After Philip read my last post he asked me how I could have forgotten about some other little vacation gems - they had to be documented for future use in our family and so I share them here. Oh - and I added a story about a dead bird - it has completely nothing to do with our vacation but bears recording as I'm sure it'll come up in a therapy session one day.
The forgotten stories:
One of the tricky parts about travelling from one country to another is how our banking systems talk (or don't talk) to one another. Fortunately, despite our bank's non-conversant cards with American ATMs, they've got a partnership with Bank of America. That means that any Bank of America ATM will do when we're in the USA and since Canadian currency isn't very helpful in the US, it was important for us to find a BOA ATM shortly after we arrived in California. We were prepared - we had scouted out ATM locations in relation to our hotel and finding the closest one was our first order of business when we awoke on our first morning in Long Beach. We got to the ATM after a brief search, entered our info, requested our cash, heard it dispense, BUT IT NEVER CAME OUT. Seriously. We heard the bills shuffling inside the machine, the receipt said we'd withdrawn a chunk of change but there was NO cash to show for the transaction. Immediately we put our card back in, checked the balance and it showed we had completed the transaction. Mild panic ensued as we called the number on the machine and stood around it like armed guards in the event it decided to spit out our money. Thankfully the person on the phone said they showed there was a machine error and had fixed the accounting so our balance was correct. Then we had to find a second machine...we hoofed it and, of all things, Hooters was our landmark by which we'd find the next ATM. We got there, it worked fine and our balance was correct. Order had been restored and heart function was back to normal within a couple of hours.
Fast forward to the evening of our first full day on the ship - if you've been on a cruise before you know that there's one or two nights during your voyage that are designated 'elegant' evenings. Now - elegant is clearly a broad term as you see everything from knit mini dresses to prom gowns. Not that I usually report my wardrobe choices, but it bears noting in this situation - I had taken white dress pants (forgive me for the heresy against the Southern rule about not wearing white pants before Easter - we were in the Mexican Riviera and Easter's late this year) and a deep purple shirt/pancho ensemble. We'll come back to this picture in a moment. Naturally - the idea of dressing up fancy (read - shirt with a collar that you tuck in and wear with khaki shorts/belt or a sun dress with leather not plastic flip flops) was of no interest to our children. And part of why we chose a cruise was the kids' programming, so it was up to them to whether to eat in the dining room or with camp friends every night except Philip's birthday night - that would be our family dinner night. And we had breakfast and lunch together daily so it wasn't like we weren't seeing each other. Around 930 that evening we picked up the kids and were on our way back to our rooms.
Here's the point where I mention that we know Lydia gets airsick - found that out the hard way the first time we flew to Vancouver and we have an oh-so-lovely-bought-at-the-only-store-open-before-a-midnight-red-eye hot pink LA t-shirt to prove it. This was our second cruise - there had been no signs of seasickness on either and she's spent time on smaller boats with no symptoms.
Our rooms were in the middle of the ship and we were at the far end of the hallway leading to them. Lydia proclaims, "I think I'm going to throw up," just in time for me to look at her and for Philip to grab her camp art projects and then the heaving began. And now here's the point where I remind you of my wardrobe choice...and of the fact that my motherly instinct when faced with a sick child is to reach for them to catch them - or whatever they're throwing my way. And I caught it - and had to carry it to the middle of the ship before disposing of it - at which point Lydia proclaimed, "I feel sooooo much better!" That was definitely a relief but my pants thought otherwise. And I learned about the beauty of the onboard laundry facilities and thanked the good Lord above for whoever was smart enough to make that a possibility and for the fact that we had actually brought laundry detergent with us just in case.
Switching gears a bit (you're welcome) I've always wanted to see whales in the water doing their dance and by some sort of miracle, all four of us happened to be looking out the window in one of our rooms when a whale breached! We saw the spray from its blowhole, the curve of its back and its tail as it returned to the depths of the sea. We stayed glued to the spot and saw that same whale do its thing 4 or 5 times and it was amazing. I told Philip we'll have to book a whale watching excursion in Vancouver during migration season because they really are amazing animals and they weren't the only wildlife we encountered. We saw a dolphin swimming next to the ship, we saw the sea lions AND the kids held an iguana and a macaw! We don't need to stinkin' zoo! It was a hoot.
From one animal experience to another, however. This isn't vacation related, but we've talked so very much about this story that I've got to record it so as never to forget it. We were walking home from school with friends about a week or so before we left for vacation and walked past a dead bird. When you have a 13 year old, 9 year old, a seven year old and 6 year old with you, a dead bird incites quite a reaction. There was no simple acknowledgement of its presence and a quite moving on from its carcass - oh no, there were screams, groans and several sets of legs running away. We avoided this route to/from school for the next couple of days. However, about 3 days later I needed to stop at our bank's ATM for field trip money or something and there's an ATM in 7-11 on the corner of Robson and Cardero Streets - and the bird had been seen on Cardero. We got the money, and I had assured the kids that the bird would certainly be gone by now - confident that some eater of dead things had carted it away. No sooner that Henry said, "Oh it is gone - it was right there," did the bone of a bird leg with the TALON STILL ATTACHED fall right in front of us. This time, I screamed - as did the kids - and I'm pretty sure we each had a minor cardiac moment. It was disgusting, creepy and bizarre all at the same time. As luck would have it, though, we walked that same route home that afternoon with the same friends with whom we'd first discovered said dead bird, and that bony talon was still there and the reaction was no less disappointing than the first time we'd come across the rest of that bird's body - God rest its soul. We walk that route still, and every so often one of the kids brings up, "Remember that time we saw that dead bird???," and we all shudder, walk a little quicker and laugh at how we were almost beaned in the head with a bloody bone...who'd a thunk?
Moving back to the land of the living...our trip ended on a lovely note - we spent our final night in Los Angeles and I like to think that Henry was dreaming of the fun he'd had because just before I fell asleep I heard him laugh his indelible, belly laugh in his sleep. That, my friends, I pray is the soundtrack to every life experience we have as a family and every one my children have independent of Philip and me. It was beautiful.
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