Dear Heather,
A three hour trip is not a three hour trip with three children, as I am sure you know.
A few of our friends have minivans and DvD players. Elspeth and Merry can easily touch, tickle, and swat Beatrix in the back seat of our snazzy blue Subaru (it's the girl sandwich), and a while ago our CD player broke, so we've been listening either to the radio or a motley collection of tapes. We've got Chopin, the Mamas and the Papas, Cole Porter, Wee Sing, Marvin Gaye, and in honor of you and I and to get Martin's goat, Roger Whittaker.
Since the radio didn't have too much to offer (fundraising time for Pittsburgh's NPR--YAWN--and guilt-inducing, even though we don't even listen to Pittsburgh's station except when driving that way once in a cow's moon), we started on tapes, and then Martin expressed a desire for something less grand than Handel's Water Music, we popped out the tape and popped in Al Greene. And that's when nothing happened. So we had NO sounds except the soundtrack of our own lives for the remaining trip, and since Beatrix had stopped wailing and Elspeth and Merry were finishing off the big bag of pretzels, it was fairly smooth sailing. We arrived a little late for dinner, but arrived here at Grandpa's nonetheless.
It's super hot here (Martin almost passed out after finishing the hill grass this morning prior departure), and I think, though you would probably dispute it, that humid steaminess is worse than dry heat (you say, there in the desert, grass! we say, too much grass; you say humidity! we plug in our dehumidifier). . .but the house is fairly cool because Grandma Irene has the fans going. Remember the little white lamp in the shape of the pitcher and basin with the silvery pull chain that used to stand in between our beds when we were little girls staying at this house? Well, it's still here, in the other bedroom now. The rhubarb in the backyard grows ever bigger and more ruffly.
Wish you were here too,
xoxoxoxo
Kimby
1 comment:
Your Auntie was able to travel with me on business this week.
Monday night before we left we were able to sit on the porch together.
It was quite pleasant.
Today driving back from Williamsburg by Richmond and home, it hit 102 a couple of times.
It is that way all over the U.S.A.
Our upstairs HVAC has never been able to keep up with that kind of heat, so when we got home I had to get the two small window units our of storage and sweat and grunt them into place.
It's getting cooler already, but still almost 80 upstairs.
Some of our neighbors have discovered the same cure, electric bills have actually been lower since I started doing this two years ago.
Seems insane, central air but I am still using window AC's just like I did in FL as a lad.
Tell Martin to be careful, that heat is no respecter of age.
This is a situation where a summer haircut might mitigate the heat a lot.
Be unique, wear a high and tight like Ariel in the heat, and the grizzly adams look in the winter.
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