From the archives: 2004

Old stuff from the blog. I know I used to write more. A shame that I don't have the time.

Mom and Dad stopped by today. We tried to warn them that it was a bad idea, with Sonia suffering from the stomach bug I'd been dealing with, and a stuffy nose on me, courtesy of Mason. Mom and Dad already have a full weekend, with concerts and a wedding to attend, but they needed to drop off this stuff from their house.

We wanted the house clean, so from around 10 pm to 2:30 am I was, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, doing that "Flight of the Bumblebee" clean. I was tempted to tell them, "Hell, this is the cleanest this house has been since we moved in!"

Of course, staying up late does not excuse you from having to get up early; no matter what Sonia tells you. Mason has to get up, get ready for school, eat breakfast, and hit the bus stop before the bus comes. Yesterday, we had to drive him, and based on the departure time of my parents (5 am? Crazy!), they were bound to show up right as we were trying to get him out the door.

So, we woke up at early and finished up the cleaning, got the boy up, dressed, and fed, vacuumed up the house, and sent the boy running for the bus stop. I was "Super Parent" personified.

That's when I noticed that Mason had left his backpack in the house. I grabbed it and headed out to the bus stop to give it to him.

There was the school bus: looks like I would have to flag it down somehow. I glanced to the sidewalk and it was Mason running home. The quick-thinking bus sent him back for it. Yay, bus driver!

Of course, who was behind the school bus? My parents. The timing was amazing.

They dropped off stuff, and took us for breakfast at AC Peterson's in Elmwood. The place reminded me of a Krishes or a Howard Johnson's. Breakfast was okay (my Dad always said, "You can't screw up an egg."), but Sonia and I thought the Quaker Diner was a much better breakfast. Since Mason was in school, Mom and Dad bought him some strawberry ice cream as a treat.

On the way back to our apartment after breakfast, Dad looked at the Quaker Diner and said he wanted to go there next time they were going to be up (in the spring sometime), and that it looked like a fun place.

There was supposed to be a snow squall last night into the morning. There was no snow when we woke up, no snow at breakfast. In fact, we all thought the weatherman was wrong until we started seeing flakes as we began to put our coats on.

Those few flakes soon got worse; complete with high winds and giant flakes...the missing squall...for about 10 minutes.

Dad was tired from getting up at 4 am -- he wanted to take the ferry home instead of driving I-95 back. I looked up the phone number, address, and got him directions all from my computer. He's always impressed with that sort of thing. Reservations made, they could sleep for the hour+ ferry ride home.

We then drove downtown so that Mom and Dad could look for "an exquisite" alarm clock for their bedroom. With all the jewelers in town, you'd think it'd be easy, but no one had one. They recommended a place in Avon that sold only clocks.

We had told Carmen about my parents being in town yesterday, so she stopped by after work to say hello. My folks, who didn't want to travel to Avon while being so close to their ferry reservation, decided to leave the clock shop for their next trip up in the Spring.

It was nice to visit with Carmen and my folks. The topic was travel, and it was nice to have an adult conversation for a change, instead of dealing with kids all day.

Soon, it was time for them to leave. Off they went, for another thermos of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts and the ferry in New London. Carmen stayed behind, admired the cleanliness of the house, then took us out for Lunch at the Corner Pug. We had the Quahog chowder and a bowl of really garlicky mussels. It was all very good.

Afterwards, Sonia and I mellowed out. Sonia took a nap while I played this game Carmen introduced me to, FowlWords. It's the basic 'unscramble the letters to make words' game, but with chicken. Fun!

Both of us went to bed early, exhausted.