One of those days to remember....

Last Sunday, we decided to launch our new membership at Old Sturbridge Village by bringing my seven-year-old granddaughter there for the day. What fun we had! We started off with brunch at The Oliver Wight Tavern, and from there started hiking about to see the sights. Morgan is at that wonderfully inquisitive age, asking questions about everybody and everything, and her energy level is such that we were on the move constantly, except for the little bit of sitting we got to do while taking a boat ride up the river. Thanks to my two-mile-a-day walks with Leslie Sansone, I was up to the challenge, and really had a wonderful day with both Stone and Morgan, who are always laughing and carrying on together about one thing or another. Having Morgan on a Sunday is a rarity, because she is a soloist in her church's junior choir, and is typically expected to be there on Sundays. This time, we talked her mum (my daughter) into letting her play hookey for once. We're planning to visit Old Sturbridge Village as often as we can - there's so much to see, it would quite literally take days and days to see it all. Plus, there are special member's events, and we're thinking we'd enjoy thier Christmas program/dinner. It would also solve the sticky question for my children of how to plan Christmas without offending me OR their father (whom I divorced some years ago) because I've made up my mind not to spend another Christmas in his company. For the past two years, I've gritted my teeth and tolerated his presence, but last year, when he tried to press a $50 Applebee's gift certificate on me & my present husband, jovially telling us to "enjoy a meal on him", I had all I could do not to spit in his face, and that's the truth. This is the same man who was court ordered to pay half of his children's college tuition and expenses, and who never got up off a single thin dime - between loans, grants, and my share of the proceeds from selling our house, my kids all got educated. But now - now that they're all self-supporting, he wants to play doting daddy again. Tsk. Okay, enough with the bitter recriminations. Suffice it to say that rather than force the kids into an uncomfortable choice - and I know that if they had to, they would exclude him - I would rather spend Christmas eve with them and have other plans for Christmas day. We shall see. They do appear to have a lovely Christmas Day program at OSV. Okay - back to "a day to remember". Sorry for meandering off into that little unpleasantness, but if not here, then where? See? Sometimes you just go ahead and grow older, and the accompanying wisdom is a little slow in keeping up. But it's all good. My son will be home to visit on Oct. 15 for a week, and then back for Christmas, and my daughter does well and truly seem to be pregnant, and if my fellow countrymen have even a single iota of common sense, they will put Obama in the White House and end this eight-year reign of aristocratic entitlement, and maybe we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Today, incidentally, is Sept. 11. Somehow, I find it much more pleasant if I just remember it as my dad's birthday. He would be 103 if he were still alive. But I suppose that's the coward's way out. So I will think, not without pain, of those we lost on that date in 2001 - including a very good friend who was on the first plane to hit the twin towers.
Ruby Jean, you don't know how pleased I am that you found me here! Now we must lasso Ms. Close and get her here to visit, as well.
Love,
Z