Monday, June 04, 2007
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Today is May Day, a holiday in India. I went for my monthly pedicure at Woodlands Hotel then came home and packed. Finished in time so that I could take the kids for one last swim before going to the U.S. tomorrow. At bed time, dressed them in comfy street clothes, like sweats (called "tracks" here in India), so we could carry them straight from bed to car in the early morning.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Left the house around 4:30 a.m. and took a 6:30 a.m. flight on British Airways from Bangalore to Boston via London. The first leg to London is the longest: 10 1/2 hours. Landed in London at 12:35 pm (4 1/2 hours time difference between Bangalore and London). Had a four hour layover in Heathrow Airport in our usual British Airway lounge. I say usual, but I should say privileged. We flew business class and the waiting lounge is amazing. There's a children's play area with easy chairs, a train table, carpeted floor, and TV. There's a full refreshment stand and buffet where you can have anything from pasta to fruit to wine and beer--all "free".
We left London at 4:30 p.m. and landed at Logan in Boston at 7:45 p.m., all on the same day. With Bangalore 9 1/2 hours ahead of Boston, when we head east we gain time and leave and arrive on the same day (May 2). On the return trip home, however, we leave on May 28 from Boston and arrive in Bangalore May 30!
We rented a van at Budget for $1125 for the month--not too bad--including car seats. Drove the 45 minutes to Mom's house. No traffic on the road at that hour travelling north on 93 and 495. Very happy reunion at Nannie's house (that's what the kids call my Mom. We called our grandmother Nana, but the first grandchild in the family, Katie, called her Nannie, and that stuck.).
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Cool weather here in New England. They had an odd winter this year. It didn't freeze until January (about two months late) and it snowed through April. We wore long sleeves and pants most of this vacation. The buds are just coming on the trees, and the kids are enthralled by all the green grass. We took a walk in the neighborhood, and Charlie is most amused by the mailboxes on the street, one for each house.
Went to Newton-Wellesley Hospital this morning for a pre-op appointment with Dr. Stephanie Morris, who would do my hysterectomy. Odd, when we get to the age where our doctor is younger than us! In this case, by about ten years. Did all the blood work, an ultrasound, etc. Judging by the ultrasound, it doesn't look like the lupron shrunk the fibroid much, but Stephanie still thinks she can do it laparascopically.
Friday, May 4, 2007
All five of us went to Lexington to meet with Elizabeth Crampton, our realtor. We decided to look at Lincoln, a town we'd decided against (we were heavily leaning towards buying a house in Lexington because of its proximity to Boston and great school system). Elizabeth brought us to look at a house on 248 Lincoln Road and we immediately took to it. It's a 1962 house that's been recently renovated by a contractor. There are four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a living room, kitchen, and dining room. The basement is clean and dry, and there's an acre of land in the back which includes grassy area, some woodsy area, a shed for storage, and some planting beds. Other bonus: gorgeous oak wood floors throughout, with pergo (fake wood flooring) in the playroom between the kitchen and garage.
248 Lincoln Road, Lincoln, Massachusetts
After looking at the house, Badri went on to look at Arlington with Elizabeth while I met Mom at her house and we met my sister Mary and her son Alex at the Weathervane Restaurant in Salem, New Hampshire. If you've been reading this blog since last summer you'll know I'm a fried clam fiend, and this is my very favorite restaurant where I used to work (in the Kittery, Maine, branch) 30 years ago!
Sunday, May 6, 2007 Heavenly spring in New England
I was very lazy about writing things down on this vacation, so there may be gaps in the days where I forget exactly what happened. But we generally had a fun, very busy, sometimes chaotic, time. The kids were so happy to see their cousins Max, 7 years old, and Alex, 6 years old. They adore their Aunt Mary and Uncle Andrew, as well as Auntie Patty who came up for four days, and Uncle Ski and Auntie Elena, who live up in York, Maine--only an hour away.
Charlie, Maya, Alex, and Molly in Andover at my sister Mary and Andrew's house
Charlie asked to go on frequent walks in the neighborhood to look at mailboxes, and one time Maya even went with him and brought a clipboard so she could note the number of boxes.
On Nannie's front steps
All three of the kids love Bootie, Mom's cat, who generally shies away from kids but seems to be very tolerant of these guys, for some reason. Many a morning or afternoon might have been uneventful if Molly and Charlie didn't have Bootie to search for and then follow. Once Charlie and I went for a walk and Bootie stayed by his ankles just as though she were a dog!
Maya had many sleepovers in Andover, Massachusetts (about 20 minutes from Mom's house) with Aunt Mary, Uncle Andrew, and the boys. They have a snake, Spot, in the boys room and Maya got to feed him a couple times (she actually picked up the mouse and put it in Spot's cage!).
The lilacs came out in full force right as we arrived and we changed the vase of lilacs in the house every few days. But a couple weeks into the vacation, the torrential rains were too much for them, and they started turning brown.
Charlie and Molly napping with Nannie
A couple weeks before we arrived, Mom placed an ad in the newspaper offering her above ground pool and all its attachments to the first person who could come and take it away. A young family came and took the whole thing, and what was left? A prize winning circular sandbox! The kids spent hours in that thing, with lawn furniture, sand toys, and buckets. The pool had become too much to maintain for too few weeks to be used in the year.
Nanny and Molly reading and snuggling
Monday, May 7, 2007
Badri drove me the one hour to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for my surgery. I decided I'd stay over a night, although I had the option to go home that day. Met the anesthesiologist, David Hershey, and the assisting doctor, Aarthi. She's of Indian descent, so I felt very much at home. I was out of surgery by 1 pm. They removed the uterus and fibroid, as well as the right ovary which had been crowded out and also had a cyst. As planned, it was all done laparascopically (called laparascopic supracervical hysterectomy), with only four tiny incisions.
Since I'd said I was going to stay overnight, they gave me an extra painkiller. I had a very tough time coming out of it, and Badri stayed with me until 10 pm because he didn't want to leave until I was coherent. I shared a room with a very nice woman, probably around my age, who has seven children and was in because she had just miscarried.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
I was all ready to go home the next day. A little bloated around the belly, but they sent me off with some painkillers to alternate with ibuprofen. My only restrictions were no swimming/bathing or lifting children for two weeks. The nurses were surprised I was asking about lifting children--I guess most women who get this surgery are grandmothers by my age!
Badri was a sweetheart. Brought the kids to Mary's so I could rest for the day with Mom at home. Mary has a great backyard, excellent toys we're not used to having around, and LOTS of sweets--so the kids are quite excited to go there any time. It was nice spending time at home with Mom. Reminded me of the old days when I'd come home on vacation from college, exhausted after exams, and Mom would take care of me.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Gave me a good part of the day to relax. Finishing Kiran Desai's Inheritance of Loss. Very intense book about a young woman growing up with her emotionally distant grandfather on the Indian side of the Himalayas.
Badri had to go to the Lincoln house for the inspection, where an inspector goes over the house carefully to see what might need to be done to the house before the sale. It looks like it's in great shape.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Met Mary at the Weathervane restaurant for lunch again.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Spent the day at Mary and Andrew's house for a dual celebration: Alex's 6th birthday and Mother's Day. Andrew's parents, Susan and Chris, came from Holden, MA. Ski and Elena came from York, ME, both about an hour away. Mom's only about 20 minutes away, in Methuen.
Max, Nannie, Alex
Very fresh day. You can see most people are wearing long pants and some jackets in the pictures. The kids had a terrific time in the backyard. Mary's friend, Cindy, also came with her twin boys. Mom used to babysit the twins when they were born 5 or 6 years ago.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Went to my college friend, Erin Healy's, for dinner. Maya had a great time playing baseball with Erin's kids Sarah and Luke, and Charlie and Molly enjoyed the bird, rabbit, and dog. Erin was giving us a bit of a scare about moving to Lincoln--it's very rural, she said, knowing what an urban dweller Badri is. But we decided it will be good for the kids for a few years anyway, to be out in green spaces, have a place to run around and ride their bikes on the trails.Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Went to the Registry of Motor Vehicles to get my Massachusetts driver's license. I needed more forms of identification, though. A passport and old license aren't sufficient. So I went over to the Social Security Administration building across the street and applied for a replacement social security card (who knows where my old one is?).Went to Mary's house for dinner and the kids had their usual great time running around, playing with other people's toys, watching Spot the snake get fed, etc.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Drove to Cambridge and visited my cousin Maureen Manning. She and her husband Mike live in a gorgeous house that's over 100 years old. They bought it about five years ago and did quite a bit of renovation work. We had a couple hours together to chat and have lunch, then I got to see her kids Alice and Daniel for the first time since Maya's first birthday party at Mom's house in Methuen in 2001! She showed me their elementary school class pictures and I was amazed at the diversity of their classrooms at the King Open School. Evidently parents list the schools they'd like for their children, then there's a lottery after some dividing up is done based on ethnic and socioeconomic background. Looks like only about 15 kids to a class, too.
Tonight it poured and poured. Visibility quite bad on the highway. But it's so nice to be driving! Really gives you a feeling of independence that you don't have in Bangalore.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Got together with Maile Jones today. She started her own newspaper magazine for and by women from western Massachusetts called Real Women Press http://www.realwomenpress.com/RWP6-2007.pdf. Such a cool, entrepreneurial spirit Maile is. I think of the courage and energy it took her to start up the magazine, and it gives me the push I need to get back in action on the work front, in something I truly enjoy.I actually met Maile through her daughter, Anya, many years ago. A bunch of friends from Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Boston, Massachusetts were flying up to Montreal then taking a train to Quebec for the winter carnival. Anya and I met that weekend sometime in the 1980s and we've been friends ever since.
Another very cool woman, my sister Patty, arrived in Boston today for four days, from Naples, Florida. I begged her to come up to Boston so we could see her on our one month back in the states. The kids adore their aunties--they're so much more fun than their mom!
Friday, May 18, 2007
Nannie, Maya, Alex, Charlie, Molly at Weathervane restaurant
Charlie, Mary, Alex, Maya, Patty, Kelly at Weathervane
Went to--you guessed it--Weathervane restaurant for lunch. I feel bad for the wait staff at the restaurant, but the kids are getting kind of tired of them bringing out the lobster for demonstration. The waiter asked today, "Do you know how you can tell the male from the female lobster?" and Maya answered, pointing towards the tail, "because on the male that part is harder." For more on lobster trivia, see here: http://www.gma.org/lobsters/trivia.html
Then we went to Mary's for hanging out and then dinner. We're loving the margaritas! Usually when we get together, Badri and Andrew are bonding over their favorite wines. But tonight Badri went into Boston to get together with his old Northeastern University buddy, Frank Gibbons. Headed to a favorite haunt of ours, The Plough and Stars: what used to be a good ol' grimy Irish bar, but has become a bit gentrified.Saturday, May 19, 2007
Mom, Mary, Patty and I left the children in the able hands of Badri and Andrew, and we headed up to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for coffee, lunch, and shopping. My favorite shoe stores are there and we hit all of them. Had lunch at the Ferry Landing, where we met a fellow diner, Karen, a woman from one of the English channel islands (Guernsey or Hershey) who was vacationing here in the seacoast area.
Patty, Mom, Kelly
Patty, Kelly, Mary, Mom
We ran into MaryJane, our cousin, and Audrey, our cousin Billy's wife, and her daughter at Choozy Shoos. They'd just been to the University of New Hampshire graduation (Audrey's son graduated) where both former presidents Bush and Clinton had spoken. There was quite a crowd, of course.
I know Portsmouth will always be one of my favorite places. On the water, great restaurants, friends and family, good jazz and rock music in the bars (or there was when we were growing up anyway). Lots of memories.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Brought Patty to see the Lincoln house. Went armed with a measuring tape to get all the window sizes: hoping to get all curtains in India. Dinner at Mary's. We never get tired of the routine in the month we're here.Met the house seller, Joe Blair. He filled us in on lots of useful people: plumber, carpenter, landscaper, electrician. He's the one who bought the house in 2005 and then renovated it. He had considered moving his family in, but they have five children and it would have been too small.
Monday, May 21, 2007
After lunch at the Weathervane, Mary brought Patty to the airport with hours to spare before her flight. We give her a really hard time about how she likes to get there three hours before the plane takes off. I think she just really enjoys the down time between the chaotic visit and going back home to work and family.
We got back to Mom's house to find a dozen messages left by realtors and lawyers saying we were going to close on the house today rather than tomorrow. Mom took over watching Molly and Charlie, Maya was at Mary's, and Badri and I rushed to Cambridge to the offices of Clark, Hunt & Embry for the house closing. Gorgeous view from 55 Cambridge Parkway to the Charles River and the Boston skyline.
Charlie and Patty
Maya and Kelly
Mom was a dear and put Molly and Charlie to bed so Badri and I could go out in Cambridge. Headed straight to Inman Square, where we thought we'd eat at Jae's restaurant, a sushi place with a huge aquarium where we used to go. It's now a pub restaurant with an amazing list of beers. I ordered a Belgian beer without asking the price. I think it was Framboise, and it cost around $20 for a bottle! Went for dinner at Montien, where we had a yummilicious Thai dinner.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Went to the Children's Museum down on the waterfront in Boston, near where I used to hostess at a restaurant called Victoria Station about a million years ago (1983, after I graduated from Colby). The kids LOVE this museum and we'll definitely have to get an annual pass when we move back to the area.
After the museum, took a drive over by the Public Garden. Maya loved that it's the Make Way for Ducklings park. Badri and the girls got out while I stuck by the car and Charlie napped. Badri then took off to go meet one of his old St. Stephens (college in Delhi) buddies, and I drove back to Mom's with the kids.
Molly and Maya in the Public Garden
When we got home, Aunt Peggy's old Mercedes Benz was parked in the front of Mom's house. Uncle Stan is a whiz with cars and fixed this one up for Aunt Peggy years ago. Very classy looking car. The girls enjoyed seeing her, and Charlie eventually warmed up enough to sit on her lap while she read him a story.
Charlie with Aunt Peggy
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Drove down to Newton for my follow-up appointment with Dr. Stephanie Morris. All is well. I healed up just fine.
Went to Lincoln to meet Lisa and Scott McKee, who will be renting our house for the next year. The funny thing is, they just sold their San Clemente, California house last year--only about an hour north of the San Diego house we sold in February. They seem like they'll keep the place in great shape: no kids and no pets.
Met our neighbor who lives across the street. He's about 90 years old and still doing his yard work. I introduced myself, then Badri and the children.
Headed over to Sudbury to have dinner with my graduate school friend, Lucie, and her husband Larry, and three kids: Christopher, Nicholas, and AnnaMelora. Maya and AnnaMelora became fast friends, and Charlie and Molly couldn't get enough of the cat and dog. From their place to our Lincoln place is about 15 minutes drive.
Badri, Kelly, Larry, and Lucie
Thursday, May 24, 2007
This last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of phone calls and appointments getting the new house set up, closing done, and utilities arranged. Still managing to have good fun and quality time with Mom.
I set up the kiddie pool we bought last June when we visited and Molly and Charlie had fun splashing around and cooling off.
Our realtor, Elizabeth Crampton, gave us a gift certificate to Max Stein's, a restaurant in Lexington, so Mom watched Charlie and Molly again (Maya at Mary's) and we went out to dinner. Nice place! Had a heavenly dinner at a romantic corner table--Thank you Mom and Elizabeth.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Badri gave me a gift certificate to a spa near Mom's house and I went for a pedicure, manicure, and facial today. It really felt decadent, especially since I can get the same thing done for a fraction of the price in Bangalore. But, boy, did it feel good!
Went to dinner at yet another St. Stephen's alumna, Srini's, house in Wellesley. Two other Indian couples there in addition to the hosts. One couple lives in Winchester and sends their twin six year old sons to a private school--gobs of money in a district where the schools are supposed to be terrific!
Saturday, May 26, 2007
We all went up to Ski and Elena's in York, Maine for a barbecue. Aunt Barbara, Kristin, her boyfriend, and Jeffrey and his son Phin also came, along with us and Mom. Just another day in paradise. Kids put on their bathing suits and ran around, lounged on the hammock.
Andrew, Molly, Phin
Ski and Elena
Molly, Maya, Max, and Alex
Molly
Aunt Barbara and Mary
Alex, Maya, and Ski
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Drove up to South Berwick, Maine, passing York on the way, to high school friends Sandy and Mark's house. Sandy and I have known each other since junior high actually, when we played field hockey together.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Mom put on a heavenly pork roast for our send-off lunch. Once again, we had far too much stuff to fit in the suitcases we brought. Mom, yet again, lent us one (or two?!) of her suitcases. Mary led the way to Logan Airport with her van so that all our luggage AND children could get down there. We left at about 5:30 or 6pm to get in to Logan in time to turn in the rental car and check in for the 9:15 flight.
Molly said, "I wish I could stay at Nannie's house forever."
Badri, Molly, and Charlie eating breakfast in Mom's backyard
Maya, Molly, and Charlie drawing in Mom's backyard
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Marylouise stopped by here for a visit after her physical therapy. She's decided to switch her children from the Canadian school (CIS) to the new Mastery International School. Just about all the expatriates and the teachers alike are making the change. I think there are serious administration issues at CIS, as well as problems with the curriculum, where most parents feel their parents are underchallenged. It will be interesting to see how the new school pants out.
Went swimming in the afternoon with the kids and spent time with Berkeley, Atticus, and their dad Sam, our neighbors from Arizona. Berkeley told me it was her dad's birthday and I invited them to join us for dinner. Mom Jennifer is out of town, in Greece for meetings, so Sam brought his birthday cake over and we all celebrated his 31st birthday together.
