Blinkers.

Gary Larson has an anniversary card that I love.  It shows a man looking into a fridge. On every shelf there are rows and rows of butter sticks.  The text shows the man shouting over his shoulder,
"Honey, do we have any butter?"

Man brain is something I have come to accept and even love.  It is a source of much laughter in my home.  I reserve a certain amount of smugness for my superior multi tasking female brain.  I have delighted in the high female to male ratio that we enjoy in this house.  This house will not have to deal with the constant hand holding of man brain.

So, how do we explain this?

Yesterday the four year old lost her mind over her missing 'purple baby.'  Tears were shed at high velocity. She was inconsolable.  In her mind purple baby was lost forever. I enlisted the nine year old to hunt down beloved purple baby.  I will admit we have more than your average number of stuffed toys and dolls and so it's not surprising that purple baby is lost somewhere in the pile. However our home is what realtors describe as cozy so there are only so many places it can be. The girls searched for at least ten minutes.  No baby was found.  The tears got louder.  I put down my laundry, knitting, skillet (OK Facebook) and went to join the hunt.

Here's the bedroom as I found it....

No joke, no exaggeration. This is exactly how I found the room.

Sigh.

Close Call.

I'm a geek.  Not a useful geek, the kind that's a whizz with computers and gadgets - in that arena I am more neanderthal.  No I'm a geek about 'things' I want to know the inner workings.  I want to see behind the scenes.

I think I inherited this trait from my Dad.  His crowning achievement was when he took apart a pair of my mum's shoes to see how shoes are made.  The sad part (for Imeldas around the world) is that he took apart a brand new pair.  Only a man would think that just because a new pair had been purchased, the older - nay vintage - pair were finished with. Only a man would confuse the supposed done with pair for a brand new shoe.  The phrase "let this be a lesson to us all" rings in my ears but my pursuit of inside knowledge is unstoppable.

To that end, we went to The Museum of Flight in Seattle.   If you ever find yourself nearby - do go.  It's entirely fabulous.  It is geek nirvana (as Seattle also provides Nirvana nirvana there is pun intended,)  but also caters to the mildly curious and the completely uninterested.

I sat inside a stealth bomber and enjoyed a Mach something or other experience.  I wandered down the hallowed halls of Concorde - a plane that had intrigued me ever since I saw it fly into Edinburgh airport  more than thirty years ago. Yes it's really teeny and one can only imagine they had to hire especially teeny flight crew - the aisle was about six inches wide. I tried to guess which seat was Elton's favorite and I marveled at the ultra tininess of the cockpit - who flew this thing Lilliputians?  I found myself humming the Top Gun theme song as we surveyed the MiG's and I cried at the tragic stories of war planes and hero's and space pioneers.

Then, we went to see Air Force One.  Since my hot date with Barack earlier this year I have been feeling the Presidential connection so it was with great excitement I climbed the stairs.  This was a JFK era plane.  JFK.  The president of all presidents and I Geekout McGeekerson was going on his plane.
It was everything I could have dreamed off.  I got to see where they hung his jacket, stored the briefcase, where he sat, his private lounge (anyone else thinking Marilyn?)  Where they made his food and coffee and even his bathroom.  My little geek cup runneth over at that kind of access and detail.  It was fantastic.  Until, I see my four year crawling under the plastic barrier to retrieve something appealing.  Then I spot the security cameras.  The something appealing was glued down but as we all know that's not a deterrent to any child, so as she set about making it hers I pictured myself in Gitmo.

I have a tone of voice reserved just for this very type of occasion - I deployed it.  Somethings skip a generation, thankfully somethings skip altogether.  The four year old does not have her Grandfather's wrecking skill and the "item" is still safely glued down in Air Force One.

Next time I will satisfy myself with the inner workings of a park swing or slide.

Sleepless in Seattle.

I am on vacation.  Not really.  A parent is never on vacation (unless the kids are not there.)  What I mean by that is - I got on a plane and went to a different city to meet family.  I am staying in a very nice rental house and am driving a quite lovely mini van.  It is as vacation as family vacation gets.

The view from the deck of the rental house is an embarrassment of panoramic riches.  Seattle across the Puget Sound with all of it's twinkling, city lights and oh so iconic Space Needle to one side.  A snow covered and majestic Mt. Rainier to the other.  I have shopped in a supermarket that I don't know intimately.  I am cooking on a different stove and serving on earthenware plates I would never choose for myself.  This is vacation.

I'm not really complaining.  There's a hot tub - complete with above mentioned view.  We have eaten out quite a bit.  Every day has been an adventure, filled with treats and delights.  It's just that it doesn't feel like vacation.  I still have an enormous list of daily imperatives.  I am still cooking every day.  I am still doing laundry. I am still going to the market and making sure homework is done.  In addition flights = germs, so the four year old and the husband are sick.  We had to take the four year old to urgent care.  The parent wheel never stops spinning.

I want vacation to mean lazy mornings.  Breakfast at noon.  Lots of books.  I want to spent hours in a museum looking at the things that interest me not looking for the kids play area.  I am well aware this makes me sound spoiled. (I am.)  Some people never get vacation.  Some people long for family vacations.  But this is the life I live - where vacation seems like a dangled carrot.  Where all that is my everyday life just comes with me - no matter how far away I fly. My bed is made and I will lie in it - mostly eternally grateful - but sometimes sleep deprived and with longing.