London -- Low Maintenance

Forgive me for being off my blog for the past several days. Claire-Adele and I are on a mother-daughter trip to London before she leaves for college in less than a month. When Claire-Adele was ten, she and I made a trip to London. Now, she is eighteen.

What was she most excited about for this trip?

Drinking.

Every night so far, we've had a glass of wine, beer, prosecco, cider or sangria with dinner. As a very lightweight drinker, I am feeling a little sloshed after a week.

"I don't think I'll have an addictive personality," said Claire-Adele. She's probably right, yet there were nights when she drank more than I did. Which means she finished her drink and I didn't.

"I'm going to be responsible," she said as I bought her a 14 pound glass of champagne, hoping this would be a good investment in her learning to control her alcohol at college. Hoping, because if I am wrong, she cold be screwed.

Why did we come here instead of going someplace new? I wrestled with this, and here are my thoughts:

1. It is London. Seriously, how could it be bad? I love big cities.
2. They speak English and the food is predictable.

Most importantly,

     3.  This is an easy planning trip. London is the perfect low-maintenance destination for high maintenance people.

Compare to our two week trip to New Zealand a few years ago. It took us months to plan the logistics of that trip. We stayed (if I am remembering right) seven different towns on two islands -- Auckland, Pohara, some cute spa town with a hot springs water park, Christchurch, Queenstown, Manapouri, and Hamilton. We took three plane rides within New Zealand.

For this trip, all I had to do was book theater tickets (Ham for me, Harry for Claire-Adele), book airline tickets, and find a place to stay. In that order. Done. I was ready. Need to get from destination to destination? Buy an Oyster card for the Underground. Done. Easy-peasey, lemon squeezy.

Jack and I went to brunch last weekend with Carla and her husband who met in London while they were working there.

"What are you going to do while you are there?" she asked.

"I dunno," I said. Then she told me 300 things we could do, and I wrote down about 150 of them. I didn't open a guide book until the third day of our trip. Why? Because there is so much to do here that in Central London you can walk five minutes in any direction and find a castle, palace, museum or place of cultural or historical significance. With the Internet and a printer, you can find train schedules and print tickets for taking tours of Parliament or Bletchley Park.

Plus, Claire-Adele already had a ton of ideas in her mind of what she wanted to see and do, which made my life much easier.

Can you imagine how little I would write if I had to plan a trip, too?

Egads.

Pessimista!, Can and Can't, and Squat

Bike Time: 2 x 10 minutes

Distance:  1.83 for   one ride!
Other: The leg press is the bane of my existence. I loathe and despite it.

Yesterday, I was making some breakfast sausage for the Boy. I had to bend down below the cooktop to get out the skillet I usually use for cooking sausage.

I wish I could squat, I thought to myself. It would be so much easier to reach the bottom cupboards in my kitchen if I could squat. Instead, I bent down with my legs straight and spread apart with my butt in the air. This was not pretty.

This wasn't the first time I had this thought about squatting. This is one of the many things I can't do (yet) during my recovery. I am in this weird middle ground where I can get out and about, but I am nowhere near as functional as I want to be. What should I be: an optimist or a pessimist? (Spoiler in the title above.)

Writing a blog like this is like writing a memoir before I know how it ends. I hope that I will get better, that I will return to skiing and dancing and squatting, but I don't yet know for sure. I don't know if it will have a good ending (picture of me having successfully reached the bottom of Dave Murray Downhill) or if something bad will happen. And my definition of optimism and pessimist might vary from the dictionary's. I am thinking critically of my present situation more than my future situation.  Pollyanna or Candide would be my optimists. I think of pessimism as being unhappy with the status quo, and thinking it won't change without a miracle or, in my case, a ton of work. Perhaps I am more like a curmudgeon than a pessimist. But I digress.

I can walk, which is good. I walk very slowly and I can't go very far. I have to think about each step so I can have a decent gait. My son said yesterday afternoon, "You are walking like a normal person!" In a way, this is a happy milestone, but this "normal person" walk requires almost all of my attention. Extend my leg, plant my heel, roll through my toes and lift the heel again, runs through my mind with each step.

I have to make decisions about things that I didn't have to think about before. Yesterday, I was picking up a book I reserved at the NE Library. After I got the book, I thought about going to Top Pot Donuts to get a decaf mocha. I had to decide if I should walk the half of a block to and from the library to Top Pot through the gravelly alley or if I should drive there. I decided to drive, which if I had a fully functioning knee, would have been crazy. I tried to rationalize driving there by saying I was opening a space in the always crowded library parking lot, but it takes less time to get coffee than it takes to roam the stacks.

I also want to go canoeing. I could go down to the aquatics center, rent a canoe and paddle around Lake Washington. The weather is warm and sunny--it would be awesome to spend it on the water. Plus, I could use my upper body and not my legs. As soon as I think about this, I think my physical therapist would have a cow. "Nooooo!" he might say if I told him my plan. When discussing where I should take the family for Spring Break, he said I couldn't play in the waves of the ocean as they might knock me over and damage my new ACL. A similar logic might apply to getting into a canoe. I don't know how I could get into a canoe from the dock. To get down stairs, I have to think "down with the bad" and lower my injured leg first. My injured leg would not be stable in a rocking canoe in the water. Plus, I can't submerge my leg in water--even a bath!--until six weeks after the surgery. Lake and river water are fully of all kinds of microscopic life that can cause infections in wounds.

Long story short--I can't squat, I have to ponder every step I take, it takes me forever to walk half a block, and I can't canoe. But I can walk! Yay?

I am going to be a pessimist and embrace my inner Debbie Downer. I will relish in the fact that is sucks that I can't walk far. Why? Why choose to be miserable, gaze at my navel and write lists of the things I can't do?

Years ago, I read Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America. Her basic premise (if I remember this correctly) is that looking at the bright side of life* brushes off problems like poverty and disease. She isn't necessarily advocating for pessimism, but you first need to identify problems before you can solve them. I want to be able to squat and look in my kitchen cabinets. I want to be able to walk from the library to Top Pot to get coffee, and I want to canoe. These are little milestones that I should be able to make before the end of my nine month recovery. This little bit of grumpiness makes go to physical therapy and do my exercises, and that is a good thing. I don't want to be content just walking "like a normal person."

As I was driving home after my trip to library with my decaf mocha from Top Pot, I felt like Frodo and Bilbo Baggins. They went on a big, scary adventure that made them uncomfortable at best and in fear of their life at worst. Bilbo and Frodo didn't get second breakfast, but at least they didn't get eaten by trolls or spiders, cooked by a dragon or killed in battle. They prevailed, but they were not the same. My battles are with canoes and getting to coffee shops, instead. Still, I was feeling Tookish enough to want to go to the library, go to the coffee shop.

* Here is your ear worm for the day, thanks to Eric Idle and Monty Python from The Life of Brian.

"When chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble, give a whistle..."

Goods News and Bad News at the Seahawks Victory Parade

The Good News:  The Seattle Seahawks win the Super Bowl.   They decide to have a parade downtown today.  My son, the boy, wants to go.

The Bad News:  Seattle Public Schools declared any absences from school today will be declared "unexcused."  What to do?  Are the McGuire's rule followers or renegades?  What will they remember twenty years from now: what they did in school on a given day, or trekking downtown to celebrate the second sports national title ever in Seattle?

I ask my husband what he thinks, mostly out of curiosity.  "Of course they should go to school."  That was not the answer I was hoping for.  He thinks McGuire's are rule followers.  I decide my husband needs more fun in his life.

The Good News:  Seattle Public Schools realizes they will be giving 50% of the student body unexcused absences and allows principals to decide.  Principals, being politicians, promise excused absences at my children's schools, a future Super Bowl win, and a chicken in every pot.  We are going.

Before we leave, I walk the dog.  I walk him for 45 minutes figuring I don't know when we will return.  I also figure a walk through Ravenna Park will provide tranquility before a day that will be largely unpredictable.  I am a little nervous, as I tend to be more a Baggins Hobbit, but I decide to be Tookish today and embrace adventure.  Sort of.  Maybe.  We'll see.

Ravenna Park this morning.

The Bad News:  The estimates of the number of people expected downtown change from 300,000 to 500,000.  The extra ~200,000 must be SPS students and families.  City officials recommend public transportation, which is fine.  I pick my daughter up from school and wait for the bus.  At 10:45, the number 16 arrives, packed to the gills.  The driver, an Asian man with gray hair in late fifties with Urkel style glasses, politely tells the dozen people at the stop that he can't take any more riders unless they are going downtown for a doctor's appointment or are disabled.  My son offers to break his leg so we can get on the next bus.  After waiting for a total of a half an hour, we punt.

Urkel and his signature eyewear.  Big glasses are back in style, or so I've heard. 

My daughter decides to go back to school.  She has a class after school and needs to be back for it.  The boy wants me to drive downtown.  There is no way I am driving.  My Tookishness is fading fast.  I debate whether to send the boy back to school or allow him to watch the parade at home.  I feel like a bad mom for not being better organized and figuring this out earlier.

The Good News:  As I pull up to drop off my daughter, I chat with another mom.  I've never met her before, and asked if she was going to the parade.

"Yes," she said.  "Would you like a ride?"  Honestly, I was not fishing for a ride.  I was mostly curious to see if I should drive down myself, and her answer was going to be a data point.  She plans to park near Eastlake and then walk downtown.  I move my car from the drop-off lane, and take her up on her offer.

The Bad News:  If there aren't enough busses to get us there, how will we get home?  Plus, my car is in Wallingford and I live near the U District.  Do I try to catch a bus home or back to Wallingford?

The Good News:  Eh.  I'll figure that out later.  Everyone else downtown is going to be in a pickle, too.

The Bad News:  It is now 11:10.  The parade was supposed to start at 11:00.  I am hoping to make it downstream enough so we can see something.  I am not confident about where I am going, so I follow the South Lake Union Tram tracks down Westlake and hope for the best.

The Good News:  The boy and I huff it down Westlake and make it to 4th and Stewart around 11:30.  I am shocked I figured this out without my phone or GPS.  And we have not missed the parade.

The Bad News:  The boy can't see and it is cold.

The boy at the parade.

The Good News:  We are standing next to a portable cell tower which is walled off from the crowd by a portable chain link fence with concrete feet.  A six year old girl has climbed the fence to get a better view.  The boy climbs the fence and can see.

The Bad News:  Another mom warns me there is a security guard there who will tell him to get off the  fence.

The Good News:  We decide to wait until the parade starts before he climbs the fence and bet the guard will be busy watching the parade, too.  The boy weighs about 70 pounds.  He is the perfect age where he is strong enough to climb the fence without getting hurt, and light enough not to damage it.

The Bad News:  It is 12:30, cold and the parade hasn't started yet.

The Good News:  I packed sandwiches for lunch.

The Bad News:  The kids around us are eying our food.  I brought a shoulder purse with a zipper to deter pickpockets.  Now I am worried that the little boy next to me will offer to arm-wrestle me for my leftover hamburger from dinner last night.  I am also worried that I would lose.  (In retrospect, I should have offered the kids some of the scones I made earlier this morning.  Then there is the old rule of not taking candy from strangers.  I suppose it applies to scones, too.)

The Good News:  The parade rolls by starting at 12:40.

The Bad News:  The boy can't see well.  What little we can see are chartered buses with tinted window.  This is possibly the worst parade ever.  The boy is disheartened and cold, and he wants to leave.

The Good News:  We step back a bit, and can see better.  Behind the portable cell tower is a small truck with a flatbed.  People are climbing on the sides of the truck to see.  The boy climbs up.  A young woman asked the guard if it is okay to stand in the truck.  The security guard gives the smallest nod possible and a shrug.  The boy climbs in the truck too, with a great view of the parade.  I decide to stay on the ground and let the kids see.  Since twenty people are now in the truck and not on the fence, I have a small line of sight where I can see what is happening.  The boy is delighted.  He saw Beast Mode, Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll, Richard Sherman, Golden Tate, a bunch of other guys whose names I don't remember, and the Lombardi Trophy.  This is what I saw.

A nice conifer in downtown Seattle.

I can go home and watch the parade online to see who I missed going by.

The Bad News:  The parade ends and the boy is cold and hungry, and wants to head home.  I have to figure out how we are going to get there.  I see thousands of people pouring in the direction of the bus tunnel.  I decide to head north, against the crowd and towards the Space Needle and Seattle Center.  The parade started there, and I hope the crowds have cleared.  There is a good bus stop there where lots of routes start.  I hope my gamble pays off.

The Good News:  I've been downtown enough to know there is a Top Pot Donuts on 5th Ave.  It is on the way to the Seattle Center.

The Bad News:  The line at Top Pot is long.  I check the map on my cell phone to see how long it would be if we were to walk home.  The answer:  4.1 miles or about an hour and a half.  I hope the donut is enough food in addition to the sandwich for the boy.  I try to see how far it is to my kids' schools in Wallingford (and where I've parked the car), but the cell phone coverage is down.  I hope the donut is enough bribery if I have to tell the boy we are walking home.

The Good News:  The long line gives us time to warm up.  They must have been expecting the crowd because there are lots of people behind the counter and the line moves quickly.  We get donuts, hot chocolate and a decaf mocha.  We follow the monorail track to the Seattle Center.

The Bad News:  I can't remember if the 74, which has a stop around the corner from my house, runs during the day.  I am thinking it doesn't.  If we get there and there isn't an appropriate bus, I've just walked about mile in the opposite direction of my home.

The Good News:  We get to the bus stop, and there about six buses there.  I check to see which ones are heading to either the U District or Wallingford.  We see the 32 which says it is going to the U District, which is good.  I keep walking until I get to the first bus, which is stopped at the traffic light.  It is the 16, with the same driver we saw earlier with the Urkel glasses!  Score!  This bus will take me directly to Wallingford and back to my car.  I knock on the bus door and smile.  The bus is full and I hope he lets us on.  The boy thinks I am impolite for knocking when the bus has pulled six feet away from the stop.  I lived in Chicago without a car for almost ten years.  I know how to ride a bus.  Anything goes.

And we are on!!!

The Bad News:  I have to stand behind the yellow line behind the driver's seat or the driver will "get in trouble."  I don't really fit, but I put my shoe over the line to honor the letter if not the spirit of the law.  I thought better of telling him when I lived in Chicago that I often rode standing on the bottom step next to the door, or up against the windshield.  Sometimes I stood so close to the driver I could look down the back of his shirt and read the tag.  I don't tell him that in Chicago eight people could fit between the yellow line and the door.  If I did, he might kick me off, and that would be bad.

The Good News:  Some people decide the bus is going too slow, and get off.  A nice woman with two boys in the first bench tells them to squinch and let my son sit.  I move and am in compliance with the yellow line rule.  The driver doesn't need to throw me off the bus.  (I later find out the nice woman is a police officer.)  The bus moves slowly until we hit Aurora which is wide open.  People on the bus cheer.  On the ride, I learn that people came to the parade from Missoula, Montana and Alaska.  I also heard someone estimated there were 1.2 million people at the parade, which is about one third of the population of the Seattle Metro area.  (Later estimates were about 700,000, which is greater than the population within the Seattle city limits.)

The boy gets back to school with an hour and a half to spare.  He is tired, but decides that telling the five kids left in the school about his adventure will boost his mood.

I get home.  Our dog, Fox, is delighted to see me.  After walking the dog in the morning and then being outside on my feet for five hours in 32 degree weather, I am glad to return.  I look forward to some quiet time, warming up with a cup of tea and resting my sore feet.

The Bad News:  The dog wants to go for a walk.