Flotsam / Jetsam

Year in Review

Here is a thing that some other people are doing, in which one takes the first sentence of the first post of every month from one’s blog and puts them in one handy-dandy post. Some of my first posts were poems or articles or other things that I didn’t actually write. I’ve skipped those. (Click on the month to see the whole month.)

January: “We finally got to see ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ this week.” (What an exciting start.)

February: “I’m trying to get back to trying out one new recipe each week.” (Ha ha! That didn’t happen.)

March: “Grandpa Rick came to see Poppy for a few days.” (He’s going by “Papa” these days.)

April: “Laini and Megg have started a new weekly challenge called Sunday Scribblings with the intention of providing ‘inspiration and motivation for anyone who enjoys writing and would like a weekly challenge.’ ” (I don’t remember when I stopped doing this. But I did stop.)

May: “I was so pleased to find a lot of time to read while we were vacationing.” (“The Known World,” “Cloud Atlas” and “March.”)

June: “David Caruso is an ‘actor’ in only the Affleckian sense: He gets paid to appear on screen.”

July: “I have to admit it: When I first saw what this week’s Sunday Scribblings prompt was, my immediate thought was of Two Peas in a Bucket, a Web site dedicated to scrapbooking.”

August: “My nephew Wilson climbed up on the couch with me yesterday evening and said, ‘Aunt Nikki, I love to cuddle with you. I wish you were my bear.’ ” (This one is my very favorite.)

September: “I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been supportive of us recently.”

October: “Tonight I made Thai Shrimp Noodle Pouches and No-Bake Granola Bars from the October 2006 issue of ‘Everyday with Rachael Ray.’ “

November: “This site began as an assignment.”

December: “Rockford took me to see ‘Casino Royale’ tonight.”

….. the end …..

On the Road

Home again, home again (jiggity-jig)

We had a great time at my dad’s. Poppy and “Papa” really bonded this time, I think.

But.

It’s so good to be home. To my own bed and my own shower and my Rockford.

Yesterday was a very long day. We left Detroit about half an hour late. It was a very quick jaunt to Chicago, but the flight still worried me. Poppy was very wriggly, and the Chicago-Raleigh flight was going to be almost two hours. In Chicago, Poppy was (amazingly) content to ride around the concourse in her stroller for the whole layover. I wanted to stop by the Ben & Jerry’s store, but the line was pretty long and I didn’t think Pi would stand for being still for that long. So we walked on by.

The flight from Chicago also left late, this time because we were waiting for people connecting from another flight. I know I would have been grateful if I’d been the one rushing for the flight, but as the one sitting on the plane with a restless toddler? Not so much. But a very nice lady sat next to us, on the other end of a three-seat row, and she played with Poppy for nearly the whole flight. I’m marking her down as a blessing.

And then there was another blessing: Poppy’s face when she spotted her daddy. She looked a little confused at first; our little napless wonder was so tired. She saw him, and she said, “Daddy?” And then she said, “Daddy! Daddy!” And it was like I wasn’t even there for the rest of the night. It was lovely.

So lovely, in fact, that it hardly phased me at all when I was standing and standing and standing at the baggage-claim carousel and watching the luggage go by and standing and standing until the conveyer belt stopped. There was still a crowd of us there, and we just stood there for a minute, waiting for it to start again. There were too many of us there. There had to be more bags.

However. There were not. They were all done.

The airline lost all of our bags.

  • my clothes
  • Poppy’s clothes
  • my camera download cord
  • my battery charger
  • a bunch of Poppy’s toys, including Pooh Bear
  • my reading journal
  • my purse (just the purse; I had all of my stuff in the diaper bag, with me)
  • my bathroom kit, which means my face feels like its going to fall off because I don’t have my face cream

    The baggage claim lady was optimistic that we’d get everything back today. But she would be, wouldn’t she? And she was right! The delivery guy just called to confirm our address!

    • Reading

    Thar She Blows…my personal challenge

    Okay, I’m throwing down the proverbial gauntlet…at my own feet! Last night I purchased Moby Dick at the local bookstore. It come complete with neat maps and drawings and a tiny dictionary to help me understand the lingo of the high seas! My goal: read a chapter a day until I’m finished. I am thinking I may even do little updates on the blog each day.
    I plan on beginning my siege of Melville after I finish Blood Meridian which, at the rate I’m going, should be around February (ha-ha-ha — actually more like next week.) Anyway, I’ll make sure to post when I begin the personal abuse. Of course some would say that going from Blood Meridian to Moby Dick is just a continuation of abuse.

    Whatever, man.

    Call me Ishmael.

    ….. the end …..