with hamsterwoman (A) and her daughter, L, at 12:40p. The zoo closed at 4p, so we didn't have quite as much time as we would have liked, but we did manage to see most of what we wanted: giraffes and kudus, tigers and bears (adorable black bear cubs and elderly grizzlies), snoozing lions, playful penguins, monkeys of various sorts, Rainforest critters, red pandas, koalas and wallaroos, etc. The zoo had put fir trees in many of the enclosures as a plaything, scent stimulant, etc. Most of the creatures seemed to be ignoring it while we were there, but the black bear cubs were heroically trying to climb it - hilarious given that they were only a little bit smaller than the tree in the first place. :D We did try for a Big Cat keeper talk, but, alas, the big cats in question (lions on that particular day) were not interested in wandering in from their usual enclosure. As the keeper put it: "They're big cats. We can't force them to do anything they don't want to do." So, that kind of fizzled. But we did get to see the penguins being fed - especially amusing when penguins were stealing from each other, and a seagull attempted to get into the act, as well. L and A chatted in Russian as we walked, and I was pleased that I still understood a fair amount of their conversation, despite being woefully out of practice.
We closed out the zoo at 4p, squeezing in a trip to the gift shop on the way out. And, yes, Two ended up with a new penguin stuffy, why do you ask? :-P Then we went to the Hamster House for some warming tea, exchanging presents, and general socialization. A's husband, B, was working on a paper (math professor) and their son, O, had been recovering from a cold, so they had skipped the zoo but were happy to emerge for this part of the visit. And I realized one of O's gifts had never made it to their house. (I later reviewed the shipping info, and I'm prepared to swear it wasn't in the box it was supposed to be in. Will double check, but I'll probably end up re-ordering it.) But he was a good sport about being one gift short, and everyone seemed to like what we gave them. MiniPlu got John Green's latest book, a lightweight owl scarf and beautiful fluffy blanket scarf, some neat jewelry and cute socks, as she got both her Christmas gift and her long-overdue birthday gift. Two got some art supplies, cute penguin socks, a penguin stuffy and a twiddly keychain from Georgia (the country). Will got shot glasses for his collection from the Hamster clan's recent travels, and I got a book, a belated birthday card printed in Georgian's interesting squiggles, and, OMG, right now I'm so tired, I'm drawing a blank on the rest. *feels dreadful* I'll update this once my brain kicks back into gear. But, anyway, we were all pleased.
Around 5p we decided to walk a few blocks to the pub-type place we ate at last time, which has a large booth in the back, perfect for our party of 8. We had a nice visit while we ate, although Two isn't terribly social and O was feeling under the weather and didn't talk too much. B took O home after dinner, and the rest of us walked another few blocks to a very nice ice cream place. TMI ALERT, TMI ALERT! Unfortunately, we're coming to realize that Two really cannot have frozen things right after a large meal - it's like he gets brain freeze but in his stomach. Last time this happened was the day of my black belt test, and you may recall the disaster that was Will's car, as a result. This time, Two gave us some warning that he was starting to feel poorly, and we made our way out of the shop and most of the way down the block before he returned his dinner onto the sidewalk. Thankfully, Will had been the one to be with him while the three of us hung back a little. And Two miraculously didn't manage to get anything on him (or Will), but it does seem to give him a killer headache after, like the acids get into his sinuses or something. /TMI
We were all a little more quiet on the jaunt back to their house, of course, although at that point Two was perfectly fine, just subdued. When we got back, A graciously gave MiniPlu a lesson in stoichiometry (chemistry), as she has a test coming up and wasn't understanding it. MiniPlu never really did fully adjust to Pacific time, so she was starting to droop badly at this point, but she seemed to grasp the concepts well enough, despite the fatigue. We finally left around 9:30p, and both kids zonked in the car almost immediately. We had an uneventful trip home, but it was only after getting settled into bed in our hotel that I realized we had forgotten to take pictures of the Hamster clan. :(( Oh well - next time, I guess.
We popped by Mom's house after breakfast on the 27th in order to do some final laundry and visit a little before heading out to have lunch with an old college friend of mine whom I hadn't seen since I graduated 24.5 years ago. He works in the City, so we agreed to meet in Berkeley - roughly halfway - for lunch. Unfortunately, the place we'd picked for lunch ended up being closed - as were many shops and eateries right near (UC Berkeley's) campus, as it's winter break for the university. G had wandered around the block in search of other options and suggested we try a poutine place - where you could get pretty much anything on earth on top of fries. The result was tasty (I got butter chicken, MiniPlu got Philly cheesesteak, Will got some other sort of chicken topping, etc) but very very heavy. Anyway, G didn't have a lot of time to spare, so most of the conversation was "So, tell me about the last 24 years."
After parting from G, we walked around Berkeley for a little bit, but I was disappointed in Telegraph Ave, which used to be full of quirky shops and was covered in street vendors - tie dye clothing, woven bracelets, funky buttons, pot paraphernalia, etc - but although many of the weird shops were there, some of them were closed either for the semester break, or permanently, like the street had fallen on harder times, and we didn't poke our nose into many of the others. And we saw a grand total of 3 vendors, all at the same intersection. Not sure if that was, again, because of the semester break, or some other reason, but it was disappointing. We did get MiniPlu a Berkeley shirt at the campus store - she's been starting a college tshirt collection - and walked around a small section of campus, which she enjoyed, then went home to help Mom take down her Christmas tree, finish the laundry, return the rental car, have a final dinner with Mom, then took a cab back to the hotel (because Mom announced, only 2 days prior, that she didn't want to drive us to the hotel at night - which, ok, fine, but give us more warning next time) and finished packing to go home the next day.
Our flight home was miraculously not super-full, but the airport was, in general, really chaotic, from the lines to tag your bags, hand over your bags, and get through security. We ended up being encouraged to be in different security lines twice, although I'm not sure this ended up saving us much time. (On the other hand, we ended up in line behind a trans woman, and had a nice chat with her.) MiniPlu had been randomly assigned TSA-Pre for both flights. On the outbound trip, this just meant she got to keep her shoes on and went through the plain metal detector instead of the backscatter machine. At SF, though, irritatingly, she was told she was in the "wrong line" and would HAVE to take off her shoes and go through backscatter since she was in the regular line, despite the TSA-Pre label on her boarding pass. Um, ok, but she's a minor, and I'm not putting her in a separate line by herself in this madhouse! And she wouldn't have had any ID of her own, either. So, that was one of the stupidest policies ever, but I guess it all turned out ok. Still, we had significantly less time at the gate than we normally do. Will took the kids to find breakfast, but it took them ages to find a place that a) Two would agree to and b) didn't have a monstrous line. By the time they came back, Will was grumpy and it was almost pre-boarding time. In fact, once Two and MiniPlu went off to the bathroom and came back, we were already standing in a boarding line and they had to rush to join us. But all's well that ends well, and the flight was fine.
My Last Jedi review will have to wait for another time.
And now that this has taken way WAY too long to write (and read), I'll just leave one Yuletide-related comment: I received this delightful fic as my Yuletide gift, featuring Kronk (Emperor's New Groove), one evil lair Secret Lab, a pissed-off kitten, and Kronk's shoulder devil/angel. Go read!