What about Bob?

Eight years ago today my father-in-law passed away. He and my mother-in-law were married for 38 years. They had two children, a daughter whom I befriended in third grade and a son, who I married in 1993 thus getting the sister I always wanted, in addition to a husband.

"They" say that time makes it easier. What exactly does that mean anyway? Does easier mean that the painful memories of his passing fade away and are slowly eclipsed by the happy memories that preceded them? If so, I guess this is true. Still, I feel cheated by his early departure from our lives, and from the lives of our children.

Yesterday in the car, Thing 1, displaying her characteristic sensitivity, expressed her sadness that she will never know him. I told her that she was so lucky to have had a relationship with his mother, her great-grandmother, who lived five years longer than her son. Thing 2's take on it: Isn't tomorrow a holiday? Daddy says it's a holiday and that we're going out to dinner to celebrate. Special day = celebration when you're six.

Bob lived many years with heart disease so it wasn't a surprise to us that he passed away earlier than his contemporaries. But that didn't make it any easier. He grew up as an only child and wanted us to have a large family. He tried to talk me into it on many occasions, in fact. Forget science for a moment: I am certain he had his posthumous hand in our twins' arrival.

He would be so proud of the things his son has done in the last eight years, especially his greatest accomplishment, stepping off the technology treadmill to spend more time with his daughters.

As I mentioned, Bob's mother outlived him. We were so blessed to live within a mile of her those last five years and we visited her multiple times each week. (This was as much for my own sanity as for her well-being. When you have newborn / infant / toddler / preschool twins you are looking for an easy outing and this was it! It's the exact opposite of taking your kids to a restaurant. They run around like crazies, make a lot of noise, and the residents of the assisted living community love it and beg for more.) I consider it one of Bob's greatest gifts to us to move his mom to a home near our house. The pinks have many, many memories of their great grandmother and I find comfort in that when July 31 rolls around.

Wisdom from dear 'ole Dad

We had dinner with my folks tonight. I'm still not packed for Thailand. In fact, I'm a little unglued at the thought of being halfway around the world from the kids. I've resolved myself to the fact that the trip there and back will be miserable. I just pray that the person sitting next to me on the plane does not smell.

I mentioned to my Dad that I'm afraid that there will be a natural disaster or something of the like while I'm away. (After all, my friends Hilarie and Steve were in Hawaii on 9/11 and it took them a few days to get back home to the nanny and the kids. This stuff does happen.)

Dad's sage advice: only worry about things you can control. He's a wise man. Thanks Dad!

I'm going to pack now.

School clothes shopping

Eldest daughter and I began her school clothes shopping today. She's 10 and, in this past year, has become brand conscious. I'm not surprised, given where we live. However I was hoping we'd go another year or two before this happened. No such luck. Our days of Hanna Andersson and Gymboree are gone.

I'm trying something new this year. I hate to admit it but I learned this one from my parents. It's the Clothing Allowance. Of course my father's version involved a year-long spreadsheet and distributed payments. (Are you reading this, Dad?) I must have been older when this started. Our version is simpler, involving one lump sum, distributed by me today, in cash. It's what she can spend on her school clothes until she hits another growth spurt and needs more.

So today, cash in hand, we went to our local shopping district. We started in Nordstrom, where shopping is always a pleasure, and then went to Macys, where the service is indifferent at best and where the merchandise is crammed on rounders. In between we went to the luggage store, where I bought an electrical adaptor for Southeast Asia. An adaptor is different from a converter. Yes, I'm still working my way through my Thailand list.

She bought things at each, including one significant designer purchase. Let's hope she likes it for a long time! I kept my mouth shut except when asked a question regarding fit. Tomorrow we'll pop by the local mall, where she'll check out Hollister and Abercrombie. My guess is that she'll spend the rest of her wad in late August, when the stores fill with fall clothes, instead of just having summer clothes on sale.

The best of both worlds

We had friends over Saturday night to watch the television broadcast of the Hannah Montana / Jonas Brothers concert. It's a pink thing, trust me on this. Paige came over with her twin daughters, who were in kindergarten with Thing 2, and her youngest, a sweet three-year-old with white blonde curls.

Nails were painted. Toys were pulled out. Brownies and chips were consumed. And then the concert began. After an hour the girls bored of it and disappeared upstairs to play. I pulled out my secret weapon: Wii Fit. We laughed until we cried. Paige is a pretty good hula hooper and slalom skier! I'm pretty sure she spent most of Sunday online trying to score one for herself.

Blogging is proving to be a good diversion from my Thailand to do list. I did manage to procure the aforementioned reading material over the weekend, and call my cellular provider. My cell phone apparently does work in Thailand. Please, only call me if it's an emergency. Email's just fine for everything else. And if you do feel compelled to call, keep in mind that the time change is +14 just in case the emergency is something like you're pregnant with twins.

Two down, three to go

Loads of laundry, that is.

Eldest daughter is home from sleep-away camp. I missed her the most right before we picked her up. She, however, did not miss me as much as I missed her. I temper the bittersweetness of this by patting myself on the back and saying, "Good parenting, Leslie. She's independent." It did not take her long to tell us that she wants to go for a month next summer. Oy!

The drive to camp takes us north on Highway 29 from Napa to Calistoga and then into the mountains. Every time we drive this road I am in awe that we live so close to perfect beauty. People come from all over the world to experience the Napa Valley wine region and it's an easy 45 minutes from our home. Every time we go there I vow to visit more than twice a year and it just doesn't happen. Please come visit! I will take you to the Wine Country.

After we retrieved her, we had lunch with one of our daughter's bunk-mates and her family in the city of Napa at Taylor's Refresher, which is a diner with all organic food, very Californian. Then we walked next door to Copia, the American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts. It'd been a few years since we'd been and the Edible Garden has grown in nicely. The kids picked fresh blackberries (from a thornless bush, no less!) and explored. En route home we stopped by V. Sattui, the winery that Dave and I married at in 1993. We married Memorial Day weekend that year, in a torrential rainstorm. It was the first time it had rained on that date in 99 years. People told us that it's good luck if it rains on your wedding day. They also told us that it means you will have lots of children. I found that funny. I'm not so much laughing anymore.

As I type, I've got a very healthy dinner going in the kitchen. Steaks. Artichokes. Broccoli. Pasta. I'm not sure exactly how much protein Eldest Daughter consumed while she was away. I've already fed her my special brownies, the ones loaded with spinach you cannot taste. (Thank you The Sneaky Chef cookbook.) I guess I'll know soon enough if she reads this blog.

Last weekend I painstakingly painted her bathroom turquoise, otherwise known as Benjamin Moore's Spa Blue. She was thrilled to discover it done when she got home -- we had planned to do it together this summer. I'm glad she liked it because it's my impression that the amount of time she will spend in her bathroom will only increase over the years.

Tomorrow's a workday for me and I will be onsite at my client. I fully expect her to do what she did last year -- sleep 15 hours straight. She should be getting up as the clock approaches noon.

The countdown

Dave is forcing me to go on vacation this summer. He and my girlfriend secretly planned it then told me about it. I resisted. I can't just fly halfway around the world for kicks. I work. I parent. I have responsibilities. Eventually they wore me down so I'm going. And I'm happy about it. But I'm also starting to panic a little. Mostly about the actual travel to said vacation spot. Which is Thailand.

Each summer Neeracha goes back to Thailand for about a month to visit her family; I'm going, too, but just for a week. I'm renting an apartment in the luxury complex she rents in every summer. My apartment is 800 square feet, comes with venerable 5-star-service, and is $136/night.

I leave in six days. I called Japan Airlines this morning because my seat number did not appear on my e-ticket. That's when I learned that because I bought the least expensive airline fare, my seat assignment takes place at SFO right before I depart. Ugh. I'll die if I have to sit in the last row for the entire flight. San Francisco to Narita is 11 hours. I lay over for two hours then fly 6.5 more to Bangkok. Where I arrive at midnight. I leave Thursday and arrive Saturday. I will have no Friday next week but when I return the following week, I will get two.

There's no way about it, the trip is just long. I'm not sure why that's making me crazy, though, since I'll be by myself. It's cake when you're not entertaining little kids. Three summers ago I cashed in frequent flier miles and flew with two of the three pinks to Italy. They were 7 and 3 at the time and we did the Milk Run. San Francisco to Toronto. Toronto to Frankfurt. Frankfurt to Rome. Then a three-hour train ride from Rome to Siena. It would have all been good and fine had we not missed a connection and arrived in Siena in the middle of the night, long after taxi service had stopped. It took 28 hours in all. Dave claims that my recollection of the languages I studied in college becomes greater under duress. This was the case; I was damn near fluent in Italian that night.

Then there's the issue of what to do while sitting on a plane 18+ hours each way. I've loaded my iPhone up with some new games, music, podcasts and Season 4 of Sex and the City. I've checked JAL's web site for the in-flight entertainment options. I'll knit. This weekend I must pick up some reading material. This requires more than just popping into Barnes & Noble and buying whatever jumps off the shelves at me. I can't buy anything that Dave might like to read, too, because I will never bring it home. I have to buy things that I will read then leave in Bangkok for Neeracha to read next. And if you think I'm a voracious reader, let me tell you about her! Bonus points are awarded if I pick something her husband, Sean, will enjoy, too.

Things I must do before I leave:

Go through my files for all the articles I've pulled on Thailand since we were there eight years ago.

Wrap up my work projects.

Call AT&T and see if my iPhone will work there.

Wrap the gifts I bought for Neeracha's kids.

Figure out then shop for what I will bring to eat on the plane in case I hate what's being served on board.

Refresh myself on Thailand fashion do's and don'ts.

Figure out how how to bring home a Spirit House, the one thing I did not buy last time that I still want really badly!

Create 17 pages of instructions using 10-point type in Excel on the kids' activities for Dave and Rosa.

Charge my digital camera and find the cable so I can download pictures to Neeracha's computer while I'm there and blog.

Go through all the designs from Project Runway in case I want to have any of them knocked off
But before I get to these things I've got other, more pressing matters. The Hannah Montana Best of Both Worlds Concert is on TV tonight and the pinks are having friends over to watch it. We've got things to prepare!

Locks of Love

By complete fluke I took the youngest pinks for haircuts this week. Dave has been doing it the last six months but his golf game ran long on this particular day so I went.

When we arrived, Thing 1 insisted she wanted just a trim. "I want to be Rapunzel." And this child has long hair so she doesn't have far to go. But then she just had a change of mind and gave Janet the sign to whack it all off. Now she's sporting a classic bob and wow, it's cute! Her features just pop. I was completely shocked that she made such an impulsive decision. After all, this is the child who can kill a full hour just deciding what to wear. There was just enough to donate to Locks of Love.

Here's the irony: Eldest Daughter has had long hair -- classic dancer's hair -- for the last five years. I've long wanted / begged / encouraged her to have enough cut off to donate. Nope. She's pretty attached to it. Then Thing 1 just does it spur of the moment. Won't she be shocked when she gets home from camp?!