Not Vacation

I am currently sitting (yay sitting!) in the fitting area at H&M in San Francisco, waiting for the girlchild to finish trying stuff on. Part of the agreement when I planned this trip meant I knew I would have to give the girlchild places where she feels happy. Unfortunately, at this point in her development, we rejoice in her cooking talent, but are tortured by her love of shopping.

Twenty-four hours later, I’m in a different kind of waiting room, the kind that eventually gets me on a plane home. I’ve weathered my driver getting seriously nauseous in the Golden Gate Bridge, enough that he warned me to grab the wheel at one point…Bridge Security was ever so nice and we eventually got back in the car and drove (nay, crept) through San Francisco on our way to a dinner party we never got to (food poisoning!)…back to Sunnyvale in time to drop sick person into a bed and feed the increasingly starving teens (I gave them chocolate, which seemed to help). The girlchild had one full-on hurricane tantrum at Stanford, but was fine at Berkeley because she finally got dim sum (this is unfortunately where our driver got whatever beast that is still troubling his belly). She’s had a few thunderstorms since, but was mollified by chocolate.

The purpose of this trip? To get both kids thinking about college types and environments, to thus winnow down the possibilities to a manageable chunk for travel purposes. I think we were successful with that. Boychild doesn’t like big city environments…but is beginning to understand the concept of backup schools. He was very impressed by the wildlife, especially at UC Santa Cruz…

We went to UCSC for the environment, thinking the girlchild might appreciate it…she was impressed by the animals and trees, but not the art studios (I chose UCI over Santa Cruz because they had working artists teaching the classes…and in retrospect, the program was the best possible for me without sending me to an art-only school). I don’t know if art is where she’ll end up…but I do suspect boychild’s interest in physics and math are not her first choices. Boychild likes big libraries, which I find ironic, considering how much reading he does electronically. I made sure he saw every library.

Next trip? I think Boston. If I can stand it. I might leave everyone else home and report back via podcast.

Tomorrow? Mine. Making art.

Sorry for the lousy photos…I am in fact posting this from my phone…while plugged in to a chair in the San Jose Airport. My luggage is not unattended and I have caffeine. Girlchild just purchased a book on her Kindle, using a Christmas gift card, boychild is reading his Nook, and our fearless driver is sleeping off the effects of food poisoning. It could be worse.