The worst thing about a vacation is when it ends, especially when it’s very special vacation, as was the one I just returned home from. Alison and I went to New England for the Bat Mitzvah of my oldest, dearest friend’s daughter.
We also got to revisit a place we lived a decade ago, before we moved back to Florida in time for Alison to begin kindergarten. Needless to say, she doesn’t remember much from our time there. But she did remember the place she’s sitting in above.
It might look like Alison is sitting below a bunch of tree branches, but it’s so much more than that. We lived in Salem, New Hampshire from 2003-2004. There was a park there that we loved, called Field of Dreams.
The main part of the park has all kinds of climbing structures inside something that looks a bit like a castle.
When Alison was four, we were at her friend Emma’s birthday party at the park. I looked away for a minute and then couldn’t find her. For the longest five minutes or so, Alison was missing!
Behind the play structure is a hiking trail through the woods. We were calling her name, and my fear was that she had wandered into the woods and got lost, or worse.
As we were driving up to see our old neighborhood on Sunday, I was telling her that story when her eyes widened and she exclaimed, “Eeyore!”.
She remembered.
On the hiking trail was a small tree that was bent over, and had a few long sticks place on either side that reminded her of Winnie the Pooh’s Eeyore’s house
So, we went to the Field of Dreams park, on a quest to find her Eeyore’s lair…. and lo and behold, there it was!
She spent the next 40 minutes or so building it up a little..
And left it for another child with a great imagination to find….
We visited the friend whose birthday party she wandered away from, and saw our old house, her pre-school, and the radio station at which I worked when we lived there.
Ten years certainly have flown.
The reason for our trip was for the Bat Mitzvah of my friend Eva’s daughter Molly. Alison and Molly are both May 3 babies (Molly two years behind Alison). They’ve known each other their whole lives….
Alison and Molly aren’t along with their May 3 birthdays. My mother’s birthday was May 3, and our friend Jaime’s is too.
Eva, Jaime and I have been friends since 7th grade, we all lived together in New York after college, and I’m so grateful to still have them both in my life!
(l to r) Nicole, Eva, Jaime
Alison and I flew home last night – but our suitcase did not. I’m still decompressing but, obviously, had a great trip.
This morning on the show, Marcy Wheeler helped me understand the sad reality of our surveillance state and the torturous nature of our nation today. I encourage you to read every word she writes at Emptywheel.net.
And GottaLaff joined in for our regular Tuesday morning get-together. Today, we marveled at CNN’s Ebola-scare central programming, and talked about Monica Lewinsky’s re-emergence on the national stage.
I’ll be back tomorrow with BradBlog’s Brad Friedman and Crooks & Liars’ Susie Madrak, and whatever the day brings us, Radio or Not!
