1 Year Renewal

O shhhhhh already.  I fell off the face of blogtown - consider it a long vacation.  I'm not even going to look back where I left off.  I recall a lot of bitching and complaining and too much negativity and fear.  Not that it has gone away or changed so much, I merely don't feel like listening to myself any longer.  That's fair for all of us I believe.

I finally took a long weekend - of 6 days - and loaded myself and Anya into the car and sped across Pennsyltucky to the land of Pittsburgh to visit my mother.  It was...nice.  I relaxed for not being in the office or staring at my walls and being away from anything that tends to cause agida.  However, Anya took this opportunity to turn into a she-devil child promptly upon arrival, and they tell me it's her age.  Great.  A few days off fraught with nightmarish screaming and clinginess and anti-social behavior from the 15 month old just in time for a rare visit with yiayia and her best aunt and uncle.  Good grief!  I enjoyed my time no less, but arrived home unrested - motherhood...grunt.

I am tempted to look at back my posting last year, same time, and yet another trip to Pittsburgh, however, pre-mom move and I was not the navigator.  I am not living in yesterday today, but I remember I was consumed by the fog and lost in a painful physical and mental horror flick, but thankfully they don't kill the leading lady, and here I am today basking in the sun away from the masked murderer and languishng in more of bad episode of prime time drama than the chiller channel.

4th of July weekend always summons memories of the shore and boardwalk and lazy summer days; with no money to pay the mortgage and an infant in tow a shore trip was not in the cards.  The long weekend made it simpler to contemplate a trip westward to see my mother to have her now quaterly visit with her granddaughter.  Hubby's part time job makes it impossible for him to take any time off since the creditors want more than we have coming in, so anything I planned for the weekend would have to be a mommy and baby adventure.  I don't know how or why, but I decided that if I didn't have some actual extended time away from the office I was going to rupture the time space continuim with a supernova.  So a trotted off to my boss' office and said, "I am going to visit my mom, I would like to take off next Friday through the following Wednesday, please tell me you are ok with it."  A simple yes would have sufficed, but as usual my boss' inappropriate timing for humor went something like, "do you really need another vacation...didn't you just have one...hahaha."  "um...not for over three years if you want to get technical...".  "(clearing throat)...well then enjoy."  Phone call to mom then panic set in.

I'm not a driver.  I don't like going very far alone...retract...I don't like going very far unless someone else is driving.  I make a much better passenger than navigator and usually this works out just fine.  But not this time.  I can do it.  I can do it.  I've made this trip thousands of times.  What the hell am I afraid of.  O crap.  What if....and here we go.  All the worst case scenarios audition in my head for the lead role in Road Trip 2010.  Maybe we could take the train....8+ effing hours you're joking.  Maybe we could fly...how much...ugh...driving it is.  I distract myself with an OCD style organization and planning of the next few days.  Cleaning, packing, calls, emails, filing; I'm working manic-style and accomplishing everything with a smile.  My spring cleaning at the office and my travel preparation move along so smoothly I have no time to realize time's up.

I actually enjoy time alone.  I knew Anya would sleep a bulk of the trip, and I knew enough coffee would keep my eyes open for the 4-5 hours it would take to traverse the great expanse of Pennsylvania...Philly to Pittsburgh may as well be NYC to LA as far as I'm concerned.  As soon as Precious passed out I turned the radio and CD off and listened to nothing but the road.  Quiet.  Peace and quiet and nothing but green.  I drifted off into lottery-winning day dreams and allowed co-pilot cruise control to prevent the driving tension from taking over.  I was amazing myself through each tunnel and over each mountain.  We stopped at Somerset Plaza to stretch our legs.  Out of the air-conditioned car and into the lazy summer heat we entered the fairly empty plaza for a diaper change and pee break.  Anya toddled into the plaza with doe eyes at the food court lights and smells of Roy Rogers and Starbucks coffee.  Why are Roys only available at travel plazas now?  Re-loaded with caffeine and kinks out of our legs we got back into the car for the last hour-ish of our trip.  No sooner had Anya decided she'd had enough of her car seat than exit Allegheny Valley approached.

 Yay...I did it.  We're here.  A few miles off the exit and we're home for a few days!  WTF?!  Road construction SUCKS!  Another hour of backed up traffic on the 2 lane road to New Ken gave Anya's vocals time to generate a migraine.  I pulled into the driveway, grabbed a screaming Anya, dropped her off in the back yard with yiayia and barely made the bathroom and 2 Advil.  We're here.

We spent the mornings and afternoons lounging and eating and cooking and just doing not much.  The late afternooons and evenings were spent at Thea Eleni's house for holiday weekend parties and excellent swimming.  At night after Anya went to bed mom and I would get comfy on the king-sized bed and watch TV together.  She introduced me to "You're Cut Off" and "The Gates" both of which I have now set to Autotune with Royal Pains and The Good Wife.  I really could have stayed another week.  Mom's house is so peacful and bright and comfortable.  There is always a balance and that was achieve through Anya making life fairly diffucult for me, clinging to mommy and crying if she was more than 1 inch away.  She pushed her yiayia and thea and uncle and cousins away and fake cried and threw tantrums constantly.  She began running up to me and biting my thighs and alternating with strangling hugs.  She usually loves the water, but I suppose the big pool was too much for her and it took until our last day for her to enjoy playing in the water and not clinging for dear life.  She was still adorable and funny and coy...but man did mommy need a mommy break. 

Sadly going home day came on quickly.  My brain knew before I did and got weery and aggrevated about 24 hours before lift off...very similar to my Sunday night melt downs.  I hate them.  Every muscle in my body becomes tense, my back and hip and knee eminate pain, I get short and cranky and lose any sort of patience the universe tries to send my direction.  It's my jeckyll and hyde time.  I even considered extending my vacation by a day to turn down the monster, but decided that daddy needed some time with Anya before mommy went to the looney bin.  Wednesday morning arrived with a sadness instead of tension.  Over the morning hours I bathed Anya, packed the clean laundry that mom helped with, collected all evidence of our visit and packed it into the third floor closets for next time or into the car for home.  Mom packed care packages of the food we cooked together for me to take home.  We called yiayia in Greece and ate a spinach omelette and drank coffee.  Down came the gates, out came mom's cats and into the car seat with thumb in mouth and twirling hair with other hand went Anya.  On the road again....

Anya was asleep before I backed out of the driveway.  There was that quiet again...and I loved it.  Anya slept until Bowmansville Plaza...almost home and had to stop.  Ugh.  But hey...she was a trooper the whole trip - we would have made it in 4 hours.  We shared some breadsticks and and trudged through the swampy heat back to the car.  Ten degrees warmer in Philly than Pitt and boy did that make a difference.  It was too hot to think about cooking so a KFC  pit stop was in order before we pulled up to the house.  I was able to unload the car while Anya slept.  As I was getting her out of her car seat she woke up and looked out the window as the biggest grin crossed her face and she started clapping and babbling and hugged me.  My little bratastic was home and she was happy.

She ran through the first floor and hugged Freyja who bowed to her with tail wagging.  Calvin popped out from Anya's tent meowing his joy and jumped on the counch and let Anya snuggle with him for a full ten minutes.  I zipped around unpacking as much as I could while I had the energy.  Within that same 30 minutes Rich came home and hugged and kissed our welcome home, and my boss called, texted, emailed, SMSed, and called again...so much for that positive attitude after a nice vacation.