A quick trip home to Virginia for my annual spa weekend gave Ray some alone time. We arrived to Dulles International Airport on a Thursday afternoon with enough time to pick up the rental car and change his SIM card out on his smart phone. Without a landline at the lake house, this would give him connection to--me, of course! It was ten, or so, degrees and the wind was whipping cold! We met our daughter at her apartment once she was finished with her day of teaching and the never ending paperwork she needed to catch up on, and the three of us enjoyed a fabulous Mexican meal at Mexicali Blues in Clarendon, Virginia. I had left my winter coat at her apartment along with a bag packed full of clothing for the next five days. Oh dear, Ray had left his winter coat at the lake house. Once we were stuffed with queso, chips and salsa, spicy onion rings and delicious Mexican/Salvadoran food, Ray drove to the lake house, and I went into the warmth of Carly's apartment. Due to the below zero temperatures that were forecasted for the following morning, Fairfax County (along with all of the other surrounding counties) had canceled school for the day! Yes! It was sleep in Friday with my baby girl! With no where to be until the festivities of my spa weekend were to begin, she and I stayed up watching recorded TV shows. The next morning Carol Brady over here had her coffee and breakfast watching more TV. There was no gym that I would be running off to that morning. Meanwhile, Ray was waiting for the Heat/AC Maintenance man to show up at the lake house to do the upkeep and maintenance on the units. I should write here that it took him three tries to get into the driveway over the icy ten inches of snow that had just fallen two days before our return to Virginia. Then he also had to shovel. There was a shovel at the lake house, so that was good and in order. And he had his winter coat. He also had lunch plans for the day, dinner plans for Sunday and lunch plans for Monday. He kept Saturday open, because snow and ice was in the forecast, again.
The next few days I spent with my best friends/lake house roommates suffering through delicious meals, bottles of red and white wine, cosmopolitans, home baked desserts, all the candy and chips I could eat, and spa services. I did make it to the treadmill. The gym was huge, it was snowing, and I could watch coed teams play volleyball. Sunday I had arranged pick up services by my daughter. Poor thing. I asked for her to pick me up at around ten am. The road and hill to the house I was staying at was a sheet of ice. My daughter was shaking and a slight wreck when she finally arrived after being told to drive another slightly less inclined course. Putting that behind us, we forged on through the slush and muck (I later was able to put on some snow boots that I had given her last year when there was so much snow there) to grocery shop for her week of meals, shop at Costco (naturally), get manicures (again, naturally), and be home in time for the Oscars. My gown was ready. Not to forget about Ray, he had a nice staycation on Saturday not driving the roads and eating Ramen noodle soup for dinner (The Barn is a nearby store with deli and the Launcher sub, but the cook didn't show up to cook!).
Monday it was planned that I would volunteer in my daughter's class for the day. School was delayed two hours due to the snow from Saturday and the icy conditions. The sweet fifth graders showed up at 10:20 am. We arrived, after stopping for coffee, by 8:20. My daughter had lots to do. She would be missing her first day of teaching ever the following day, and she wanted to get the substitute plans lined up. She had things for me to do, also. I had a lot of laminating ready and waiting and with her personal laminator in the classroom, I could go to town working on that job, and also I could listen in on her teaching. What a great day. I must say I am super impressed with her classroom management (her students are wonderful, but I say this is because of her teaching style), teaching skills after not even being a teacher for two years, and her disposition with the children. I filed, hung things up on the blackboard, sorted papers and laminated until the laminator didn't want to cooperate after our twenty minute lunch break. She makes me a great lunch if I do say so myself, although I ate all the berries forgetting there was a banana and we were supposed to be sharing. An "F" for me in the sharing department. But at the end of the day, while she finished up tidying up and working another two hours after school, she demonstrated the humungous laminating machine (!) upstairs, and I was on fire! We enjoyed Thai for dinner, and then my driver, I mean my daughter, drove me to the lake house. It was a full day of work and play. And Ray's alone time ended.
Carly was spending the day with us on Tuesday, because HGTV was coming to the lake house. I will leave this at that until there is more to post here. I don't want to put the cart before the horse. It was a super great day with Carly and Ray though! The next two days flew by with Ray and I visiting the "tax woman"--stopping in to make sure all paperwork signed that they needed and all forms in place, and I shopped a little bit more. We also had dinner plans with our daughter, best friends and lake house roomies, along with a sister, a friend and a fiancé. My sister I have to catch up with each other on the next trip along with seeing my in laws. :( (Heads up, be ready to visit us at the lake house in the summer!)
Copa Airlines business class is usually so on the money! We fly business but always with points (meaning free) so that we can take more pieces of luggage that are twenty pounds heavier. This trip had us bringing back newly bought kitchen items, photo albums, blankets (I know, blankets?! Okay, they are handmade quilts.), and more "stuff". This should be the end of that, except there are a few more photo albums in a tote at the lake house. Back to the airline, we board the plane and are told we have to taxi the plane to the de-icing station. This is interesting to us! Some would be a little concerned or frightened about the weather conditions, I think Ray and I were just in awe. Then we start to take off. Flying fast down the runway, our plane comes to a stop. We do a complete turn around, and we drive back to the other end. We are told that "one of the engines needs to be fixed". All is good, we are given good information by the Pilot, but we found on this flight (out of all the Copa flights we have taken and so far there have been eleven) customer service was lacking for the seven hours we were sitting in our seats. Unsure of why, but we both commented on this when we landed an hour late in ninety-five degree temperatures but with beautiful blowing winds and low humidity in Panama City.
Driving back to Chame was uneventful except for my driver, Ray, having to drive on the opposite side of the highway per the policeman's directions. The orange traffic cones that are put along the dotted lines to separate the two lanes of opposing traffic aren't necessarily on the lines or even standing vertical. Some cones have fallen into our lane with a concrete barrier on our other side. But with it being rush hour and having three lanes of traffic moving along at a fast pace, we were back to Chame in no time at all. Our neighbor, Gus and his wife, had just commented "the kids should be coming back soon".
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| The traffic cones are intermittent. |
We just didn't stop at Chame though. We decided while it was still daylight, we should check out our new house. My next post will pick up on where I am leaving off here. Back to 24/7 with Ray, and it's all still so good here in this thing called retirement.
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