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Good to be "home."
Jul. 4th, 2005 10:05 amMichael's off in the wilds of Kentucky for the week, at the national convention of the National Federation of the Blind. I packed the car up with damn near everything Alex owns and drove up to my parents' house in upstate New York. I'm having such a nice time.
The car trip went surprisingly well. It was easier to drive Alex 250 miles through three states than it is to drive her across town at rush hour. She slept most of the way, interspersed with brief periods of low-level fussing. The only time her crying ever got serious was just a few minutes before the lunch stop I had planned. After an interval of feeding and playing in the restaurant, she was ready to get back in the car and fall asleep again.
Staying with Grandma is very pleasant. I wake up in the morning and hand the baby off to my mother while I eat breakfast, wash up the previous night's bottles, and shower. In the afternoon and evening, chances are that one of my nieces or my nephew wants to hold the baby and play with her. And Alex is all smiles, delighted to have so many people around.
Saturday we all went up to Seneca Lake for the 60th birthday party of one of my dad's former partners, who is also the father of one of my oldest friends. I hadn't seen Adam since before he had kids - he now has a two-year-old and a four-month-old. We spent a lot of our catching-up time rocking back and forth with our babies slung on our chests, to the amusement of our parents' friends. Alex charmed everyone - at one point, Adam said, "I think she's just looking around for more people she can smile at." I handed Alex off to my mom for a while, thinking I would swim, but was thwarted by the weather. After weeks of sultry temperatures, Saturday never got warmer than the low seventies, and the breeze was stiff. Not warm enough to tempt me into a glacial lake, thank you very much.
Last night we had a surprisingly good dinner. My parents live in an old rust belt city that's been decaying since about the time I was born, and there have been long stretches in which there were no good places to eat. But now there's a lovely Italian restaurant called Tonino's, with food similar in quality to what I'd expect from Baltimore's Little Italy. I had chicken saltimbocca, a chicken breast topped with a thin slice of prosciutto and some melted provolone cheese, in a sherry-sage sauce, on a bed of wilted greens. My only quarrel with it was that my mother had enough leftover eggplant parmesan to bring home for today's lunch, and I didn't have any leftovers at all.
Wednesday I'll be taking my younger sister to a Japanese steakhouse, because she's "always wanted to go." Also in the plans: going to an old-fashioned outdoor ice cream stand, providing my twelve-year-old niece with an intensive babysitting clinic, learning how to make my mother's lemon bars, and finishing up my beta of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
therealjae's latest story. It's going to be a good week.
The car trip went surprisingly well. It was easier to drive Alex 250 miles through three states than it is to drive her across town at rush hour. She slept most of the way, interspersed with brief periods of low-level fussing. The only time her crying ever got serious was just a few minutes before the lunch stop I had planned. After an interval of feeding and playing in the restaurant, she was ready to get back in the car and fall asleep again.
Staying with Grandma is very pleasant. I wake up in the morning and hand the baby off to my mother while I eat breakfast, wash up the previous night's bottles, and shower. In the afternoon and evening, chances are that one of my nieces or my nephew wants to hold the baby and play with her. And Alex is all smiles, delighted to have so many people around.
Saturday we all went up to Seneca Lake for the 60th birthday party of one of my dad's former partners, who is also the father of one of my oldest friends. I hadn't seen Adam since before he had kids - he now has a two-year-old and a four-month-old. We spent a lot of our catching-up time rocking back and forth with our babies slung on our chests, to the amusement of our parents' friends. Alex charmed everyone - at one point, Adam said, "I think she's just looking around for more people she can smile at." I handed Alex off to my mom for a while, thinking I would swim, but was thwarted by the weather. After weeks of sultry temperatures, Saturday never got warmer than the low seventies, and the breeze was stiff. Not warm enough to tempt me into a glacial lake, thank you very much.
Last night we had a surprisingly good dinner. My parents live in an old rust belt city that's been decaying since about the time I was born, and there have been long stretches in which there were no good places to eat. But now there's a lovely Italian restaurant called Tonino's, with food similar in quality to what I'd expect from Baltimore's Little Italy. I had chicken saltimbocca, a chicken breast topped with a thin slice of prosciutto and some melted provolone cheese, in a sherry-sage sauce, on a bed of wilted greens. My only quarrel with it was that my mother had enough leftover eggplant parmesan to bring home for today's lunch, and I didn't have any leftovers at all.
Wednesday I'll be taking my younger sister to a Japanese steakhouse, because she's "always wanted to go." Also in the plans: going to an old-fashioned outdoor ice cream stand, providing my twelve-year-old niece with an intensive babysitting clinic, learning how to make my mother's lemon bars, and finishing up my beta of
therealjae's latest story. It's going to be a good week.
