Snapshots of the trip

A detailed travel journal is long and, post MTV, boring. Here are some snapshots:

As I left Memphis and crossed the Mississippi River, I felt the atmosphere shift around me with an audible pop. I've felt that happen once or twice before, when I left one cultural paradigm and entered another one.

 

Boston's _Third Stage_ album, released in 1976, can still keep me occupied for several states.

 

Last time I drove across the country, the U-Haul I drove picked up a limited variety of radio stations. I think my car's radio has a more receptive antenna, because this time, I found overlapping NPR coverage from Little Rock to Tucumcare. Nice!

And thus it was, as the continent rolled under my tires, I found the NPR Christmas special-- Christmas carols sung by choirs and children's groups across the country. Victorian-era Christmas carols make it Christmas for me, and there they were. Within minutes, I was singing at the top of my lungs-- late at night, a dark version of the New Mexico desert outside, Merrie Olde England inside:

WE ARE NOT DAILY BEGGARS, WHO BEG FROM DOOR TO DOOR
BUT WE ARE NEIGHBORS' CHILDREN, WHO YOU HAVE SEEN BE-FOOOOORE
LOVE AND JOY COME TO YOU, AND TO YOU YOUR WASSAIL TOO
AND GOD BLESS YOUUUU AND SEEEEND YOU A HAPPY NEWWW YEAR
AND GOD SENNNND YOU A HAP-PY NEWWW YEAR!

And then it happened: the Episcopal Church Choir of Burlington, VT knew verses of _Here We Come A-Wassailing_ that I'd never heard before. Hey! (What's this about the third verse full of moldy cheese?) On reflection, whoever put the Christmas carol sheet together for Fezziwigs' probably deliberately, and wisely, left out the verses about moldy cheese. (It went, more or less, "Bring out a table and some moldy cheese for us". Uh... yum.)

On reflection, the entire custom of wassailing... namely, get a big bowl, run around to various houses in your neighborhood, sing for the inhabitants, and then wait while they pour some of whatever alcohol they happen to have into your bowl.... where it mixes with whatever was left from the previous house; drink the result... seems like a recipe for alcoholic disaster.

Postcards from the Edge: Life with a toddler

I'm staying with my sister, her husband, and their 18-month-old daughter.
It sounds like this:

"Lauren, please eat your carrots."
"Lauren, please do not drop carrots into your water glass."
"Lauren, please do not reach into your water glass to fish them out. Here, let me handle that." (My sister uses a spoon to fish out the errant carrot.)

"Lauren, please eat your carrots. Do not fling them."
"No, you may not go yet. We're not all done eating."
"No, you may not crayon on the couch."

One mother's day per year is _not_ enough.