On the Road (Again--Sigh)

Just two weeks after one cross-half-country trip, we're doing another one.

The Things gave us a smile

girded up their resolve

and buckled in.

The poor, beleaguered little "bread van" gamely chugged along.

(And it should. I've replaced enough of its parts that there's not much to stop it from being a new mini-van save for the paint job. Oh and all power seats and windows that you don't have to roll down manually and doors that open with a push of a button when you're half a parking lot away. But other than that? It's so there.)

We even rigged up the ultra-posh mini-van with movies look by hooking up the laptop to a charger.

(And in case any of you out there were wondering, if you accidentally drop an audio book case on a keyboard, you stand a good chance of knocking letters clean off. Just a little fyi there.) We then slotted a special cassette into the player

(Yes, you heard me right. A CASSETTE player. This. Van. Is. Old. :) ), hooked it into the laptop and viola! Movies in surround sound and with a screen far larger than those nancy little screens the cool new minis have. We even balanced the laptop perfectly between the two front seats with the laptop bag providing center support. And we felt just too darn clever for words, let me tell you.

I liked all the movies that the kids watched while I was driving, but I discovered that some don't work for the driver of the car. I adore Wallace and Gromit, but visual humor doesn't translate well for the audio listener. Lots of silences with me searching my memory for the funny part that I should be laughing at right then.

Sound of Music, though, was great. LOADS of people gabbling and bursting into song, which is a real help at 11:00 p.m. when everyone else has nodded off and it's either sing along or be reduced to carrying on pointless conversations with oneself (and I do that enough as it is).

WARNING! Never, never, put in the latest version of Pride and Prejudice at 11:45 p.m., thinking it will fill the time until you get to the hotel. I don't care how sexy Mr. Darcy looks striding across a misty field in a great coat (you're driving and not supposed to be peeking at the screen anyway). The music is so soothing and the accents so sweet that before you know it you'll be slamming the last of your soda and waking up a groggy Thing to demand that it talk to you and ask you lots of questions to keep you awake for the last three miles.

Thank goodness for family. Normally we stay with them instead of at a hotel when we reach New York, but this time there was other family there too. Hence the hotel, and a kind offer from grandparents and great-aunts to watch the kids play in the pool so mom could go back to bed, after a nice continental breakfast, and have nice siesta (I felt so multi-cultural, though when you're as mixed race as me, that's really not all that hard).

That of course, meant that we did not leave New York until check out time, which meant we could either do one long days' drive to Maine or stop in New Hampshire and crash at a former student's place. Since Jedediah's now long graduated, he can officially be moved up to good friend. Besides, he had hosted the Stanleys on my wild ride back to the east for an interview earlier this year

and they had played his drum until all hours

and then stolen one of his books.

Three Things after the Stanleys would be a walk in the park.

Jedediah lives in Littleton, New Hampshire. I LOVE Littleon. It's the only place in the US I have ever found that paints instructions for pedestrians to wave thanks to cars that stop for them. People stop to help direct you out of tricky parking lots when your van is loaded and visibility is poor, and manage to hold a entire conversation with you while still saying, "Litta more, deah, litta more. Yah can back up another fahve. Therah. That should do yah." Stop to ask for directions and you'll wind up giving your life history to people who are sincerely interested, or at least you assume they are by the number of questions they ask to keep the conversation going.

But the best thing in Littleon? Some canny yarn and fabric shop owner has guaranteed a way for knitters and crocheters to bring their non-knitting/crocheting partners to the store and keep them there indefinitely, so that the knitter or crocheter can stock up to his or her heart's content.

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As long as the partner is interested in Nascar, that is.

I can't tell you how much I wished that shop was opened when we were there.

And so at last, we rolled out of New Hampshire and on into Maine. We didn't go over this

(it's the Pisquata Bridge and the Things always cheer when we cross it going north; it's their way of saying we're back) but instead came up a new way. Appropriate, I guess, as we are going to be in a new town and with a new job.

Now all we have to do is find a house to rent and we can unpack our stash and all will be well. Housing should be easy, right?

Saying Goodbye

So we made the decision. It meant leaving the land of amazing summer thunderstorms

and heading back east to the land of more trees and darker nights where all the stars are visible.

We said goodbye to family, with the knowledge that we'd see them soon.

Letting go of others, whom we might not get the chance to see again, was difficult. We left behind places like this:

and Pastor Tim and his wife Judy, who listened so well and helped so much.

And also here:

St Peter's, and all the friends we had made there.

We shut our door, packed our bags of yarn, hooks, needles and books, and headed toward the open window, taking with us all our old friendships in their new forms.

For whatsoever from one place doth fall,

Is with the tide unto an other brought:
For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.

Edmund Spenser

Visiting Home

We went back to Maine again this week. Thing One has been given the chance to return and live with friends for senior year. While this means giving him up a year early, in a sense, it's also something I'm really glad to do. Thing One has always been there for his mom and sibs, always helped out, and it's good to be able to let him have this opportunity. And The Girl, I'm sure, was especially thrilled at his return.

So back we drove, with the temperature becoming cooler as we headed farther north and east. It was a bit odd to see the first hints of trees beginning change

when back on the plains it was still sticky and humid and most definitely clinging to late summer.

But even the slightly cooler temps did not stop us from having fun on the lake

or hooking up with lots of friends (each day culminating into three nights of grilling out, each with different sets of people, each getting larger as we went)

and it especially didn't stop us from visiting our beloved Korner Knitters,

where the awesome Darrin waits to help all and sundry.

(I also found the name of the cotton from which I made my Christmas stocking, but for which I'd lost the ball bands. It's Cascade Pima Tencel 030 Natural and 2493 Purple--Rav will now be updated.)

We found out right before we left Maine our house bid back in the Midwest had fallen through. The ex-wife had accepted the offer, but the ex-husband didn't. That was a bit of a bummer, but we tried to stay philosophical about it, even as we said goodbye to Thing One (very odd that; as he said, I don't think it really dawned on him that we would be half a country apart).

Despite all that, we said our final goodbye, then got on the rotary, took the proper road off it, and headed south.

It was then that the cell phone rang.

"---? It's D-- from ---College. Are you still in Maine?"

"Well, sort of. We're just leaving."

"I know this is short notice, but could you come interview? Tomorrow?"

It's a wonder I didn't drive off the road right then and there. This was a college I had applied to before, but one which kept reorganizing and canceling its positions (which you kind of begin to see as a sign, you know?). The last position, which dealt with providing support services to at-risk and learning disabled students, was right up my alley and I'd applied once again. D and I had talked several times, and she had shown interest in interviewing me, but hadn't returned my call before I went to Maine. I assumed this meant there wasn't a chance and hadn't bothered to bring my suit along. I pointed this out to her.

"Oh we don't care. Interview in your summer clothes; that's fine. We'll put you up in a hotel up here and get you some dinner. Do you need someone to watch the kids? It'll be a three-tier, two-hour interview, you know."

Somewhat dazed, I accepted the interview and we turned around and headed farther north into Maine, rather than south.

That night the kids played in the pool and I made phone calls back west, letting everyone know we would be behind schedule on our return and why.

The next day I went through round one and round two of the interview process trying hard to forget that I was in sandals, the comfy pants I wear kayaking on cool mornings, and one of the few nice tops I'd packed (slightly wrinkled). I also tried to piece together my brain enough to give semi-coherent answers; three nights of visiting with friends means not much sleep, you know?

By the time I got to the last interview, I was breathing an internal sigh of relief. One more battery of questions and then I should know in a couple of days how I did. Either way, I already had a job in the Midwest, so I was set.

This is what I got instead of questions.

"Look, we don't feel the need to beat around the bush or make you wait. We know you'll have decisions to make, so we just want to offer you the job."

Being my ever suave self, I replied, "Are you sure you don't want to ask me more questions first?"

They didn't. Instead, they said they would give me a couple of days to decide whether or not I wanted to be with them, rather than the other way around.

The kids and I left in daze. After months and moths of not being able to find anything, I suddenly had two jobs (well, a job and an offer) instead of none. That's a bit shocking, quite honestly.

Heading south, I decided there was only one thing to do. We stopped here.

The lady who owns this shop is on Rav as myarns (that link will only work if you are a Ravelry member, btw)

and we met in the stormy weather fanatics group. She had told me to come on by if ever I got the chance to interview at that college north of her.

So we went by. I fell instantly in love with the place. The store is everything a LYS should be, lots of great selection and many friendly people hanging out in rockers, knitting and talking. I chatted with them while I picked up a skein of beautiful, hand-dyed-in-Maine sock yarn, which will either be used in Leyburn or in Northern Lights. The color changes might be too quick for Northern Lights, though, so I may have to go back to Marnacook one day and get another skein by that same dyer, as she had several others with longer color runs.

The bright colors were a bit outside my norm ("Those are SO not jewel tones or solids mom! What happened to you?" was how Thing Two oh so kindly put it.) but they are beautiful and fun and I needed a bright pick me up to shock my senses out of their benumbed state. (Note: it's French Twist from French Hill Farm and I still love the colors, no matter how different they are from my norm.)

So, I have three or four days to decided. Do we stay in the metro area we were finally trying to make into a home, or do we go back to the adopted state we had called home for almost ten years?

Six months ago, there would have been no competition. Now, it's a harder call.

We're going to be doing a lot of talking about it all as we head back to the city.