What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

I have had several people check in with me to see if we are surviving the 2010 Blizzard. I respond with I’m actually in NC. I am still not sure which is worse – DC with twenty inches of snow or NC with one inch of ice. Regardless, I have had so many bloggable moments that I hope to hunker down and capture them in one epic blog entry while I have an uncle and a grandma to watch Lucy.

Above you can see the view of Friendship Gate, as in “Beyond Friendship Gate.” They were showing shots of the neighborhood throughout the Georgetown vs. Villanova game on ESPN. Henry, Rocky and BCole went to the game. However, we did not see them on TV. I told Henry that he needed to go ahead and recruit them to meet me at the Gallery Place Metro exit on Monday evening to help carry Lucy’s stroller and our luggage home. I imagine that we can make it as far as the exit, but there is no way we will be able to push the stroller down the street. I will be wearing my new red galoshes.

Throughout the trip, I was obsessed with the fact that I needed rain boots. I have a pair of pink rain boots that I left in DC. First of all, Henry has a lot of anxiety around travel, even when he isn’t traveling. So he kept telling me that I was making a big mistake with all of the stuff that I was taking home. By the time I was packed and out the door, I was almost to the point of good riddance. That is not how you want to leave your husband for a week.

So I kept our return flight in mind as I edited my suitcase. Since I would have to wear the rain boots on the flight, they didn’t make the cut. Flying solo with a baby is hard enough. You have to take off your outwear, shoes, break down the stroller, remove the laptop, hold the baby, walk through the security and then redress and reassemble her baby gear. Rain boots would only make it harder.

So once I saw my mom’s front porch and took note of the week’s forecast, I knew that I needed to buy boots. Target was completely sold out of a pair of cute black boots with polka dots. So I bought these bright red size tens from Wal-mart. The options were extremely limited. I wear an 8.5, but these work okay.

Now I am so thankful that I have them. Because it sounds like I will definitely need to wear them to make it from the Metro to our apartment in the 20″ of snow. Now most people would read this and think, why don’t you take a cab? Well, if you take a cab, then you have to break down the stroller AGAIN and put it in the trunk and there is no one to hold the baby while you are doing all of this. It is much easier to just get yourself situated and take the Metro.

After I bought the boots on Wednesday, we went to eat at a massive Chinese Buffet in Stanleyville. They offer Hibachi and sushi all-you-can-eat, as well. We were in a section full of children, so they were all saying and pointing baby. The waitresses were really into Lucy. One kept insisting that we should trim a tiny bit of hair off her head to help it grow. She also told us that you take the trimmed hair and create a “pen” with it. I assume that she meant a Chinese brush painting pen. She said that you would write with it when it was older and different, like in China. I believe that Lucy’s hair is a little too fine to create a successful brush. But I will keep that in mind if her hair ever thickens.

At lunch the same day, a lady said that she wanted to take Lucy home to her family, “where they could really get a hold of her cheeks.” I laughed. But by the end of our dinner, Danny, the son of a restaurant worker, decided to do just that.

He walked up to her and just mashed her little cheeks with one of his hands. Then he proceeded to settle in and cup her chinning squeezing them simultaneously while saying “whoot whoot.” As you can tell, Alex did not really know what to do. I was on the other side of the booth, so I just started laughing. He passed Lucy off to Mom, but that did not stop Danny. He climbed into the booth behind us and reached over to grab Lucy’s cheeks. She loved it.

On Thursday, Eris and I met for a little shopping and lunch. She wanted to check out re-tale, a new shop in Winston. It is super cute. The guilt-free prices make you feel a little guilty about how cheap everything is.

Cama also loved to pet Lucy. She enjoyed spending time with her cousin. We learned that Cama has named her little kitty “Baby Lucy.” Yet, she was having a hard time deciding if she was eating lunch with Baby Lucy or Baby Finley, another cousin around the same age.

We left Cama and Eris to head back to Friendship for J Van’s military funeral. This was my first military funeral, so I was somewhat excited. Plus I figured I would learn something new about J Van, our neighbor who ran the little store across the street from us. It had been years since I had seen him, other than at Memaw’s funeral. When I talked with him there, he was full of laughs and a cute little old man.

However, when I pulled off of 52 to head north, the car started to shake and the check engine light came on. Instead of risking it, I decided to stop at the Shell station. I told the person inside the station that I was on my way to a funeral and I had a sleeping baby in the car. That did not put them in fast forward. Instead I took my place in the extremely tiny waiting area next to a full ashtray. A classmate of mine was working in the back office. Ironically, I had just seen a great picture of her on Facebook the week before. Very funny how people pop up like that.

We sat there quite a while and the lady next to me told me that she had been there since 11 am. It was 2:15. Once I learned that, I made sure that Alex skipped the funeral and came to pick me up. While we waited I took a couple of pictures. I could not resist.

This Shell station has lots of pictures of the old Shell station, which Sarah helped restore. It also has a layaway plan.

You read that right. “Layaway available for toys, knives, and everything else in the store.”

This is a preview of the profile of my new haircut.

Alex did rescue us. On our way to lunch, we were behind a car with http://ruralhalltaxidermy.com/ printed across the back. It obviously worked, because I could not get Rural Hall Taxidermy out of my mind.

Okay, I think that’s enough for now. This was all before the weather hit. But dinner has been served.