VACATION REPORT, PART ONE

So K. and I have been back from Washington for about six days now. The trip was awesome, and I feel totally refreshed and invigorated from all that faraway travel.

As some of you may know, this was not the first time that I visited K.’s home state. I also dropped in this past New Year’s. The prior northwestern exposure, however, only made the second time around feel more familiar, and as a result, more pleasant. I could spend an entire post describing the best things that happened on each day of that ten-day trip. In fact, I think I will!

FRIDAY, SEPT. 15^th

It’s the day we spent traveling across the country, so in my book, it counts as part of the vacation. Chaotic check-in lines at NYC Kennedy inevitably gave way to a late Friday arrival at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, where K.’s parents picked us up.

But first, we had to endure a long wait for our plane to take off. Inclement weather had caused a queue to form, and at one point, the captain announced over the intercom that we were number 50 among those waiting their turn on the runway. So we got to watch movies: “X3: The Last Stand,” “Nacho Libre,” and “Poseidon.” I didn’t find the first to be nearly as offensive as I had anticipated. Meanwhile, “Nacho” was sporadically funny, and I napped during the start of “Poseidon,” which didn’t look very good, anyway.

SATURDAY, SEPT. 16^th

After waking up at a surprisingly reasonable hour (having regained three hours from east-to-west travel), K. and I spent the day hanging out with various members of her family. I got to drive her folks’ van from Hoquiem to Olympia, where we picked up K.’s niece and nephew. Then we drove back to Hoquiem, where I helped the aforementioned niece put on a play involving a homemade stage, sock puppets, and some fruit. I brought the house down when I made the farmer puppet turn to the talking cow puppet, and say to it, “Time to go to bed. You’ve got a date with the slaughterhouse tomorrow.” I laughed, anyway.

Then I took a short walk to some nearby blackberry bushes with K., her niece, nephew, older sister from California, and the latter’s two young sons. We picked all the wild berries we could, and then sauntered over to the edge of a nearby lake. The eldest of the two cute boys who are the children of K.’s sister mashed up much of the berries, which had been in a bucket, into a dark, bumpy paste with his hand. He looked very pleased with himself. Picking wild berries is a lot of fun, though I got pricked on my fingertips more times than I could count.

SUNDAY, SEPT. 17^th

One of K.’s California nephews, the berry masher, was celebrating his third birthday, so we all drove up to a state park and campground near Olympia. We ate hot dogs and cake, played in the sand, and otherwise had a terrific time. K.’s other sister, the mother of the Olympia niece and nephew, also showed up, as did some very funny friends of her family’s.

We took two vehicles this time since K.’s parents were also going. K’s dad has a second van, a full-sized model, which he picked up during our last trip to Washington. I must say this about the man: Although he is several decades my senior, he doesn’t drive like a fogey. In fact, before we left in our separate vehicles, he told me that I’d be better off not trying to follow him. In hindsight, I’m thankful for the warning, since he immediately left us eating his proverbial dust.

After the party, the Olympia niece and nephew went home with K.’s other sister. That left us, as far as little kids were concerned, with the California nephews, who slept quietly during the trip back to Hoquiem.

MONDAY, SEPT. 18^th

I think I spent the entire day playing with one of K.’s California nephew’s birthday presents. It was a Marble Race set, the toy where you connect a series of tubes and slides together, then drop in marbles. The nephew and I just about killed the morning and afternoon assembling our marble skylines, disassembling them, and reassembling them into an even more elaborate network.

The funny thing is, long after the California nephew had gone to bed, I was still at it, being egged on by K.’s dad, who appears to not need sleep. It’s not like he was putting down my manhood or anything. However, every time I would try to make some excuse to quit and go to bed, having been temporarily exasperated by the inability to make all the tubes fit together into a seamless whole, he would laugh, then say something like, “Oh, quitting already?” Sure it was all harmless, but damned if it didn’t prick my pride. So on I’d go, until I didn’t go to bed until 2 a.m. – west coast time!

TUESDAY, SEPT. 19^th

Today we made homemade jelly out of wild blackberries. K.’s mom showed us how to strain the berries into a bowl using cheesecloth, as the jar lids were being sterilized in a pot of boiling water. Then we put the berry goop, lots of sugar, and a little pectin into another pot, bringing it to a boil. That, in turn, was transferred into glass jars, which had been sterilized via a hot water cycle in the dishwasher.

After sealing the jars of fresh jelly, we cooked them in yet another pot full of water. I haven’t tried any of the finished products yet, but I have consumed past jellies cooked up by K. and/or her mom, and they have all been universally awesome. In other words, my hopes are high!

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 20^th

I think K. and I may have spent the entire morning sleeping. In the afternoon, however, we drove to Olympia to see K.’s sister, niece, nephew, and other nephew (who was born last January, so he didn't make the last trip). Her Olympia relations are all nice people, although K.’s brother-in-law is a real piece of work. I was showing K.’s Olympia niece how to play chess, and I guess she wasn’t doing as well as her dad would have liked, because he started impatiently barking orders at her about where to move her pieces.

Now I know I’m not the greatest chess player in the world. In fact, almost all of my immediate friends who play the game have soundly thrashed me on various occasions. Moreover, I don’t think of myself as the most competitive game-player, especially not when I’m playing someone whom I know is still learning. But K.’s brother-in-law, apparently, is of the “win at all costs” mold. How else to explain that he resorted to CHEATING in order to try and beat me?

What happened was: I got my pawn to the other side of the board, wherein I asked for my queen back. Suddenly, this guy starts talking about how that isn’t the standard rule in chess. “Get that stuff out of here,” he said.

Since I never exactly memorized the international rulebook, I actually bought his crap. But guess what? I looked it up, and exchanging a pawn for a queen or higher piece when it reaches the highest rank is, in fact, a World Chess Federation rule! Gee, I wonder if K.’s brother-in-law’s objection had anything to do with the fact that he was up one knight on me? I kicked his ass, anyway.

After that lovely visit, we all went to Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle where K.’s grandma owns a spacious house. Then “Molly,” K.’s gal pal from back in the day, picked us up and drove us to what appeared to be another suburb. It had nice bars, however, and reminded me of Brookline. We got together with some more of K.’s childhood friends, downing cokes and root beers (which were actually on-tap). Then we slept at Molly’s place, but not before playing with Asia, the awesomest dog in all of Washington!