And We're Back ...

OAFS Photo

The trip back from Maryland on Sunday was, for the most part, uneventful. I've discovered that traveling on Sunday means a lot less traffic. Usually.

Four cars managed to careen into each other on the Cross Bronx "Expressway" which led to a half hour delay in that metropolitan area. Fun. You're on a roadway which is sunken beneath the surrounding terrain so you can't see anything.

We also had a large tractor-type truck to our front which meant we couldn't see what the delay was. On the upside, no one wanted to cut in front of me because then they would be behind the big truck.

The opening photo are The Nuke's boys, Finnegan (left) and Roberto (right). Those two guys are a blast to be around. Of course as they are two and four (respectively) they do tend to "get in a mood" from time to time. But for 75% of the time they pay attention, love to play and wrestle with Grandpa (I have the bruises to show for it), and harrass Grandma to spoil them. Which she does.

Last week saw the arrival of the Year of the Snake, Lunar New Year having arrived on the 29th of January. The grandkids learned a new tradition, the one where they bow to their grandmother (I don't count apparently as I'm not Korean, ain't no thang) in a rather formal way.

Roberto pulled it off as if he were to the manor bred. Finnegan didn't quite get what was going on but when he saw his brother receive cash money from his grandmother, he was bowing as if he'd grown up in the old Korean court. The kids are fast learners.

I daresay it will be a few days before Mom and Dad get the boys back to normal. I'm not saying that we spoil them ...

Oh wait, that's exactly what I'm saying. That's what grandparents do.

I also feel that it's incumbent upon Grandpa to tell the boys the legends of their ancestors. Though I think Roberto suspects Grandpa is pulling his leg when I tell him of my school days, where in the winter the walk to school was uphill, both ways, and one had to watch that the wolves didn't carry off any stragglers.

"Did that really happen, Grandpa?" he ask with a look of healthy skepticism upon his handsome visage.

"Sure it did. Ask your mother."

Who had this to say, "Grandpa sometimes exaggerates. There were no wolves in southern Vermont in the '60s."

Next time I shall regale them with tales of sweltering in a New England summer, "working¹" in their great-great grandmother's garden and fighting off sharks in the waters of Maine.

And no, Roberto, the dinosaurs were long dead when I was born. Don't believe everything your mother says.

Sigh ...

Back down in March for the kids' spring break, might involve a trip to Gettysburg as well. To stay in a haunted inn, maybe. I was rather excited at the prospect, Roberto wasn't sure what to believe.

Ah, to be young again.

¹ Work consisted of eating whatever we could get away with, fresh green beans, carrots straight from the earth, and making sure Grandpa didn't see us!