Where Globe-Trotting meets Beach-Combing
The day Chris sailed away from Norfolk, I made a goal that surprised me: to get a story in Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot. When our family moved to Norfolk two years ago, I had been pregnant with Wheezy Woo and decided to feel free not to worry about working during this tour. Deployment changes your mind about…
We stood in the rain for three hours. “Good thing they’re getting home and not leaving,” I thought. Leaving in the rain would be so depressing. Nothing can put a damper on homecoming! The rain clouds parted for a moment and the sailors, who’d all gotten soaked manning the rails, came streaming out. So much…
I did it. We did it. It’s done. Homecoming is forecast rainy rainy rainy, but who the heck cares? The kids were super grouchy this afternoon, wouldn’t nap, screamed and cried constantly, and went to bed early so we missed the homecoming info meeting. Typical. But you know what? Who the heck cares? I stopped…
I think Seascapes by 19th Century painter William Trost Richards is the first exhibit to come and go since I’ve worked at the museum. Amid the garish colors and questionable endurance of some other pieces in the modern and contemporary gallery, the crashing seas and shimmering blue greens seem a calm harbor. Today’s its last…
Today was cool, cloudy, and unbelievably vividly green. Norfolk’s famous crepe myrtles are all leafy again. It looks like someone poked the air with a pin a glowing green primordial ooze is seeping out into the world. Between cloudbursts we popped over to the zoo to eat our pb&j lunch. A peacock thought Eloise was…
I used to always go do everything. Then one day I realized, “wrastling both grouchy kids alone in public is LESS fun in a crowd. The only thing I’m missing out on is a pleasant morning playing in the backyard.” So I almost didn’t drag the kids to the NATO Festival Saturday. It seemed like…
You know what six months of crappy deployment result in? The best anniversary ever! This port call celebrated our 10th anniversary AND the near-end of deployment. We rode bikes to the Mediterranean. We had sangria and wrote postcards at Panorama restaurant, right on the water. We climbed Valencia’s Micolet bell tower, and we saw the…
