Vacation Part ii

J was totally immersed in the WWII Memorial, asking questions and then standing silently to absorb the meaning of it before finishing the walk to the Lincoln Memorial.

The tiny plane zoomed to the ground, 6 passengers aboard, M in the seat behind the pilot. My first clue came when the ground crew opened the window by a passenger’s head to pull down the boarding stairs; my second was when another crew opened the wings to retrieve luggage. This is an up-close-and-personal commuter flight, relatively new to the PA-BWI airport circuit. No, M didn’t know how small the plane was when she booked the flight, but it cost her $50 to fly here, rather than my driving to BWI to pick her up last night. The good news is that the flight took 30 minutes, was smooth, not bumpy, and comes within 10 miles of home for my commuting daughter; the bad news is that it’s really a tiny plane. Thus ends the DC part of the vacation.

Wednesday, J and I trudged to the Cosi at the DC corner so he could wi-fi (his I-Pod is his new best everything) as I only paid for one 24-hour connection ($12.95). We returned to the hotel to finish the last bit of packing, called for the bellman and our car, and armed with what we assumed were good directions, headed back to PA. We only made 2 errors, the first pretty soon after leaving the hotel, but it turned out to have far less traffic than the way we were programmed to travel, so it was a good error. Down the road, we didn’t go left around Baltimore, but right, and after missing that exit, we also flew past another that would have turned us west toward I-83. No matter; we found our way and made it home, J off to find his posse and I to start the laundry. I timed him out much too early, but he’d been on the road for 3 weeks, so I thought to slow him down a bit and re-establish a better routine than bed at any-time hours and waking up whenever. After he jammied up, we put on a movie, made some popcorn, and enjoyed Homeward Bound for about the zillionth time. It also gave us time to talk and come down from all the going here and there we’d been doing. It was a much happier, more well-rested g’son who crawled out of bed at 8 am the next morning -- his choice -- because we had no groceries!

At Wal-Mart, J found several items that he had to buy -- I’ll pay you back -- and I finally confronted him on that strategy doesn’t work for me grounds. I reminded him that he can ask, but he cannot put items into the cart and inform me that he’ll pay me back. Yeah, that didn’t sit well, but I don’t like being manipulated. I collected my money as soon as we walked into the house, but I know he was thinking I would just pay. Wrong. J wanted to make meat loaf for dinner, which he did, but he was a bit pushed by my offering a couple of cooking tricks, rather than the dump all the stuff into the bowl, pound it to a pulp, mash it into a loaf pan, and put it into the oven for a while. I also showed him how to make “real” mashed potatoes, but he objected to slightly heating the milk and butter before pouring it SLOWLY into the mashing pots, rather than dumping the whole thing and dealing with the consequences. And he doesn’t cook frozen peas, but he allowed that I could heat my serving if I insisted: I did. We had a great dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, then went next door for swimming in the neighbor's pool.

Friday we did our shopping early again as it was my favorite day: neighborhood movie day. We invited in a group, had pizza delivered, sucked on popsicles, popped corn, and made it through one full movie and part of another before becoming distracted. Each one of the invitees is responsible for preparing and serving part of the fest, but I did the clean up my self as it began raining. I suggested they all go outside and get wet, which they did: they are all 11 or 12, still kids, so they played tag, red light/green light, and hide ‘n seek in the rain. I called the party off at 5 so J could shower, pack his overnight bag, and be ready for his time with his dad.

During the day, I made an owed apple pie to thank the neighbor for fixing the garbage disposal (I didn’t do anything: there was something down it that M knew about but thought she had removed), but the pie wasn’t my best effort. I also made a rustic fruit tart that turned out well, but I forgot to decorate it with the apples I had already peeled and sliced! Guess it wasn’t a good baking day. Oh, well.

I’m not sure where we’ll go or what we’ll do this weekend, but it’ll be quiet as M is exhausted. I’m hoping to entice her into a chick flick, the one with Kathryn Heigl, but my dotter isn’t easily entertained by mindless driven as am I. J will be back on Monday and Tuesday is another Movie Day, while M has a lot of work to do. I'll work on a project she needs done while I'm here, so she can see if it's what she wants, and then ship the rest of it home so I can finish it up for her before I go back to work in August.

Time does fly when you're having fun, and I'm having fun!