Back from vacation

Boos and I are home from our trip and I'm feeling the usual post-holiday droop -- or rather, the usual post-holiday mood swings. One moment I'm depressed, thinking of the peaceful, spacious times with my family, and the next moment I'm cheerful, thinking of all the things I want to get done this month. Then back the pendulum swings, as I think of all the hard work required to do all those things and how lovely it was just to sit around in California. And so on.

In my last post I worried about the one crucial thing I was forgetting -- it turned out to be more than one, but the first one I noticed was the power supply for my laptop, whose battery no longer holds a charge. I have two power supplies, so there was no excuse for forgetting one -- except that I did. Forgot that there was a need to bring one, which seems very Alzheimerish, but there you are. I'll probably never do that again, just as I'll never again forget my phone charger (which I forgot last summer).

Being cut off from my laptop, and thus the internet, was weird. Although my sister takes two papers, I rarely had time to read them, and so missed out on some major news. I was talking to someone on the phone Friday when she casually mentioned the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and it wasn't until sometime later that I heard about the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare -- and I wanted to read all about the reactions to them online, but I couldn't. I also, of course, couldn't read my email, couldn't blog, couldn't google things, couldn't work on my writing projects (OK, I could have handwritten something)... Instead I read novels, always a favorite pastime, and most nights got to bed early. But it felt weird.

In consequence, Rocket Boy and I have decided that we are definitely getting smartphones (something else to forget the charger for). Check back with me at the end of the month and see if we did. We're serious this time. I think.

I'll probably write about the vacation in a few blog posts, but here's a start. Boos and I took the bus to the airport last Wednesday and then flew Southwest to San Jose.

All the way, on the bus and the plane, Kid A kept asking me when we were going to get there. It was an interesting variation on "Are we there yet?" because to that you can just say "No!" but Kid A's question was harder to dismiss. Each time I would look at my watch and try to figure out how much longer it would be, but the bus was late and the plane was late and it was hard to calculate.

Aunt Nonny met our plane in San Jose and helped us get our rental car, etc. I just realized I never took a photo of the rental car. It was a Dodge minivan, absolutely enormous. The whole time I had it, I was afraid I'd smash into someone or something. I've never been so glad to return a rental. Fortunately, I didn't have to drive it much.

The focus of this trip was my niece's graduation from community college, so we didn't really do anything else -- except a baseball game on Sunday. No zoo trip, no beach trip, no exploring, no visiting anyone. We barely ventured out of Los Altos. The wonderful place we stay has a gorgeous pool, so we went swimming a couple of times and the boos had fun playing with these remote-controlled boats.

I didn't go in the first time (an extra 90 lbs makes wearing a swimsuit in public a little daunting), but a few days later when I wanted to go in, I discovered, or rather didn't discover, Forgotten Item #2 -- my swimsuit. Despite my planning to bring the suit, getting my swim bag out of the car and bringing it into the house and setting it next to my suitcase, the swimsuit did not magically leap out of the swim bag and into the suitcase. I'm going to call that a psychological forgetting on purpose, not Alzheimer's.

We spent most of our time at Aunt Baba's house, where one small room is always converted to a toy room for the boos. Different toys appear each time we visit. Here are the boos with their cousin in the toy room.

It's funny -- they used to fit in here better than they do now. I suppose around the time they don't fit at all, the toy room will disappear, perhaps forever.

The graduation was Friday night, and boos did not go -- they stayed home with their cousin Josh and his dad, who arrived that afternoon from LA. I think they had a good time, and they would NOT have enjoyed the long, long ceremony (850 graduates, many of whom were present and marched up to the stage to shake hands and have their names read out). Still, the boos were intrigued by the idea of the graduation and wished they could go. Their cousin modeled her cap and gown for them (Kid B, shown here, felt that she looked like a black ghost or a zombie in it).

I enjoyed the graduation very much, despite its length, and was sorry to leave early -- but the boos needed to be taken home and put to bed. Yes, it went on and on, but I'm a sucker for "Pomp and Circumstance," even played eight thousand times in a row, as it was here. 

I was also impressed by how happy and proud the graduates were. I don't usually think of a community college degree as a big deal, but a lot of these kids were about to start jobs as veterinary technicians, respiratory therapists, dental hygienists... Useful, important jobs. Others were transferring to four-year colleges, including UCLA, Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO, etc. I found myself wanting to congratulate everyone there, not just my niece. It was a fun time.

OK, back to real life  -- more tomorrow, perhaps.