Category Archives: Around the world

Down by the sea

Around the world, Nate

Scene: Fisherman’s Wharf, Monterey, California. There is a six-foot tall wooden sculpture of an ice-cream sundae, advertising an ice cream shop. Dad and Nonna are admiring the many typographical errors in the shop window. Nate is admiring the giant sundae.

Nate: Dad, can I climb it?

Dad: Sure, honey, but don’t lick it.

Nate immediately licks the sundae, and giggles.

Dad (resigned): Nate, do you know why I told you not to lick it?

Nate (confidently): Because it’s made of wood.

Dad: No. Because it’s covered with seagull poop.

Nate: Oh.

Nonna laughs.

Diamonds Are Forever

Around the world, Sarah, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Friday, June 30, 2000

Sarah and I are packing for a long Fourth-of-July weekend in Ogunquit, Maine. We’ve been talking all month about buying an engagement ring. My stance is that it just wouldn’t be financially responsible to spend that kind of money right now. We seem to spend a lot on travel, and we don’t have a ton of money in the bank. Sarah is glum.

Unbeknownst to her, I have already purchased a beautiful three-diamond engagement ring. It is the single most expensive thing I have ever bought, with my car coming in a close second. It is tucked away in the soap dish in my toiletries kit (which my parents always called a “ditty bag” and her parents called a “Dopp kit,” so go figure).

Saturday morning, as we are loading the car, she gives me a big hug, and grabs my butt as she kisses me. I know she is looking for a ring box in one of my pockets. She does not believe that I would leave the ring in the car. I can feel the disappointment in her kiss when she fails to find anything resembling a ring box in my pants.

When we get to our hotel, I pull some sleight-of-hand and produce a bar of soap, ostensibly from the soap dish, and place it in the shower stall. We lock her camera in the room safe and go to dinner. I leave the ring in my ditty bag.

Sunday morning, we are scheduled to go sea kayaking. We explore the Ogunquit River for a couple of hours, and head back to our room to change into our street clothes. While Sarah is in the bathroom, I put the ring in the pocket of my cargo shorts. A huge surge of adrenaline sets my heart racing. Oh God, this is it.

We wander through town, and buy ice cream cones at the store. We buy a wooden hippo puzzle. We browse the bookstore. We decide to walk the Marginal Way down to Perkins Cove for lunch. I am playing it cool, but my heart is still going a mile a minute.

About halfway along the Marginal Way, I suggest that we stop and sit on the rocks for a while. It’s early for lunch yet and the surf is booming. As we sit down, Sarah is thinking, “This would be the perfect place for him to propose. Too bad the dope doesn’t have a ring.”

We talk about this and that: how beautiful it is here, how much we love it, and how much we love each other. I say, “Speaking of love… will you marry me?”

Sarah laughs. “Of course I will, silly.” She doesn’t yet realize that this is It.

I laugh too. “Well then. I suppose I’d better give you this.” I pull out the ring box and offer it to her with shaking hands. She is speechless; we both start to cry and laugh.

I ask her several times if she was really surprised. She was always difficult to surprise, but just this once, I got her good.

At lunch, she shows it off to the waitress, and anyone else who will hold still. She plays with the sunbeams, breaking them into a constellation of rainbows that shine on the ceiling, on her face, on me.

March 1, 2006

I am with Sarah in the Emergency Department. She refuses to believe that she is dying. As they are getting ready to intubate her, I ask her if there is anything special she would want anyone to have, just in case. “No,” she says. I give her a stern look: just in case. “Give my charm bracelets to the girls, then.” She means her nieces, Catherine and Eliza. And the charm bracelets are her most iconic pieces of jewelry. They are choked with memories. There is one charm for every trip she’s ever taken. I start to cry. She squeezes my hand and says, “Hey. I’m not going anywhere.”

October 7, 2007

Nate and I are at the bagel place with Sarah’s family. Her sister, Sue, brings up Egypt, and Eliza’s face lights up. She says, “I remember when you guys went to Egypt, Sarah had those gold pendants made for us, with our names in hieroglyphics!”

I leave Nate with Sue; I have to run back to the house for something. While I am there, I decide it is time. I go upstairs to get the charm bracelets, and to double-check that I know where Sarah’s hieroglyphics pendant and bracelet are located. When I open the jewelry box, however, I discover that it is basically empty. All of Sarah’s gold jewelry has been stolen.

The engagement ring is gone. Our wedding rings. The Egyptian bracelet and pendant. Her manatee earrings and charm. The opal she bought in Australia. The three-strand braided pearl necklace I gave her the night Nathaniel was born. The list is a long one; she loved pretty things. Bracelets, necklaces, earrings. She had a lot of jewelry.

But they left me the charm bracelets. Silver, you know. Not worth taking.

Look at this photograph

Around the world, Nate

Hi there! I’m sick. How are you?

The fever makes the words move when I’m not looking. They run off the page and go screebling up the walls like Martians. So, until I get my marbles back, here are a few pictures from our Vineyard vacation.

If you click a thumbnail image, it will take you to a larger view of the photo. You can leave general comments here, but I think you can also leave comments on the individual photo pages if you so desire.

Enjoy!

Benchmark

Nate and Nonna

dinghy dock

Menemsha whaling statue

Flying Horses

Where the horses run free

Around the world, Nate, Sarah

It must have been around 1999 when we took Annie and Ben and Lisa over to Martha’s Vineyard for the day. We bopped around Vineyard Haven for a little while, then took a cab to Oak Bluffs to ride the carousel.

The Flying Horses Carousel has been in operation since the late 1800s. It claims to be the oldest operating platform carousel in the nation, but I’ve noticed that they all claim that. I wasn’t around then, so I can’t say. The important thing is that Sarah had been riding the Flying Horses since she was a little girl.

This is the first carousel that I had ever ridden that included a ring grab. The ring machine arm is in easy reach. You can grab ring after ring, but they’re all steel. Towards the end of the ride, the operator puts the one and only brass ring into the chute, and one lucky rider grabs it and gets a free ride.

Native Islanders have perfected the multiple grab technique. I once saw Jeremy get six rings on one pass. Sarah was no slouch, either, but she had never caught the brass ring… until that day. She whooped with laughter and held it up. I think Ben took a picture. We all filed off the carousel, but she stayed on to collect her free ride with the next group of riders.

Under the cover of the crowd, I went to the concession stand and bought a souvenir brass ring, with a purple ribbon (her favorite color, of course). By the time she was off the ride, I had hidden it safely away in my pocket.

On the ferry ride home, we rode right up front in the bow of the boat. She noticed the tears in my eyes and asked me what was wrong.

“Nothing; I’m just so happy.” She started to tear up too, and gave me a big hug. I said, “I feel as if I’m the one who caught the brass ring. I’m so lucky to have found you.” Then I pulled the crumpled paper bag out of my pocket. “I bought you a present…”

The summer that Nate turned one, the weather was brutally hot. We took him to the mall fairly often, to escape the heat in their air conditioning. The food court had a big, fancy carousel, and after one of our lunches, I suggested that we take Nate on it. “No,” said Sarah. “I want his first carousel ride to be the Flying Horses.” Sure enough, it was; later that summer, we sailed over, and she took him on his first ride. He wasn’t sure what to make of it all, being so young, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Last month, my mother and I rented a house on the Vineyard for a week. It was her first time there, and I was overjoyed to be playing tour guide once more. Early in the week, we spent the day in Oak Bluffs, and of course, we had to ride the Flying Horses.

“Nate, do you remember the Flying Horses?”

“No…”

“This is the first carousel you ever rode. Your mama took you when you were just one.”

At first, he wanted an outside horse, but the inside horses are lower and much less scary, so we switched to an inside horse. I belted him in, and pointed out the ring machine. I wasn’t sure he would be able to manage it, but I held him tight, and by durn if he didn’t get a ring every time around. I was so proud as he stacked them up, six, seven, and ah, God, Sarah should have been here for this. I hid my tears from him as best I could, but he felt me sobbing. “Why are you laughing, daddy?”

“Because I’m so happy! You’re doing a great job.”

Usually I let him see me cry, but I didn’t want to spoil his moment. I managed to wipe my eyes with my shirt and put on a smile, just before he turned to show me what he had in his hand.

The brass ring.

Anywhere With You, Part II

Around the world, Sarah

My sister, Veronica, spent many years living in California. Mostly it was Santa Cruz, but she lived in Arcata while she was working on her undergraduate degree. Last year she relocated to North Carolina to go to graduate school. That’s still quite a ways away from us, here in New England, but she is living in Massachusetts for the summer. This is a rare treat; we don’t usually get to see her very often.

A few weeks ago, she came to dinner at our house. After I’d put Nate to bed, we got to have a real, grown-up conversation. She observed how strange it is that the town where we grew up no longer feels like home to either of us. We agreed that it can take years before a place starts to feel like home. She’ll be going back to North Carolina soon, but her heart is in Santa Cruz.

Veronica asked me where I considered my home to be. I had to stop and think about it.

When Sarah and I started planning a family of our own, we knew we couldn’t stay in Salem. It was a fun place to live, but it did have a few drawbacks. I never felt terribly safe living there. It’s at least half an hour’s drive to get to a major highway, and Sarah told me that the public schools were a nightmare. Sarah was living in Brookline when I met her; we loved it, but no way could we afford to buy there. So we drew circles on the map around her parents’ house, my dad’s house, and her sister’s house. I sat down with the Commuter Rail schedule, and she sat down with the public school rankings and per-student expenditures tables. We arrived independently at the same suburban town. I can’t recommend house-hunting with someone who is eight months pregnant, but it didn’t take us long to find the perfect house. We moved into our new home a little less than a month before Nate was born.

Sarah was the one who was putting down roots here. She joined the Mom’s Club, and took Nate out exploring every day. They went to the library, they found all the playgrounds and parks, they took Baby Yoga together. Now that she’s gone, Nate goes to day care, and I spend most of my waking hours at work. I have made a few close friends in town, but I can’t say with any degree of conviction that this is where I was meant to be.

Don’t get me wrong: I have no intention of moving. This is Nate’s home, if nothing else, and I want to give him as much stability as I possibly can. I do like living here, and I know it will seem like home to me soon enough.

But the question remains. If money were no object… if Nate were grown and living on his own… where would I want to be? Where do I belong?

There are a number of places where I can remember feeling at peace, but they’re not home.

Home is wherever Sarah is.

Anywhere With You, Part I

Around the world, Sarah

I was never much of a tourist. Left to my own devices, I would probably never leave the house. Sarah, on the other hand, was a world traveler. We complemented each other nicely. I reined her in from her more extravagant travel plans (“Let’s bring our infant son to Churchill, Alaska, to see the polar bears!”) and she helped keep me from growing moldy (“Let’s stay here and watch the Law & Order channel for two weeks straight!”).

When I first met Sarah, she was planning a trip to Egypt. We had been dating for only a few months when Sarah announced that she was thinking of cancelling her trip to Egypt, because she couldn’t bear to be parted from me. I knew immediately that this was a test. Is Dave husband material? I am proud to say that I passed with flying colors. “Don’t be silly,” I said. “You’ve been looking forward to this trip for years. I’ll go with you.” I was a little bit scared, but it was wonderful. I’m glad we went when we did; I wouldn’t dare to travel in the Middle East now.

Sarah took me all over the world. After Egypt, we went to Canada, England, Italy, the Bahamas, and Australia. Once we had Nate, we toned it down a bit. We took him to New Orleans when he was just twelve weeks old, and then to Hawai‘i when he was about a year old. We took a cruise to Bermuda when he was almost two.

Many of our trips were to places Sarah had already been. She wanted to show me all of her favorite places, to help me know her better. I loved London right along with her, and Venice was simply magical. But we were always glad to come home. Well, almost always.

When we staggered off the airplane in Sydney, Australia, we were completely fried. The flight was something like twenty hours long, and it would be another six hours before we could check in to our hotel. We were wandering around Hyde Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens, looking for a place to nap that contained as few venomous spiders as possible. Even through our jet-lag stupor, we were taken by how beautiful, clean, and open the city was. Our running joke was for me to pretend to be grumpy at being dragged halfway around the world, so Sarah was surprised when I said earnestly, “I absolutely love it here. When are we coming back?” If it weren’t for our family ties, I really think I could have persuaded her to move there.

Sarah’s philosophy was that one should take the trip of a lifetime every year, because one never knows how long a lifetime will be.

She was very wise.

Back in the USSR

Around the world

Hey! I’m back. Did you miss me?

I had to travel for business this week. A shout-out to Beth and Paul is in order; they took care of Nate for three nights. He had a blast, he says, and did not miss me at all. Same to you, brat.

The last time I took a business trip was also the first time, in 1999. Since then, my Corporate AmEx has been collecting dust in a drawer. Periodically it expires, and they send me a new one. About four years ago, I received a letter that said:

Starwood Preferred Guest® is pleased to offer you Corporate Preferred Guest® status in the world’s most distinguished hotel rewards program.

Well, la-di-da, I thought, and stuffed it in the drawer with my AmEx. Maybe I can earn dust points or something.

Our corporate headquarters is in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Our group uses a lot of acronyms, and the first time I heard someone refer to USR, I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. Do they mean US Robotics? And if so, are they talking about the modem company, or the one from I, Robot?

Amadis travels to USR all the time, so when I learned I would be going, I asked her advice as to how to get there. She said it would actually be way faster to drive than to take the train or fly, because none of the terminals are anywhere near the office. She also recommended that I stay at the Hilton Woodcliff Lake, because they welcome you with fresh-baked Tollhouse cookies. When I learned that I was expected to stay at the Sheraton to help maintain our volume discount, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I would bring my own toaster oven and a tube of Pillsbury cookie dough and just hand out cookies to everyone in the lobby of the Sheraton.

Scott and I left Boston at 7:00 p.m. on Monday in an effort to skip rush-hour traffic. He didn’t ask about the toaster oven in the trunk. We rented a Dodge Stratus, mostly because the dude at Enterprise didn’t feel like cleaning the Neon I had reserved. I am not used to driving such a zippy car. Scott noticed before I did that we were doing 90 MPH on the Pike. We shot by four state police cruisers at that speed, but they didn’t see us, because there just happened to be a big tractor-trailer in the center lane, blocking their view. Scott said, “Okay, you just used up all your luck for this trip. You need to slow down before you get arrested for felony speeding and I have to walk the rest of the way to USR.” I put on the cruise control.

We got to the Sheraton Crossroads (in lovely Mahwah) at 10:30 p.m., and damn if it didn’t look just like the Death Star: huge, black, and threatening. This hotel is ominous. The guest elevators went from the lobby directly to the 12th floor, and I am 100% certain that floors 2 through 11 are populated entirely by Imperial stormtroopers. I was pretty fried after driving exactly nine miles over the speed limit for three and a half hours; by the time I walked up to the registration desk, I could barely move or speak. I saw a shiny gold sign, Starwood Preferred Guest Registration; by golly, I guess that’s me.

I should have picked the other line. The desk clerk was way, way too nice to me. I just didn’t know how to cope with it. When she said, “Good night, sir!” in her sweet, breathy voice, I almost burst into tears. She had no way of knowing how fragile I was at the moment. You’re nice; will you tuck me in?

I did not encounter the same problem at breakfast. The hostess glared at us, sending a telepathic message: go eat at the diner. Grudgingly, she seated us. “You all want the buffet, right?” I looked it over. Eggs Benedict is not my thing. There was an omelette station, but no one running it. Um, no, I need a menu, please.

Twenty minutes later, when only one of us had given in and gone for the buffet, she came over to take our order. When my omelette finally arrived, it contained a handful of mushrooms at one end, and a quarter-pound, inch-thick wodge of cheese at the other. I didn’t have time to send it back, so I ate it, but I immediately wished I hadn’t.

Eventually, the waitress brought the check for the entire table, but we were mostly novice travelers, and we weren’t sure if that was a good idea; separate checks, please; sorry we didn’t tell you that up front. I hate you all.

Fully half an hour later, she was still wrestling with the register. The manager was there, and I think they were on hold with the cash register helpdesk. As we are all senior support technicians, this struck us as riotously funny. Scott could barely restrain himself from walking over to the register, and saying, “You know what? We’ll take it all on one check after all,” just to see her head explode.

The drive back took a lot longer, mostly due to rush hour traffic. I got home at 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, and my cat was dangerously excited to see me. “MEOW! MEOW! MEOW!”

“No,” I said. “Mahwah.”