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May 10, 2004
(April 27th - May 4th. We flew out to Montana to see my sister graduate from college, visit some old friends, then bring her back to Tennessee with us. I've lived here since 1997, my parents moved here last year.)
Ok, may as well dive right in:
My trip to Montana sucked. What a waste of a perfectly good vacation.
I struggle with a tendancy to be mean and judgemental sometimes, and this trip really pushed me to the brink. Sometimes when I think about Montana and all the negative feelings it stirs in me, I feel like Reece Witherspoon's character in "Sweet Home Alabama." There's a part where she's just been really mean to all her old friends and her ex asks her why she's acting better than everyone. "I AM better than them!" she says. And as much as she knows in her heart that people are people and her old friends are good people, she's trying to rise above what she came from and make herself a better person and to fulfill what she knows she is supposed to be, which couldn't be done by staying in her hometown. Sometimes it's hard to reconcile the two worlds -- for some people, the mundane, simple, quiet life is ok and they don't feel the need to go beyond it and find something more. And that's ok. It's hard, though, when you're one of the people who it's NOT ok for, to not be judgemental of the people who don't feel the need to move away a week after graduation. I always knew, growing up in a VERY small town in Montana, that I didn't belong there. I knew that there was more to life than high school sports and gossip, and that pretty scenery and a big sky can only make a place so bearable. I lived for the day I could just leave, and create a life on my own terms, not the terms that small towns lay down for you. Bearing all this in mind, it's really hard for me to return to Montana and those small towns and think anything but "Good God I'm glad I don't live here anymore. This would be unbearable. You couldn't pay me a million dollars to live here again."
(warning: the following is a bitch-fest explaining why I had a horrible week. If you don't want to hear me complain, don't read it.)
What really didn't help was where we stayed for our week in Montana. We stayed with an old friend, Tina, who really was just a friend because she and I were the same age and went to the same church. She only lived in town for a few years, but after I left for college she came back and married a guy who is from a family that was semi-close to my family through the years. Tina really has spent more time hanging out with my two sisters in the past several years since I've been gone than I think she and I ever spent together, but she very graciously offered to let us stay in her basement (since Kathy baby-sits for her constantly anyway).
Well this would all be well and good, but I prefer for the place I'm staying to be semi-clean. Dirt, mold, and clutter tend to bother me sometimes. Now I don't claim to be the world's best housekeeper, but I try. My child is not the best-behaved in the world, but all in all he's a good kid and he listens and obeys well and literally never hits other children. Tina has 3 kids: a newborn girl, and two boys, age 2.5 and 4.5. The boys are whiny, aggressive, and violent. By themselves and with the right supervision they're actually pretty good kids, but when they're together and left to themselves (or being watched by their parents which is just as bad as being by themselves), they're horrible. It doesn't help that the house is constantly dark, and loud because of the TV. (I really like a lot of light, too. I'm always turning lights on.) Oh, and the ac was broken. Lovely.
The boys are allowed to play outside by themselves, and down in the basement by themselves. I personally don't think kids that age and with the personalities they have should be allowed to play by themselves for extended periods of time, but that's just me. My biggest issue was that they had found a staple gun and shot staples EVERYWHERE downstairs where I was staying. I was finding staples in the carpet literally all week long. And they were big, industrial staples that HURT to step on. It was absurd. The kids get SO filthy playing but get baths maybe twice a week. (Tina actually asked me why I was changing Jake's clothes after he played outside for a few hours and got dirty. Am I crazy for wanting my child to be clean? I let him get dirty, but then he gets cleaned up immediately.) The 2 year old often has a diaper on for -- I kid you not -- 8 hours at a time, until it literally falls off.
Every day to help out a little, I did two loads of their laundry because it piled up in the bathroom and it STUNK. The 4 year old peed the bed every night and they would just throw things in the hamper without rinsing them out. Dirty diapers were just put in regular trash cans to be taken out sometime in the next few days. Wet towels from showers were thrown in the hamper still wet and would sit there for days. The downstairs bathroom that I had to myself (but with no shower so I had to do that upstairs) had no soap and a cracked toilet seat that pinched my ass every time I sat down.
The kitchen/dining room was right off the living room, and at the end of the kitchen was a door to the basement and the back yard. There are 12 steep stairs down to the basement, and I kept asking everyone to please shut the door to them so Jake wouldn't fall down the stairs, but all week long the door was left open. I would run up to close it, and someone would go out it 5 minutes later and leave it open. I had to chase Jake around everywhere he went because I didn't feel like letting him out of my sight was safe.
The boys wanted to lead Jake around and get in his face all the time. It was nice that they wanted to play with him, and Jake actually enjoyed playing with them some of the time, but the kids were so overbearing and not gentle at all. They couldn't follow directions to save their lives -- I would say "please don't touch him, he doesn't want to play right now" and what do they do? Push a toy in his face and try to drag him down the hall. I got so fed up with the noise and the dirt and the darkness that most of the time Jake and I stayed downstairs by ourselves. I felt bad for being so anti-social and I guess rude, but it was my only option. Jake's moods were unbearable whenever we were upstairs, because he didn't like the noise, either (and he didn't like being man-handled.)
I know that when both parents work, it's hard to keep up with housework and watching the kids, and they have two more kids than I do, but I was just really frustrated being in their house. I've never appreciated my own house more, and I'm in the process of cleaning it from top to bottom this week even though it's pretty clean already. Sometimes I get behind on laundry and things get cluttered, but nowhere near their house. It was so stressful to me to not be able to relax at all, not feel like Jake was safe, not have a place for my stuff, not have my own clean bed and bathroom. I've decided I'm never travelling again for extended periods of time unless I have money to stay in a hotel.
OK, I'M DONE BITCHING.
Now on to the trip:
The airplane ride from Nashville to Billings went pretty well. We didn't buy Jake a ticket, kids up to 24 months can be considered "lap babies." (He's really too big, size-wise, for that, but whatever. I wasn't spending another $400.) It was a tiny plane -- just two rows of two seats. My mom was with me and we were seated near enough each other we were able to switch seats and sit together. Jake behaved very well for us and was fascinated by what he saw out the window as we took off. He learned a new word: wow. It was so cute, he just kept saying it over and over again and pointing to everything. He got a little fidgety after a while and we let him walk up and down the aisle a bit (he had his safety harness on him, so he couldn't go very far. I don't know what I'd do without that thing. Jake is so independent and doesn't like to hold anyone's hand while he walks, but he's 30 pound and that's too much to carry for long amounts of time.)
Anyway, the flight went great, our flight attendant was really nice and very funny. In Denver we got off the plane, hiked to our next gate, then I back-tracked to McD's to get us something to eat. I rushed back to our gate and we had just enough time to scarf down lunch and it was time to get on the next flight. This plane was 2 rows of 3 seats, a little better. The flight wasn't crowded and mom and I had a row of 3 seats to ourselves. Jake was so tired at this point, he ended up sleeping the entire flight (thank you, Lord.) I was SO GLAD to finally land, simply because air travel with a child is a pain in the butt.
That first night we went and saw my old piano teacher, Gail. She was my first and only piano teacher until college. I studied with her for 11 years, so we spent a LOT of quality time together as I grew up. (I was kind of a brat to her, too, which I promptly apologised after my first week of teaching piano myself.) It was nice to sit and talk with her and catch up. She lives in Billings now and says she would never ever move back to Colstrip. Really, all my good friends have moved away from Montana and the only people I wanted to see were my old teachers.
So we got in on Tuesday and saw Gail that night, then spent most of Wednesday shopping for furniture for Kathy. She finally picked out a bed she wanted, only to find out the
warehouse didn't have it, couldn't get it by the time she was leaving, so she'd have to buy it in Tennessee after all. But I like looking at funiture, and we ate at Perkins [so it wasn't a total waste of a day]. I love Perkins, and we don't have one in Nashville. That's the one thing living in Nashville I would have to drive 2 hours for.
Thursday is a blur, but I know that night we went to a mexican restaurant that my mom and
sister love but I didn't think was that good. We have authentic Mexican food here in Nashville because of our high immigrant population, so I guess my standards are a bit high. The best thing there was the french fries. Tina came with us to get out of the house, left her 3 kids with her DH. Jake had a good time flirting with the waitress, which he has a tendancy to do everywhere we go. The waitress, of course, thought it was adorable, but I told Jake he should probably grow out of it eventually because his girlfriends aren't going to appreciate it much. ;o) As we were leaving I let Jake sit on a horse ride, but then my
mom decided to put a quarter in it to make it go and Jake completely freaked out. (Meanwhile I was mad because she NEVER ever let us ride those things and she lets Jake do anything. I hate the double standard!!! I wanted to ride those dumb carosels outside Kmart SO BAD when I was a kid!!! Ok, sorry, I'm done.) I think that was the day, too, we had lunch with "Aunt" Verla -- mom's bf from Colstrip, who was in Billings for the day. Verla is fun -- never married, never had kids, a very sassy 50-something. She's cool. She didn't move to Colstrip until after I graduated, so I never even met her until my last MT trip when I was 3 weeks pregnant with Jake and didn't know it. She's a lot of fun, though.
Friday's a blur, too. I know that I read "The Devil Wears Prada" sometime that week (it was HILARIOUS), so I guess that's the day I sat with Jake while he played outside and read most of the day.
Saturday, the day of graduation, was a MESS. My mom (and Kathy) have a horrible habit of being ABSURDLY early for everything. Graduation started at 10 a.m. and we were there before 8:30. The good news is, we had great seats. The bad news? I didn't get to sit in them. Jake was so hyper and fidgety I ended up walking around with him the WHOLE time. At first we were just walking around to kill time, but once the ceremony started he lasted 10 minutes and was so active and whiny I gave up and just took him outside. I don't know where he got all the energy or the inability to listen to me all of a sudden, but I was not happy. The whole point of the trip was so I could see Kathy graduate, and I ended up not even seeing it. In Jake's defense, his schedule was way off and he was in a weird environment, but I wanted to smack him, he was making me so mad. Of course, I should know better than to take a 19 month old to a 2 hour event where you need to be quiet. As my friend Monica's mom put it: if I really wanted to see Kathy graduate, I should have hired a baby-sitter.
Anyway, about 20 minutes before graduation was over I just got sick of chasing him around outside, so I went and got the car keys from my mom. We had rented a Subaru Outback and it was a horrible little car. We hated it. Nothing in it made sense. Anyway, I rolled down the windows, stuck Jake in the driver's seat (keys in my hand, of course) and let him play "vroom vroom" to his heart's content. Afterward mom, Kathy, Jake and I went to Olive Garden. I love Olive Garden's salad, but I really don't think most of their menu items are any better now than Fazoli's (which is WAY cheaper.) Olive Garden used to have great
spaghetti, but they changed it and now it's just eh. But it was nice to sit and eat and
Jake behaved pretty well. He's pretty adament about using a fork now, even when he's not getting very far with it. I just let him play and try to clean up whatever mess he makes before we leave. Jake loves spaghetti, and I had them bring it to me with sauce on the side and I gave him just a little sauce so the mess wasn't so bad.
Later that night . . . we look out the window, and see that mom's rental car's parking lights are on. [Remember that Jake was playing "vroom vroom"?] Yup, the car was dead. It took us FOREVER to find the button he had pushed to turn the parking lights on. I didn't even know there WAS that type of light on the car. Anyway, Tina's husband was home so he pulled his car around and gave us a jump. Mom was a little mad, though. heh.
Sunday we got up in the morning and drove 2 hours to Colstrip, the town I grew up in. This trip wasn't so bad because we brought my portable DVD player that I bought especially for the trip. For some reason I can't get it to work off of the batteries, so we couldn't use it on the plane like I had hoped, but it came in really handy in the car and when I was trying to get Jake calmed down to go to sleep (or just when we needed some quiet time.) I watched the landscape as we drove, and it was weird to see it again. We made the drive from Colstrip to Billings and back hundreds of times in the 14 years I lived there, but I'm so used to Tennessee now it was like seeing it brand new all over again. Montana's weird, especially eastern Montana -- it's mostly flat or just a little bumpy, sparse trees and pretty boring. But there are some really pretty spots in the midst of it. Someday I want to take a few weeks and come to Montana with some good cameras and a crew to help me deal with set up and stopping on the highways (maybe hold up a "photographer at work" sign so I don't get run over) and take lots of pictures, maybe make a book. Rosebud County, especially (where Colstrip is.) It would be an interesting project.
Anyway, we didn't even try to get there in time for Sunday School -- we talked to the lady in the nursery while SS finished. Sylvia's family had moved to Colstrip when I was in 5th grade and they had a daughter my age. Always desperate for new friends to add to our groups, we were pretty good about snatching up the new kids for ourselves at any opportunity, and I guess I got to Angela first, because she and my friend Catie and I pal-ed around all that year. Angela and I kind of out-grew each other in middle school (she was REALLY annoying), but Sylvia always says how nice it was that I was Angela's friend when she was new. Anyway, we talked for a while, I walked around with Jake and introduced him to people, then we went upstairs.
It's a pretty small Baptist church -- average as far as the building goes, but only has like 45 people in attendance any given Sunday. There weren't very many people there that I wanted to see (again, most people I was close to have left town), but I kept Jake with me through the opening songs. He was getting a little active so I took him down to the nursery, but it was Sylvia and two 10 year olds watching like 8 kids ranging from 7 months to 4 years old. In a SMALL room. I sat him down and went back upstairs for maybe 10 minutes, but I think the pastor they have now is an idiot anyway (I'm used to listening to people with M. Div's [Masters of Divinity], and this guy has never even been to college, and he's STUPID.) So I went back downstairs, got Jake, and sat in the preschool room with him
and played. In my church in Nashville we seperate out the ages in different rooms, which makes sense, because 4 year olds shouldn't be playing with infants in a crowded room, especially when they outnumber adults 10 to 1. (I'm sorry, but 10 year old "helpers" are just more kids to baby-sit.)
The highlight of the potluck they had for us after church was my best friend Monica's family. I haven't seen Monica in 2 or 3 years, and she's in Washington state now, so who knows when we'll hook up again, but her mom and 2 of her sisters came to see me and it was GREAT to talk with them again. Her mom, MaryAnn, has been bugging me since Jake was born to bring him to meet her. The crazy thing is, Jake is really apprehensive about new people lately and didn't much like people touching him or talking to him, but he LOVED MaryAnn, Maria, and Michelle (yes, the other kids are Matt, Monica, and Michael -- all M's.) He let all 3 of them hold him and walk around with him to try to run off his energy so I could sit and visit. MaryAnn is the COOLEST ever, she calls my bluff and forces me to be real. She did this all through middle school and high school. She was a great grounding place for me as I grew up and needed someone to help me put it in perspective.
After church we drove around town for a bit, then stopped by Aunt Verla's to visit and let Jake take a nap. I had to run back out to the car for something, and 10 minutes after I came back in, mom asked where the keys were. I thought I gave them to her, but we couldn't find them . . . so we practiclly tear Verla's house apart looking for the keys, I go back out to the car to see if I locked them in (I'm known to do that) and they're nowhere to be found. I come back in and look at my mom and think "hmm . . " She had gone to the bathroom after I got back . . . and there the keys were, on the bathroom counter! And mom was on the verge of one of her "Jenny, you're so irresponsible" rants. HA.
At 4 p.m. we met my old high school history teacher for a pop at a restaurant. I had his wife for reading in 4th grade, Kathy had his wife as her main teacher in 4th grade, then we all had Mr. Davidson for government or American history. He also takes a group of student to D.C. every year for Close-Up, and I went my junior year. He was SO much fun as a teacher, I always really admired his knowledge and courage to be his own person [he's like 50, a self-described "old hippie," has longish hair and a bushy mustache]. He said they're pretty ready to leave Colstrip, too -- 3 more years and they will retire. They'd been there 27 years. Ugh. I'm thankful, though, that they were my teachers. Living in a place like that, you've got to have a ray of light, and Mr. D was that for me!
Monday I went to go see my old choir teacher, Mr. Corey. I wouldn't even know where to BEGIN to describe our history and how important having him as a teacher was to my life. So suffice to say, Mr. Corey is my absolute favorite teacher in the world and such a great guy. He goes above and beyond to help his students. He teaches now at a high school in Billings, so Jake and I went to see him. I got there as one class was ending so I waited in the hall and looked at the pictures of his 3 kids -- they're 7, 5, and 2 now, and SO adorable. The kids are such an interesting combination of Mr. C and his wife, Ruth. They somehow look exactly like both of them! Anyway, we went in and Mr. C let his choir goof off for a while so we could talk, then they sang a bit, then we talked some more . . . the choir was freshman girls so they all thought Jake was adorable. He behaved very well, but he loved having an audience. He wouldn't let Mr. C hold him, which was a little disappointing, but that's just the way Jake is. Mr. C asked when I thought I would be back through to visit again and I said, "Honestly? Now that mom and dad and Kat will all be in TN with me, I have no reason to come back. Maybe when Jake's older we'll take a family vacation, but it's going to be several years." He understood. It was so nice to see him, though.
Tuesday couldn't have rolled around soon enough. I was so desperately ready to get on that plane!!! We mostly lazed around all day and got things ready, then met one of my mom's old friends at one of Billings' two "malls." [I use that term loosely.] The mall had a play area that Jake had a good time in with Kathy while mom and I looked for scrapbooking supplies in Ben Frankin's (a craft store.) Pretty much we're on the lookout for scrappin' stuff where ever we go. I was actually pleasantly surprized to see they had a pretty good selection. Meanwhile, Jake was playing nicely with some other kids in the play area -- one baby's grandma told Kathy what a nice boy Jake was, because instead of plowing over a baby in his way, he was careful to step AROUND her. That made me happy -- I really want him to be considerate of other people, especially people smaller or younger than him, and we've put a lot of effort into making sure he's nice to Zoe and Elauna. I guess it worked!!!
Anyway, lunch was nice, and we got to the airport pretty early (big surprize.) The buckles on my sandles set off the metal detectors, so they were making Jake and I go through seperately, and they made him put his bottle in the tray!!! What the hell could a 1 year old be carrying in a clear plastic bottle that they need to x-ray it? So of course Jake had a break-down, because not only did they take his bottle away but he thought they were going to seperate us. Thanks alot, you're really keeping the skies safe.
I was pretty annoyed by that, then I had to keep Jake occupied for an hour until our flight. I had consolidated my carry-on to just Jake's diaper bag, with only what he needed in it, but it was still pretty heavy. Everything else, I gave to mom and Kathy for the truck they were driving back in. That helped, but it's still a lot to carry a bulky diaper bag and a 31 pound toddler. I was even further annoyed, then, when I saw that to get to our plane we had to walk down a flight of stairs, across the pavement, and up some stairs into the plane.
Because THAT'S easy to do with a child! I was so pissed. We hadn't let Jake take a nap that day, so luckily during take-off he fell asleep and slept the whole flight (which is good, because we were sitting by a pretty unfriendly guy about my age who didn't say one word to us the whole flight.)
In Denver my luck ran out and Jake woke up for the rest of the day. We stopped for a bite to eat (after a quick diaper change -- I am very proud that I didn't have to step one foot in an airplane bathroom) then sat down at our gate. Jake had a good time watching the planes through the window. He behaved pretty well (aside from getting mad when he saw a lady eating popcorn and I wouldn't let him have any.) We had to take another little hike to get to our next plane, which involved going down a gate hallway, then down stairs, down another hallway to our sub-gate (who knew that gate 61 in Denver is actually the door for like 10 other gates?) then walked out on the pavement to have to climb the stairs again to another SMALL plane. YOU PEOPLE CAN BITE ME!!! That's how I felt about all of it. I was so pissed to have to carry him and our heavy bag around like that. We were seated, again, next to an unfriendly person and Jake was wide awake with plenty of energy. After 20 minutes the flight attendant took mercy on me and said "there's an empty seat in the back if you want to let him stretch out. BLESS YOU! That made the flight bearable -- the flight from Denver to Nashville is like 3 hours, and that's a LONG time with a fidgety little kid. So we had a row of 2 seats all to ourself so he had his own seat. I was SO tired, but Jake wouldn't calm down, he was having a blast playing. He was good, though -- the most noise he
made was a couple of loud laughs, but we were right on the wing so I doubt anyone heard him. I got lots of compliments on his behavior and his big brown eyes. ;o)
I was SO GLAD when we finally touched down in Nashville. Before I left my boss had told me she didn't have a good feeling about me going on this trip, and of course every time I fly I wonder in the back of my mind if the plane is going to (a) blow up, (b) crash into the ground, or (c) run into another plane mid-flight. (I watched too much TV growing up and have an over-active imagination.) But we got home safely, so I guess Jan's bad feeling was just a premonition that my trip would SUCK. ;o) Lou works nights and our flight got in at like 10:30 p.m., so his grandmother picked us up. I was so glad to see her and get in her big pink Caddie and relax for the drive home.
That'll do it for now . . . I don't have time to write about how stressed I've been since I got back or how I got NOTHING for Mother's Day. Whatever. I DO finally have a TTM board, so that's pretty exciting!!! I don't have pictures up yet of our trip, but I'll post the link on my TTM board when I get them up. I know that a lot of people are moving to Blogs, but I just don't have the energy. I am enjoying reading what everyone has to say, though!!!
Stop by and say hello on my TTM.
Jen
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