We’re back!  I know you missed us.  It has taken nearly a week to readjust to our “regular life” from our fabulous trip (details here).  Why so long?  Well let’s start with the pain of the alarm clock which we avoided for nearly three weeks.  Then there’s the regular flow to a day at home: get up, go to work, run errands/gym, cook & eat dinner, passive evening entertainment, bed.  We had none of that for the entire time.  We got up when we wanted, did whatever we felt like for the day, “cooked” in our rental flat (usually involving heating up ready meals), and rarely watched TV. And had some drinks.  Sometimes, lots of drinks.

So upon return, much of the routine was broken.  For example, I had to think about which way to turn when I got out of the elevator to get to my office.  It took ages each morning this week to get out of the house to go to work because we kept scrambling to find something, make a lunch, pack this or that. I lost the muscle memory for which key strokes lock my computer screen and the ones I picked kept rebooting my computer.  All signs that the holiday did exactly what it was supposed to do!

But (and you knew there had to be a but!), there is a price to be paid for this level of disconnecting.  And it’s not money – we have been saving for a year so that shouldn’t be an issue (but the credit card bills are just coming in so…)  It’s the time lost for other things and the number of items on the “To do” list that are still there.  We’ve been in a bit of a state of suspended animation for household stuff.  We didn’t want to make any major changes until we’d been here a year and once we passed that milestone, it was too close to the trip to start anything.  So now we have a hundred “as soon as we get back” items to take care of – and no more hours in the day to do them!

And we are ready for a bit of a reboot in our everyday lives.  The routine we had settled in was very nice but not sustainable in the long run.  Our love of wine had bred bad habits for both pocketbook and waistline so we need to reconsider a few things there.  The habit of going to the gym on the way home from work most days (or getting up and going for a run) has also been broken so now it’s time to reevaluate and decide what actually works and makes sense.  And we have new interests and responsibilities.  We do want to continue to embarrass ourselves at tennis, for example, which takes some time.  I have a new gig teaching at a local university which will also take time.  We are now subscribers to the symphony so we have the same seats for the half of the symphony season that we have chosen (couldn’t jump all the way into 14 concerts so we picked 7).  So it’s time to think about how to get done what we said we wanted to get done, how to enjoy the things we want to enjoy, and how to not lose the important things that we want to keep from our life before the “reboot”.

There’s not a minute to waste! Let’s get started – call some contractors, get some house cleaning help, start writing lectures, finish fixing the cars to be sold.  Let’s move people!  But wait, the sun is out and the clouds are not.  It’s going to be a picture perfect day for a hike – just like we got for a few days on holiday.  Today had no alarm, we have no real schedule.  Maybe we can grab one more “holiday” day and the reboot can start tomorrow. 🙂

We are traveling!  Which means the tales of our adventures can be found here:  Cannon Family Travels.

We’ll post again here when we are back in KC!

(AKA if I run without my Garmin, does it still “count”?)

Although it doesn’t show in any of my running logs, I’ve been out for an early morning jaunt several times this week without watch or running app.  In the wake of reading the book “Born to Run”, I am intrigued by the notion of running for the joy of running without times to beat or miles to cover. (I am also intrigued by the running barefoot idea but that will have to come later.)  So I headed out each morning with no way to measure my accomplishment.  Granted, I’m running familiar routes so I have a general sense of how far but no measure of how fast.  I’m still trying to decide if it’s freeing to my runner’s soul or torment to my inner data geek.

So now to wax philosophical:  why do we keep track of so many things?  I wear my Fitbit everyday and note the number of steps I do (or mostly don’t) take yet I don’t change my behavior because of it.  I stopped using food logs because it’s too much of a hassle to figure out how many calories are in the “clean out the fridge” casseroles I make on a regular basis.  Does it matter?  Why can I ignore those tracking items and yet the lack of a running talley of running times is nagging at me.  Because for running, I have a notion of how fast or how far I “should” run and what I could accomplish if I “just” went a little farther or a little faster. Same thing with the scale – why do I care what the number looking back at me is? Because somewhere there a box on a chart that says how much I “should” weigh if I would “just” eat right.

And there is the heart of the matter:  the two most painful words in the English language (jokes about ridiculous business jargon aside) are “should” and “just” because they convey a value judgement in a seemingly objective word.  Why “should” I run at least 15 miles per week?  Eat no more than 2000 calories a day?  Walk 10,000 steps?  Who set these milestones and why do I buy into them?  Yes, there are some places where consequences result from not minding the markers:  consistently overeat and under-exercise and there are possible health implications.  But the implication that one could be different/better/thinner/happier if one “just” ran more, ate less, walked more, drank less, is a heinous and painful judgement.  “Just” implies an ease with which such things are rarely attained.  I have outright shunned the word in working with colleagues who ask a favor of me because it will “just” take a minute.  Maybe it will and maybe it won’t – you are minimizing the effect of your request (not the impact of your ask BTW) because it makes you feel less guilty that you are asking it of me.

So I’m reconsidering all the places where I take measures and imbue them with meaning.  I am trying to avoid the external cues where society (and my inner interpretation of it’s signals) tells me I “should” be able to have skinny thighs and flat abs if I “just” go to the gym more often (or fill in your favorite quick fix here).  Instead I’ll try to enjoy the moment that I am in rather than the one that I think I should be.  And I’ll try not to worry too much about the numbers – with one notable exception:  the traditional holiday step count.  We will be heading out vacation in a few weeks so these posts will be more frequent and filled with travel tales and Fitbit tallies.  Why do those numbers not bother me?  Because I don’t give them the same judgmental meaning – I am in awe when we hit a large number but don’t care when we do not.  And it leads to entertaining conversations with my friends and family for whom a holiday is two weeks of sun, sangria, swimming pools and sleep.  That has never been my favorite way to pass a fortnight – maybe a few days but certainly not a week or more.  But maybe I should be able to enjoy it if I just relaxed a little more and stopped counting things.

They seem to go hand in hand.  Lots of people celebrate the anniversary of their birth, especially those that are multiples of ten, by looking over the path they have taken.  We celebrate wedding anniversaries and mourn the anniversaries of the passing of those we love. It was on the tenth anniversary of my father’s death that my mother’s health began to decline.  Within six months, she was gone.  My brother and I wondered then, as I still wonder, if she felt like she had done her due diligence and hung on the extra decade to keep an eye on  “the kids”. But when the box had been checked, she did her evaluation and decided on a different course.  And so things go.

We are in the midst of anniversaries.   Just over a year ago, we left Virginia and nearly a year ago we arrived in Missouri.  And so the evaluation process is in full swing. We had lots of “first of the lasts” a year ago (last time at this restaurant, last time with that friend, etc.) and now we are approaching the “last of the firsts” in our new abode (first time finding decent local wine, first time sitting in traffic, etc.) Frank is (somewhat grumpily) working for his first summer in over a decade and wondering why he’s bitter about it.  I am overwhelmed with everything I have been able to achieve at work and dismayed by the things that haven’t worked out otherwise.  And yet, the evaluation says things are good and that we are now really home.

How do I know? Because I’ve had to evaluate my thinking toward friends and family.  Especially family.  Not in a drastic way but there has been a subtle shift in my understanding and appreciation of my own myopia.  Let me explain.

For the last month, we have thoroughly enjoyed having Duncan “stay” with us.  He has graduated and hasn’t yet decided on the next challenge so hanging out with mom and dad is the natural, and cheapest, option.  So he loaded most of his belongings into “Steve” (his 1993 Honda Civic – because everyone’s first car should be from the year they were born.  It keeps things in perspective.) and prepared to head west.  Frank flew east and the two of them drove from DC to KC, having a “boys trip”. It’s ~1100 miles which they could have done in two days but apparently it takes four days when you get stuck on the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky….

We have been treating the last few weeks as a visit.  He has been viewing it as living with mom and dad.  The difference?  When people visit, you go out of your way to spend as much time with them as you can, eschewing normal routines and being extra polite to your “guests”.  When you have some one live with you, they don’t necessarily see things as a guest would. So leaving damp towels on the floor of “their” room is okay.  As is sleeping until noon, dirtying every pot or pan in the kitchen, and leaving their shoes wherever. Not that any of this is wrong or bad (we still love you Duncan!) but it’s not how “guests” behave. It’s how family behaves when they live with you.

So in the midst of all the other evaluations comes the realization that we’ve been trying too hard.  We’ve been very aware of the fact that our decision to move here had implications for the “kids” and have gone out of our way to make them happy when they “visit.”  We were really worried they wouldn’t like KC.  Duncan has had a month “staying” with us – including entertaining friends from high school who were passing through – and has survived quite well.  And now we realize that we don’t need to sell them on our new home town as long as we are sold.  And we are.

So now Duncan has headed out on the Great American Camping trip and will spend the next month hitting as many National Parks west of the Mississippi as he can before he starts working. (Don’t ask where – there are two jobs in contention and the decision hasn’t been made yet.) And we spent all day cleaning the house, as one does after the guests leave, and have made the correction to our thinking.  We still love visitors, we still want you to come see us!  We are looking forward to Jesse’s next visit in a few weeks. We want to see more friends and family. We will still show off our new home town and hope you will leave with the same feeling that others had – namely “I had no idea KC was so _____”.  But now we won’t be as concerned with whether or not the opinion is a good one.  We hit the anniversary, we did the evaluation.  We are happy.

Frank was lucky this year:  both of the kids were home to help celebrate Father’s Day.  Of course, travel schedules were such that we didn’t actually celebrate *on* Father’s Day but that seems to be a minor point.

Duncan is staying in KC right now while he figures out the best way to spend a few years before going to grad school.  (Over achiever…. wonder where he got that from?) Jesse stopped in for a few days on her way to her summer job in California.  Yup, she’s working as a technical assistant in Monterey for CSU Monterey Bay’s summer theater program.  So if I’m buying a plane ticket to get her between Vermont to CA, that plane just happens to stop in KC.  For a few days.  Both ways.

And so for 3 days we were a family of four again.  Duncan and Jesse got lots of sibling time while Frank and I were at work.  This allowed Duncan to give her a belated birthday gift – yes, it’s a zebra mask.  No, I’m not in on the joke.  No, I don’t think I necessarily want to be.

And what does my family do on warm Friday nights in the summer?  Go to a Royals game!  We swapped our symphony tickets for Friday night to Sunday and instead picked up our BBQ take out (with some veggie stuff from Panda Express for Duncan) and headed to the K.  It turned out to be the Big Slick celebrity weekend so famous people with KC roots turned up for a “softball game” and other crowd pleasers.  Eric Stonestreet, Paul Rudd, Rob Riggle and Jason Sudekis also tried to lead the 7th inning stretch rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” but were only mildly successful. Still it was an entertaining evening even if the Royals lost to the Red Sox – afterwards there was fireworks!

Saturday was to be our celebration of Father’s Day.  Frank really wanted to go to Boulevardia – a beer and music festival in the West Bottoms – but the projected 100 degree heat index made the festival organizers cap admission and so there were no tickets to be had.  So instead, we headed north to Excelsior Springs for their wine festival.  Okay it was hot, and we were going to spend the day drinking Missouri wine, so maybe it didn’t start out as the most promising plan but off we went in the new convertible with lots of sunscreen and very low expectations.

So therefore we were more than pleasantly surprised when we arrived at a nice shady park with about a dozen wineries represented, some blues musicians playing in the background and very few other people.  For $25 each, Frank, Duncan and I got to “sample” lots of wines – some were *very* generous pours – and Jesse got to be designated driver and make fun of us.  Only one more year before we have to start negotiating over that role! We found several wineries that had really good wines (I might still need to add the “for Missouri” qualifier!) and I actually found a winery that makes a Norton that I like!  No small feat!

We tried to stay hydrated and somewhat sober, enjoyed the great music, avoided the sun, and went home with a case of wine and a sense that our new home state may not be a local wine desert after all.  Dad’s choice for the evening was some steaks on the grill, more wine, and a family showing of “The Kingsman” on pay-per-view.  Who could ask for more?

On Sunday, Jesse had an early flight to start her new adventure so it was off to KCI at o’dark thirty.  While it was Father’s Day for everyone else, we were past that so it was off to church and then Duncan and I hit the symphony (final performance of the year including Tchikovsky’s first piano concerto with a Cliburn finalist pianist – outstanding!) Frank wanted to clean out his garage which, after weeks of rain, had an inch of mud covering parts of the floor – with grass growing in it! So the neighbors all think we are the worst family ever because Frank was “working” on Father’s Day.  They don’t realize that his garage is his passion and they didn’t see the Moscow mule mugs that the kids gave him.  They also couldn’t  fully appreciate what a fabulous gift of having family time is for us empty nesters.  It is still somewhat of a rarity and we treasure every minute (even when we are swearing about having to clean up after them again!)

I am currently traveling this week for work to one of my favorite conferences ever – the annual gathering of the International Association of Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST).  I look forward to this week every year not just because some of these folks have become dear friends over the years or because there is always a banquet where I have my one opportunity to dance with abandon.  Tonight I realized that one of the things I like best about this conference is that is a gathering of very perceptive, educated, erudite people from a variety of disciplines, mostly within the social sciences, who are able and very willing to carry on intelligent and congenial conversations on a variety of topics from the value of the plural phrase “all y’all” to the relative merits of first past the post versus proportional representation voting. All while enjoying a few alcoholic beverages as well as each other’s company.

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not that this is my only opportunity to have conversations with astute, learned, well-informed people; I have friends and colleagues at home who also can generally fit that description.  But tonight’s conversation over pizza and fries between a Dutch citizen living in Britain, two Canadians, and an American historian on the relative similarities between secession opportunities for Catalan, Quebec, and Scotland and the effect of the various political systems on their future was not something in which I generally have the opportunity to participate.  It was nearly as entertaining as the Australian expounding on the merits of “y’all” as a contraction.

Bottom line:  I confess that I am not pretentiously particular about my palaver but I do cherish clever confabulation – and welcome the occasion to augment my lexicon.  🙂

Duncan Francis Cannon, bachelor of science in chemistry with a concentration in biochemistry, ACS certification, and with university distinction.  

  
 Those were the words we came to Charlottesville to hear and I confess that I got a bit teary.

We flew into DCA on Friday, scheduling Jesse’s flight to land within 30 minutes of ours. Of course she landed at the opposite end of the airport from us so finding each other was a comedy sketch of cell phone geolocation: “No, where are you? I don’t see a Dunkin Donuts. What do you mean you are downstairs? There is no downstairs. Meet us at the rental car counter. What? There has to be a sign for rental cars. No, I don’t think you need to take a bus. Are you sure you’re at the same airport as us?”

Eventually we found each other, the rental car, and the way out of the airport and ran straight into a DC landmark – traffic. We were trying to get out of the city at 3pm on a Friday afternoon. Well that was stupid planning on my part. The drive to Charlottesville that usually took just over 2 hours lasted 3.5 and we barely made it to the bed and breakfast before the 7pm check in deadline. Luckily we are longstanding customers at the Foxfield Inn (can’t recommend it highly enough BTW) so Dan and Katheryn still met us with hugs and a smiles – and a much needed glass of wine!  Then off to greet the graduate, score some dinner and rest up for the big day. 

Saturday arrived warm and sunny  and threatening thunderstorms. We found seats on the lawn in the shade and watched the endless parade of graduates stream in. It took more than  30 minutes for everyone in caps and gowns to process from the rotunda to their seats in front of Old Cabell Hall.  

 Then the black robed mass sat in the sun for 90 minutes of speeches and it was done. The commencement speaker was Govemor Terry McAuliffe who was entertaining and mercifully short and yet still managed to piss off the conservatives in the audience with references to reproductive rights, gay marriage, and female presidential candidates. 

We had several hours before the department ceremony where we would hear his name so off to get pizza and beer in the frightful heat.  

 Cap and gown donned again for the walk across the stage with the other 107 undergraduates, dozen or so Masters degrees, and another dozen PhDs to be hooded. I don’t remember  much from my ceremony – other than it was unbearably hot for Wisconsin in May – but I’m pretty sure my advisor did not wax eloquently about my research and present my hood. Then again, it was 19 years earlier almost to the day so it’s likely that such details have been lost to my memory. 

After more “Pomp and Circumstance” than anyone should be forced to endure, we were free to put on comfy clothes and really celebrate. And where do Cannon’s do that, especially in May? The Melting Pot of course! My mother’s favorite place to not eat nearly enough and still complain about being full. Funnily enough, we were two tables away from the Conover clan. Jeremy and Duncan have been friends since 3rd grade and shared an apartment one year so it seemed fitting that we should meet them by happenstance. We then rolled out of the restaurant and the young folks played Mario cart until the wee hours while the old folks waddled off to bed. 

Sunday was cloudy, somewhat rainy, and still hot but we were no longer required to follow a particular dress code so comfy was the order of the day. Frank and Duncan spent some time replacing the radiator and brake master cylinder in Duncan’s car (whose name is Steve BTW) and then we were off to another of our favorite destinations: a winery!  We found ourselves at the Trump winery which we had not been to since he took it over from the Kluge family. We were not fans of the wine when they owned it so we were not holding out much hope now. 

And yet we were pleasantly surprised. We genuinely liked all the wines, some more than others, and purchased a bottle of the sparkling rose to share with friends we were meeting there. Duncan has gone to Sunday school with Kate for as long as either of them can remember and over the years we have had the honor of calling the Rozelsky’s our friends. We hadn’t seen them since the move to KC last summer so we passed a pleasant hour or so catching up, talking about plans for after graduation since Kate had also just graduated and we helped celebrate her 22nd birthday. (It would have been my mom’s 77th so a drink seemed appropriate. Miss you mom.)

  Then we indulged ourselves in the other thing we miss in MO besides good local wines: mountains. We drove through the foothills of the Appalachians and found ourselves at Devils Backbone Brewery for dinner. The food was excellent, the boys declared the beer delicious and we followed the meal with a wander along Rockfish Creek before heading back into town. A brief stop at Duncan’s pigsty, er, house to congratulate the other graduates and their families then Frank and I headed back to the B&B so that the youngsters could have their time together.  

And now we head back to KC, Jesse heads back to Vermont, and Duncan continues to ponder what his next adventure is . It is unlikely that the four of us will be together again in Virginia any time soon so it was nice to have had some family time there. Let’s see where our other family adventures take us next.  You can be sure the Bow Tie Brigade will be there. 

 

Yesterday I ran my first road race in KC. I’m still battling plantar fasciitis so I still have to be careful about the distances I go but I thought I could handle this one: The Trolley Run is a 4 miler that is run on the roads that are alongside the Henry Wiggins Trolley Track trail.  This is my daily running route and I love that it runs right by my house.  Which, of course, means that the race ran right by my house.  This was the first time that I was able to walk to the start of a race. Well, a real race. There was a race that ran through my old neighborhood that started at Cherry Run elementary school and literally ran past my house.  I don’t count this because it was not officially marked or timed and there were only about 300 people that ran it.  This race involved 9000 registered runners, miles of portapotties and was USATF sanctioned and chip timed.  A real race.  It started outside my favorite pizza place and headed up my regular running route to end at the Country Club plaza – a KC landmark.

There the post race stands of bagels, coffee, pizza (longest line of them all), yogurt, and fruit were mobbed by runners while a local radio station blasted music that everyone else seemed to know.  My time was far better than I had expected since I hadn’t really “trained” for this race.  I was hoping for a sub-9 pace and got a sub-8 pace so I have to say I’m quite pleased. (For all the gory details, here are my results.)

One of the things that I love about our neighborhood is that this kind of thing happens regularly.  I missed the recent half marathon – Rock the Parkway – because I’m still not up for that distance yet and I had a brutal head cold.  This is another course that involves one of my regular running routes.  In two weeks, there is a Mother’s Day run that is a little farther – the start is about a 20 minute walk rather than this weeks 10 minute walk but I think I’ll be able to make it.  And then there is the 4 on the Fourth run that starts and ends at the local Target.  Not quite walking distance from the house but definitely walking distance to the Culver’s Frozen Custard shop.  And there are races with BBQ – I’ll miss the KC Marathon and Half Marathon this year but you have to love any race who’s slogan is “Come for the marathon, stay for the barbecue”!

Now to keep working on getting rid of this nagging right foot pain – I hate to think it could keep me from running local.  [Grammar note:  yes, it should be running locally because you need an adverb to describe the verb. No one really cares about that any more though.  I’ll save that rant for another day. 🙂 ]

That’s what kids next year will hear at one Fairfax County high school next year.  I always knew Frank was irreplaceable and now the school system is finding that out as well. Apparently enrollment next year was not high enough to justify full-time auto shop teacher so the program is closed. It’s not his program anymore yet I still feel sadness that what he built as the first shop teacher at that school is no more. We moved so that I could start something new here in Kansas City and he was happy to leave behind some of the pain and anguish the teaching brings yet I know it must be sad for him to know that what he built is gone. I confess that I am sad for the loss of a champion for the kids for whom college is not the answer. The importance of career and technical education was, and is, a passion for him and many others like him.

Keep your fingers crossed that someday a school district that needs someone who works too hard and shares too much will find another talented teacher who gives all they have and cares too much. Oh yes I forget that it happens in classrooms around the country every fall. Maybe Frank will find his way back to one someday.