Babs Woods, Boxboro, MA, 01719 Feb. 20, 1995 How We Spent Our Weekend, or The Wedding Trip 2/2/95 Stay up way too late packing and waiting for the laundry to finish, we decide to stay up just a little later and watch the Shuttle Launch. Successful. "Go with throttle up", and no explosion this time. I'm glad there's a woman pilot and all but it's sort of silly. Given the amount of training and expertise it takes just to be chosen she's clearly extra-ordinary. The fact that her number came up and she pilots this mission is not. Once you reach the ranks of the Astronaut Corp, gender should simply no longer be an issue. 2/3/95 5:30 am: Get up rather reluctantly, take a shower. 5:50am: Go out and slop the boids. 6:35am: Got out 5 minutes late, not bad. Usually itŐs 1/2 hour, hour, whatever [when you have kids to get out of bed this early it really slows things down, but Sprout was good about it this time]. Get to Logan, park at the wrong gate. Drag all our luggage, there's a reason it's called that, to the right gate. Plenty of time but a long walk. Six yr old getting a bit crabby while walking. Froze outside on the way, she'd really needed the gloves we'd left behind so she stuck one hand in my pocket as we walked. I really needed that hat we'd left behind. Spent much of the first leg of the journey out to Seattle translating a letter written in 1920 in German by a Polish-speaking Polish cousin. He apparently had run from [probably Polish] conscription in 1918 to Dresden (I like him more already!). I found a bunch of relatives I didn't know about in this letter. My German is absolutely marginal, at best, but jfw had studied it in school and we were able to piece this together reasonably well with only our knowledge and one of my German language textbooks. I feel like Manuel in Fawlty Towers: "I speak German very well, I learned it from a boook." Not with my head up a Moosehead, no. ================ Things to do in Seattle Survive Church Wedding goto Archie McPhee's Visit RichG Visit various t.b folks (Never got to see RichG, a non-net friend. It was unbelievably busy.) Reader's Digest from the plane on the Chitown-->SeaTac leg: p. 188, Jan, 1995 issue. (Used without permission, of course.): "All in a day"s work "My brother's company sent him to Norway for several months to install a computer system. He and his colleagues worked 70 to 80 hours a week, leaving him little time to see the sights. Still, knowing how much he enjoys experiencing different cultures, I was interested in his observations about the customs of Norway. "Say something in Norwegian" I suggested. "Trykk en tast for a fortsette," he said. Translation? "Press any key to continue" -Contributed by Denise Meier" ================ The Sprout is actually hungry, quite the rare occurrance, so we wait and wait. The drink cart comes by, we get things to drink. She gets pop and proceeds to play with the ice when it's done. She's really hungry, "I want lunch" is repeated several times. Jfw quips to me that it will be here "as soon they finish slopping First Class" ================ The Sprout, playing with her new Travel Magna Doodle, writes out "Jack Quit". (They've been ringing various changes on Jack and the Beanstalk in school this year.) She wriggles a lot, spills some soda in her lap. Jfw says he'd thought we should have brought an extra set of clothes. I say "tough". YOU'RE NOT PARENTS, *ARE* YOU? FLY FLY FLY FLY FLY FLY FLY FLY I don't do this very often. It's 3:50pm Boston time. I've had enough flying, can we teleport now? It's too far to walk. ================ Thoughts from the first leg: Do flight attendants, who are often gone for weeks at a time, have pets? Who watches those pets while they're gone? Do they have houseplants? Gardens? Do these people have real lives? What's life like for them on the ground? Do they know what unfiltered air is? Can they breathe unfiltered air, or like fish do they just die when removed from their normal habitat? Do they still smile like that when they sleep? Do their children remain the same age while their parents are away? ==================== Sprout has now put Magna Doodle up to side of head, to draw own profile, one assumes. Do all kids do this? Or is it just mine? ==================== Trying to perfect the drawing and finding her father asleep she asks me for help with her head. I decline. I'm having enough trouble with mine as it is. ==================== We've got about another hour in the air. ==================== 2/4/95 Discoveries made last night: My elder niece, Lisa, is a real goof. My sister-in-law Sharon gave her a cat for xmas. She and Lisa then wrapped it up in a box and put holes in the box and left it under Mr. Tree. Lisa's little cousin Christopher, on Sharon's side, discovered the cat in the box under the tree and pointed it out to Lisa. Everytime someone came nearby and made a noise the box emitted cat noises and sounds of kitty motion. Eventually they opened it up and took the cat out to play with it. This is a mechanized cat, very lifelike, because Lisa isn't allowed pets in her dorm. The cat's first outing was to a restaurant. She placed the kitty on the table with her and played with it. Its tail wagged, it meowed, it disturbed some of her restaurant neighbours. The waitress came over to tell her another table's patrons had complained about her cat. She showed the waitress it wasn't real and the waitress was very amused. She asked if she could bring it to the other table and show it to them. Once they'd seen the cat they apparently became rather sheepish. ================== Around my little-brother-in-law-the-lawyer's house are these groups of knick-knacks and some stuffed animals, mostly bears, plus random individual chatchkelas. This is basically a showplace home for Cathy to return to between trips for work. Place is neat as a pin, hardly even know they have cats, they're so well-behaved and neurotic. Very, very skittish kitties. They also have this bizarre plant on the kitchen counter. It is a potted plant and consists of a bulb or huge seed, an enormous stalk-like stem, and a huge flower bud. Chuckles says that this is supposedly about to flower a nice red flower today. We hope to photograph this but not even Chuckles knows what this thing is. [We later saw this flowering into three flowerbuds, each opening at a slightly different point than the others so it wasn't synchronized very well. We still don't know what it is and hope the pictures come out.] ================== [This is the day of Chuck & Cathy's wedding, 2/4/95. It is a Catholic Mass.] Got woken up by one of the cats playing in the middle of the night with a toy with a bell in it. Asked Chuckles about it in the morning, "oh, that's her collar". Great. During the Catholic Mass, various quips came up among the family members. Towards the end when the faithful choke down the bits of the wafers it was introduced as "The Lamb of the Lord". As Best Man, JFW was up on the stage by the altar. He later reported to me thinking at that moment: "The Lamb Vindaloo o The Lord". The ritual of the cleansing of the cup made him think of "The Dishwasherof The Lord", and then during the Communion Procession one of those too young for Communion appeared to have The Pacifier of The Lord. He also observed that this is the time when it was actually appropriate to stick your tongue out at a priest. At "The Lamb of the Lord", I turned to Lisa and, upon hearing it, whispered in her ear, "Are we supposed to get mint sauce with this?", and we both cracked up as quietly and discreetly as we could. (Since we were The Family of The Groom, we were all up in the front right pew, so we were on display.) In the wafer line was a young woman maybe six months pregnant who took the Host. I turned to Lisa and expressed some doubts that this woman should be practicing cannibalism at this particular point in her life. The priest saying "Cathy, you look beautiful. Chuck, you look ok." I suppose it was his version of an ice-breaker. We all laughed, dutifully. One of the women kneeling right behind me groveling "I'm not worthy" about accepting the Host. What bothers me most about such rituals is the self-debasement involved. Groveling has never made much sense to me. At the Reception it was surprising how many people were there, around 300, I think. They'd all somehow fit into the Church. The bride's an only child like me, so I didn't know where all these people came from. Babs: Where do all these people come from?! JFW: I think they come from the place all people come from. Babs: Where, "Loins'R'Us?" The reception was videotaped and Groomsmen and Bride's Maids were all interviewed. JFW said they'd better make a good go of this because he wasn't coming all the way out here again to do it over. Later his toast was that he hoped the marriage lasts longer than the plane ride and is more enjoyable. Most of the rest of the party is a blur of Republicans and meat. It was still fun, though. Cathy was very glad we'd had fun at her wedding. ====================== A few weeks ago, we think, my mother-in-law had Arthroscopic Knee Surgery. She will tell anyone she's had this done, so I doubt I'm violating any secrecy act by telling you this. She will lift her skirt to show you the scar while volunteering to also show you the videotape of the surgery. I'm not sure she asked for the tape to be made, but she has a copy. She was offered the chance to stay awake and watch, but chose a general anesthetic instead, out of nerves. She showed me her scar, and I told her, "You know, it used to be LBJ's Appendectomy scar." She actually laughed, I was amazed. She is among the most singularly humorless individuals I have ever known. (Her entire family comes from Texas, as well.) ====================== Chuckles' teakettle seems to have a guitar pitchpipe (woebetide them!) for a whistle, and makes the most obnoxious noise (to me). And I play guitar. You'd think I'd be used to that noise. ====================== Chuckles has a jug of Hershey's Syrup. No, let me start this again. JFW calls it The Chocolate Pump Of Death. 7.5lbs of Chocolate syrup in a jug with a big pump spout. It turns out that they can buy a lot of stuff in bulk but they chose this. It's in the 'fridge. ====================== Flipped through the Erte' book of lithos on their coffee table, great tome of Flapper-era profiles and the Ideal Flapper Body Shape. Man, that's pretentious stuff. Must tell the folks on H-Costume. Erte' died several years ago at 90+ and seems to have had a fashion sense which remained completely gaga over and fixated on the Flapper Era for at least her fashion sense. I like Art Deco and all that but this seemed really excessive to me. ====================== Morning after. We're trying to fall asleep before The Sprout comes for us far too early. Jingle-jingle. I nearly sleep through it, but for JFW all-but jumping out of bed. It's Elizabeth or Beatrice sitting at the top of the steps above us and looking down. No toy. Collar. I tell him. I tell him he can lie down now. Please. Really. We are not owned by cats at our house, but I used to be and I know what to do. ====================== The trip Back East was mostly pretty uneventful, primarily a sleepless, streaky smear of more Republicans and meat. We got home far too late, my car almost didn't start in 9F weather with heavy winds out at Logan, and the first things JFW managed to chatter out were "New battery. NOW." We still haven't had the chance to get one. And mine is the *good* car. We traveled the entire way both ways in steerage in DC-10s, Super 80s they're called now, but I still think of them as little more than DC-9s. As JFW, who once did a stint at Boeing's and whose father worked most of his life for them, pointed out over the din, at least Mr. Boeing's aircraft have synchronized engines. With each flight we moved back a seat, until we had moved from row 28 to row 32. We will never get that part of our hearing back. X, please do something about those planes. -babs