Spring Break Redux

“Happy Birthday, Mama!” says my sweet boy, as he woke up one recent morning. “Thank you, sweetie!” I reply.
“How old are you?”
“One day older than yesterday,” I deflect.
“Twenty five,” chuckles Mr. Fancy from the next room.
“Twenty five! Wow! That’s old,” my children chorus.
My lovely daughter examines me. “You still look young, about 12 years old.” 

Later, it's revealed that I’m not really 25. The children become even more confused when I insist that I am "twenty-seventeen." Age is a funny thing. Time is a funny thing, too.

Time has slipped away from me lately, and I realized I hadn’t written a column for Eagle Rock Patch in a couple of weeks. I would say it was writer’s block, but it was more like computer block. The piles of mail, dirty laundry and empty suitcases from spring break blocked my computer. Kicking a path through was quite a chore.

As I began to sort the giant pile of mail, I found that almost every piece was a campaign flyer for the upcoming school board election between Luis Sanchez and Bennett Kayser. Hundreds of them!

After carefully reading each document (yeah right) I started to haul them out to the recycling bin, but soon realized that the load was too bulky. I began lashing together the stacks of Sanchez/Kayser flyers and soon found that I had created a brand new six-foot long sofa, which I will be auctioning off at the upcoming Eagle Rock Elementary silent auction and fundraiser. It is a little lumpy, but I figure with printing cost what they are, it is worth about $64,000.

And I don't see why it won't be a hit at the Eagle Rock Elementary Educational Foundation fundraiser. In the past, EREEF has purchased such things as playground equipment and copy machines for the school. Currently, its focus is on information technology improvements—computers, document readers and the like.

So please join us this Saturday for a fun evening of dining and dancing at the , that historic building on the corner of Hermosa Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. There will be a wide array of fantastic auction items (vacations, gift certificates, artwork and more) Tickets are $60. If you would like to sponsor a teacher, buy a ticket or just make a donation, please send an e-mail to ereef90041@yahoo.com or call 323-206-4134.

Well, you might wonder where I was, while all that mail was accumulating around my desk. (By the way, I'm casting my vote for the candidate who sent out the fewest brochures.) As it happened, my dad and I drove my kids to Texas, where I was to drop them off at my family’s ranch and then fly to New York to meet my husband for a week of work. 

Driving to Texas with dad was a like 40 days in the desert packed into 22 hours. Our navigation system would say things like “drive 400 miles, then keep right.” There was not a , or even a Starbucks for hundreds of miles in any direction. I was in a dream state for much of the trip. The long, straight roads and lack of radio stations lull you into a deep place where memories simmer. We kept the kids plugged into the DVD player to save our sanity.

Our oasis along the way was a hotel in Las Cruces. We arrived in time for the complimentary happy hour and then made our way to the swimming pool. Dad probably hadn’t been in a pool since I was a little kid, but it was as if those "twenty-seventeen" years vanished and he was splashing with my little kids, tossing them up in the air, all of us relieved to be out of our minivan captivity.

We made it to the ranch and I spent one food-filled, laughter-laden day with the cousins, my dear grandmother, parents, aunts and uncles. I was carefully preparing my children for my dramatic departure when I realized they were too busy playing with their cousins and grandparents to even miss me. Could it be they would survive without me? The tough answer is yes!

According to my mom, they were perfect. They didn’t fight. They didn’t miss me. They cleaned up after themselves. What? In my absence, they both seemed to have grown four inches and gained about 1,000 words of vocabulary. My 6-year-old daughter also picked up eye rolling. Most shocking to me was that the tooth fairy came without me. 

My girl’s first tooth and I wasn’t there for it!
“How did you loose it?” I asked.
“Papa pulled it,” my big little girl answered.

I remembered my own childhood dread at losing teeth. I would let them dangle there for weeks, running from my dad, (aka Papa) when he offered to assist in the extraction. 

“How was that? ” I queried, cautiously.
“It was great!” My Little Big Girl beamed. “Then the tooth fairy brought me a gold coin!”

Hmm. How was it possible that such a strategic operation could happen without my direction? 

Little Big Boy piped up: “We also hiked two miles! Papa measured it.”

After Easter with the family, my husband, Mr. Fancy, the kids and I piled into the minivan for our return journey across the southwest. It seemed somehow fitting to share the driving duties with my dad to my old home and then with my husband back to Eagle Rock. I always feel very torn between these two places. C’est la vie. 

Now I’m home, back in my routine, currently working on some throw pillows to go with that new Sanchez/Kayser sofa. As I once again celebrate the anniversary of my 20-17th year, it is nice to learn that the world does continue turning and the tooth fairy keeps on delivering, even if I slip off to enjoy a little time with my husband in a far-away city. We were working, really. I promise.