Our Lady of Jet Lag

New York

Sun, 8 Mar 2009 14:03:41 +0000

With the one and only nice day of weather predicted for the week upon us, I booked a cycle tour of Central Park! Six miles around the park, Henry’s comment: “I need to bicycle more, I feel very weak.” We followed the cycling with a power lunch of pizza.

Henry spent a good deal of the time not marveling at the sights such as the John Lennon memorial garden because he (Henry, not John Lennon) was worried about his homework. Yes, the teacher gave Henry vacation homework.

So it was off to the New York Public Library (the one with the lions). We started in the small but bright and cheery children’s department where Henry researched ancient Greece among children with their nannies. This seemed strange to me - who sends their kids off with a nanny on a Sunday?

Eventually, Henry needed a dictionary to look up Greek root words. (Did you know that “planet” comes from the Greek word meaning “wanderer”?)

Our quest for a dictionary sent us through the white marble hallways and staircases of the Beaux Arts building to the third floor. There, we found a massive, high-ceilinged “reading room” - a two stories high perimeter of books, long wooden tables with lamps, many-tiered chandeliers, arched windows and an ornate ceiling.

Henry grabbed a large dictionary from a lectern and heaved it onto the nearest table. Henry finished his work after an hour and then said, “I’m going to see how many pages this dictionary has so I can wow my class.” It had 2059 pages.

After the library closed we walked to “Hell’s Kitchen” to find Westway Diner (a hotel worker’s recommendation). This place reminded me of the diner scene from “When Harry Met Sally” - an authentic toothpicks-and-mints-at-the-counter place. In the vinyl booth behind ours sat two uniformed policemen who knew everyone in the place. One even yelled, “Hey, Sal! How ya doin’?” Across us sat a large, older man with stars and stripes suspenders. I wouldn’t give the quality of the food high marks, but the portions were big.

Henry and I returned to the hotel and caught a cab to La Guardia to pick up my mom. She’s joining us for the week as Nick had to stay behind and work.

So, what are we doing in New York? (Besides sight-seeing, of course). Henry is here to have some educational testing done. He’d been tested when he was four and had been recommended occupational therapy, which he did for years.

His teacher in the UK felt that it was time to test again. But I didn’t want to do it in England as the diagnostics apparently aren’t the same as in the States.

After doing a bunch of research, I chose the Yellin Center for the testing and Henry will go on Thursday and Friday. Now, I’m getting nervous - I found them on the internet after all. I hope they know what they’re doing. But they claim to do the sort of holistic testing that I was looking for - something that looked beyond the stats of the standardized testing and more at the individual child’s strengths and weaknesses.

Dubai

Fri, 6 Mar 2009 14:19:35 +0000

Nick said it best, “Everything in Dubai is the biggest this or the tallest that.”

We stayed on the largest manmade island in the world (The Atlantis Palm), we had afternoon tea at the world’s only seven star hotel (the Burj al Arab), we visited the world’s tallest building (Burj Dubai, “Burj” is “tower” in Arabic), and skied, yes, skied in the desert, at the world’s largest indoor ski area (Ski Dubai). And then we had the world’s largest hotel bill - ha ha - although the price for the afternoon tea did nearly gave Nick a heart attack.

(Click here to skip the entry and go straight to pictures!)

I’ll have an order of bling with a side of fancy

Interesting fact about Dubai, 72% of residents are foreigners and only 3% of those are “Western”. I don’t think I met a single Dubai native but I met people from Kenya, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and other developing countries who worked at the hotel. The other guests were a mixture of Europeans, Australians, Indians, and Middle Easterners. It felt as if we were at a United Nations meeting.

I’ve never been around so many hijab wearing ladies before and I have to confess to being fascinated with them. How did they eat wearing a veil? I spied on one woman at breakfast (not easy as they tended to sit apart and with their backs to the restaurant) and she appeared to sneak the food under her veil. What did they wear when they swam? Again, I employed my nosy housewife anthropological skills and found women wearing long-sleeved swimwear. Well, at least you don’t have to worry about sun burn as much.

Covered lady swimmers with man who could use some covering!

Nick and I had a long conversation about what people do in the name of religion. Nick felt that these women were being repressed by their dress. I wondered if the benefit of feeling that they were following their beliefs and were good Muslims outweighed the hassles. After all, every religion has to its own set of “traditions” and many of these don’t appear to make sense to me - not eating meat and milk together for example or not eating meat on Fridays.

However, I recognize that, among other benefits, the traditions and rituals of religion help to form community. Although I would never cover myself from head to toe in black (unless it made me look significantly thinner), I can see how a woman would do that if it she were brought up that way and it was a way for to embody her religious beliefs. What are your thoughts?

Henry’s thoughts? That the women looked like Darth Vadar in their long robes.

We had an excellent family vacation in Dubai. Nick got to relax, we all enjoyed the water park at the hotel (Aquaventure) and Henry and I loved the indoor skiing!

But, as we left Dubai, the trip took an about turn. As Henry and I waited in line to board the airplane (A380, world’s largest, of course, passenger plane), Henry suddenly threw up. Everywhere. If there’s one way you don’t want to begin an eight-hour flight, that’s it.

I didn’t know what to do. Nick was already on the flight because he was in business class. I cleaned Henry up and we boarded. The flight was completely full and I felt sorry for the Pakistani guy next to us - he really drew the short straw! Henry was sick twice more on the flight but we managed. I think it was a case of the 24 hour flu. Ahhhhh, the not-so-glamorous side of travel.

Henry at the departure gate, pre-boarding

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, to the Middle East we go

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:01:02 +0000

“What happened to you?” Larry asked. Larry is one of the park rangers at Windsor Park and I see him quite often when I walk Angus.

I touched my eyebrow, embarrassed. “Would you believe I did this in the name of beautification?”

“It looks like someone took a blowtorch to your eyes.”

Really, did it look that bad? “I had an eyebrow wax and I think the wax was too hot.”

Having a little brow tidy up had seemed like such a good idea.

But hey, we’re off to Dubai today! Hence the ill-fated pre-holiday brow wax. Nick, the plane geek, has been itching to fly on the new A380 and commanded, “I have an opening in my calender next week, book a trip to Dubai.”

I had that trip booked before he could change his mind! Henry is very excited and said, “This trip is so great because Daddy wants to go there’s no yelling like there usually is!”

A couple of years ago someone wrote a critical (I felt) comment in response to a travel tip I’d written on a friend’s website, Parenthacks, where I mentioned that I’d taken my son to Nepal. Here’s what she said:

“Ummmm...I'm all for taking your kid on adventures, but NEPAL? To hell with parasites--it's the gunfire and kidnapping I'd be worried about. Where is she going next? The Middle East? C'mon--let's get real.”

I thanked her for her concern and said that yes, I would take my child to parts of the Middle East, like Dubai.

It’s taken a couple of years and an impulse by hubby but we’re finally going!

The flight there is 6.5 hours long - yikes! That’s a long flight for a five-night hop but apparently that’s how far you have to go from England to find some warmth and sunshine.

. . . . . . . . .

There was sad news here in Britain yesterday. The six-year-old son of David Cameron, the conservative leader, died suddenly. Here’s an article. Another reminder that being a parent is the best job in the world and, potentially, the most heartbreaking.

A day in the life . . .

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:50:08 +0000

I woke up at 2:30 am (again). I’d recently read this article in the Times about why women wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. One thing it mentioned is that if you drink a glass of wine in the evening (not that I do that every night, but . . . ) the sedative effects wear off in the middle of the night and you wake up. So now I’m trying to restrict my drinking to breakfast and lunch in hopes that I’ll sleep better. I’ve been doing it for three nights and so far? I feel worse. But I think that’s the detox effect and so I’m keeping on the evening wagon.

I finally fell back asleep at about 6:00 am and the alarm woke me up at 7:00 am. I sprang out of bed feeling groggy and hung over (which is so unfair since I didn’t drink at all yesterday!).

I wake Henry up - his first question - “What’s for breakfast?” I’d planned on making buttermilk biscuits (they’re super easy - here’s the Biscuit Recipe) but there’s no time - it’s toast and vegi sausages instead. Yea! I don’t have to make Henry’s lunch as it’s hot lunch day.

I drop him at school. Have a quick chat with his teacher about some things I need from her for testing that Henry has coming up (more on that in a another post). The conversation soon turns to fondue as she was in Switzerland last week. I love fondue. Do you love fondue?

With thoughts of fondue swirling in my mind, I’m late to meet my friend Sarah at the park but she doesn’t mind. We walk our dogs around the four-mile lake loop. Sarah is a very intelligent and witty American married to a Norwegian and mom to two boys. She reminds me of my friend Mary who is also very intelligent and witty!

I hurry home, drop off a wet and tired Angus and drive to Windsor for a haircut. I’m late. I drive into the cramped multi-story car-park (each space sized for a mini) and drive straight to car valeting. This is where rubber boot shod men from an unknown African nation (Ethiopia?) take your car and wash it for you while you shop. Thanks to the frequent park walks my car is filthy so I go for the £35 inside/outside clean. The valet guys are always happy, smiling and joking in a different language. Seriously, it puts me in a good mood just handing them my keys. Plus I don’t have to find a parking space.

I hurry to the hair salon and there I run into my friend Andrea who is getting her hair colored and cut. We arrange to meet for lunch after. When I see Andrea later at the restaurant she’s reading a travel magazine and I ask if she stole it from the hairdressers. She pulls out three more travel mags from her bottomless mom-with-little-kids-bag and swears she brought them all from home.

When I first met Andrea I thought she was some republican trophy wife because she’d come from Texas and she’s stunningly beautiful - hazel eyes, long blonde hair and thin. (I admit it, I’m guilty of judging books by covers.) Even though she has littler kids than me, we got to be friends and now she’s one of my favorite people in England. Turns out she’s very smart, a democrat, and has a great sense of humor. She loves to travel too so we always have a lot to talk about. If Sarah is my Mary in the UK, Andrea is my Gina.

I keep to my regime of only drinking at breakfast and lunch. It’s lunch so I order a glass of wine. (But only one, I’m driving.)

I want to hear all about Andrea’s trip last week to Egypt as we are going in May. She wants to hear about the last minute trip to Dubai that I’d just scheduled and we debated the different hotels in Dubai (she’s going there in May). We move on to trying to figure out the mysterious man in the seven series BMW with the Suadi plates who picks up a little girl at school - is he the dad or the bodygaurd? Somehow this segues to her explaining how Facebook works (no, I’m still not on it because I never understood how it works - and was too embarrassed to ask). Then she said something that had me grabbing my bag and telling her that I was leaving and couldn’t be her friend anymore.

She’s going to the Brit Awards tonight - I’m so jealous! (The Brit Awards are like our Grammy’s). She promises to tell me all about it when we see each other later in the week for a planned walk.

I pick up Henry from school and answer his daily questions, “Did anything good happen today? Did anything bad?” I realized that I’d had a really good day. My car no longer resembled something Pig Pen would drive, I’d laughed a lot with my friends, I’d exercised - all in all, an excellent day. Well, until we arrive home and discover Angus has tipped the kitchen garbage over and rummaged through it in the manner of a raccoon.

PS: Mom, I’m not really drinking at breakfast so no need to book me into Betty Ford (yet).

Visitors!

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 06:21:19 +0000

Our good friends Kim and Jack came to visit last week! Jack made the ultimate sacrifice and even played missed a week school for the trip – thanks Jack. He brought a thick stack of homework. I don’t think it ever got done as I kept them so busy.

I had to fight my natural lazy tendencies and make a game plan. Although the kids probably would’ve been just as happy playing at the house for a week – I couldn’t let my friends leave without visiting a few places. Here’s what we did:

Day one: Kim and Jack arrive early morning; Jack reports he didn’t sleep all night. At the house, Kim unpacks and takes a short rest – I try to convince Jack to do the same but he is as bright as a meerkat and will have none of it.

Later I take Kim for a walk in the still snowy Windsor Park. We have dinner at an Italian restaurant near our house.

Day two: Kim bats her eyes and Nick is putty in her hands. Thus he agrees to take the two kids to the Science Museum and Natural History Museum. On a Sunday. Insane.

Kim and I headed somewhere much more mellow! Later, I realized our day had a Princess Diana theme to it. First stop – Hyde Park where I show Kim the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. We tried to enter the playground through a gate but they must have a spy-camera because immediately a West Indian woman came out of a hut saying, “You can not come in without baby! You must have baby!”

The Orangery

Okay, okay. We walk down to The Orangery for lunch – a beautiful, high ceilinged building next to Kensington Palace. After Lunch it was off to tour the Palace (Princess Di’s old house). Unfortunately, you don’t actually see where Diana lived. But you do see the bedroom Queen Victoria grew up in.

Kensington Palace

Kim in Hyde Park

Kim wanted to visit a specific tea shop near St. Paul’s Cathedral so off we went. I’d never seen St. Pauls other than from the top of a bus so after the tea place we went in. Princess Diana connection? She was married there. It was pretty but not as good as Notre Dame in Paris where you can climb to the top of the doom. (Admittedly, this is splitting hairs).

St. Paul’s from the Millennium Bridge

Haven’t heard from Nick so we walked over the Thames river via the Millennium Bridge and along the South Bank river path – where you find the Shakespeare’s Globe theatre (if you are looking). Nick calls. They are done, done, done and ready to go home. Kim and I catch the tube to meet them. Not surprisingly, Nick looks shell-shocked after spending the day keeping track of two busy kids in crowds normally associated with U2 concerts.

Monday: It was lashing with rain and snow. Decided to drive up to visit Warwick Castle. Although it is technically 1.5 hours away, it’s English driving so by the time you’re there, it feels like you’ve been in the car for four hours.

Jack & Kim at Warwick

At Warwick we are told that the ramparts and tower are closed because of the snow possibly making them slippery. I asked if the ticket was cheaper because of the closures. The ticket lady gives me a you-must-be-joking look.

The castle was practically deserted except for the people who worked there. The great thing about Warwick Castle is that it’s done really well – it shows how the castle was used during different times in history with Madame Tussand wax figures throughout. There were also some “real” people in character and because there were no crowds they go out of their way to tell us stories of the castle and show us things we may have missed. I learned, for example, that affairs in the Victorian age were quite common as were hook-ups during weekend parties. Apparently, if you were interested, you put your lantern outside your door. If you were a married woman, the saying was that if you’d “had an heir and a spare you were free to have an affair”. So much for thinking the Victorian’s were straight-laced!

Tuesday: Kim and Jack sleep in until after 11:00 so we have a lazy day. We took the dog to the park and drag the kids along.

Jack reading on the train to London

Kim and Jack at Teasmiths

Wednesday: London! Kim had asked to visit a tea shop named Teasmith so off we went to the Spitalfields market. After tea we stop at Giraffe for a late lunch before making our way to the Tower of London. We hurry our way through the tower as we only have 1.5 hours before they closed. The great part about the cold weather and it being mid-week was that the normal throngs of people at the tower were absent. I’d never in fact seen the crown jewels because I’d always been intimidated by the long lines. Today we walk right in. Henry was quite impressed with the large diamonds and real crowns.

We had talked about doing a bus tour but never really found the time to do it. So, rather than take the tube to Piccadilly to visit Hamley’s toy store, we took the regular city bus. We were lucky to catch a “Routemaster” bus - the old-fashioned, load at the back, red, double-decker. The bus took us through the historic law court (Temple) area and Fleet street before winding past Trafalgar Square, up to Piccadilly, a little ways up Regent Street and then let us off near Hamleys.

After, we walk up to Oxford Street on a back road so I could show Kim the Liberty (a beautiful black-timbered store) store and the little streets of Carnaby.

Thursday: Nobody wants to go to London again but Nick had taken the car so our options are limited. I offer to take the boys to the Imperial War Museum while Kim does some shopping. Everyone agrees. I send her off on a walk that would take her from Waterloo, over the bridge, up to Charing Cross, past St. Martins-in-the-Field Church and up to Covent Garden and the Seven Dials. Kim even stopped at the National Portrait Gallery on the way back - such a culture vulture!

Jack at Imperial War Museum where he says, “If my arms were big enough, I’d hug this place I love it so much!”

Jack on HMS Belfast

In the meantime the boys and I immerse ourselves in WWI and II. We didn’t visit more than a quarter of the Imperial War Museum before we have to go in order to have time to visit HMS Belfast. After, we met Kim at Westminster Abby. The boys (and, yes, I admit me too) were all for going straight home. But Kim was determined to show Buckingham Palace to Jack.

Buckingham Palace

Unfortunately, it seemed a bit far to walk (for tired kids) but we hop on a bus and the driver very kindly took us to a point, told us where to get off and pointed us up a little street.

You can’t actually go into the Palace so we just had a look outside the gates with all the other tourists. Surprisingly, Jack later said this was his favorite thing of the whole trip because he said it was “much bigger than it looks.”

Friday: A lazy day until lunch when I force everyone into the car to visit Hampton Court Palace. The hedgerow maze there is always a kid pleaser!

Henry and Jack at Hampton Court Palace

Too soon, it was Saturday again and time from our friends to fly home.