TheMommyBlog

Monday, October 10, 2005 Family

Not much! But it was fun! Actually, we went to San Francisco with absolutely no plans, and we executed beautifully. We arrived laaaate, late enough to scarf dinner at Three Seasons and not be able to play Scrabble at The Grove afterward. I think Phil planned it. I kicked his ass last time.

Oh! And as it was Fleet Week, the Blue Angels were in town. It’s not something I would have liked to do with all three kids—it was just too crazy and crowded—but with just two grownups and some food to keep track of, it was perfect. I’ve been going to see the Blue Angels ever since I was a little girl in Dayton, OH. The Dayton Airshow was always a big deal because my little hometown is also that of Orville and Wilbur Wright and the official United States Air Force museum. Betcha didn’t know that, huh? It’s true: I’m from a small town in Ohio. My parents met at University of Dayton and stayed there to get married and raise a family (she was from Chicago and he was from NY; I don’t know what possessed them wind up there. Kidding! I know it’s a good school. Sorry, Dad. *cough*hicktown*cough*).

While I was searching for info on Dayton, I got caught up with the nostalgia and all of the names that came tumbling back to me: Malcolm McLeod and Clubhouse 22, our favorite kids’ show. Since my dad worked at the local TV station and knew Malcolm he got me on the show one day to reach into the barrel and choose a raffle winner. Ahh, small town glory days. I also have an autographed photo of Captain Kangaroo somewhere, and I believe I own one square foot of the UD football field. Eeee! I totally forgot that Bill Cosby used to be on the show and did the Picture Pages segment!

Isn’t it fun reminiscing with people you don’t know?

Gah! Back to the air show. Poor Phil was telling me all about the stunts he’d watched during the years he was a private chef for a ninety-year-old lady in Pacific Heights and lived in the penthouse apartment. He’s got some very cool photos from then, because he was able to watch the practices and thus know the sequence and timing of each feat and be set up to capture it for the show. I was such a brat. “I know, I know, first they do this and then they do that; for Pete’s sake I’ve seen it a million times. The only thing I remember more clearly is the smell of trodden grass and cotton candy in the summer sun.” But we had a wonderful picnic and took a million photos, some of them good.

The rest of the weekend was lazy. Logan stayed home with a raging case of impetigo, our arch enemy of yore, and Daphne has Columbus Day off. So, thinking we were offering a TREAT, we took them to the Winchester Mystery House and to lunch. Logan was skeptical at first. “It’s a house? Darnit. Can’t we go to the zoo?”

“We can’t do both, baby, that’s just too much in one day. Tell you what: the house is right across from the movie theater. If you hate it, we’ll just go see The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Okay?”

“I guess. There’s really nothing I want to see at the zoo anyway.”

“Great! I’m glad you told me that now, before we changed plans. Now let’s get in the car!”

I’d seen the Mystery House before and remember thinking it was pretty cool, more for the back story than for the architectural beauty of the place. In fact, it was hideous, but the fact that this tiny widow of the Winchester Arms President ended her socialite life after her husband died and then spent 38 years doing construction on her house, twenty-four-hours a day, absolutely fascinated me. The tour guide said that the fastest way to get fired was to look up at the little room she used to spy on the kitchen or to be overheard saying her name. Mrs. Winchester also paid her staff in cash at the end of every day. That way, she could fire at will with minimal effort. What a freaking nightmare this woman was. What amazes me is that her staff dug her out of the ruins of her bedroom where she was trapped after the 1906 earthquake. You’d think they’d all be in the wine cellar, calculating how long it might take her to starve.

We ended the day with the boys watching David Attenborough’s Life of Birds in the living room while the rest of us grabbed couch, bed, whatever, for an afternoon nap. The boys disdained the notion.

Before Phil left to do his lesson plans for tomorrow, he captured some snapshots of Mama in her natural habitat...