Have a Wicked Pissah New Year
If the title didn’t give it away already, I spent the holidays in my ancestral home state, Rhode Island. To be fair, folks in my home town of Newport don’t talk like that, but travel inland to a town like Warren and you’ll hear a variant of the New England accent that would make even a native Bostonian blush (if you don’t believe me, wicked pisser is in the Alternative English Dictionary).
Anyway, we decided to do the 6 hour drive north rather than fly, and Eidan handled his first road trip well (mercifully, by sleeping most of the way in both directions). We first stayed with one of my aunts in Boston for a couple of days, and we took Kai to see the Nutcracker. We were seated roughly in the middle of the theater, and within a radius of 10 rows of us, I spotted 3 Caucasian couples with Asian toddlers. Maria’s friend Yuka was with us (she’s from Japan, and is in Boston right now learning English), and she said that it’s the latest trend in Boston: well-to-do but older or infertile couples adopting Chinese babies, as orphanages in China are apparently overflowing with kids these days. Leaving the theater, Yuka commented that one of the dancers was Japanese, and you could tell because she was “all technique and no spirit.” Maria was sympathetic to the dancer though: “she was the sugar-plum fairy, that’s not much to work with!”
Our time in Newport mostly consisted of running the gauntlet of my relatives. I have a large and complicated family, involving halfs, steps, and ex-steps (including a brother and a sister who are my blood-relatives, but not each others). On a typical day we’d visit two or three different houses, and after a week we had managed to see everyone at least once. For Kai it just meant more love, and of course, more presents! Actually, it was a great trip, and we’re looking forward to going back in the summer, so Kai and Eidan can play with their cousins on the beach.
The only downside to the trip was that we came home to find that our 3rd floor toilet had leaked. There were water stains on the wall below it on the 2nd floor, the hallway floor warped, and the kitchen ceiling was water damaged as well. I stopped the leak simply by tightening the nut on the toilet’s incoming water line. I installed that toilet over the summer, and this was the first time the toilet had been in air below 55 degrees (since we turned the heat down while we were away), so my guess is the cold temperature caused a slight contraction in the seal, letting the water out.
Now I’m looking forward to a relaxing day at work ;-).
