Phew. Back to normal.
A week ago last Friday we drove down south to Ted’s family reunion. We actually left Thursday night and stayed at the lake house – it’s just about halfway and we hadn’t been there for a month (he had bronchitis the weekend we would have gone). That gave us a chance to get some rowing in but also to water the plants – it’s been such a dry year that not only the blueberries (which we planted, and water whenever we’re there) but also the wild blackberries have had a very small crop this year. The Japanese maple we put in last year is brown around the leaves’ edges, but hopefully it will survive.
The reunion went well; it included Ted’s grandfather (who is about 93) and almost all of his descendents. We got to meet a couple of the littler ones for the first time, including a tiny girl only ten days old. So that was fun. That was only on Saturday afternoon; the rest of the time we were hanging out with Ted’s parents and his brother and family, who were also visiting. My Evil SIL was on good behavior the entire weekend; I’m pretty sure she still isn’t all that fond of the rest of us but was polite and pleasnt to be around whenever she was around. She had a bad cough, recovering from bronchitis (or something) or her own, which gave her a good excuse to get away and go lie down away from everyone, and to skip the reunion gathering itself. That seems to me to be about the best way to deal with people whom you dislike but the rest of your family want to spend time with, so I think she did well. Unfortunately the parents in-law have been so badly hurt by her over the years that they tend to assume the worst interpretation of anything she says or does – for instance, not wanting your kids to have a memento of an event *could* possibly be more about not wanting to bring home clutter than about wanting your kids to forget the people they were with, though admittedly he could have handled that better even under the best interpretation. In addition, I have to give her credit for raising some excellent kids. The BIL seems to be their main carer, but still, the kids were perfectly happy to be with or snuggle up to their mom, so I think she has to get a share of the credit too. They were a delight to have around – even when they were tired, they just retreated and nestled up to their parents instead of being cranky, and they were fun to play with most of the time. And I’ll be shocked if the younger one doesn’t end up an engineer like Aunt Dichroic and Uncle Ted, or some sort of maker.
We got home Monday and had a few hours to prep before picking up Mom at the airport and beginning her visit. We covered a lot of the state this week! Tuesday was a sternwheeler “cruise” on the Columbia Gorge up by Cascade Locks. Mom decided she wanted to try kayaking, so Wednesday I worked a half day, took Mom to Powells, then we headed down to the lake. We had a couple of goriously relaxing days down there; I got in a row Thursday morning before taking her out in a tandem kayak. One good thing, she has no false pride – she doesn’t mind admitting she’s tired or something is hard. So she’d paddle with me and I’d coach her a bit (because putting in your paddle flat instead of perpendicular to the surface is not going to get you anywhere!), then she’d stop and rest and I’d keep paddling. Because she wasn’t trying to overpower the stroke it was actually easier to go straight(ish) with her than with others I’ve shared a kayak with. She was exhausted after that excursion, but I think it was the novelty – Friday morning she came out of her bedroom already in a bathing suit, annoucing she was going kayaking again. So I took her out again, and that time she paddled much more of the time but seemed a lot less tired afterward (we didn’t go as far, though).
We’d made a reservation beforehand, so after driving bck up to Portland with enough time to rest before dinner, we went out to the Chart House, which has a nice view over the city. The sad part is that due to assorted forest fires and maybe some dust, even from there we couldn’t see Mount Hood. She never did see it, though we were in lots of places where you’d normally have a beautiful view of the mountain.
Saturday we did a lot of walking – first was the Saturday Market. We’d talked about doing a tour of the Shaghai Tunnels, but apparently you need reservations and I didn’t want to be locked into a schedule, and also the reviews were very mixed. It sounds liek you get a lot of well-told stories (that may not be true anyway) but only see a couple of basements. So instead, at Mom’s request, we stopped off at the zoo on the way home. We hadn’t been there before anyway, and it’s a decent zoo, though we’ve had sort of a hard time appreciating zoos since going to South Africa in 2009 (see below). Sunday we went to the coast. Astoria Column is in wraps, being redone, but the views are almost as good from the base. From there we went to see Lewis and Clark’s winter fort, then out to Fort Stevens for a view for the mouth of the Columbia. The water was much calmer than last time we were there; we’d been telling Mom stories of dramatic surf throwing froth up above the seawalls, but it wasn’t like that this time.
Yesterday we had to work, so Mom got to relax and try out the pool at our housing complex, then we had dinner and took her to the airport. It was a good visit overall. There were some annoyances; I think Mom is getting forgetful, she has the worst sense of direction of anyone I know (I have taken to simply steering her where she needs to go), she can’t see things that are right in front of her (though her actual vision is fine – she’s just not used to anything but cities and people, and also not used to being observant in new environments) and she’s fairly clueless about the fact that Philadelphia is not the center of the universe. On the other hand, she’s the nicest person you could ever meet, and has a much better heart than I do. But Monday night was the first time in a week and a half we had in our house on our own and it sure was nice. It would have been even nicer if I hadn’t had to plunge into a 1.5 day workshop that reqruied me to get to work at 6AM!
About Africa: we may be going back next year! Ted’s parents asked us a couple of years ago to plan a trip for their 50th anniversary, next year. We hadn’t been workig on that because he’d spent the time trying to get an answer from his brother about whether theyd be willing to go on the trip, in which case we’d have had to plan something kid-friendly and not to inconvenient for them. Looks like they can’t go, so we mentioned some options to the parents-in-law – Africa, a Galapagos cruise, the trans-Canadian train, etc. THey were hesitant about Africa due to general nervousness and the length of the trip, but seem to be talking themselves into it. Yay! After spending most of our vacation this year on assorted reunions, I am determined to spend next year’s on adventures – granted this trip would involve family too, but we’d be doing something that is pure fun so having them along would just be a bonus.