Monday, June 19, 2006
Our recent life up until NOW...
As with any good tale, you have to know some of the backstory in order to fully appreciate everything that’s happening during the main event. This first entry will hopefully provide some of that so that you’ll know more about what’s going on in our lives and why some things – like Father’s Day – slipped by without so much as a blip on the radar screen.
To start with introductions, for those of you who may not know us very well – We’re Eddie and Larry. We have three kids, T and J (boy/girl twins) who just turned 13, and C, who’ll be 11 come August.
Eddie organized the trip. He found a pseudo-group (travel separately, stay in the same hotels, but basically on your own except for a few hours of tours together in each city) it on the internet, thought it sounded interesting and we decided that would be the vacation this year. In February, 2005, we had our inaugural trip to Europe when we went to Italy with 12 other people, mostly from Catawba County (come to think of it – 11 of them were nurses!).
In preparation for the trip, as we could, we’ve been watching all the travel videos, listening to podcasts and reviewing the travel books on the places we expect to go. Eddie’s also found guides for us over the internet. He did this last year for Rome and Venice, and we had incredible guides to lead us through the labyrinth of sites available. Otherwise, I can see how you’d be easily overwhelmed with all there is to see and do.
To tell you what we’ve been doing to get ready, though, we have to back up a little bit to tell you what the home life has been like.
Let’s back up to early June – the 3rd, to be exact. This was the date of the annual “Dining for Friends” event which benefits ALFA, the local HIV – AIDS service organization. The premise is easy – invite a bunch of people over for dinner, and ask them to donate whatever they’d have spent for a comparable night out to the organization.
Mind you, we’ve not had a fully functioning kitchen since last Thanksgiving. There hadn’t been running water since Valentine’s day, so inviting 150 people over for dinner is a real attention-getter.
Contractors, being what they are, also work on their own time. It has little to do with earth years, unless you consider glacial time. They also all apparently purchase absolutely the cheapest cell phones available, since you call, leave a message and the response is, “The phone must have dropped the call.”
Be that as it may, the painters were leaving the house at 9:00 on June 2nd, water ran out of the faucet, into the sink and down the drain just as God had intended, and we were set for business.
Well, almost. The yard needed attention, and there was the last minute cleaning that couldn’t occur until the last contractor had left the building. See, the renovation involved some drywall work. Imagine, if you will, that you took a 10 pound bag of Gold Medal flour and allowed your 10 year old child to walk through the house flinging it in the air as you operated a leaf blower, making sure to get it back in all the cracks, closets, drawers and other hidden spots. Of course, it serves to magnify those spiderwebs 10 ft. in the air where they weren’t really bothering anyone, but now that you know they’re there they look like they might form into a noose and swoop down and strangle you in your sleep.
Our good friends Tim and Sally, formerly of Hickory and recently of Leesburg, VA, came all the way back to help us with the last minute prep. Without them and Mickey and Berry, who co-hosted the event, we would have been sunk. They jumped in like the troopers they are and helped clean, mow, blow and otherwise make us look like presentable folk.
About 50 people showed up for dinner. Given that similar parties were happening all over a 4 county area and there was some competition among the guest lists, we considered that a good showing. Our party raised almost $5,000 of the $94,000 collected that night, so it was a decent showing that speaks to the generosity of the people in Hickory.
About 9:00 (which, many of you may recognize as not too long before bedtime for us most of the time) everyone packed up and went to the Rock Barn Country Club for the grand finale, desert, drinks, a silent auction and a dance. We ended up staying up WAAAYYYY later than normal, but a good time was had by all.
Sunday was spent in some recovery. Our respite was short lived, though, as HGTV was coming to film the house for the show “If These Walls Could Talk” on Friday the 16th.
If you don’t know, the premise of this show is to try and ascertain the history of the structure based upon the things that you find that have been left behind by previous owners. There was stuff a-plenty when we took over here, part of the sales agreement being that the sellers (the children of the original owners) didn’t have to clean anything out prior to closing.
Not knowing exactly what they would want, it was necessary to kick into overdrive to clean those places that polite people wouldn’t normally look, lest we come across as more eccentric than usual on national television.
Mo (or “Maureen”, when her mother is ticked at her) was an absolute godsend in that regard. She kicked into the basement and sorted, stacked, organized, tossed and washed with great abandon. With a natural tendency toward diplomacy, she was able to work through my packrat issues to have meaningful discussions of exactly WHY I needed 8 paint rollers, 215 electrical outlets (some used) and enough sandpaper to smooth an entire forest of raw lumber, to put things in bins to “go live somewhere else”, whether that be a garage sale or as a donation to some thrift store, or to be snuck out to the trash when I wasn’t looking. (She thought I didn’t know, but I KNEW!).
Most of that effort, unfortunately, was for naught. The TV people took one look around the basement and decided that I was to pretend to find one of the treasures in the one corner of the basement that wasn’t cleaned or organized and where, in fact, we’d stacked everything that we couldn’t put anywhere else.
The TV people arrived with a crew at 8:30 in the morning. The kids were there to watch the events and it was a fun day overall. They were extremely polite and respectful of the house and asked before they moved or adjusted anything, and at the end of the day they put it all back where it had been before.
They left at 5:00 straight up. That left just over an hour before we had to be at a friend’s birthday party across town.
Now, you’d think after all that we could have a little R&R on Saturday, right? After all, the flowerbeds still need weeding (despite the drought, the weeds seem to keep right on coming), there’s still laundry and groceries and all those other chores, but nothing “extra” on top.
Not so.
The Hickory Sunrise Rotary Club had it’s 2nd annual car show on Saturday, the 17th, and as a member, participation on my part was not only expected it was MANDATED. The convertible came out from under the cover and off we went to the fairgrounds.
Don’t ever think that parking cars is an easy task. Even if all you do is point where they’re to go, for next year I’m going to rethink my committee assignments and look for something that requires you to work in the shade, like the food committee. I can deal with the sun, but the humidity combined with the heat takes it out of this Oklahoma boy!
No rest yet, though – Eddie’s folks were coming in, and the kids and their mom were coming over to celebrate a belated birthday and Father’s day.
For those of us who thought that Father’s Day was a week later, it was quite a shock. having opted for the easy road, though, we just bundled up to go out for dinner.
Sunday, once again, was a day of “catch-up”. We started pulling out clothes to go on the trip only to find that some of our favorites had shrunk up from sitting in the closet too long. I think it’s the NC humidity that causes that. Anyhow, when faced with the reality that you can’t suck in your stomach for an entire 2 week vacation, we headed out to buy those things that are necessary – travel size toiletries, jeans, etc.
Being 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday, of course, the only thing open is Wally-World. Although as a rule we avoid them, necessity dictated that we make this annual pilgrimage to get those things not otherwise available.
If you go to a Super Center, you don’t have to go to the gym that day. Especially if you forget the milk which is ALL THE WAY IN THE BACK ACROSS THE STORE.
Finally, on Sunday, there was a bit of rest between pulling out the clothes to pack, pulling out the luggage, moving the water hoses to try and keep the plants alive (although if all those grapes ripen up I have no idea what we’re gonna do with them all) and trying to get a little office work done, it was still a full day.
So here we are – a mere 4 days away from climbing on a plane to Budapest / Vienna / Prague for a vacation. Eddie’s organizational skills are serving us well as there are lists to check off to make sure that we take all the flimsys and skimpies that we’ll need, that the electricity will stay on while we’re gone, and that we can navigate in places where we not only don’t understand the language, but don’t recognize much of the alphabet, either. I’m just trying to memorize what the money looks like so I don’t end up giving a cab driver a $200 tip after I mis-convert fundage that doesn’t look familiar to me.
That, and making sure that the plants are watered, someone’s looking after client emergencies and getting the father’s day presents that should have gone out last week into the mail this week and hoping that some paternal feelings will buy me an element of forgiveness.
Friday around lunchtime we’ll go to Charlotte to climb onto Lufthansa and fly overnight to Frankfort, Germany, where (if there aren’t any delays) we’ll then go to Budapest to start the adventure. The others in the group aren’t arriving until Monday. Hopefully we’ll be able to get internet access and post to this to keep everyone informed of where we’re at and where we’re going and what’s happening.
Feel free to send comments, suggestions, critique – anything but bad news. The house burns down or somebody dies – we don’t wanna know. Across the world, can’t do anything anyhow, we may as well enjoy the rest of vacation.
As with any good tale, you have to know some of the backstory in order to fully appreciate everything that’s happening during the main event. This first entry will hopefully provide some of that so that you’ll know more about what’s going on in our lives and why some things – like Father’s Day – slipped by without so much as a blip on the radar screen.
To start with introductions, for those of you who may not know us very well – We’re Eddie and Larry. We have three kids, T and J (boy/girl twins) who just turned 13, and C, who’ll be 11 come August.
Eddie organized the trip. He found a pseudo-group (travel separately, stay in the same hotels, but basically on your own except for a few hours of tours together in each city) it on the internet, thought it sounded interesting and we decided that would be the vacation this year. In February, 2005, we had our inaugural trip to Europe when we went to Italy with 12 other people, mostly from Catawba County (come to think of it – 11 of them were nurses!).
In preparation for the trip, as we could, we’ve been watching all the travel videos, listening to podcasts and reviewing the travel books on the places we expect to go. Eddie’s also found guides for us over the internet. He did this last year for Rome and Venice, and we had incredible guides to lead us through the labyrinth of sites available. Otherwise, I can see how you’d be easily overwhelmed with all there is to see and do.
To tell you what we’ve been doing to get ready, though, we have to back up a little bit to tell you what the home life has been like.
Let’s back up to early June – the 3rd, to be exact. This was the date of the annual “Dining for Friends” event which benefits ALFA, the local HIV – AIDS service organization. The premise is easy – invite a bunch of people over for dinner, and ask them to donate whatever they’d have spent for a comparable night out to the organization.
Mind you, we’ve not had a fully functioning kitchen since last Thanksgiving. There hadn’t been running water since Valentine’s day, so inviting 150 people over for dinner is a real attention-getter.
Contractors, being what they are, also work on their own time. It has little to do with earth years, unless you consider glacial time. They also all apparently purchase absolutely the cheapest cell phones available, since you call, leave a message and the response is, “The phone must have dropped the call.”
Be that as it may, the painters were leaving the house at 9:00 on June 2nd, water ran out of the faucet, into the sink and down the drain just as God had intended, and we were set for business.
Well, almost. The yard needed attention, and there was the last minute cleaning that couldn’t occur until the last contractor had left the building. See, the renovation involved some drywall work. Imagine, if you will, that you took a 10 pound bag of Gold Medal flour and allowed your 10 year old child to walk through the house flinging it in the air as you operated a leaf blower, making sure to get it back in all the cracks, closets, drawers and other hidden spots. Of course, it serves to magnify those spiderwebs 10 ft. in the air where they weren’t really bothering anyone, but now that you know they’re there they look like they might form into a noose and swoop down and strangle you in your sleep.
Our good friends Tim and Sally, formerly of Hickory and recently of Leesburg, VA, came all the way back to help us with the last minute prep. Without them and Mickey and Berry, who co-hosted the event, we would have been sunk. They jumped in like the troopers they are and helped clean, mow, blow and otherwise make us look like presentable folk.
About 50 people showed up for dinner. Given that similar parties were happening all over a 4 county area and there was some competition among the guest lists, we considered that a good showing. Our party raised almost $5,000 of the $94,000 collected that night, so it was a decent showing that speaks to the generosity of the people in Hickory.
About 9:00 (which, many of you may recognize as not too long before bedtime for us most of the time) everyone packed up and went to the Rock Barn Country Club for the grand finale, desert, drinks, a silent auction and a dance. We ended up staying up WAAAYYYY later than normal, but a good time was had by all.
Sunday was spent in some recovery. Our respite was short lived, though, as HGTV was coming to film the house for the show “If These Walls Could Talk” on Friday the 16th.
If you don’t know, the premise of this show is to try and ascertain the history of the structure based upon the things that you find that have been left behind by previous owners. There was stuff a-plenty when we took over here, part of the sales agreement being that the sellers (the children of the original owners) didn’t have to clean anything out prior to closing.
Not knowing exactly what they would want, it was necessary to kick into overdrive to clean those places that polite people wouldn’t normally look, lest we come across as more eccentric than usual on national television.
Mo (or “Maureen”, when her mother is ticked at her) was an absolute godsend in that regard. She kicked into the basement and sorted, stacked, organized, tossed and washed with great abandon. With a natural tendency toward diplomacy, she was able to work through my packrat issues to have meaningful discussions of exactly WHY I needed 8 paint rollers, 215 electrical outlets (some used) and enough sandpaper to smooth an entire forest of raw lumber, to put things in bins to “go live somewhere else”, whether that be a garage sale or as a donation to some thrift store, or to be snuck out to the trash when I wasn’t looking. (She thought I didn’t know, but I KNEW!).
Most of that effort, unfortunately, was for naught. The TV people took one look around the basement and decided that I was to pretend to find one of the treasures in the one corner of the basement that wasn’t cleaned or organized and where, in fact, we’d stacked everything that we couldn’t put anywhere else.
The TV people arrived with a crew at 8:30 in the morning. The kids were there to watch the events and it was a fun day overall. They were extremely polite and respectful of the house and asked before they moved or adjusted anything, and at the end of the day they put it all back where it had been before.
They left at 5:00 straight up. That left just over an hour before we had to be at a friend’s birthday party across town.
Now, you’d think after all that we could have a little R&R on Saturday, right? After all, the flowerbeds still need weeding (despite the drought, the weeds seem to keep right on coming), there’s still laundry and groceries and all those other chores, but nothing “extra” on top.
Not so.
The Hickory Sunrise Rotary Club had it’s 2nd annual car show on Saturday, the 17th, and as a member, participation on my part was not only expected it was MANDATED. The convertible came out from under the cover and off we went to the fairgrounds.
Don’t ever think that parking cars is an easy task. Even if all you do is point where they’re to go, for next year I’m going to rethink my committee assignments and look for something that requires you to work in the shade, like the food committee. I can deal with the sun, but the humidity combined with the heat takes it out of this Oklahoma boy!
No rest yet, though – Eddie’s folks were coming in, and the kids and their mom were coming over to celebrate a belated birthday and Father’s day.
For those of us who thought that Father’s Day was a week later, it was quite a shock. having opted for the easy road, though, we just bundled up to go out for dinner.
Sunday, once again, was a day of “catch-up”. We started pulling out clothes to go on the trip only to find that some of our favorites had shrunk up from sitting in the closet too long. I think it’s the NC humidity that causes that. Anyhow, when faced with the reality that you can’t suck in your stomach for an entire 2 week vacation, we headed out to buy those things that are necessary – travel size toiletries, jeans, etc.
Being 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday, of course, the only thing open is Wally-World. Although as a rule we avoid them, necessity dictated that we make this annual pilgrimage to get those things not otherwise available.
If you go to a Super Center, you don’t have to go to the gym that day. Especially if you forget the milk which is ALL THE WAY IN THE BACK ACROSS THE STORE.
Finally, on Sunday, there was a bit of rest between pulling out the clothes to pack, pulling out the luggage, moving the water hoses to try and keep the plants alive (although if all those grapes ripen up I have no idea what we’re gonna do with them all) and trying to get a little office work done, it was still a full day.
So here we are – a mere 4 days away from climbing on a plane to Budapest / Vienna / Prague for a vacation. Eddie’s organizational skills are serving us well as there are lists to check off to make sure that we take all the flimsys and skimpies that we’ll need, that the electricity will stay on while we’re gone, and that we can navigate in places where we not only don’t understand the language, but don’t recognize much of the alphabet, either. I’m just trying to memorize what the money looks like so I don’t end up giving a cab driver a $200 tip after I mis-convert fundage that doesn’t look familiar to me.
That, and making sure that the plants are watered, someone’s looking after client emergencies and getting the father’s day presents that should have gone out last week into the mail this week and hoping that some paternal feelings will buy me an element of forgiveness.
Friday around lunchtime we’ll go to Charlotte to climb onto Lufthansa and fly overnight to Frankfort, Germany, where (if there aren’t any delays) we’ll then go to Budapest to start the adventure. The others in the group aren’t arriving until Monday. Hopefully we’ll be able to get internet access and post to this to keep everyone informed of where we’re at and where we’re going and what’s happening.
Feel free to send comments, suggestions, critique – anything but bad news. The house burns down or somebody dies – we don’t wanna know. Across the world, can’t do anything anyhow, we may as well enjoy the rest of vacation.
posted by me | 3:27 AM
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