Franklinsanity

A crank's musings on family, drink, travel, food & life

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  • Musings at JFK (the Airport)

    Musings at JFK (the Airport)

    8:27 am, Idlewild:  Always amused there is no free WiFi at JFK, at least in this terminal.  Also gives me a hearty chuckle that charging stations, or outlets of any kind, are few, far between, and absolutely tiny.

    I love being in close proximity to people desperate for power.  It’s electric.

    BTW, I finally actually listened to the “watch your baggage or else” PSA that always plays in every US airport.  Will unattended baggage really be “destroyed?”  Who picked that word?  Google tells me that the various meanings include “put an end to the existence of something, by attacking or damaging it.”  That seems extreme.  I also note that “destroy” appears to be used with regard to animal euthanasia.  But luggage?

    And how do they do it, exactly?

    Meanwhile, I have finally indulged in some Dunkin’ Donuts.  Back when the kids were small and we lived in Brooklyn, when we visited CT, I would wake up with the babies and take them to DD for a treat – and to get myself a massive iced coffee.  At this point, fried pastry and large volumes of watery coffee don’t really float my boat (SF’s getting to me).  But today I figured “why not?”

    Now I am actually looking forward to the airplane food – which, in fairness, is pretty good on Virgin.  And in fairness to DD, the little shack-like structure with canisters of coffee that’s in this terminal isn’t really their finest franchise.  Still, enh.

    Back to deleting emails and work-related writing.

  • Up in the Air

    Up in the Air

    5:46 am North Haven town line:  headed to JFK and West Coast work. Although I won’t have to balance anything life-wise for 5 days, feeling bleak. Kids and dogs aren’t always easy, but they are fun.

    Same time, will be good to see the house and the Team in SF, no to mention cleaning out my email inbox.

    Yes, I am one of those people who hate having more than about 10 emails in my inbox. I get hundreds of emails a day, even when partly on vacation.  Usually am on top of them, but right now have about 400 sitting unsorted or undeleted.

    Along with addressing that compulsion, looking forward to no humidity.

  • The Most Interesting Man In The World. Not

    The Most Interesting Man In The World. Not

    5:41 pm New Britain, CT:  one last moment of quiet by the pool with a glass of rose. Kids, relatives, dogs all inside. Shortly we head out for the cocktail party, bouncy houses, dinner and fireworks.

    A robin chirps quietly 10 feet away. No doubt Awesome Wife is wondering where the hell I am. This is ok, as she still has to do he r makeup and therefore has more important things to think about. image

    10 minutes ago some kind of freak yellowjacket stung 2 of the dogs and one uncle, driving everyone inside. Fortunately no trouble with bees yet, myself.

    Ah, the siren call of parenthood. Off to the races!

  • Interlude Before Road War

    Interlude Before Road War

    9:20 am, New Britain, CT:  In 48 hours I will be on a plane bound for SF; 48 hours after that I’ll be in Washington DC, and then 48 hours from then, back in New Britain.

    While that will be a slight relief in terms of work, it will blow in terms of missing the bulk of the extended family.  However, that’s what the weekends are for, I figure.  Two sisters and one girlfriend arrive today – and there’s a grandad birthday at the Club – as in country club, not the “What Is Love, Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” kind.

    Meaning, 4 kids under 7, 3 dogs, 4 siblings, 4 significant others and one set of grandparents.  Or, full chaos.

    Ted and the Saucy Empress are already hyper – and Awesome Wife had to teach a Barre class (she’s converted the basement into a studio, with Grandad’s help as well as a little from Ted and me).  So we’ve packed the monkeys off with Ga for an hour or so, and I am writing this and prepping for the inevitable Saturday AM conference call.

    Recent highlights from the last day or so:

    • Saucy Empress learned to ride a bike, finally.  She’s been capable of it for at least 18 months, but decided it was more fun to have dad push her while she shouted directions – until 2 days ago.  God help any rickshaw drivers she encounters later in life.
    • Saucy Empress also just learned what road rash feels like – she got distracted and raspberried her face and shoulder after wiping out.  A bummer, but also hugely ironic for me, as a child of the 70’s, because she was wearing basically full body armor – and still came out bloody.  I think she looks awesome.  She’s not so sure.
    • Ted’s gone into full golf mode – it’s the sport of the male Devers – leaving me well behind.  Grandad is irritated because his swing has been tainted by the floor hockey he plays in Cali.
    • Oonagh the Red Dragon has learned to squeeze herself through gaps in the fence in the large yard.  And taunt the other dogs, including the long-suffering, somewhat too-tubby, Kingsley.
    • Oonagh also has crapped in nearly every room in the large house.
    • I will never get tired of this house as a piece of beautiful early-20th-century construction.  10 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, multiple living rooms…go Stanley Works.  Perfect for large family gatherings, and after two decades of slow but steady repair by the in-laws, it’s now not only functional but comfortable.

    Enjoying the calm before the storm.

  • If you can make it there…

    If you can make it there…

    8:18 pm, New Britain, CT:  quite a day.  4 subway rides (all on the 6 line).  1 pedicab ride.  40-plus blocks walked.  2 No Parking signs climbed. 1 Alice-in-Wonderland statue climbed.  Many scaffoldings swung on.  2 commuter trains.  And 30-minute car rides on either end.  A good NYC day.

    The kids couldn’t, after the 3rd subway ride, understand why we didn’t just jump in a car.  Leaving aside the car-seat issue, I explained that’s not what you do in Manhattan and that the subway was just faster.

    Ironically, now that the damn thing remains air conditioned, basically clean, and functional, they didn’t argue.  De Blasio is falling down on the job, if his job is to undermine infrastructure integrity and introduce chaos.

    It took Ted until 3 pm to even notice a homeless guy.

    Heck, we even used the men’s room on the lower level of Grand Central without incident.  The bathroom attendent/janitor – uniformed, friendly, and REALLY on the job (to the point of banging on stalls and rousting randos) – also apparently has kids ages 5 and 7 and was only too happy to help us use the facilities.  I mean, that’s classic NYC in that the city only seems aggressive and unfriendly, when it isn’t at all.  But what’s NOT classic NYC is a frickin’ uniformed bathroom attendant, in evidence, and on DUTY in Grand Central.  That’s gotta be a Bloomberg holdover.

    (Safe harbor language:  the aforementioned paragraph expresses views in full ignorance of any long-functioning and hard-serving janitorial staff at GCS; no offense is meant, quite the opposite.)

    My point, I guess, is that it was a gorgeous day to wander around NYC for 6 hours.  Also to see Eccentric Possibly Crazy Mom – who met her grandchildren for – in Quinn’s case – the first time; and in Teddy’s case, the first time in 5 years.

    In her building lobby.

    Yeah, GrandMargo doesn’t do apartment visits with the grand-kids.  It’s gifts and weird stories sitting in imitation Eames chairs in a marble lobby, while the doorman talks on the phone.

    Kids took it in stride.  I called it a day when Quinn had to pee and she refused to let her use the bathroom in her apartment.

    Probably the W’s bathroom has cooler stalls, anyhow.

    We all made it around and back in one piece.  Great day.  And – who knew – some of the Metro North Trains actually have outlets.  Charged my phone right up, while Quinn slept.

  • Le Metro North

    8:30 am, somewhere south of that town where that school named after the lock:  the Saucy Empress and Ted – as well as stuffed owls Hedwig and Winterhoot – successfully boarded the commuter train with dad.

    And in typical commuter fashion, they are focused on their tablets. (Yes, yes, they have mini iPads. A huge treat for the car trip. We lock them up when the kids aren’t in a moving vehicle for a long time.)

    Seems other parents have the visit-the-city idea too. I guess it is summer after all.

    No one but us has straw hats on, however.

    Also, shout out to Dunkin Donuts.  Always delivers

  • The Big City

    The Big City

    6:04 am, New Britain, CT:  So the kids and I are going into NYC today.  They barely remember it.  Drive to New Haven, Metro-North to Grand Central.

    How suburban!

    Lunch at Serendipity, about which I have mixed feelings, but that’s just snobbery.  A possible sighting of the every mysterious GrandMargo, e.g., my mother and their grandmother.  Certainly a subway ride or two.  And maybe a museum.

    With no nap and massive stimulus, and a long trip on the backend, this is more of a flyby than an immersion.  Still, it keeps the hand in…from the West Coast, you’d believe NYC is dropping back to 70’s levels of chaos.

    A good chance to see it live, and what better companions than a five and seven year old??

    More to come….

  • Car Lag

    Car Lag

    6:15 PM, New Britain, CT:  it seems unlikely, but I think I was jet-lagged until right around now.  Which is terminologically inaccurate, given that I haven’t been on a plane in weeks.  But to borrow William Gibson’s motif in Pattern Recognition, my soul was somewhere several states behind, tethered to me but not really here, until sometime after lunchtime today.

    Or maybe the Sauvignon Blanc at dinner last night just didn’t agree with me.

    Still, everyone in the family seemed a little out of sorts.

    Quinn sprayed Awesome Wife in the face with one of those giant pool water-gun syringes, during dinner (breaking about 50 Franklin dinner rules, not to mention defying common sense and self-preservation).  Awesome Wife became Deeply Outraged Wife, and threw Quinn into the pool with her clothes on.

    Quinn took this in stride, and surfaced laughing.  Teddy, not so much.  He decided he needed to protect his sister – so he got up from the table and ran over to Kelly and punched her in the stomach.

    Seriously, I swear this isn’t remotely common behavior.  Like I said, everyone was a little off.

    Kelly threw Ted in the pool too.  Ted climbed out of the pool literally shaking with rage and announced he hated Kelly.

    It was around this time that the white wine stopped being refreshing.

    This is NOT preferred behavior for the grandparents, or for Uncle Sean’s girlfriend, meeting our branch of the family for the first time.  I hustled the kids into the house and Ga’s spa-level shower before further mayhem could ensue.  I told Q&T they got off way easy, while remembering the time I focused a magnifying glass on my mom’s foot at Point O’Woods.  That really didn’t go over well.

    However, we all recovered nicely – kids were clearly exhausted and passed out.  Alleged grownups all watched the Kingsman – ridiculous but diverting movie – and also retired.

    Car-lag.  It’s real, people.  Awful name, though.  Jet-lag sounds glamorous.  “Jet” is a great word.  But that “…ar-lag” combo is just ugly.  Auto-lag?  That sounds dirty.  I’m open to suggestions.  Anyway, no one got punitively thrown into the pool today, so that’s a win!

  • Looks Like We Made It!

    Looks Like We Made It!

    3:38 pm New Britain, CT – relaxing poolside with one of Tom Devers’ Coors Lights, helpfully racked into the nearby cabana.  It’s not an IPA, but man, it tastes great.

    The car’s mostly unpacked.  Kingsley is passed out, inside in the air conditioning.  Oonagh’s outside playing with Louie, Uncle Sean’s lady friend’s spaniel. And by playing, I mean squeezing herself between the fence bars and chasing butterflies.

    Quinn is shrieking and peeping.  Teddy’s diving.

    Kelly is still driving, bien sur.  She’s taken over the music at the cabana.   She got tired of Tom’s fave, Cher.  This is probably for the best, but still, you know, Cher grows on you.  Has there ever been a pop ballad like “Half-Breed?”

    Point is, we are HERE!

    I have about 48 hours of work on which to catch up.  But I am not thinking about that right now, much.  Instead, I’m enjoying the kids, the house and the company.  Three thousand and then some miles, and I’d genuinely do it again.

    Which is good, because of course we have to do it all over again in about 2.5 weeks…

    So, our not-so-loyal reader in Denmark will have another chance to check back in for the summer sequel:  Franklinsanity 2:  The  Return.

    For the rest of you – as long as I’m traveling, might as well keep going…unless I hear otherwise from enough of you, more to come.

    cher

  • Ultima Thule, or Hard Hittin’

    Ultima Thule, or Hard Hittin’

    9:30 am, outside Monroe Township, NJ:  Well, it took about 10 days and several thousand miles, but Awesome Wife and I finally had enough of a blowout that both kids – and probably the dogs, too, in their doggy way – asked us to stop fighting.

    Every epic journey has its moments.

    Ours came even though we were in our designated roles of Driver (Kelly) and Navigator (JF).  The trigger?  An excellent stew of Venus-Mars/Type-A/tech-vs.-real-world elements.

    Or to put it another way:  experience vs. real-time, crowd-sourced, satellite imagery. Or still another, Devers Tradition vs. Waze.

    Devers lore, built up over decades of travel between Philly and CT, dictates you never, ever, ever take the George Washington Bridge.  And, in fairness, Franklin lore – even though we never actually owned a car – pretty much says the same thing.

    Of course, lore and East Coast driving experience in general suggests that at the wrong time, there’s no really good way to get across the Hudson River in a car.

    JF faith in geospatial synchronization, however, including real-time views of traffic, suggested that the best way to get Awesome Wife, kids and dogs to Ultima Thile, aka Hard Hittin’ New Britain, aka Ga and Pap’s house, was in fact the GW Bridge.

    We’ll be taking the Tappan Zee, folks.