We Are Oviously Not Very Bright

January 2014

If you read the previous post then you will know that finding - and keeping - childcare for our nine-year-old while we are away has been something of a debacle.  Although my mom is technically retired, she does work part-time - sometimes.  And when it comes to volunteering and bike-riding, that is one hella' active senior citizen!  Of course we have other friends and family in my hometown but most of them work full-time or are just not up for hanging with a possibly-energetic, bathroom-humor-loving 9-year-old boy.  Scheduling childcare around my extended family's ever-changing work schedules, vacations, and delicate sensibilities was starting to seem like hitting a moving target - with jello.

However, yesterday I had an epiphany.  I realized that we just so happen to have one of those sometimes-useful items commonly known as "a teenager."  As most of you who are familiar with teenagers know, when not moping or eye-rolling everyone to death, they can sometimes double as indentured servants/babysitters in times of need.  And this was most definitely a time of need!

But, Marti, you say, "How could you possibly forget that you just so happened to have a teenager lying about?"  Well, the truth is that that she had eye-rolled herself into blindess years ago and was currently tucked away in the attic trying to mope her eyes back into place...  Ok, no, not really.  Our teenager is only a part-time resident at our house, as she generally resides with her mom.  But it dawned on me yesterday that by the time of our trip, she'll be a high school graduate with no plans until the fall!  And best of all, she's unemployed and naively innocent about money so shipping her off to another state to watch her 9-year-old brother for a pittance sounds like the vacation of a lifetime to her!  Plus, she's good friends with my younger cousins and their friends and is vibrating with anticipation at the thought of getting to spend so much time with them.  And the fact that my extended family spoils both kids rotten doesn't hurt either!

All involved parties have approved the addition of my step-daughter to the trip so it looks like Operation:  Indentured Babysitter is a go!  Now my mom's active senior lifestyle will remain uncramped and I don't have to worry about coming home to any Lord of the Flies kind of incidents.  Win-win!

It's Been a While

January 2014

It's been a few weeks since I've posted but that's only because I've been busy upsetting family members with my travel plans...

Five years ago I had this crazy idea that my husband and I could take a romantic cruise over a long weekend to celebrate my thirty-first birthday.  Without our toddler.  Silly me.

The stars had seemingly aligned with my birthday and my university's fall break all being at the same time.  Although my mom lived eight hours away, she was retired, active, and in love with her grandson.  Of course she would stay at our house and watch him!  I thought.  No.  What?!  No, she wasn't down with that.  Five days/nights - three days at daycare + two full weekend days/nights + two dogs + one three year old prone to infectious diseases = Hella no!  *sigh*  Ok, I get that.  Who can blame anyone for not wanting to be at the mercy of a toddler for a long weekend?  Why do you think my husband and I were trying to leave town!?

Fast-forward five years:  The ten year anniversary [that no one thought we would make it to] is looming.  The "Outbreak" monkey is going on nine years and has been infection-free for at least three of those.  Paid summer vacations are kind of a thing with my new gig.  The stars appear to be aligning once more...  No.  What?!  Seriously, WHAT?!  I've bought the freaking tickets!!  Could we not have had this discussion somewhere between "Thank you for booking with Expedia! Your booking is confirmed," and "Proof of citizenship is required for international travel"?!?!  Well, you know, afterall, how well does one know one's own grandchild after only spending weeks at a time every few months with them for the past nine years.  YMCA camps were suggested in lieu of babysitting...

Ok, it's true:  despite all the years of 100's on his grade-school tests and being admitted into the elementary school honors program, he really could be a secret Ritalin-popping, wall-climbing, chicken-head-biting [Outbreak] monkey.  Really.

Except that he's so NOT!!!  Librarians have told me that they forgot my kid was even in the room because he was so quiet, with his mound of books off in the corner.  Granted, he has his diving-off-of-office-furniture moments but who hasn't?  He's certainly not an "Outbreak" monkey.  He's more of a seeing-eye Golden Retriever.  Sure, he might smell a little funny and pee on your rug when he gets overly-excited but when you're stroking out, he will totally carry your blood pressure meds to you in his mouth while only ingesting half of them.  What more can you ask of a nine year old boy?

I swear he's had his flea bath this month...

Where Are You Now?

Also January 2014

A few years ago - ok, eight - back when all the social networking sites were still jockeying for position, before Facebook shanked them all in a back alley and made them into skin suits, I accepted every questionable friend request on every fly-by-night social network.  Yep, I had them all - Multiply, MySpace, Yahoo!_360, Friendster, Facebook, LinkedIn, Orkut, some others I can't remember, and... WAYN?  From what I can tell, WAYN (Where Are You Now), is a foreign mail-order bride/international hook-up site.  To each his/her own, I guess.

After years of ignoring mesages like "Petr would like to explore Seattle with you" from WAYN in my email inbox, with a multi-country trip looming, it dawned on me that maybe I should embrace the crazy and make it work for me.  For once.  So I re-upped my password, revamped my profile pic, attempted to remove my real name, and dove in!  After posting sincere travel questions interwoven with a vague itinerary, I was pleasantly surprised to get some thoughtful and helpful responses - and, thankfully, only one "The only destination you need to worry about is my bed!"  Delete.  [Future WAYN posting notes:  Any/all posts/questions need to include, "My husband and I..." or "The hubby and I..." or at the very least "The ol' ball and chain..."]

Marriage proposals aside, I think my gamble paid off and I've learned things about the UK that I hadn't picked up on from the travel guides:  public tranporation options, possible destinations and even some Scottish slang.  According to Ewan, a "brolly" would be a good thing to bring on my trip because things could get wet.  Hmm... Ewan, I really hope that you're referring to rain jackets and thunder storms.  :/

Marti Reads a Book

August 2013
So there's this thing that I like to do sometimes, which most people haven't heard of or if they have, they avoid it at all costs.  In fact, in my job, I kind of get paid to do it or at least to get other people to do it.  It's called reading and I highly recommend it!

As I was pondering the eternal question of how to go on vacation with my sister in Iceland but trick my husband into thinking I was really on vacation with him in Ireland, I stumbled upon an Iceland travel book.  [READ: I grabbed every Iceland travel book out of the travel section of Barnes & Noble and sat down with a grande latte and read until they kicked me out.]  And I'm so glad that I do know how to operate those things called "books" because with them, I found the answer to life, the universe, and everything.  Ok, actually just the answer to my problem.  I know what you're thinking:  She's going to "accidentally" book tickets to Iceland instead of Ireland and then tell Mark, "Sorry, it was an unfortunate typo but we'll have to go now because the tickets are non-refundable and, oh, look, Erica's tickets are for the same dates!  Yes, I know we wanted a romantic trip alone but, really, we should just make the most of it."  

Ok, that might have worked too but, no, what I found out was that, according to the Iceland travel books, one can find fairly cheap flights from Scotland and England to Iceland...  "Yes!" I thought, "Mark will be much more likely to believe that Scotland is Ireland and by the time he's figured out that we're not in Ireland, I'll be away on my cheap flight to Iceland!"  <insert evil laugh here>

Actually, what happened next is that I raced home, after trying unsuccessfully to put back all the travel books in their correct spots but without my friend the Dewey Decimal system to help me out, really, how could I? Anyway, I got home, walked up to my husband with a big smile on my face and said, "You know where would be cooler to go than Ireland?  Scotland!  It is the land of your people afterall!"  Surprisingly, he seems to know when I'm trying to manipulate him.  I thought I'd have at least 30 years of marriage before we got to that point.

"What did your sister put you up to now?" he asked.

"Ok, look!" I said, deciding it was time for some truth. "I found out that I can get a cheap plane ticket from Scotland to Iceland.  So we could do our anniversary trip and then after a week or so, you fly home, and I fly to Iceland."  He was not looking impressed so I knew it was time to break out the big guns.  "And guess what else I found out about Scotland?  There's this mountain called Ben Nevis, which is the highest in the UK and people run it all the time.  It would be perfect for your OCR* training!"  His eyes had glazed over and I think there was a little drool so I knew it was time to go in for the kill.  "And guess what's at the bottom of the mountain, waiting for you when you come down?  A whisky distillery."

"Scotland it is!" he said.

*OCR stands for obstacle course races, which Mark is fanatical about and pretty good at too! 

SIDENOTE: The Best Traveling Companion Ever!

Spring 2009

Erica was planning to move from our hometown of Louisville, KY to Moab, UT, to start her first adult job after college graduation.  I had previously helped move a friend cross-country years ago via the northern U.S. states and was itching for another cross-country trip, this time through the southern U.S. states.  Based on previous roadtrip experiences, I fully expected that Erica and I would hate each other somewhere around Arkansas and be plotting ways to leave each other stranded in the youth hostels, which could have easily been mistaken for meth houses. But I was willing to risk our familial bond for the chance at checking off a few more states on my "To Do" list.  Imagine my surprise when, after a week in her fully packed Honda Civic, we were closer than ever - literally and figuratively!  ;)  While on the road, when she would say, "Do you have to..."  "...go to the bathroom?" I would finish.  "Yes!" she would say.  Or if said, "Hey, are you..."  "...hungry?" she would ask.  "Starving!" I would reply.  

I was especially surprised at how well we got along during the trip considering how I had somewhat hijacked it before it ever began.  Erica had to report to her new job by a particular date in April of that year and had been planning to take a leisurely roadtrip out West.  I desperately wanted to go with her but due to my full-time job and the graduate class I was taking at the time, I could only get away for about five days.  I remember telling her over and over, very apologetically, that I really wanted to come but we'd have to make the trip in less than five days and I understood if she'd rather take someone else but please, please, please choose me because I'm more qualified than anyone else because I've already successfully completed one cross-country roadtrip!  She agreed that the dates I was available for weren't ideal but she was willing to... "Great," I said, "Here's the travel route we'll take.  The first night we'll stay with an old college roommate of mine in Arkansas, second night in a hotel in Amarillo, Texas that my friend who works at a Hilton will arrange, third night in a teepee on an organic farm in Colorado with another old college roommate, and the fourth night, eh, I'll let you handle that one, because it is your trip and I don't want to take over, ok?  Awesome!"  And away we went...

Here's us not killing each other,

quite a feat after four days in a Honda Civic!

How it All Began...

July 2013

My husband and I had just celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary the previous month and wanted to do something special for our 10th next year.  [READ:  I wanted to make sure that our anniversary plans didn't revolve around the Spartan Death Race as it had for the past 2+ years!]  I had begun working in public eduation the previous year so I knew I could count on a long summer vacation, my step-daugher would be with her mother, and our son was old enough to go off to Grandma's while we took a long non-U.S. vacation, the first since before he was born.  Ireland, the mystical land of our ancestors, was at the top of our list.  And then... Erica happened.

My sister Erica - my free-spirited, twenty-something, yoga-teaching, massage-therapy-practicing, acupuncture-receiving, knitting, chicken-sitting, nation-wandering, barista sister Erica said that she was obsessed with elves.  Specifically, Icelandic elves.  She was going to Álfaskólinn, Icelandic Elf School.  "When?" I asked.  [Notice that "what," "how," or "why" were never asked.  With Erica, the only question is, "When?"]

"June," she said.  "I read that after that, the tickets get insanely expensive.  Want to come with me?"  

To say that her offer made my internal Trip Tik start to flip, was an understatement. After a lifetime of various trips via plane, train, boat, bus, and car, with everyone from friends and family to colleagues and classmates and everyone in between, my sister is hands-down the BEST traveling companion I've ever had.  (See this entry for more about that!)

While the Google Map in my head was already plotting destinations for my sister and I to visit in Iceland, somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that I was married and wanted to stay that way.  Leaving my husband at home in the states while I celebrated our wedding anniversary with Erica in another country was a one-way ticket to the land of divorce lawyers and alimony.  I couldn't possibly swing two international trips in one month on a teacher's salary.  Could I?  Or could I...