Sheep Guarding Llama

Now for my long weekend. We have not heard anything from Dominica or Katie yet on their voyage. Today is their day in Nassau for the bulk of the day. The only day that they have any significant time on the ground in the Bahamas. I have been attempting to keep track of their progress via the online ship tracking sites but since they checked in at Freeport the ship has not checked in again so we only know where they are via their itinerary and not from anything solid.

Liesl had been asking for bagels this week and I had promised her that I would get them for her today. Dad said that he had never had a bagel before. I was pretty incredulous. So I ran out to Daily Bagel and got a dozen bagels and some turnovers for everyone and came back home.

This morning dad looked into mounting the television in the living room over the fireplace. This would be the same television that we had mounted up there back when Liesl was born and that we took with us to the apartment in Texas and then to the house in Texas where Dominica and I used it in our bedroom and never, in the more than three years that we had that house, managed to get around to wall mounting it (which I suppose ended up being a good thing.) So I ran out to Best Buy and picked up a wall mount for the television.

Dad worked on the television mount and I worked on some certification work that demanded my attention. I had a bit of work that needed to be done but I got it done today which felt good. Now I don’t have that hanging over my head for the rest of the weekend.

Once we had the television mounted I tracked down the PS3 and got that hooked up so that we could actually watch things in the living room. We talked about watching “Return of the Jedi” but Liesl said that she had a hard time remembering and understanding what had happened in the first two movies and dad had not seen them in forever so we watched those again. First “Star Wars” which I watched with them when we ordered dinner from Nonna’s – pizza all around. The girls have been wanting pizza since Thursday night when we tried to order some but the shop was closed.

During “The Empire Strikes Back” I went down to the basement and worked through most of it. I just saw it so good time to work.

Tonight, while they were watching an iPad in bed, Ciana accidentally head butted Liesl and suddenly Liesl started crying.  Liesl said “She knocked my tooth loose!” and she was right.  Liesl’s lower front right tooth was very wiggly!  I think likely it was already loose and this just pushed it along.  We talked about it for a bit and she was upset at first but started to understand that it was a good thing and meant that she was growing up.  That helped a lot.  I think by the end she was pretty excited about it.

Went to bed early last night and slept in as long as I could this morning.  We’ve gotten no communication from Dominica since her last second post to Facebook after the private concert last night that said that the ship was getting underway.  She will be out of contact as long as they are at see but they should be getting into Freeport today so we should get an update from her once the ship is online in the Bahamas.  It is just a quick stopover there but then on Saturday she will be in Nassau all day and will have lots of opportunity to get us up to date on how things are going.

Today, Madeline turns fourteen!  That means that she is 14 on the 14th of ’14!

Today is also dad’s one day that he will be completely at home alone with the girls.  But he got lucky again, the weather yesterday was bad enough that my office is on a delayed start this morning so I was with him this morning two hours longer than I would normally have been.  So the day was not as long as it could have been.

The drive to work was not bad at all once the roads had cleared.  I was glad to get to wait before going in, though.

I made sure that I left work at a reasonable time today.  Wanted to get home and relieve dad before the girls drove him crazy.  He did pretty well today, though.    The girls had a lot of fun.  They all survived and now it is all over, I will be home with the girls for the next three days.

Dominica left Valentine’s Day cards for the girls (and me.)  So they opened them tonight.  They each got a Disney card with a rubber charm bracelet in it.  They thought that those were really cool.

Watched some shows down in the basement before heading to bed tonight.

The alarm went off at three this morning. Dominica was up first and started getting ready and checked the weather and her flight status before getting me up. Her flight, on JetBlue out of JFK, was still scheduled to make it out this morning. So we packed up the car and off we went.

When we got out to the car, the snow had already been coming down for a bit and there was probably an inch and a half on the ground and the snow plows, even in our complex, had not been out yet. This might be a very bad morning.

It took a while to get out of our complex and we were moving like molasses as we tried to get out to the main roads. We were sliding by our first turn and almost could not make it up the hill on the snowy road. Not a good start.

The drive from our house to JFK in Brooklyn is only supposed to take an hour (that is crossing all of Westchester, the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn can be done in that short of time) but our drive took at least ninety-five minutes. It was a long, stressful drive. We were really worried that we were not going to be able to keep moving and that Dominica would end up missing her flight anyway. The drive was just awful.

I got Dominica to the airport and her flight was thankfully still listed as being on time. We had seen no snow plows all morning thus far, although the roads were decent once we were into the Bronx, and the snow was coming down steadily the entire drive. And, of course, my windshield washer fluid is still frozen or broken or whatever so there is little means of cleaning the windshield. To add to the stress of the morning, I had forgotten my wallet at home so had only the cash that Dominica was able to give me for dealing with tolls and any emergencies that might happen along the way.

The drive home was so much worse than the drive down to Brooklyn. The snow had kept coming down and the roads were much worse. Luckily there were some plows out on the Sprain but they were shoulder to shoulder and moving at 12 miles per hour so I made almost no progress at all and there was so way around them. They created so much spray that there was almost no visibility.

Once I hit the Taconic there were no plows at all so suddenly I went from crawling behind treble plows to being out on a completely abandoned road with a long way still to go. That was really horrible.

I tried stopping at the deli right by the house to pick up breakfast for dad and I but the only deli that I would pass on my way home had not even tried to open today. So no food for us.

On the drive up, which took more than two hours, I finished reading Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” It was good but I was really surprised by how little “adventure” that there was. The whole book was them trying to get somewhere and then it was just over. I had expected so much more. I think that the book could easily have been four or five times as long and been much better. It had so much potential but petered out by the end.

Dad was waiting in the kitchen, watching for me, when I finally pulled into the parking lot at the house. Dominica had been emailing hoping to find out that I was home before she was en route to Georgia. Her flight remained on time and she had already boarded quite some time before I arrived home. I emailed her immediately upon arrival and she appears to have gotten the email but her response to my email did not come through until after she arrived in Savannah so it must have been right as she was going into “airplane mode” when I got home.

I pretty much went straight to bed after getting home. I was so incredibly tired. I only had about three hours of sleep and was tired before going to bed last night too. Before falling asleep I checked my mail from the office and was very happy to see that the office closed for the day. That means that I am just expected to work from home today – so I will not even be attempting to drive in but I was not going to anyway. The snow was so bad and still coming down like crazy – actually coming down much moreso now. There was no way that I was going back out there again, especially for an even longer drive.

I got a good, solid nap in. I felt much better after that. When I woke up I checked my mail and saw that Dominica had already disembarked from the plane in Savannah. She had had a very nice flight with nice goodies and stuff because it was the inaugural flight for that path.

Katie drove up from Jacksonville to Savannah, only about a two hour drive, to get Dominica and take her down to the cruise ship. They are really lucky that they had so many things in place to allow for these last minute changes in plans. It is amazing that Dominica was able to make this cruise!

I set up for work via my Windows 7 laptop (yes, I now have one that old) in the living room and hung out with dad and the girls. Dad is very thankful that I am home today. Now he only has a single day of being alone with the girls and that is only if I am going into the office tomorrow. I assume that I am, but we will have to wait and see.

The snow was coming down at an epic pace. Huge flakes and no end to it. Liesl was so excited as she loves snow to no end. She got bundled up and went out for a good, long play on the back deck in the foot or more deep snow. Luciana saw her go out and decided that she must go out too. So they played and played out there.

Work was pretty slow today. That is expected when the office is essentially empty. It was nice to be home, yesterday was a really long day. And the timing was perfect with dad there. Now he gets two days of training before having just one day all on his own.

Dominica and Katie made it to the ship before one thirty and were able to get onboard, set up in their massive stateroom and get their first meal while waiting for others to board. Dominica had time to take a nap too.

This evening, Dominica and Katie got to attend a special, private concert on the ship to which they had won tickets. The ship was originally supposed to leave port around three thirty, I believe, but had pushed off leaving until five and then six and was only just getting underway when she was done with the first concert closer to seven. That was the last update that I got from her as once the ship pulled away she had no Internet access so we are essentially out of touch until she gets back to port again.

This evening we all watched Star Wars again. Dad had not seen it in a long time and was interested in seeing it again with the girls and Liesl wanted to go back and watch it again because she liked it but had had a hard time following and remembering the story the first time. It is a much longer form movie and much more complicated than any movie that she has watched before so getting this one reinforced will probably make a big difference.

The girls were tired and ready for bed when the movie was over. They are sleeping in our room tonight. I read Liesl her chapter for “The Silver Chair” and we were all three off to bed.

As of the time that I was going to bed, the office is still planning on being open tomorrow but they will send out an announcement in the morning as being closed is a very real possibility. The snow stopped falling mid-afternoon but there was tons of it out there and it rained for several hours after that. Just as we were going to bed we had some massive lighting hits within a mile. Very bright and extremely loud. Luciana was scared.

Knowing that today was going to be a crazy one at work, I got up at four and was in the office at a quarter until seven in the morning. I was pretty tired all day. Liesl and Luciana had slept in our bed last night and Liesl practically pushed me onto the floor for most of the night making it very hard to sleep.

Originally we had feared that Dominica might have to leave a day early to make it down to Florida for her cruise and that would mean that instead of having today to “train” with her and then two days of the girls by himself, dad would instead of no training at all and three days of the girls to himself – a major difference in stress level. He was pretty worried about that but Dominica decided not to attempt to travel early and so was home today. Her day ended up being a very stressful one, though, because she had to spend the day watching the weather and the flight status and, midway through the day, her flight was cancelled and she had to spend the entire day trying to figure out what she was going to do.

Dominica had a very long day dealing with this. She was really stressed as she bounced from possibly finding a flight to being stuck with no way to get to Jacksonville (where the cruise is leaving from) over and over again. We checked into trains, cars and all kinds of options. She did little else all day.

Everything about this cruise and everything about the coordination necessary to go on it has solidified to me so strongly just how much I never, ever want anything to do with a cruise. Stress, expense, risk and tons of effort to get to the “vacation” all negate any positives that might be available in a cruise situation. Even with weeks of planning and days of closely watching options Dominica is now spending a full day, which is only possible because she stays home with the kids and because dad was there watching them today so that she had the time to do all of this, just trying to figure out how to get to the cruise and spending twice as much on the travel as we had expected. A horrible, horrible experience and, more or less, what you expect because cruises are only really beneficial when taken during local poor weather months (why would anyone want to cruise in the summer) and the tight schedule necessary for a cruise ship to keep makes everything surrounding it very stressful.

After a full day of trying to figure out what to do and being online trying to help others figure out what to do (people from all over the world are unable to make this cruise do to their travel arrangements) Dominica finally figured out that she could get the first flight (the very first flight ever) on JetBlue from JFK to Savannah tomorrow morning and that Katie could drive from Jacksonville up to Savannah and pick her up. So she booked that flight and we made our plans. She is very thankful that she was able to figure something out, but we are still very worried that the flight will be cancelled or that there will be no way to get her to the airport. The chances that any flight will make it through on the east coast is relatively low at this point.

I worked until late, not leaving the office until after seven. It was an extremely long work day for me. So it was well after eight when I got back to the house. Dominica and I decided that the weather was supposed to be okay early in the morning so we would not get her a hotel in Brooklyn for tonight as that would mean more traveling tonight and more logistics for her and more expense when this cruise already took on hundreds of more dollars of cost with the changes in flights. It is a tough gamble either way.

Dad slept in the basement tonight. The girls slept in their own room because Dominica and I really needed sleep and had to get up very early. Our alarm will be going off at three in the morning. Her flight out of JFK is at seven twenty five.

I am prepared and expecting to be working from home tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be just awful. The south was hit with the storm today and we get it in the morning. We are expected around a foot of snow to fall just in the morning. So everyone knows that tomorrow is almost certainly going to be a snow day at the office.

Today is Tuesday and today dad is spending the day on Amtrak working his way down to Peekskill to stay with the girls for the week. He leaves around eleven and, if all goes well, we should see him before seven. If he is on time Dominica and the girls will get him and if he is running late I will be picking him up.

This morning was a very cold one. Seven degrees when I went out to warm up the car. Quite nippy. I took out the garbage and the recycling to get the space in the kitchen cleaned up and did some cleaning in the living room while waiting for the car to get warm enough to drive. Even with all of this need to warm up the car for up to half an hour before leaving in the mornings my fuel efficiency has taken another bump up and the car’s lifetime average is now 34.7 MPG instead of 34.6 MPG. That’s the second increase I’ve seen since I got the last oil change that included the air filter change, that we knew was very much needed. That is the lifetime average at around 26,000 miles so gaining a tenth of a mile per gallon average increase is a huge deal. I continue to be extremely happy with the decision to buy the, rather silly, Chevy Spark. And Dominica still drives it anytime that she can. It has saved us a fortune already and we have not owned it all that long. It was one of our wiser investments. It has been acceptably good in the snow as well, which is pretty surprising, but the tiny wheels have something to do with that.

At least today is bright and clear. A good day for dad to be on the train. He has his new iPad but his train heading south does not have WiFi on it yet. He northbound train ride next week does, though. He has his T-Mobile 4G and should have a connection from time to time to get email.

I have the Amtrak app for my iPhone, as does Dominica, so we can track dad’s progress that way. Very handy. While at my desk I can track dad’s train in real time too via Amtrak’s site: http://www.amtrak.com/train-routes

Dad’s train was pretty delayed getting into Albany but made up some time heading down the Hudson River and I was able to leave the office in Connecticut at the perfect time to get out to Croton, New York at almost exactly the same time that dad’s train was pulling into the station at around a quarter past seven.

Liesl and Luciana was so excited to see grandpa. They were just exploding with excitement. They were screaming and bouncing off of the walls. They could not contain themselves at all. For a while they just ran back and forth through the house like crazed animals.

Dominica had managed to find someone in town who wanted our queen mattress and bed frame via Freecycle and they were coming at eight thirty tonight to pick them up. Dad and I had gotten to the house at a quarter to eight. The mattress was by the door and ready to go, no big deal there. But the bed frame that we were giving away was upstairs in the girls’ bedroom with dad’s bed made up on it. So we had to quickly go up and move it downstairs.

Moving the bed frame seemed like it would not be too hard of a task but when I tried to move it down the stairs I realized that the slats were going to fall off as I did it and would need Dominica’s help. When she came up to help we managed to get it heading down the stairs but then got stuck near the bottom as it would not fit through the available opening. Not good. We ended up having to disassemble it in situ in the stairwell. Less than ideal. That was a huge amount of effort and we were still getting the last pieces down the stairs when the two guys arrived to pick everything up. But we had it ready before they were done carrying the available parts out to their car so it worked out just fine.

We are so thankful for Freecycle. That worked out wonderfully. We would have hated to have thrown that bed frame or that mattress out. They were very high quality items when new and while the bed has taken some wear (mostly for our renters of four years) and the frame is less than fully intact they were both very usable and when assembled the bed frame was as functional and aesthetic as new. It is only when disassembled that the frame has any issues. Now they are off to a good home and we have a lot more space in our house.

Since that bed left, we had to go up to the attic and take down the folding queen bed frame that we had up there and put it together so that dad would have that to sleep on instead. So we made for ourselves a bit of work tonight but with that mattress gone the house, for the first time, is really feeling livable.

I did not get a chance to mention it or to pay attention because of the mattress work and screaming children but Dominica did a ton of cleaning in the house today. The Roomba was run all day long and the house is so much cleaner than it has been. It has been pretty rough living there and finally things are starting to look nice, like the house used to look when we lived here many years ago.