That's our word for today: Resiliency.
When we picked Darcy up on her last day of school at Klamath River Early College of the Redwoods (KRECR), she came with bags of gifts from her class and after-school program, and a pea seedling in a plastic cup. The pea had five or six leaves at most and barely peeked over the top of the cup. We didn't have high hopes of keeping the pea alive as we drove straight from KRECR to Ashland, OR (Bed #2 for those keeping track), and beyond across this great nation.
The pea mostly lived in one of the back seat cup holders, where it got a little sun most days. On the first desert-y days, we watered frequently and took it into hotels at night to prevent freezing. In St. Louis, it found a cozy kitchen window with our friends for two days, high above the reach of curious cats. It lived for almost a week in my parents' south-facing windows and for a week and a half in the shadowy light of Bed #16 with the great view.
Over the five weeks (FIVE WEEKS) since the pea joined our traveling circus across the country, it has survived and occasionally thrived. It wasn't getting enough sun at Bed #16 and had grown pale, but it is soaking up the rays in abundance at Bed #17. I expect it to make a full, deep green recovery.
Like the pea, the pea's caretaker-in-chief has also demonstrated her resiliency over the past five weeks. She misses being in school and we hope to have her registered next week, as soon as we know which house will become our next permanent bed. She has put up with all 17 beds with grace and (mostly) good humor. She has entertained herself with a limited collection of her own things and has taken opportunities as they've been presented (anyone else been massaging fan-tail pigeons recently or riding their bike around a hotel's empty parking lot?).
We hope to hear today whether our offer on our first-choice house is accepted and then the pea and the girl can settle in for the long haul and put down more permanent roots.
Bed number 16 is quite comfy and has a beautiful view in the morning:
It has its own bridge that leads from where we can park to the house:
And it has more beautiful views from the dining table. The first day, Darcy and I watched an osprey flying around while we ate lunch:
This view includes my car (on the left) and the bridge (on the right). And of course, the stream. I think we figured out what the stream is, but I've forgotten again.
What our house does not have, most unfortunately, is internet service. It's supposed to and it has a wireless modem that flashes its seductive lights at us around the clock, but there is a password required for access and nobody seems to be able to tell us what that is.
Although it's hard to be completely sad that I have to come to the lovely Patisserie Fauchere for internet, there have to be some limits on how many of their pastries I consume for the sake of using their free wi-fi. This morning, I tried to be restrained and had one of their homemade English muffins. A revelation of crispness! But I can't pretend that I can still blog every day when I am constantly seeking internet connections. The patisserie isn't open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, for instance.
I'll blog when I can and enjoy the views of bed number 16 while we search for bed number 17, which will hopefully be our own!
There are many jobs in our modern era that are much easier to imagine having if you were childless and preferably single, so you didn't have to worry about the amount of time you were spending at your job.
I think in previous eras, there might have been even more of those sorts of jobs and if I were choosing one of them, I would choose working on this mobile post office. This is one of the cars we got to tour at the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton. It's a car that was leased to (or by? I don't remember the exact relationship) the railroad, but it's a fully self-contained post office. It is amazing, but I get the feeling that the postal workers pretty much lived their whole lives on the train. Not good for maintaining relationships.
What do you say, Auntie Best? In the days before airplanes would have let you teach yoga around the world, would you have joined me on this post office car?
Permanent housing may still be beyond reach right now, but we will be moving into semi-permanent temporary housing Friday afternoon! We finally found an available vacation rental at an affordable price. It has some interesting quirks, including a long, wooden pedestrian bridge from the parking to the house, but it is reasonably well-located and definitely beautiful.
One of the other quirks? Dial-up internet. Oh goody. Haven't had that since Alaska. Hopefully, I can get photos to upload to Blogger without timing out constantly.
While I can still post photos (although it took a long time), anyone recognize these two trees?
Woo-hoo! I didn't even have to stay up past midnight to see our President re-elected to a second term! Good work, American voters! President and First Lady Obama, congratulations -- so glad you get to stay in the White House for another four years!
When we were in St Louis, we drove by our old house on Liermann Ave. It was looking about as we left it, although with new basement windows, I think. The house wasn't perfect, but we enjoyed it.
Today, I started looking at houses in our new home. It was a bit of a reality check. I visited five houses and only one was a realistic option for us. I will be continuing to look.
Unfortunately, I'm also having to continue to look for a temporary living situation as well. We had hoped to extend in our current hotel for another few nights as it has a kitchen, but when we asked, we found that they already have booked it. So we're moving to bed number 15 tomorrow, but I booked it through Sunday because I'm having so much trouble finding a longer-term temporary house.
Keep your fingers crossed for us!
Ok. So I am tucked in bed and it is very comfy. It is also the 14th different bed I've slept in since October 18th. There's something slightly wrong with this picture. We were supposed to be in a medium-term rental (like 30 days) last Tuesday.
However. I am grateful that I have a bed to sleep in, with electricity, heat, and running water. We passed through so many communities without power on our way from my parents' house back to the Delaware Water Gap. A week after the worst of the storm and there are still huge trees being held up by nothing but the power lines. There are major intersections that still don't have power for the traffic lights. It is unbelievable.
We went to the St Louis Zoo while we were hanging out in the old 'hood. I left to drop bags at our hosts' house and Michael and Darcy continued on to the Insectarium and other joys. I missed going to see the penguins, which made me sad, but they had a great time. Darcy loved identifying the butterflies and getting up close and personal with them.
In case you are reading this and have never been to St Louis, let me share one of my favorite things about the city: many things are (or at least were) free. I once stood behind a family of four paying for their afternoon at the Museum of Natural History in New York and their bill was $84!! There are an awful lot of families in New York who could virtually never afford to take their kids to the museum at that price.
But when we lived in St Louis (and I believe at least some of this is still true), the Art Museum, the History Museum, the children's Science Museum, and the Zoo were all free. When the most-amazing Van Gogh exhibit came to the art museum, you had to pay to see that. Unless you went on the free day each week, which I did. Twice. The Missouri Botanic Garden wasn't free, but for St Louis residents, it was only three bucks.
When I first lived in St Louis, the zoo, the art museum, and the history museum were all within (long) walking distance of my apartment. On nice days, when I had to get away from my books for a short time, I'd sometimes walk over to one of these fine institutions and wander around for 15-20 minutes and walk home. It was awesome. If I'd had to pay to get in, I'd never have done that, but it gave me a great destination for a break without feeling like I had to get my money's worth and stay the whole afternoon.
We did pay when we went to the zoo on this visit because there are extras that aren't free: the zoo train, the carousel, the petting zoo, etc. For ten dollars each, we got a pass into all those extras for the day.
In other words: Go St Louis!!
(I could also get a ticket to a Cardinals game for under 10 bucks. I'm guessing that's not possible in the new stadium.)
So I had said that I was doing daily blogging in October and NOT in November, but now two of my fellow bloggers (see my blog roll on the right side of the screen) appear to have taken the leap for NaBloPoMo. And I feel that it's partly my fault. I obviously did not blog yesterday (and I missed a couple/few days in October, too), but I'll try to keep blogging daily through November.
It is after 11, I just helped paint a ceiling while my laundry dried (isn't that what you do when you're doing laundry at 10 o'clock on a Friday?), and I'm feeling very, very sleepy. So here are a few pictures to get you through until tomorrow:
(Oh. And for those keeping track, we are now at my parents' house for the weekend, we do not have temporary housing for our return to Pike County on Sunday, and we have not looked at a single house for our permanent residence either. It looks like the Dingmans Ferry Post Office pegged us right: We are transients!)
On our drive east from St Louis, we stopped to see our friend Jim and Karla and their boys, L and BabyL. We were terrible about getting a picture of the whole family and photos are loading very, very slowly, so these are my offerings for tonight. WashU folks will recognize Jim showing Darcy how to shoot a bow and arrow, with BabyL's legs just visible on the right of the photo. BabyL very nicely fell asleep in my arms while we were outside. In the bottom photo, L was throwing leaves at Michael while Darcy was playing with Paddington. Yes, Paddington and Nutmeg, dogs formerly of St Louis, are alive and well in Indiana.
It was too short a visit, but much better than no visit at all. We had never met either of their boys and now we have! Hopefully, there will not be time for two more children to be born before we see them again!
