Leaving Oz

An Attic Full of Memories

I'm home in San Diego visiting my parents this week. It's funny saying that it's "home" when I haven't actually lived here for twenty-two years, but it was my first home.  So, I suppose it's fair to call it that. As my childhood home, it holds many memories and artifacts from my past life. My "kid" life.  I guess it was a yearning for a piece of that past life, (or maybe just a desire to find more stuff to keep my kids from bugging me) that lead me to pester my husband into braving the tight crawl into my parents' attic space in hunt of past treasures. In particular - a hunt for our old Legos.

It turned out to be a dirty treasure hunt, complete with mouse droppings and termite residue. Nevertheless, Rob endured and began handing down old trash bags and boxes that hadn't been explored in twenty years or more.  One at a time the crusty boxes dropped grit in my eyes as they were handed down.

"Another mystery box!" my daughter yelled with glee.

Feeling Welcome With Kids

This past weekend we were invited to a wedding for an old colleague of my husbands. Actually, Rob was in the wedding and the whole family was invited. There was a time in our lives about ten or eleven years ago where our summer was almost entirely booked with weddings. Then there was a period a few years after that where we were flooded with baby showers. Now, we tend to be swamped with little kid birthday parties, and weddings are a rare event in our lives. Neither of our kids, ages 3 and 6, had ever been to one so they were mildly curious. I, on the other hand, I simply felt dread as the day approached.      

Here's what I saw looming ahead... an intimate wedding at a private estate in Santa Rosa with two little kids who couldn't sit still through dinner, much less a Greek orthodox wedding ceremony, complete with crowns, chanting, communion and a forecast for temperatures in the 90's. Plus, there was the fact that Rob would be in the wedding party, which meant he wouldn't be much help, and as an added bonus he was going to be reunited with a bunch of his old friends that he hadn't seen in years. Just how many people was I going to know at this exciting event? Oh, about two- the groom and one of the other groomsmen -  a lot of good that'd do me.  I was determined to be a trooper, though. I knew that Rob was really excited, and I didn't want to rain on his parade so off we went.