What I learned this summer

Linking up again today with Emily P. Freeman for her What We Learned feature....


1.  You write your own swim number on your arm... with your own marker that you bring from home.

Photo by Angelo Pantazis on Unsplash

I had previously observed that swimmers in the local meets have handwritten numbers on their forearms, denoting their identification and which races they're in.  What I did not realize was that you're responsible for doing that yourself.  And it's BYOSharpie.


At our first swim meet I stood with dismay at the race chart, wondering what to do, when an experienced mom walked straight up to me and knowingly held out a Sharpie, for which I was immensely grateful.


2.  Chickens are kept loose in the chicken house and are gathered by machine.


I was incredulous until I saw evidence in the form of this Youtube video.  I always pictured chickens caged up inside those houses, but apparently they herd around freely in there.  Then they get vacuumed up when it's time to move on to the factory.

3.  You can really fry a phone in a hot car... battery, charging port, speaker, the whole bit.

Photo by Nicolas Thomas on Unsplash

This one wins the prize for "most painful lesson" this summer.  I was four days without a phone, which is the same amount of time we were without electricity after the derecho when I was nine months pregnant with my fourth child during a huge heat wave, and missing a phone was worse.

I drove somewhere using GPS and forgot to take my phone from its holder on the dashboard, where it stayed, parked in the sun, for several hours.  It wasn't dead when I returned, exactly... it displayed a message that it needed to cool down before I could use it.  But after that it seemed fine.

Until the next day, when it seemed to lose battery power unusually fast.  And then the next day it wouldn't even charge.  I blamed the old power cord, but Jason's cord didn't work for it either.  I was mystified for a while, honestly.  It seemed to recover so nicely after cooling down.  

Jason took it to techno urgent care and they ordered a new battery.  Then they ordered a new charging port, which I didn't even know was a discrete part.  When they put the two together, I briefly had a working phone again... until I realized it didn't make any kind of sound anymore, ever.  This time Jason went to work on it himself, but, sadly, the patient did not survive the operation.

Being without electricity six summers ago was terribly HOT, nerve-wracking to think of my freezer stocked with casseroles for after the baby came, and inconvenient to eat nothing but peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

But being without a phone was like losing my mind.  It was terribly isolating.  It was a bit humiliating to borrow my 13-year-old's new phone when I was desperate.  I couldn't work, I couldn't talk to anyone outside my house, and I lost my grocery list.  

Note to self:  never forget the phone in the car again, never never.

4.  Our church's security alarm goes off at 11pm.

Photo by Katarzyna Kos on Unsplash

Fortunately, I did not have to experience this firsthand, other than getting shooed out at 10:50 with dire warnings of it the night before Vacation Bible School started.  

We had started VBS work that morning around 11, organizing all staff to set up the building, and then staying after set-up to do buckets of administrative prep.  It went later and later, alphabetizing got harder and harder (someone finally wrote out the alphabet at the front of the room to stop the incessantly murmured alphabet song from every corner), take-out dinner was delivered and taken away, name tags were stuffed into plastic holders and color-coordinated, zillions of papers were printed and sorted... 11:00 loomed and we still weren't ready for hundreds of families to drop off their precious littles the next morning.

But the 11:00 alarm warning and visions of the police arriving to question us all drove us homeward.  I didn't quite make it back to church at 6, as some did, but I wasn't that far behind.  

No alarms sounded, no children lost or miscategorized for long, and Jesus preached.  All good and well.

What did you learn this summer?

First days at Sandals La Toc

We spent our first morning in St. Lucia thoroughly enjoying our private patio and its magnificent view.

To take full advantage of it, we ordered room service for breakfast. Jason mixed us a morning drink from our fully stocked wet bar while we waited for food to arrive.

When at last our eyes and our bellies were full, we headed out to explore, starting with the nearest pool and its waterfalls—a major selling point for choosing this resort.

We discovered later that the pools warm up a surprising amount each day when the midday sun hits them, but in the morning they were pretty chilly—not as cold as our personal polar plunge pool, but chilly enough that the hot tub made a nice change.

The view from the hot tub deck was also spectacular.

By early afternoon we were debating what to do about lunch. Do we go back to the same nearby restaurant? Do we make the trek down the hill to the main part of the resort? Should we call the butler? But what would we ask for? What are we supposed to do with a butler anyway?

Lo, as if on cue, Marvin the butler appeared at our pool chairs bearing two blue concoctions and a pizza.

So this is what a butler is for.

We did eventually check out the other pool (the one with the “vibe,” according to the butler). Seemed accurate, since people at our pool lounged peacefully or sat at the swim-up bar, but down the hill we watched a kayak race across the pool.

After a full day of sun and fun, and a little sunburn, we cleaned up and had dinner at Neptune’s, right on the beach.

And found this cute little guy in our room afterwards:

By Monday morning we were starting to figure out the butler thing. Most frequently we called them for rides to and from the main resort, but we quickly learned that it behooved us to use them every day to save us seats by the pool, lest all the chairs were taken by other people’s butlers.

They would set up towels and a cooler stocked with beverages of our choice (mostly water, in our case, since we were 20 feet from a swim-up bar).

We intended to eat at our nearby restaurant for breakfast, but we slept in a little and the line was long when we got there, so we proceeded straight to the pool and had Marvin the butler bring us our breakfast out there.

That was pretty sweet.

The water was cold again in the morning, and unfortunately while waiting for it to really warm up, it clouded over and started raining.

Last time we were in St. Lucia it rained briefly almost every day, usually during breakfast. Five minutes later the sun would come out and we went on.

True to form, the shower passed quickly and the brilliant blue sky was back.

We decided to relocate to the main resort for the afternoon, so we had Marvin drive us down and get us all set up with our cooler and our towels and our snacks…

And it let loose again. Granted, it’s not cold rain, but we had three phones (including the butler phone) to try to keep dry, and eventually you just feel like you’re molding.

We decided to give up and had Marvin drive us back to our room.

The sun came out again long enough to set at dinnertime, although everything was still pretty wet.

It was Caribbean barbecue night at the buffet, followed by a show put on by fire dancers. I couldn’t resist sending a video to the kids, although I fervently hoped they wouldn’t try it at home. 

10 Surprising Things about NYC

When we woke up on Saturday we packed our bags before heading across the street to The Smith for breakfast.  We were seated and served courteously and I reflected that during our week in New York, I only heard a New York accent maybe once--although I think we heard snippets of most of the 800 other languages spoken there.


We thoroughly enjoyed our last meal in NYC--French toast with caramelized bananas that looked like a porterhouse steak for Jason, and a BLT&E with lemon aioli on a croissant with crispy hash browns for me.

After breakfast we checked out of our hotel, took a subway back to Penn Station, and ended up on an Amtrak with legroom so ample I could stretch out my legs and lock my knees without touching the seat in front of me.


The city dropped away behind us and we headed back to open air and bucolic quiet.  Our week of foreign culture immersion was done.


We returned home wiser, savvier, and much more appreciative of personal space.


Ten Things I Learned in New York City (in order from least to most surprising)


10.  Cocktails are $15.

That little martini: $15.

Drink appreciatively:  each sip is costing you 50¢.

9.  Central Park is really, really big.

We have a park near our house.  It has 3 baseball fields and a pool and a playground.  

Central Park has its own website which lists eight different categories of "things to do" and currently has 27 "featured attractions" in case the entire list is too overwhelming.  It has specific attractions listed for art lovers, fitness lovers, birders, dog owners, families, first-time visitors, history lovers, and nature lovers.

Central Park is 2 1/2 miles long and half a mile wide.  It is bigger than the country of Monaco. 

We spent all morning hiking and got through one third of it.

It contains twelve different bodies of water:  four ponds, two streams, a reservoir, a cove, a bay, and three lakes.  One of the lakes is three times the circumference of our entire park.

It's really, really big.

8.  It costs $2.75 to go anywhere on the subway.

More surprising than the high cost of adult beverages was the low cost of public transportation.  No complicated fare charts like at the DC Metro--$2.75 to get on, and you get off wherever you want, no other card-swipe required.


7.  Children exist there, sometimes two at a time.


DC is the city I'm used to.  Every child in Washington, DC will be found at the National Zoo and the Natural History Museum, with a few left over for the Air and Space Museum.  I never see children on the Metro or the streets of the business/financial or residential areas.


In Manhattan I did see children, all over the place, even in the heart of the financial district.  Schoolchildren and strollers, on the streets and on the subway--and sometimes even a set of siblings, which was more surprising.  Who can afford to live in Manhattan, even alone, much less with one or two kids?


6.  New York felt so safe.

Granted, we were staying in Manhattan, but we were right next door to one of the grittiest-sounding neighborhoods of all--Hell's Kitchen.  We walked through Brooklyn after dark, and all through Soho and Chinatown and the Village at night.


According to this, Times Square is one of the least safe areas in NYC, and we were definitely there after dark, feeling perfectly at ease (besides the nauseatingly giant scrolling advertisements everywhere).


I understand the crime rate has dropped drastically in New York since the 80's.  Our week was a very agreeable experience for us.  Not once did I scan the skies, desperately hoping Batman would show up.  (Jason might have, for all I know, but not because our lives were in danger.)


5.  The city was very clean.

Even the tap water tasted good!  That definitely surprised me.  The picture above is an accurate representation of what we saw:  lots of parks and no litter.


4.  Sesame Street could exist.


In thinking about what we would see in New York prior to going, I may have criticized Sesame Street for being unrealistic.


A block with no tall buildings, full of nonthreatening adults, children playing freely, and people sitting on a front stoop, that's supposed to be in New York City?  Come on.


New York is all skyscrapers and oily back alleys!  Right?


Well, lo and behold:

I stand corrected.


Did you know there are even some places in Manhattan that have cobblestone streets?  I saw it with my own eyes.  There is definitely more to New York than I knew.


And I doubt not that there are singing monsters and a snuffleupagus in some of these apartments.


3.  There are lots of farmer stands.

I suppose New Yorkers eat, too, but I didn't consider that they ever eat fresh food at home, rather than in trendy eateries.


There seemed to be a farm stand on every other corner, with great-looking fresh produce, and more selection than the farmer's market in my town, where I can see cows out my window.


2.  Subway turnstiles go both ways.


I couldn't get over this.  I didn't even know turnstiles could physically do that.  I was really confused our first time navigating the subway because I couldn't find the "exit" turnstiles.  In DC you enter through one set and exit through another, and woe to you if you try to swim upstream.


I suppose New Yorkers have time-efficiency down to such a science that they can get by with one set.  I didn't see any head-on collisions, either, although I did get myself temporarily stuck in one turnstile with my wide-load luggage.


I'm not from here.  Does it show?


I still can't get over how they make this work.  Talk about a miracle [under] 34th Street.


1.  People in New York are really nice.   


The most surprising thing of all:  New Yorkers are nice people.


I expected stereotypical brusqueness, especially directed toward a befuddled tourist like I, who understands a lot better how cows work than how turnstiles work.


Sorry to say this, DC, but I expected New York to be more like you:  unsmiling, silent, and dressed in a starchy business suit.


The first few meals we ate were served by friendly waitstaff, and I figured that was a fluke.  Then our tour guide was all friendliness, and extolled the friendliness of New Yorkers in general--but, you know, the job requires it.


When we got food from deli lines, I definitely expected to be impatiently chivvied along, but was met with a smile instead.  


Whenever I bumped into someone, instead of silently moving away, they apologized with a smile.


Finally when we were eating breakfast next to a jackhammer on Wednesday, I watched an interaction in pantomime on the nearest street corner that convinced me that the tour guide was telling us the truth.  A family approached the curb, hesitated, and stopped to consult phone screens.  A local man, who was also waiting on the corner, stepped over to them and obviously offered help.  After some pointing and explaining, the family set off happily on their way and the man thereafter got his ride.


I wonder if New York friendliness has gone up since the 80s as crime has gone down.  Or I wonder how much of it has to do with 9/11 and whether that made a big difference in people's sense of camaraderie.


However they manage to do it all in New York, I was entirely impressed.

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