18 and Waterfalls

The New York Times last week had a special section called This is 18 that looked at the lives of eighteen year old girls around the world.

The most heartbreaking one for me was Madison Breanne Justice, an eighteen year old girl from Clarksdale, Mississippi, who is caring for her son, Jeremiah. She hopes to get her GED and then go to college.

They asked her: What is the farthest place you have ever been from home?

"The farthest I've ever been away from my house is three hours away, in Dyersburg, like right there on the edge of Missouri. I really wish I had been farther because I love to see new things. I would love to see a waterfall in my life."

A waterfall.

My heart was broken when I read that. How simple and beautiful, to want to see a waterfall.

I thought of all of the waterfalls my kids have seen since we've moved to the west coast. We have a small waterfall in Ravenna Park where the water drops a foot.

I did a search in my photo album, and I found 178 photographs of waterfalls. Some of them are major waterfalls--Snoqualmie Falls, WA; Multnomah Falls, OR; and Waimoku Falls, HI--others are regular ones we came across on hikes through the Pacific Northwest or on vacation.

I can't remember the first time I saw a waterfall. As a kid, we went camping a lot, but we were in the midwest were it was flat. You need mountains or at least hills to get some kind of a waterfall going. Maybe I didn't see one until I was an adult, but I find that hard to believe. Are they that common place in my life that I can't remember the first time I saw one?

If Madison could pick a waterfall to see, which one would she chose? Would she want to something massive like Niagra Falls, or something more modest and quiet, like Twin Falls? The Grotto Falls in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee is beautiful, and probably close to home. Would she be amazed or disappointed? I can't say I've ever looked at a waterfall and thought meh. Everytime I see one I think they are cool. What is it about this geological feature that makes it so interesting, so peaceful, so relaxing? It is different for each person?

I hope Madison gets to see for herself one day.

Snoqualmie Falls, Washington

Multnomah Falls, Oregon

Waimoku Falls, Hawaii

Doubtful Sound, New Zealand

20

Adele names her albums after her age: 19, 21, 25.

Ada would have been 20 years old yesterday. If she were alive, I'd almost be done being her active parent.

Yeah. It is hard to believe. Two decades have passed. What would she have done this year for her birthday if she had been alive? Maybe she would have been a dancer. Or maybe pre-med. Or maybe she'd want to be an astronaut. Or banker. Maybe she would have been a an artist or a computer programmer. Maybe she would have been a great friend.

It was a gray day, but I think I held it together rather well. Anniversaries that end a zero (or five) are usually hard. I didn't actively think about Ada or her death for a majority of the day, but thoughts of her colored the day with a mist or a fog. I didn't think as clearly. It is like there is a sad soundtrack running along side my day that I can't hear but it slips into my subconscious. I wasn't as cheerful or chipper as a usually am, but nor was I crabby or irritable like I have been on other anniversaries. By crabby and irritable, I mean sickened with grief to be point I shouldn't be in the company of other humans. The nadir was the not the first anniversary of Ada's death, but the first Mother's Day. That was awful. There needs to be something on Mother's Day for women who lost a child. Seriously. I am a mother now, and I look back at my old self and feel sorry for her.

My dad sent me flowers this weekend, which always cheer me up.

He remembers every single year.

Firstborn

As you may know, Claire-Adele has gone to college. So far, so good as far as I can tell. Not much news is good news, etc.

There have been many changes since she's left, big and small, but for me, the biggest revelation is how much time I get to spend with my second born, which is a good thing. Claire-Adele got me to herself for the first three years of her life. Now, the Boy gets me for his last three years of high school.

In the modern, American world, most people have one, two or three kids. Outside of blended families, no one I know has five or six kids. Or more! (When people tell me they have seven kids, my first thought is "remarried.") With three or more kids, there middle kids. In a two kid family (and heir and a spare), someone is first and someone is last.

I was the firstborn in my family, as was Jack. With Claire-Adele, we have three firstborns in the same family, which means our family is a little bit more than intense. Claire-Adele called last weekend asking if she could apply for a trip abroad over the month-long winter quarter.* With the intensity of our response, you'd think she was asking for ten million dollars of venture capital funding instead of a few grand to go to South Africa for the winter. Does every family have this level of scrutiny?  I told my friend Jen about this, and she said it was perfectly normal to grill your kid about things they want, and she has an only child. Do parents with ten kids give up and give their kids whatever they want out of fatigue, or do the kids not ask because the parents don't have the bandwidth and/or money?

I digress.

I'm learning that absence is a thing. Claire-Adele's absence fills our house. She has an absence, too, of home and friends, but instead of a hole, Claire-Adele has to figure out how she fits into her new world. When I was growing up, I had friends move and I moved myself. I heard then and believe now that in most cases, the absence is harder for whoever is left behind.

I think about how much Claire-Adele's departure has had on me, but I wonder what it is like for the Boy. Since the end of August, the Boy is effectively an only/solo child while he is in High School, something Jack nor I ever experienced. We were never the left behind kid as we were the first to go. We can relate to Claire-Adele being a pioneer, but not so much what the Boy is going through. I wonder what he thinks about it now that his space is different, too. Does he like all of the attention from us, or is it too much? Does he now feel like the oldest since he's the only? Is it better to have the focused attention of mom and dad in high school, or when you are a baby?


* Eh. UMD is on the semester system, and there is this funky six week winter break which includes Christmas and New Year. UMD has a four week "quarter" or "eighth" or something where kids can take one intense class or do something fun, like study abroad or get a cool internship. Or, they could work or they could sit on their butt and look at the internet.**

** Says a blogger.

When is the Future?

I was talking to a friend about my idea to buy a Belltown condo. He and his partner are interested in moving in the opposite direction -- out to the country, perhaps on one of the San Juan Islands. Where my motivation is to walk to work, his is to telecommute from a remote spot. When his partner got a new job where he can telecommute, all of a sudden the present turned into the future for half of the pair. If Travor was going to telecommunte anyway, why not move to the islands now? Zach wasn't ready for this.

Sometimes the future has arrives sometimes like a train on a schedule. Other times, it pops up when we least expect it.

When I started to look at condos in Belltown, the future came up out of the ground like an early crocus in the spring. You know it is coming, and you know about when, but it still is a surprise. I was surprised that Jack and I had such synchronicity, that we both thought that the time for the future was now.

My other future, the one I knew was inevitable since the day she was born, arrives tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m., when Claire-Adele gets on a plane for College Park, Maryland. That had always been a someday, a point in the future that we could and couldn't imagine.

I am surprisingly sad about this. I thought I'd be immune to these emotions, that my happiness for her would override my own sense of loss. That didn't happen. I don't want to rain on her parade, be a wet blanket snuffing out her excitement and anticipation. And yet.

I got her (and me) some flowers, the all purpose gift, appropriate in times of both happiness and sorrow. And so we share them, and each enjoy them for our different reasons.

A (Clean) Room of My Own

So Why do I want a condo? I found an amazing loft. I fell in love with it. I also fell in love with two other units, so I am perhaps appropriately cautious. I understand how people can love other people. I can understand how people love dogs. (Cats, not so much.) But how can people love space, places and locations? We do, though. What do they give to us? What do we give to them? I can see how a garden can be reciprocal, but not so much a regular place.

And yet. Last night, the Boy, Jack and I were watching Weekend at Bernie's. (The Boy was looking at his phone during the movie, which is odd because he was the one who wanted to watch this movie. I would have been happier to watch the new Nanette comedy special on Netflix, but I digress.)

In the movie, the two young men who schlep Bernie around for the weekend comment on "The view! The view!" Like they had never seen the ocean or sand before. Why do we like views? Do they make us feel calm? Do they erase our other thoughts and we relax? There must be a reason why we like or dislike the space we live in because having an emotional reaction to our surroundings seems to be universal. I am not talking about "taste" or what kind of countertops people prefer in their kitchen, though that is part of it.

How will I know when I have found the right space? I thought I loved this new condo. I did, but I find this love is like a roller coaster. One minute I find reasons to think it is divine, that it will be the center of all of my happiness, and then I think of the open aspect of the loft and think "At every morning while I am trying to sleep, Jack will be grinding his coffee and I will be pissed." Every noise he will make in the kitchen will float to the bedroom. Likewise, every noise we make in the moring will wake the Boy. There are giant sliding doors to shut, but they open on top. No grinding coffee, no emptying the dishwasher without waking everyone in the place.

Oy.

Or maybe it will be good for me and Jack not to empty the dishwasher upon waking. Instead, we will read the newspaper, a magazine, a book. Or, he can walk across the street to get his cup of coffee. It will be the city of chrissake and there are coffee shops every three feet in Seattle. Maybe we have Quiet Hours. Maybe I'll sleep like a log.

Before we watched Weekend at Bernie's, the Boy started getting my grill about how horribly messy our house is. He has a point. I have a full-time job and his father who works nights and weekends on top of the usual nine-to-five, and neither he nor his sister do any chores and I am too cheap or am challenged to pay someone to clean my house for me. So, I focus on laundry, grocery shopping, vaccuuming, etc., such that the clutter build up is getting impressive.

So this is my desk.

Yeah.

And I want to live in an open floor plan where this (see above) will have no place to hide.

Or will it?

Could that be the beauty of having two places to live? One is clean and awesome and pristine and the other looks like this (see above again, if you want to)?

I just want a clean room of my own, like one of these beautifully staged places with carefully chosen artwork on the walls and perfectly sized furniture. I can leave all of the crap in the Ravenna house.

Or maybe I want to change who I am. Instead of being NE Seattle soccer and PTA mom, and can be a version of a middle-aged urban hipster who walks her dog at the Seattle Scuplture Garden everyday and has a perfectly clean and tidy apartment with cavernous ceilings. Who catches the latest movies at the Big Picture, and hangs out at the Balck Bottle and buys her veggies from Pike Street Market. Seriously. Is that who I want to be?

Hell yeah.

Condo

Two weeks ago when Claire-Adele and I got back from London, I was pissed at Jack. I don't remember exactly what I was pissed about, but I was pissed. I was tired from the trip and probably PMSing and then set off by something that legitimately made me mad. I was probably pissed that he works too much and is never around. In my anger and rage, I decided to Google "Belltown Condos," and up popped a really cool looking place on the Redfin website. If your wife is ever mad at you, the last thing you want to find on her search browser--worse than details of an affair--would be surreptitious searches for real estate. This condo had two bedrooms, an outdoor dining terrace, a view of the Sound and was two blocks from where I work.

"Do you want to tour this place?" a little box popped up and asked me.

Hmmmm.

"Yes," I clicked back. The next day at lunch, I checked it out.

I was in love. Or lust. Smitten. Whatever. I needed this place. So much so, that I called Jack to tell him about this amazing place even though the reason I looked at it in the first place was because I was mad at him.

"What?" he said. "Why are you looking at Belltown condos?" He was not amused. I didn't care.

"We have an appointment Saturday at nine to see it," I said.

When I got home from work, we sparred about it. I can't remember the exact details, but somewhere along the way, I said "You can either quit your job or you can buy me a condo."

"I am not quitting my job," he said. So a condo in Belltown it is.

"Why do you want a condo?" he asked.

"I want to go back to my urban roots," I said. "I could live like I did in London, like we did for years in Chicago." In London, Claire-Adele and I had stayed in a flat South Kensington five minutes from the Underground. In Chicago, Jack and I lived in Lincoln Park. My notions were not some romantic fantasy. I have lived this life before and I'd do it again.

Where I lived in my twenties. We were in the second floor apartment above the door.

"We could always rent this place," he said, referring to what I am now calling my Ravenna home. I knew he was considering it. He could be budged.

When we left the next morning, Jack was still fuming, or at least acting like he was. Perhaps he wasn't mad, just confused and confounded. Until he saw the place.

He agreed it was amazing. All I had to do was bait the hook and he bit.

Sunday, we walked along the Sound in Myrtle Edwards Park next to the Seattle Sculpture Garden. There were dozens of people out walking their dogs in the park, including our Congresswoman.

"I could see walking Fox here every morning," I said. Living close to the waterfront is one of the main reasons I want to live downtown. I saw Jack's shoulders uncoil from stress. He smiled for no reason. We currently live less than a block from Ravenna Park, which is awesome and amazing, but it can't compete with water and mountains.

Monday morning when I was at work, Jack texted me: "Maybe we could check these places out," with links to places that are 50% above what I had wanted to spend. Places on the top floor with spectacular views. I guess I baited that hooked with a synthetic opioid. Jack was more gung-ho about the idea than I was.

The kids were not nearly as thrilled.

"Why do you want a condo?" both kids asked me at dinner one night while Jack was working.

"I'm going to college," said Claire-Adele. "Please don't spend all of my tuition."

"When are you going to live there? I have to finish high school," said the Boy.

"We have extra money from paying off the mortgage and now I'm working," I said. "I want to put that money to good use."

I could see the light bulb pop above my daughter's head. "So you want to spend your money on something tangible that will create value in the long-term?" she said. Actually, I can't remember exactly what she said. What she said was better phrased and sounded like it came out of the mouth of an economist. Sometimes my kids surprise me.

"This is a stupid, impractical idea," the Boy said. Sometimes they don't surprise me.

The next morning, I was walking Fox and I ran into my neighbor, Stanley and his dog, Taylor, and I told him of my plan. I was actually feeling cold feet about the condo concept before I ran into Stanley. Did I really want to have two houses, one downtown? Wouldn't I miss my neighbors and my neighborhood? We were eating dinner in the back yard the other night on the back deck. Under the canopy of trees you can barely see the sky. Why would I leave this Eden?

I explained my idea to Stanley. I must not have been very convincing.

"Lauren," said Stanley, "It sounds like you've thought about it, but it still sounds impetuous. You are usually so analytical, so thoughtful. This isn't really like you."

Yeah, it's not.

"You should talk to Amy," he said. "Her mom sold a house on Hunts Point and moved downtown while Amy was in high school."

"What did she think about it?" I asked.

"You should talk to her," he said.

I don't want to talk to Amy. I love her dearly, but please, just tell me the punch line. Don't make me wait. Most especially, I don't want to hear from Amy that my kids might be right. This might be crazy.

An hour later, I was riding the bus to work and I was started to think. If I were in a downtown condo, I'd still be in bed because I could walk to work in five minutes. Or maybe I'd be walking Fox. Who is that woman walking her dog at 8:30? She must not have anywhere to be, people might think of me, but ha! I'd show them. I can walk my dog at 8:30 AND work. My crazy idea was back on the front burner. While I was on a mental roll, I texted my friend Sarah about the condo idea and asked her what she thought. In the past, she has not passed judgment on my spending habits.

"I think it is brilliant," she said.

In less than two hours, I have two opinions: impetuous and brilliant. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

London -- Fashion, Or Momma Suits Up

Before Claire-Adele and I went to London, we went shopping.

"Why do you need to go shopping before the trip?" I asked.

"I need clothes to wear," she said.

"So?" I said. "We can shop there. That is the cool part about London. Shopping."

"I need clothes to wear," she said.

Fine. We went shopping two days before the trip. We hit Nordstrom Rack downtown one day after work for both of us. If she wants to go shopping at the Rack, that is fine with me. What she doesn't realized that this opportunity of shopping in one of the leading fashion cities in the world mixed with her mother's generosity and credit card will only come but once, maybe twice, in her lifetime.

So we went to the Rack downtown. While she was shopping, I was poking around. I wasn't planning on buying anything because I was going to shop in London.

Until. I. Saw. The. Designer. Racks. I felt like Bilbo Baggins when he enters Lonely Mountain and sees all of the elves gold. Is all of this for me?

I thought I'd looked through the racks when I saw It. It was destiny. We were meant to be together. Me and a black St. John black wool Chanel style jacket. When I tried on this jacket, I didn't feel like a million bucks. I felt like five to ten million. The jacket was one third of the original price, but still astronomical.

I brought it home, I showed it to Jack and the Boy. The Boy, who is a big fan of Neil Patrick Harris's Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother. The gay married family man with two kids plays a very well dressed scoundrel and a womanizer. Barney's tag line is "Suit up."

Even the Boy was impressed at the cut and fit of this jacket.

"Momma suits up," said Jack.

I packed my bags, including in two dresses I bought of the bargain rack at The Rack and one dress I had in my closet for eight years and never wore. I am not one of those people who buys clothes they never wear, mainly because I am not that adventurous to buy anything that I might possibly feel the least bit uncomfortable wearing.

And then we left for London.

When we were there, Claire-Adele suggested we get off at a random Underground stop and explore. I picked Notting Hill. On our way to the restaurant, we walked by a thrift shop with a window full of fancy shoes. We had to go in. Turns out this "thrift shop" only sells designer stuff.

Not in my size otherwise I'd own them.

Yeah, those are Prada.

Claire-Adele started looking at the clothes. She found a dove gray sweater with ruffles along the front button area. It would be a perfect sweater to wear in the fall on the eastern seaboard. It was 70 pounds, so I checked the label.

Armani.

This was my kind of thrift shop.

A few days later, we were in line to see the Harry Potter play and we talked to some women from Florida.

"You have to go to Kensington Palace. They have an exhibit of Princess Diana's dresses," she said.

So we did. This is something Jack and the Boy would not want to see.

The dress she wore to dance with John Travolta.

Could you see me in this suit? I could! Love it.

She wore this to a fundraiser in Chicago for Northwestern. Go U NU!

There more more clothes in the rest of the exhibit. I don't Jack and the Boy would have had much fun here, either.

This is a replica outfit made out of what appeared to be Tyvek or some other industrial paper.

I love this outfit. 

These dresses were designed to show off the fabric. Like a billboard.

Emeralds

Diamonds. This was valued at 1.4M pounds and was used to pay the estate tax for someone's estate.

So my clothes aren't as awesome as Princess Diana's. No one's clothes are, which is why these clothes are in a museum. Nevertheless, Claire-Adele and I were at the Tower of London, and this woman stopped me and told me she loved my dress.

"This is the first time I've worn it," I told her. "It was in my closet for eight years."

"Sometimes those things are the best finds," she said.

Even in the Tower of London, we saw some cool fashions that Jack and the Boy might have foud interesting.

This one is cool.

Add caption

London -- Almost Empty Nest and Quiet Chaos

Claire-Adele and I got back from London yesterday. I didn't really have time to blog while I was out of town as we were busy morning til night. In my spare downtime, I was doing puzzles from puzzle books I bought at Bletchley Park, a place I wished I could have worked at despite the frigid conditions in the winter and sweltering conditions in the summer. Bletchley Park was where Alan Turning and ten thousand people worked to crack the German's Enigma code making machine during World War II. A majority of the people who worked there were women. A related observation from my trip: All of the good British monarchs were women: Elizabeth I, Victoria and Elizabeth II. Just sayin.

The estate that was bought by the British government that became Bletchley Park.

Where a high ranking official worked.

Where the women worked.

Where Alan Turning worked. Or maybe he had the other desk? Anyway, he worked in this room.

I think these are old, unrestored buildings used in the war.

So Claire-Adele and I took this trip before she leaves for college. Before I left, I told one of my friends at work that I was glad Claire-Adele and I were taking this trip as things are chaotic, but not chaotic.

Huh? was his response.

I finally figured it out. It is the quiet chaos, the chaos of an impending major change that doesn't come with drums beating or trauma, but the slowly evolving, impending in change. In Seattle, we have slow earthquakes, the kind where the energy of the shifting tectonic plates is expended slowly over months instead of minutes. The slow quakes still reflect movement without the violent upheaval, but the plates still move and things need to resettle. This is what it is like to have a kid leave for college. It slowly builds, one day at a time. And then she'll be gone.

On my last day of work before the trip, I went to lunch with two young women at my company. One is married, one has a boyfriend, neither have kids. They are both super nice and friendly and curious about my life. The unmarried one asked me lots of questions about my career and family and such. I didn't really get it. Why? Why do they want to hang out with me? I can't possibly imagine that my life--so different from theirs--could possibly be interesting to them. I'm almost an empty-nester and they are young, before kids. What could we have in common?

Perhaps the reason they find me interesting is precisely because we have nothing in common--today. Twenty years ago, I was them. I was part of a dual-income, no kids couple, working, going to graduate school, and fine tuning my career. They listened to me carp about my husband and kids. They listened to me complain about leaving my career to have kids. Then they listened to me talk about my posh upcoming to trip London with my daughter.

Oy.

I didn't want to listen to me. I found myself insufferable. I told them the only thing I didn't majorly screw up in my life, the only thing I did well, was managing money. Not that I screwed up my marriage and kids, but those were far more complex or complicated than I ever could have imagined they would be when I was twenty-eight, give or take a few years. Ask me how to pay off credit card debt and invest in mutual funds, but don't ask me the secret to staying married or being a good parent.

But they didn't mind listening to me. They were sincerely curious. Why?

I think I figured it out. Perhaps they wanted to look into a crystal ball and see what is on the other side, see what the next twenty years hold in store, when they cross the family finish line and launch a kid off to college.

Or worse, did they want to see where I screwed up, see the decisions I regretted, the things I would have done differently? I can't imagine these two women are that dark and cynical, but rather maybe they wanted to learn from me where not to fall. I have to admit when I was that age, I was too stubborn to think I could have learned something from a professional woman twenty years older than me. But then when I was in my twenties, middle-aged women slogging away at the firm where I worked were as rare as hen's teeth. Not that they didn't exist, but they were in a small minority.

On the plane to London I watched the movie Blockers. When I saw the trailer, I thought it looked cringe-worthy, as my kids would say. A group of middle-age parents (Leslie Mann and John Cena) and try to block their daughters from losing their virginity on prom night. Leslie Mann is married to Judd Apatow, and the trailer to this movie has more gross-out humor than The 40 Year-Old Virgin. Who was their target audience? I couldn't imagine teenage boys finding this set-up interesting at all.

"What you going to do with the back nine of your life?" one of the dads asked to Leslie Mann. The back nine. The two women I met were just getting to the golf course. Maybe they were still on the driving range. I still have the Boy, so I am not on the back nine yet, but I can see it in the distance.

This movie got me more than Lady Bird, which is saying a lot. The real idea is parents fighting the fact their kids are going to leave them. I laughed. I cried. It was not better than Hamilton,* but the movie was still thought-provoking even though it was pretty gross.

Instead of being a loon stalking my daughter's prom, I was taking her on a trip. I might not have been a perfect parent, but I was making an investment in my future relationship with my daughter. Only once or twice on the trip did I think, "I'll be glad when she's gone." But my main feeling when I came back was Claire-Adele is a good traveling companion and we should do this again. When the guys at work asked about my vacation, I said maybe when Claire-Adele is in college I can meet her some place for a weekend, like...

"Paris?" said one of my co-workers.

I was thinking New York, but that was the general idea.


* Nothing is better than Ham.

London, Jack's Back and Keeping Up with the McGuire's

No, not "Jack is back." I mean the back that belongs to Jack. On our second day in London, Jack crashed on his mountain bike while riding with the Boy.

Text from the Boy: "He's all good. A bit stiff. He ate shit going on jump 11/13"

Which means he crashed on the 11th of the 13 jumps on the Gravy Train trail at Duthie. Oy. I can't load the picture of his scratched up and bloody back, which is probably for the best. You might not want to see it anyway.

I talked to Jack the night of the crash, and he seemed fine. He has been battered and bruised before.

The second night was concerning.

"I couldn't sleep flat on my back because I couldn't breathe because the pain was too bad, so I slept on the couch. I want to make sure I can breathe deeply so I don't get fluid in my lungs."

Okay. Did you break your ribs or something?

"No, I'm a doctor, even if my ribs were broken or bruised, nothing to do, blah blah blah," he said.

The third night was more concerning.

"I really shouldn't be driving," he said. I can't turn my back and it hurt when I turn my head." This was the week Jack and the Boy were going to do crazy outdoorsy kind of stuff.

The fourth night was totally sketchy.

"I took some of the Boy's old percocet from when he broke his collarbone so I could sleep," he said. "I had to stop taking ibuprofen because I was getting a rash. At least three times a year we get kids in the ICU whose skin sloughs off because of a reaction to ibuprofen." This is typical dinner conversation at the McGuire's, the rare but nasty side effects of over the counter meds.

"I called one of the pharmacists in the ICU to see what they would recommend."

Probably not taking your kid's old meds, but whatever. Jack has a license to prescribe narcotics, and while I know I should dump old pain killers at the QFC drug return center,* part of me is afraid the massive earthquake will hit and someone I love will have a broken leg and we won't be able to find medical help but I will have a jar of pain meds from a surgery in my medicine cabinet. Better Jack taking one pill for legitimate pain management instead of our kids taking it for recreational use.

So now I am feeling bad for leaving Jack and the Boy home in Seattle while I am out and about with Claire-Adele eating in restaurants, seeing plays, visiting parks and museums in one of the coolest cities in the world, especially as Jack is seriously injured.

But then I don't feel too bad. Two and a half years ago, I tore my ACL trying to keep up with the kids and Jack. Now he is the one grounded for not keeping up with the Boy.

* PSA: You should get rid of old pain meds. http://www.takebackyourmeds.org I've done it before.

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.

Maryland! Part 2

Last week, I took Claire-Adele to freshman orientation at the University of Maryland. This was a day of drinking from an emotional fire hose.

It started Tuesday night at dinner. I was watching CNN at a pizza place and Claire-Adele was facing the other direction. They were flipping back and forth between stories about the Thai boys in the cave and the Mexican immigrants separated from their parents. I saw the rooms where they were detaining children, and I got a little emotional.

Eleanor glanced over her shoulder at the television. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"I'm watching those kids on television," I said.

She looked puzzled. "Mom, they are fine. They are safe and it's going to be okay."

Now it was my turned to look puzzled. "Those Mexican kids are taken from their parents."

"Oh," said said. "I thought you were talking about the Thai kids."

On the other side of the earth, 2,000 people from thirty countries conducted a military operation to get twelve kids out of a cave while we 'Muricans are keeping kids apart from their parents on purpose. This was not a good emotional starting point for the next two days.

Unlike the detained immigrant children, Claire-Adele and I stayed in a pretty posh hotel and we swam after dinner. I got a brochure about the spa and planned to swim Thursday morning and get a massage while Claire-Adele was continuing her orientation activities. I would be on my own Wednesday night as she would be staying in a dorm with a bunch of other freshmen.

The next morning, the two of us headed off to the Alumni Center for orientation. I wasn't really thrilled about this whole thing. The university wanted me to come along instead of flying Claire-Adele out there by herself. Why did I have to go? I was happy to support Claire-Adele, but she would have been fien without me. And I've been to college already. I know the drill. But whatever. I took three days of vacation from work to go to this thing.

Claire-Adele and I sat together while a majority of the other kids grouped up with friends from their high schools. Claire-Adele blanched at the stat that 81% of the kids from her program are from Maryland. She overheard a girl say she was rooming with her best friend from high school and she didn't want to make any new friends. Twenty minutes later, a girl across the room waved at Claire-Adele. My daughter perked up in recognition--it was someone she from her online chat group. Another boy waved at the two girls. He was in the chat group, too. She relaxed.

They had the parents and students together for the first hour, and then they carted the kids off.

Here are my bullet point observations:

• The guys were pretty short. I don't know why I noticed that, but I did.
• The campus has shuttle buses. When I went to college, we didn't have shuttle buses. We had to walk. Wimps.
• I saw a sign that said "C's get degrees but A's get paid." I need to share that with the Boy.
• One of the people at orientation said "Y'all" ten times in three minutes. Welcome to a Border state.
• Being from Seattle is exotic to people on the East Coast. And I have no idea about the local gossip, like who are the major donors to the University. (Hint: The dude that started Under Armour.)

I only started to cry twice. I can't remember when. Was it when they were talking about the different between your life's work and your job? About how to cope with anxiety by thinking "WAIF" -- what am I feeling? and knowing that whatever it is will pass.

I also almost fell asleep a few times as about six parents asked in six ways how their student could double major.

I am trying to figure out why this was so emotionally taxing. I think it was because there was a high volume of information so I had to concentrate and this same information reinforced the point: this is real. My kid is leaving.

And I have to admit this, too--I am a little sad Claire-Adele isn't going to my alma mater. I can't be pissed at NU because she didn't even apply. I am even sad she isn't going to UW. While the Maryland campus is certainly lovely with all of its red brick Colonial buildings, NU is special and UW is gorgeous. UMD doesn't have a college town next to it even. But this isn't my college experience. It is Claire-Adele's.

I am not sure sure how I feel about this yet. It is still unreal. I still feel like a parent, especially with the Boy around. I have one friend who cried and cried at the thought of her son going across the state, and I could feel her pain. I had another friend, a dad who I've seen at every Roosevelt Band Concert for the past four years say, "I know this might sound bad and I love my kids... (multiple caveats, blah, blah, blah), but I can really see myself enjoying being an empty-nester."

I think I swing between the two--where I am is not static. Which made it all the better that I took the evening off to hang out with my old Chicago friend Kendra. We met for dinner at the Kennedy Center and then went to Hamilton. We stayed up until three a.m. talking. Hanging with my friend was a coccoon in an otherwise emotionally raw time. It was like sitting in a hot tub after a long day of skiing or hiking. Sure the skiing and hiking is good and fun, but it is awesome to seriously chill afterwards. This was my chill. It washed away the emotional residue and reminded me of me before I had kids. I had a life before kids--I will have a life after.

Somewhere along the way I learned Jack signed me up for the student-led campus walking tour that started at 9:00 a.m. Thursday. So much for spending the morning sleeping, swimming and spa-ing. I was kind of gagging at the idea of the tour. When I got there, there were a dozen other parents. They were all really nice, but nice in way that I know I will never see them again.

Most all, the kids who led the tour were really exceptional. One of the kids is a government and politics major, like Claire-Adele will be. I asked him about his interests--he wants to manage the messaging for candidates and elected officials--and I told him how I ran for School Board and I worked with a campaign strategist and manager. His eyes lit up. Suddenly, I wasn't just a mom on a tour, but a regular person to this kid. Another girl and I talked about "Parks and Rec." Another guy was there, just hanging out and having fun.

And then I felt for the first time that this was all going to be okay. I know NU and I know UW, so they feel safe and familiar. I don't know much about Maryland--I am taking it on faith. Talking with the kids at lunch made it familiar, they made it safe.

After lunch, I ran into a mom from the tour in the campus bookstore. We were each we looking at t-shirts. The tour was over--we didn't have to be nice to each other, but we talked for about ten minutes.

Was this more for me than Claire-Adele? Perhaps. Claire-Adele is going to be in good hands, as are the kids of the other parents I met. Claire-Adele is going to be okay, and so will I.

Final Draft

This isn't my last blog post, in case you were confused.

Last week when Claire-Adele and I were at Maryland, she critiqued my blog.

"That's not what really happened," she said. "I need to edit your blog posts to correct the errors. Or I should write my own version of what happened and post it on your blog.

"I'll call it Final Draft."