The Race

I am happy to be a St. Louisan. There are some things I will never get over: the pizza, for one. It is completely unacceptable, to me, to put cheeze whiz on crackers and attempt to pass it off as dinner. Flame away, I'm teflon on this.

I left my hometown of Fishers, in the suburbs of Indianapolis, pretty much for good when I left for college at Wash U in '94. I've been back for a week or two at a time, but I have lived here ever since. I am rarely homesick for it. I miss the people, sure, but not the yearly allergies from the corn (it must be the corn...I don't sniffle here like I did there). I never felt connected to the city of Indianapolis, despite growing up about a 10-minute bike ride from the county line. Maybe because I never owned a car. It's hard to feel connected to something when you're only ever someone else's passenger.

Still, there are a few things that I miss. Real snow, every winter. A real spring where you buy--and wear--a light jacket. More than once between March and June. Really. Basketball. For a non-sporty person with the attention span of a gnat, I did enjoy basketball. Hockey makes a decent substitute, but it's harder to spot the puck than a bright orange ball. And then, there's the whole month of May.

In Indy, it's called The Race. There's no need to specify which race. There's only one worth talking about. Starting the end of April or the beginning of May, The Race is the top news story every night. Which teams have arrived. How many practice laps did everyone do. Who has the latest technology. Whose son/grandson/brother is racing. Dramatic flashbacks to prior years' fiery crashes. Heart-wrenching sagas of family legacies. Interviews with the rookies. Black and white checkers adorn every house, every t-shirt, every paper napkin.

Our family never went to The Race. I've never actually seen it in person. I didn't have to. Growing up, we would listen to it on the radio--the tv broadcasts were blacked out. That never stopped me from knowing who won, who crashed, who passed who in the final turns. In Jr. High, Race Day meant babysitting. It was an all-day affair, and typically two or three families would go together, so I'd get paid 2-3 times my normal fees to play for a day. Around 8th or 9th grade, I remember spending a Saturday or two at the track with a good friend and her older sister. The sister was very attractive (occaisionally a Hooters girl, later a Jagermeister girl..most recently a cop, I think), and over 21. My friend and I sat outside one trailer for probably 2 hours one evening talking and playing around while her sister was inside, partying with some of the drivers and crew. My senior year, several friends and I opted to enjoy Carburetion Day at the track rather than at school. We didn't have any pit passes or anything fancy, and the morning started out rather cold and rainy. But by the end of the day, the sun was shining hot, and our ears were ringing from the roaring cars. I came home with a serious hankering for one of the pace cars--red Mustang Cobra convertibles. Mmmm...must close mouth to stop drooling. Good times.

Arriving in St. Louis, it was surreal to enter the month of May with barely a mention of the month-long circus unfurling its tents and sideshows a couple hundred miles away. I don't think it even made a mention in the news until the actual race was over and a winner declared. No one here knew much about it, no one cared. Why should they, when the Cardinals were playing. I still can't get into a game that moves so slowly. I gather that the baseball experience of roasting in the hot sun and drowning yourself in beer is probably similar to watching The Race. Minus the heart-pounding excitement, edge of your seat thrills, eardrum-shattering roar of the engines, and the very lives of the drivers hanging in the balance with every turn. To each his own, I suppose.

My Top 10 Favorite Spring Break Vacations

10. '99 My older sister and I went to Cancun for a 5-day "weekend". We were both out of school, but it was in the spring. Plenty of tequila, beaches, snorkelling, sight seeing (Chichen Itza is amazing), and sister-bonding time.

9. '04 Ocho Rios, Jamaica, with my hubby and 3 other couples. No kids (except for Charlotte, still in-utero), but no alcohol either (at least for me). Sure it was late May and I'd been out of school for 8 years, but that's still spring, right?

8. circa '90. The whole family spent a week at Brown County State Park in southern Indiana. I remember a lot of hiking, assembling puzzles, and sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor (6 people in a hotel room with 2 queen beds...sis #5 was 10 years from being born or it would have been 7). The family joke of the "alligator" sprang from that week, where sister 4 of 5 misheard the word "navigator"...she was like 7. It was cute and funny at the time. Really.

7. '93 Spent a week in Kansas City, where my parents were contemplating a move. The whole family slept in the basement of the house where my father was renting a room. I don't think we did Worlds of Fun or anything, just drove around a lot with realtor looking at houses.

6. '98 Senior year of college. I probably worked, did homework. I think this was the week my now-husband wrapped me up in duct tape to make a dressmaker's dummy (if you thing this was kinky, think again...I felt suffocated halfway through and was so happy when it was time to cut the thing off of me for final assembly). I also at least started my formal dress for that semester--a purple stretch velvet halter dress that I still own (but haven't tried on in a long time...hmmm...). The dummy finally got the heave-ho about 2 months ago. Maybe I should swap this one with #7...

5. I'm sure I spent many spring breaks sitting home watching TV, or reading. I'm sure I've done a lot of reading

4. Probably worked several as well. I've been continuosly employed for like 16 years now (except for a couple of post-partum short breaks). I'm sure I worked most of my high school and college breaks.

3. Have I ever had a business trip in the spring? I'm remembering mostly fall and winter travel for some reason.

2. '97 Getting my wisdom teeth pulled and learning just how wacked out dreams can get while on pain meds.

1. '07. I slept in my own bed at night, but spent every day for 2+ weeks hanging out in the NICU at Childrens with Trystan. No alcohol, and I had to quit the pain meds after about 2 days so I would be coherent enough to drive myself. It counts. Really. It was spring, and I did not go to work!


Sour Grapes? Nah, just a good wine!

The Next 20 Years

I'm 30. Yes, I've been 30 for 9.5 months now, so it really shouldn't surprise anyone, especially not me. But most of the last 9.5 months have been spent worrying about other (much smaller) people, most especially Trystan, who sent me to the hospital on my 30th birthday with false labor (actually, real labor that sort of stalled out).

I have a few New Year's resolutions, but they're pretty predictable, and a lot boring. But, I realize lately that most of my bigger life goals have already come to pass: graduate college, career, house, marriage, kids. Now I need to come up with a few more things for my life's to-do list.

Here are a few things I would like accomplish by the time I turn 50:

• Get another college degree. I'm not sure in what yet. The easy choice here would be a Masters in Computer Science. Other options I've kicked around: Culinary school, art, maybe writing (that's the newest addition to the list).


• Learn another language well enough to read a book or newspaper un-translated. Verbal conversations are optional :) I started French once in college, but had no time to follow up. I had some trouble because I kept mixing up the French and Spanish, and I wasn't impressed with the teacher.


• Get my eyes fixed. Contacts suck. Glasses are annoying. Both are expensive, and rather dangerous to do without. Maybe this year or next...


• Do some genealogical research. Some of my relatives have done a bit, and maybe one of these days I will attempt to track down what they have, but I'd especially like to learn more about my paternal grandfather's family.



• Travel more. I haven't ever spent much time outside of the Midwest, and my list of things to see is extensive:
  
  • Latin America, all of it. Ok, that's silly. Just most of it. I loved visiting Teotihuacan and Chichen Itza. I'd love to see Machu Picchu, and any other ancient ruins I could get to.
  
  
  • Italy-at least Rome and Venice
  
  
  • France, at least Paris
  
  
  • Spain, basically all of it
  
  
  • UK, Ireland: London, Wales (my maiden name is Welsh, we think), Loch Ness, Stonehenge, Dublin, castles, more castles, more castles
  
  
  • US:
    
    • The northeast, any part. Except for about 36 hours in Boston for a job interview, I've not been closer than DC.
    
    
    • The giant sequoias
    
    
    • The Grand Canyon
    
    
    • The Pacific Ocean. I spent 2 or 3 days in Los Angelos interviewing at USC my senior year of high school, but I only saw the campus and the airport.
    
    
  
  

I will attempt to revisit this list at some point. It's a pretty tall order as it stands, given that we also have two children to raise to quasi-adulthood and send off to college over the next 20 years. Perhaps I should add "win the lottery" and "hire a staff" to the list.

The Pumpkin Patch

I did not grow up in the St. Louis area. Though I've been here since I started college (13 years now...boy do I feel old saying that), there are still a lot of things around town I am still learning, and many places that I never knew existed. Last week, Charlotte's daycare took a field trip to the pumpkin patch at Thies Farm. I had no idea this place existed. We really don't live that far away from the Creve Coeur location, and though I realized that there was some farmland and at least one nursery in that part of town, I didn't know there was a farm that was open to the public with a farmer's market, pumpkin patch, strawberry fields, etc. Not to sound like a commercial for the place, but I'm just mystified that I had no idea that it was there. I will have to remember the farmer's market in the future--they had a lot of good looking veggies in there, including beautiful bell peppers that were grown right near the pumpkins, instead of from Isreal like the ones from Schnucks seem to be.
The field trip was a lot of realy exhausting fun. For once, my "regular" work schedule was a benefit, as the group went on Thursday, one of my days off. I had signed up to go along and help, and was able to leave Trystan for the morning at the daycare while I accompanied Charlotte's class. We arrived around 9am, and I got to watch some of the class room dynamics as the kids finished breakfast and were branded (on their backs with stickers containg the school's address and phone number) and herded first to the potties and then towards the waiting collection of school vans and parent vehicles. Charlotte rode in my car--had she needed to ride in the school van, it would have been a pain as they only have booster seats and she's not heavy enough for one yet. I would have had to install her carseat myself in their van. Our group had 36 kids between 3 and 5 years old, and 11 adults--about half teachers and half parents. There were two school vans and at least a half dozen parent cars, and we looked like an odd sort of funeral procession as we drove the short way to the farm.
Each parent and/or teacher had 3-4 children to keep watch for in the farm's Pumpkinland play area--a neat kiddie play area constructed from haybales and tractor tires. If you havent' been there, it's a lot more impressive than that sounds. I had Charlotte and two other 3 year olds, and I decided that day that I'm thankful not to have triplets. At any one time, two girls would run one direction, and the other would run in the opposite direction. But, I didn't lose anyone and they all had a blast climbing through tunnels, across rope bridges, through the hold of a hay pirate ship (CinderCharlotte nearly lost a shoe there), down a big slide, and more. They had over an hour of playtime before it was our turn for a hayride. We had a tour of the farm, and the driver talked about all of the various things that they do (strawberry festival, Christmas trees, etc). Afterwards, there was a greenhouse with baby farm animals that the kids could look at. Then we all piled back into our caravan, and after all heads were accounted for, drove back to school. The kids got pumpkins and a mini coloring book to take home.
We enjoyed the farm so much that we went back again on Saturday, this time with my husband and Trystan, and some friends of ours. It was such a nice day Saturday that I think half of St. Louis County came also. Charlotte and our friend's son had more playtime in Pumpkinland. We skipped the farm tour hayride this time and instead hopped the wagon to the pumpkin patch to pick a few pumpkins of our own. They had obviously seeded the patch with pumpkins from another field, but there were still plenty on the vine, and all of them looked quite nice (not so bruised and beaten as the grocery store ones always are). I had Trystan in our front carrier the whole time, which made carrying a pumpkin kind of difficult (had one on my head for a while...that hurts). My husband would have carried them, except somehow we came away with three good sized pumpkins, and a very worn-out 3-year-old, which is more than one man can carry. Before we left, we browsed the farmer's market and picked up some fresh-picked sweet potatoes, pumpkin butter (like apple butter--there's no actual butter involved, just spicy pumpkin-y spread), apples (from Michigan as the Missouri crop was nonexistant this year, but yummy nonetheless), and a few other odds and ends. Both kids crashed in the car on the way home.




Charlotte, Trystan and I posing by a pumpkin horse.

This is Charlotte, looking for a little pumpkin amongst the giants. She's been very taken by a book called The Littlest Pumpkin.