Friday, May 14th and closing

It was a strange mix of hubris, exasperation and desperation that led Carrie and me to believe that we could make the trip from Salt Lake City to Seattle in one day without an overnight stay in Le Grande, OR, as we had originally planned.

We had started out that morning with the best of intentions; Carrie, Carla, Gaboli and I ate at the Olympian Greek restaurant in Salt Lake City - excellent breakfast, wonderful Greek Coffee - and planned on meeting up in Boise later on. Carla and Axia took off in one car, and Carrie, the twins and I in another. After the first stop things were going fine, but when we had to stop due to a crying child less than an hour later, we decided to tough it out and push through the night.

Bad idea - but then again, in retrospect, so was the entire endeavor of driving three month old twins and an eleven year old Yorkshire Terrier across a thousand miles and over a mile in elevation to Utah.  If driving all night to hit Seattle a full sixteen hours earlier than we would have otherwise was a mistake, it was certainly the right one to make.

I am certainly glad that Carrie's extended family got the chance to see the twins, as well as the fact that Carla followed us from the small town confines of Richfield, Utah to the big city of Seattle, Washington so that she could have a chance at a new life, as well as helping Carrie and I out with the twins for a few months.  But neither Carrie nor I are particularly keen on making any more trips with the kids that takes any longer than  the drive from our house to their pediatricians on First Hill in Seattle, at least not for a couple of years or so.

Babies are tough creatures at heart - muh tougher than we as adults give them credit for - but Gabriel and Oliver are still recovering, emotionally and physically, from the ordeal; Gabriel in particular seems to have picked up a sore throat that is most likely the symptomatic manifestation of an unknown something that had been transmitted to him by the many pairs of unwashed hands that had handled him. His cries are currently rather raspy shadows of their former selves; being such, his short throaty peals are especially dolorous. Note to selves and others: no handling of our twins with unsanitzed hands for the next few months.

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Yesterday, I awoke to a lawn  that had been sorely neglected by human hands  - but taken care of to extreme abundance by the wonderfully bountiful Pacific Northwest spring rains - for three weeks. So long was the grass that I had to essentially cut it twice with our little manual push mower. Seeing as how we had returned home a scant seven hours prior, after three hours of labor, I was pretty much ready to pack it in. Making a trip through the chaotic, crowded aisles of Costco with two crying babies, who were surely freshly traumatized from their recent ordeal, in tow didn't help things any. This morning, I did a reset by running around Green Lake and stopping off at Peets for Coffee. Then  things seemed to be much better.

Welcome home.

Thursday, May 13th

It was pretty much all over for us in Richfield, except for the crying. Rus and I went back to The Cove for coffees this morning, and made one last trip (this time around) to Katie' Cup. I then started to pack the car as Carrie and Carla bid their farewells to their family.


Carrie and Carla...?


Yep – that's right. Carla, Carrie's sister, is coming to Seattle to live with us for a few months as she looks for a new job and new life. In the process, she'll be giving Carrie some much needed help with the kids. Both Carrie and I (and Axia) are very happy to have her with us and our house is now officially hers for as long as she's here.


After mahy tearful farewells, we, in two cars (Carla took Axia, which was a huge load off of Carrie and I) made our way to my brother in law's house. Even during the (relatively) short drive from Richfield to Salt Lake City, Carrie and I still needed to stop one time to take care of the kids.


Rodney had just recently brought a new house in the Sugarhouse district of Salt Lake City, and this was the first time that Carrie and I had seen it. It's about the same size as our place in Seattle, but it has a full size basement and sits on about twice the amount of land as ours does – all for half the price. You gotta love variability between housing markets!


We ended up eating pizza, watching DVD's, and spending the night at Rod's place. We'd need plenty of rest for the next day's journey.

Wednesday, May 12th

A sweet pungent odor filled my my nostrils as I stepped into the cramped confines that was “The Cove” coffee shop on the outskirts of Richfield. I was pleasantly greeted by the barista, a young amiable man wearing a flannel shirt and a baseball cap who wore the air of one who was as comfortable reigning in steers as he was pulling shots. Smiling, he explained to me the menu; espresso drinks- here. Juice menu – here. Same with sandwiches and wraps. Pull your own soft serve yogurt, and here are your toppings. What will you have?


I inquired as to the possibility of getting a decaf latte; Carrie is still breastfeeding, and we've seen the consequences of giving the kids breastmilk with traces of caffeine. 


I didn't tell him that last part.


Oh – I'm sorry, we can't do that.


I smile and nod. I'll just have a cappuccino with four shots.


Four shots? Whoa – you like it strong.


You betchya. And some vanilla syrup.


Syrup? You mean flavoring.


Yeah.


He prepares the drink. Another man looks at me. This one could be the Bishop in charge of the Ward were he not standing here with me in a café. He still could be – I haven't actually seen him partake of any caffeinated beverages, just oversee the sale of such to the gentiles. Which technically I'm not.


I digress.


He asks me where I'm from. I say Seattle. No – wait. I say Maryland. I live in Seattle. He says Richfield is a small town. Nothing wrong with that. That's my contribution. I'm visiting my in-laws. That's also my contribution. Some more stuff is said, but it's all inconsequential. Small talk to fill a large void in time.


My drink is ready. I pay the man. I leave the ample change as a tip for the guy. I like this place. But I have to go back to Katie's Cup for the Latte. For today, The Cove is not a one stop shop.


After I drop off drinks, I spend a few hours with the family before I go to pick up some lunch. I drop off the lunch and then head to the Family History Center to do some research into my maternal grandfather's side of the family. I find a 1930 Madison Parish census record that indicates that he was raised in a house headed by a single mother alongside eight other siblings, two of them twins. I reach a dead end here because I can't find his birth certificate. But I do find out that he enlisted in the Army in 1941, rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant, and was buried in a national cemetery.


An older Elder, fulfilling his calling, is helping me. He asks me if I am a member.


I fess up. I am inactive, though.


He cheerfully encourages me to continue to do research so that I can do some temple work. In his mind, at least ten additional people with the last name of Skinner have just been posthumously baptized and are awaiting their bounty in the Terrestrial Kingdom. I don't dissuade him of the fantasy.


We - Carrie, Gaboli, my mother, father and sister in law, and both of Carrie's grandparents, go to the local Wingers, where we get decent enough food delivered by inadequate service. Both Bev and Carla want the all-you-can eat wings and fingers special. Bev gets only fingers; Carla gets only wings. I get nothing, and Carrie gets soft chicken tacos with barely enough pico de gallo to call a smear.


Carrie and I both order refills on our iced teas; I request vanilla syrup. The waitress returns with two iced teas, both with vanilla.


Carrie orders water to drink. She never receives it.


To close out the night, we, with the sole exception of Carrie's paternal grandmother, go to her maternal grandmother's house to play Tripoli. I win one poker hand and three kittys. It's past ten when we finally get home and retire. The kids are grumpy; Gabe is only taking his food straight from the source, and Ollie is extra hungry, thrashing about until I prepare an extra bottle for him and almost force an ounce down him. He then calms down enough so that he can sleep in the bed with the rest of the family.


Tomorrow, we'll be heading to SLC. The day after, we begin the long trek home. Great.

Tuesday May 11th

Today I had my first “real” cup of coffee. Almost.


I should have prepended that statement by saying that while I am not enough of a coffee-snob to totally dismiss the utilitarian benefits of ease contained within a brewed pot of Folgers or Maxwell House, both international travel and living in the self-proclaimed café capitol of the United States has definitely broadened my palette to the point to which I now regard the drink that is produced by extracting the essence of the grounds from mass-marketed tin drums through a Black and Decker coffee maker is, at best, a rather watery substitute for that which is garnered from micro-roasted beans finely ground, and then steam-pushed through a bail.


So, having said the above, I now rejoin the narrative in progress. In Richfield there are (to my surprise) two establishments which serve what I consider to be “café quality” coffee. The first is an actual stand called Katie's Cup that is located in the parking lot of a local appliances store. On each of my two previous visits to Utah, Carrie and I had stopped off here in the hopes of getting a drink that more closely approximated the ones that we were accustomed to getting back in Seattle. While both the quality of beans and technique used in constructing the drinks both left a bit to be desired, at the very least the desire to go above and beyond was there, and we did end up getting drinks that one could at least label as being a “Latte” and a “Cappuccino” (The second is a place called “The Cove” that I will review tomorrow). Plus, in their defense, Coffee culture is not quite as ingrained in Utah – especially in small town Utah – as it is in Seattle. So the fact that there are such places there is to be applauded, even if there could be improvements to be made.


But I, once again, digress. On Sunday both shops were closed, which is probably to be expected. However, yesterday, on Monday, both shops were again closed, which was more than a little bit of a downer, since I had gone without “real” coffee for the past two days. Today, however, I finally was able to sit back and sip my quad espresso with vanilla, and even though the shots were pulled a bit too long and there was a tad too much vanilla flavoring in it, I still proclaimed the entire affair “good.”

Monday, May 10th

Today was pretty uneventful. We took the kids to Carrie's maternal grandmother's place so that one of their many great-aunts would have a chance to say goodbye to them before she left town. We then dropped the kids back off at the grandparents' place so that we could go shopping together and get something to eat - just the two of us, something that we haven't had the opportunity to do for months now.


After we had finished shopping, Carrie and I were standing in line at a local restaurant, and I had gone up towards the front to take a look at a couple of items. On my way back to Carrie, one woman looked at me, then immediately turned to see if she could find Carrie; upon doing so, she practically beamed “I recognized you from the photos!” It turns out that this person had known Carrie ever since she (Carrie) was a teenager. The proud grandmother had either shown pictures to or sent links to the kids' photo gallery to just about everyone in Sevier and Wayne county who would have them, and this woman had recognized me as being “Carrie's husband.”


The night went pretty well. The kids, still recovering from the events of the day before, took a little while to go to sleep, but once they did, it seemed as if Gabe slept for three hours and Ollie close to five; he would have probably slept longer had Carrie not had to wake him up so that she could feed the two of them at the same time.


We are impressed at how quickly it seems that the twins are progressing. Both Gabe and Ollie are smiling back at people, and it seems that Ollie is actually grinning even more and being very conversant; he is also rolling over more and more, and entertaining himself. Gabe, for his part, is reaching out to objects and grabbing hold of them.


The days of dual-feeding are coming to a close, it seems. Gabe is definitely too long for the special U-shaped pillow that Carrie uses to feed the twins, and Ollie is not too far behind.

Sunday, May 9th

Carrie's parents had arranged for their siblings (and their children) to stop by to see the newest additions to the family. When all was said and done, the kids had been passed, handled, cuddled, kissed, viewed and touched by upwards of five dozen individuals. Three hours, three feedings, and four changings later, both the kids and the mama were pretty bushed, and took the opportunity for a much-needed nap. But even with the respite, the kids still showed the signs of overstimulation a few hours later; Carrie and her mother left the kids in the capable hands of Grandpa Rus, Uncle Rod and myself, and even though Gabe, was content to sleep off the nervousness caused by the day's events (he actually slept through much of the handling and being passed around), Ollie was still cranky enough to have a pretty major meltdown, and it seemed that only the tender ministrations of Aunt Carla could save the day.

Saturday, May 8th

We started out this morning at about the same time as last; we left the Shiloh Inn Riverside in Boise around 8:30, and headed on the road out of Idaho. Carrie took the first driving shift, and we made it about 100 miles before we had to stop off and take care of the kids. After that, I drove for the next 300 miles or so until we hit Ogden, Utah while Carrie rode in the back seat with the kids. After Ogden, Carrie drove us to Nephi then Richfield.


We pulled into Richfield around 6:30 that evening. While the mother, kids and dog settled in, my father in law, Rus, and I went out briefly to get food for everyone, then we all settled in for the evening. The children's maternal-maternal great grandmother and great-aunt stopped by for a sneak peak at the children; around 9 that evening, Carrie, the kids and I went to bed for some much overdue sleep.

Friday, May 7th

We had packed the kids, dog, and ourselves into our trusty blue Prius and set off to Columbia City Bakery in order to get some breakfast and coffees. I had packed Axia into her Sherpa brand soft dog carrier and left her in the car, which was in a shady spot and had its window cracked open. We spent about twenty minutes in the cafe; when we came back out, we discovered that Axia, in her zeal to be totally unfettered or uncaged, ha chewed a hold into the nylon mesh at the front of the carrier. Big sigh – that carrier had seen her transported from Hawaii to Washington state, and from Bremerton to Silverdale to Seattle. Now its time is at an end. Services at eleven.

Moving on. Or, not moving on. At least not quickly or far. We had barely made our way to the eastside when our Gaboli's hunger started to manifest itself in the well-known litany of grunts, arm-waving, half-screams and, finally, crying that no amount of talking or replacing of pacifiers in mouth could assuage. We pulled off at a gas station in Snolqulamie so that the kids could be fed and the Anderson – Burrell twin show could once again hit the road. Which it did for about another hour or so, when Gaboli's primitive needs of food and mom broke through the more moderns appeasements of pacifiers, music and vehicular motion. We went through another couple of cycles of this before an accommodation was made; the mother would sit in the cramped space between the two car seat, holding hand, making bottles and replacing ejected pacifiers, while the father would drive. In this fashion, we were able to make our way with relative quickness through the rest of Washington state, Oregon and into Idaho.

We stayed for the night at the Shiloh Inn Riverside in Boise, which is an okay enough place. The front desk service was excellent, the room was clean but needed some major updating / refurbishment, and the continental breakfast was decent enough for the purposes of calorie provision. They charged us $25 extra for Axia, but they took off almost that much due to the fact that we were first time guests.

We ordered food from Flying Pie Pizza. We had the Stromboli Pizza which was okay. The toppings weren't really anything to talk about and the dough was average. They were cool enough to deliver beer to the room for us – we had a six pack of Alaskan Amber.

After the first day, we came to the conclusion that the five hours of discomfort that we would have gone through had we flown would have been greatly preferable to the twenty-four that we would have to eventually endure driving to Utah. We also decided to un-invite Axia to any future outings; we love the dog dearly, but she clearly was ill-suited to long drives.

Making our way to the land of Bountiful Beehives

Carrie, Gabe, Ollie, Axia and I are making the drive down to Utah to spend Mother's Day with her family.Not only will this be our first road trip together, but it will be the first time that the Gaboli show has hit the road. Personally, this will be the first time that I will have had the opportunity to visit the great state of Idaho.


When we come back, our household will have an additional member :) Stay tuned!

Watery concoctions that have lost their souls

This weekend, in the process of getting things back in order after my parents visit combined with making preperations for our upcoming journey to Utah, I got the chance to go to a spot that I used to frequent when I lived in Belltown, El Diablo Cafe in in Upper Queen Anne. I used to love heading up there on Sunday mornings for thier authentically brewed Cuban Coffee. Before heading into the store, however, I noticed a new (to me) establishment, Wink Cupcakes. They were closing up, so I bought Carrie a Peanut Butter cupcake and a Vanilla one for myself (Carrie proclaimed hers to be "the best cupcake that (she) ever had!"). I went into El Diablo to get my drink - a Cuban Coffee, and was a bit disappointed; whereas their Cuban Coffees used to be a rich, frothy brew full of flavor, this one was a watery concoction that seemed to have lost its soul.

Speaking of watery concoctions that have lost their souls...

I went driving around Queen Anne and, in the course, of such, got the chance to think a bit. It seems that neighborhoods here in Seattle have become clones of each other. Slowly but surely, older apartment buildings are being replaced with the brick, glass and brushed concrete of condominiums, neighborhood-specific shops are closing down, and chains, both local and national, are moving in, and the population that served to lend a genuine color to the local scenes are being replaced with haughty, bleached out yuppies, soccer moms and older professionals. My old haunts of Ballard, Greenwood, Fremont, Greenlake, Wallingford, Belltown and Capitol Hill have fallen by the wayside; Columbia City and the Central District are in the process of becomming agresssively getrified themselves, and I'm sure that someone has thier eye on Georgetown and Beacon Hill. Or not. I can only hope that the latter two communities are able to retain thier working class and (in the case of Georgetown) industrial flair for a few more generations. Or years, even.




Finally....


I've started a new blog that is dedicated to my somewhat varied (as in quality) writings. Please be warned that there is rough language on this site. Without further ado, I give to you C.A.'s Cafe!!!