Things Are Seldom What They Seem - Weston, MA

So, it's been a year. A year since I began this repatriation journey. A year since leaving my home of six years in São Paulo, Brazil. The changes have been immense--stresses that I didn't know I had have melted away. Stresses I didn't know I would have have reared their sleepless-night-inducing heads. It has not been easy in so many ways; it has been so easy in other ways.

When we announced our move, most people said that repatriation would be much more difficult than expatriation. I don't believe that to be true. There are challenges both ways, but here "at home", I don't feel like I am facing it alone. Perhaps I am lucky for having found people with whom I can laugh or cry here, but all in all, things have been okay. More than okay. Slightly less than awesome.

New friends have helped immeasurably, yet I had forgotten how  long it takes to make friends in a new town, especially a New England one. Old friends have been invaluable--from unpacking to inviting us to their homes, to lending a sympathetic ear when I started sentences for the two-thousandth time "well, when I was in Brazil..."

So, I'd like to sum up my year--the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful... I don't know if it will help the repatriators who follow but it helps me realize what I have gone through.

The good

People. New Englanders take a while to know, but they are in fact wonderfully helpful, funny and genuine folks. If you do get invited for dinner, they actually want you to come over rather than just a "hey, we should do dinner sometime."  They are also used to be independent and self-reliant (yes, I had to give up a housekeeper) and will stand in for you as babysitter or driver if you are stuck. We've all been there. 

New skiers (mine) and new friends.

The ease of life. Case in point: our grocery store has everything here. Batteries, stationery, milk, vegetables, beer. It's all in one place. It's easy. Of course it's easier for me because I know brands and I know where to find them. I am from here. I get it. But in the grand scheme, what I mean here is that having your kids running down the street to friends' houses without a thought to safety is ease of life, not just groceries. They bicycle down streets with little risk to life and limb. Also yellow school buses. I love them.

The closeness of family. My brother lives 12 miles from me. My parents live a two hour flight from me. I am not saying we see them all the time, but it's a bit better than the distance we've lived at for the last 15 years (Brazil then Miami then Brazil again).

The comfort of my own language and culture. Not much I need to say here. The comfort of my own language means that I don't have to worry that I accidentally insulted someone by not calling them "Senhora" instead of the more casual "voce" in Portuguese. Or that "louco" or crazy in Portuguese is actually pretty strong and not a light-hearted American "You're crazy!" And yes, I get references to Dukes of Hazzard and the Brady Bunch--not so much the Pica-Pau Amarelo in Brazil. It's nice to be comfortable in my language and my bad 70s TV shows.

Being allowed to complain. I am not a Brazil citizen or passport holder. I cannot vote there. I was always pretty careful not to complain (much) about the politics because frankly I can't do much about it. I am a voter here. I vote every time I'm allowed. I complain and I try to change what I'm complaining about. It is nice to be able to vote in local elections again. And state. As well as federal. Beyond voting, if you are a "visitor" or "permanent resident" of a country, your criticism about it often chafes a native. I get it. 

New England. It's God's Country. It's the most beautiful place in the world in every season. It is. Don't try to fight it.

Coal. My rescue dog has filled a hole that a 14-year old labrador's death on June 14, 2014 carved in my heart. He is funny, he is bad, he is comic relief. We also have two fish and of course Haifa, the world's happiest and laziest labrador, who makes me smile just by existing.

Coal and Lalo

Haifa

   











The bad

Little bads: Nico breaks an arm two hours after arrival last year.

Life goes on for some friends you had expected to see. Case in point is one friend who lives exactly one hour and a half from here. I haven't seen her since last August. Not for lack of trying--her kid plays competitive lacrosse apparently every waking moment, she and her husband work full-time and she is trying to sell her business.  For other friends, I mistakenly thought that New York (where I'm from) is closer than it is. I don't mean miles. I mean life.

BH working more in Brazil and less here. When we moved, I thought BH would be more here and less there. That he would be six months in Brazil then join us here with trips back and forth twice a month. In reality, he is more there than here--he's a consultant and he has a great client. We all do what we can but being more alone that I thought I would be has been pretty tough.

The realization that the market went on without me. For the last six months, I have dabbled in trying to go back to work. On-ramping, as it seems is the catch phrase right now. I need to for my mind and to pay for lawn care, which it turns out is really expensive ;). While I have a great educational and work background, I've been out for a long time. It is really hard, for my ego and in general, to get back in.

Even though you can afford it, you need to watch out. When you live in a city as expensive as São Paulo and imported goods are outrageously priced, you may find yourself going a little crazy when you get back in the US. Yes, a lot of stuff is very cheap but it adds up. Case in point: my Honda CRV cost the equivalent of $60,000 (before bullet-proofing) in Brazil. For that money, I could buy a nice Acura MDX (actually for $20K less) brand-new. Should we have bought a brand-new car with all the other expenses of new house coming through? Not sure. We made up for it with our second car: a 2002 Acura TL hooptie which my kids prefer to the big car!

Snowmaggedon. Yeah, it wasn't that bad but just think about 110 inches of snow and no snowblower. I love winter, but let's get real, Boston.

Missing friends and family. Perhaps the biggest "bad". The joy of being a bi-country couple is that someone is always missing. I miss my stepkids Carol and Pedro (ages 20 and 23) who are moving along life's path at an accelerated pace. I miss my friend Pri who was always up for a coffee or a glass of wine and laughing about life. I miss my expat friends who could make me laugh about the craziness of our adopted city--especially Erica, Birgit and Virginia, but many others too. I miss the fazenda where we rented a house--a place so filled with beauty that it apparently stole it from other places. I miss carefree and friendly Brazilians--the ones I struck up casual conversations with about nothing and about everything. Taxi drivers, bakery helpers, cashiers. And finally, but not meant that way, I miss my crazy Brazilian in-laws: Marisa, Marco, Zoraide, Leo, Isabela, Julia...all of you. Please no one tell them I said so.

All in all, we love our new house and new life in the USA. I am not promising to stay here forever, but it is home now.  I am now on the local PTO board. I have been appointed to a town committee. I manage my kid's club soccer team. I am doing my best to participate and live here as fully as I did in Brazil. Because I think that is the trick to expatriation AND repatriation. Throw yourself fully in, participate and BE where you are. Yes, you can miss certain things about your life in the other place but in the end, it doesn't help your happiness.

I'm not happy every day here. Not even close. But I try.

Happy Anniversary, Weston! 

The Great Escape - Boston to DC

So I've been quiet the last week; has anyone noticed? No? Well, in case you were feeling cut adrift from the latest in my repatriation faux pas (faux pases? faux pase?), it's not because I had nothing to say. That happens no time ever. The silence was because last week was Winter Vacation for the Weston schools and I try really hard not to "work" on vacation.

Since late last year, we had planned to go to Costa Rica. My kids were nuts with excitement for the last two weeks before we left--shoveling snow, thinking about the rainforest. Breaking icicles while talking about learning to surf. Telling everyone in their school who would listen (at this point they might be down to the custodian. Or not. Maybe the stuffies in the kindergarten classrooms) that they were going to Costa Rica, a country they studied for a couple of weeks earlier in the school year.

Our scheduled flights were the cheapie flights. Yes, I refused to pay $100 each more to go on Friday night,  so we were flying to DC at 7 pm on Saturday the 14th, spending the night in a hotel near Dulles airport, flying to San Jose from DC,  then flying back through Houston, again overnight and arriving Sunday the 22nd back here in Boston. Or so we thought.

As you may know if you are friends with me on facebook, I am obsessed with watching the weather predictions. Starting about Wednesday the 11th, I got pretty nervous. Another storm (Neptune, apparently) was trying to dump a whole lot of white stuff on Boston. And, as the weathercasters love to say...this one was a Nor'Easter. Oh yay. The forecasters went back and forth on timing, but finally settled into an early Saturday night arrival for the storm with the worst of it coming on Sunday morning. 

I called United on Thursday morning, right after BH arrived from Brazil. No, they said, no waivers have been issued. I could change my flight to earlier in the day on Saturday to DC, but it would cost $300 per ticket to do so.  I decided to stay with our flight.  Two hours later I changed my mind and was willing to pay the fee--I called back United and said we could fly anytime Friday or Saturday but United told me that now there were no seats left.  I asked them what would happen if we drove to DC on Saturday and just picked up the Costa Rica flight on Sunday. They said "just let us know, and we'll charge you the change fee." Change fee? What?

Given the forecast, I decided to reserve a rental car in case we made a break for it on Saturday. Even though DC is a seven hour drive on the best of days, I was DESPERATE for this vacation. 99 inches of snow in Boston, people! I put a good face on it but I wanted sun! I wanted beach! I wanted little rainforest creatures at my window! I wanted to see my stepdaughter and her boyfriend who were flying up from Brazil to Costa Rica to meet us (that's halfway for each of us. Cool, no?). We decided to make our decision on Saturday around 1 pm (car rental reservation was for 2 pm).

At 6 am, our kitchen sink broke. Yep, the kitchen faucet had not a drop of cold water in it. Our wonderful neighbor came over to see if he could figure out what happened...at 9:30 am, he had left but we had called the plumber on a possible valve problem. At 9:45 am, I had checked in for our flight on United's site. At 10:00, the plumber arrived. At 10:09, United canceled our flight from Boston to DC.

While the plumber worked, I fed kids and BH packed. We decided to drive down. Now we had to shut down the house for our departure--not totally because we did have a college student house-sitting, but it's amazing what was left to get done. Finally, after a $200 plumbing bill pay, dogs settled, United advised of our change, housesitter called and generally freaking out left behind, we waited for a taxi (40 minutes!! Freakin' 'burbs!) to take us to the Waltham Avis car rental.

I had called Avis earlier in the morning to see if our car would be ready a little earlier than 2. The guy said "sure, come on down whenever." So we did. As I am handing over the documents a little distractedly in the miniscule Avis office inside the Westin Hotel Waltham, he says "hey, I have the same birthday as you!" And I said "wow, this is the first time I have ever met anyone with my birthday" (December 28 is not a popular day to get born). And he said "I am giving you an upgrade to a luxury full-size car because you're my twin." So we got ourselves a nice Lincoln something or other for what would be our 10 hours of hell.

Well, that would be an exaggeration. Not the nice car part. It was a nice car; all 10 hours were not hell. About 2 of them were. BH started driving through Massachusetts and all was snow-free until Connecticut. Clearly Connecticut still harbors some resentment that I moved away, or the Whalers moved to Houston or Charlotte or someplace warm, or possibly that they are a tiny state, and started blowing snow towards us just as I took over the steering wheel at the border. 

Light fluffy snow bothers no one from Connecticut. We were doing the speed limit all the way to NYC where we started having some problems with traffic getting on to the GW Bridge. But still making good time. It was then around 4:30 pm when we crossed into New Jersey and began our trip down the NJ Turnpike.  Things were going so well that we stopped for dinner just before crossing into Maryland. Where things got hellish.

There are many jokes about southerners giving up when the snow gets to 2 inches thick. It turns out that this is not a joke. For two hours we crept through 2 inches of snow at 40 mph (photo at top is from Maryland). We saw about six snowplows total in all of Maryland and DC. Nothing was happening in taking snows off the roads.

I knew that the big wind gusts were expected later in the evening so I was starting to get very tense. As night fell, I had to ask BH, the poor jetlagged boy, to keep driving until we were about an hour (theoretically) from DC. Then he was too sleepy so I took over.

And then passed the hairiest driving hour of my recent memory. I had one other white-hair-causing trip 7 years ago in Michigan due to black ice and freezing cold. But that was with drivers who knew what they were doing. No offense, south, but you do not. 

The gusts came up, the light fluffy snow flew across the highways, pushing the luxury Lincoln and whiting out my vision. I am not a good night driver. I just got night driving glasses but of course I had left them in Boston because I did not expect to be driving through the night in a white out.

Suffice it to say, I was terrified. Totally. The kids behaved as well as you could expect--by the last hour they were tired and just wanted to get there. I just wanted to get there. The last hour took us two hours. I pulled into the parking lot at Summerfield Suites Dulles and burst into tears. Fortunately the kids were sleeping at this point.

Wonderful BH took charge of the kids and the luggage, and I took charge of getting two Sam Adams at the little store attached to the reception desk. I am forever grateful to Summerfield Suites Dulles for saving my life with a Sam Adams.

Finally we were in our room. And the kids fell asleep. And I stayed up all night worrying about our flight from Dulles to Costa Rica the next morning at 9 am...would it be cancelled from all the gusting winds? The hotel wasn't even made for winter--the gusts blew through the air conditioner all night, we slept in our clothes to keep warm (no clue how the heat worked in that room). But we were on our way. We had escaped from Boston. 

The lovely God-given land of Costa Rica will be my next post...it was all worth it. But even now, at 3 pm on a Monday afternoon, the telling of the tale has me wanting a Sam Adams. It's a good year to be a Boston beer brewer.

Boston Strong - Boston, MA

So while I've been sitting out here in Weston complaining about snow and plows and shoveling, I forgot what the snow means for the "city" of Boston (I grew up next to "THE city" -- that's NYC, folks -- and came from a city of 11 million people most recently. Metro Boston has around 4.5 million people, but the actual city has less than one million pop). For Boston, winter 2015 is out-and-out warfare. 

As I have mentioned, we currently have around 6 feet of snow in Boston. And we've had it since late January. While I have joked about this quantity of snow, the stark reality is that there is nowhere else to put it. People are getting fines for not shoveling out their front sidewalk but where in the world would they put the snow? In Weston, our main concern is peering around the huge piles of snow and pulling out slowly in intersections but in Boston, you can't even move a car. Or possibly, you don't want to. 

I did some reading up on the Boston parking page, which has a whole page of Do's and Don'ts for snow. If you're interested, it's here at this link. The primary rule is that you cannot park on a major artery (as defined by the parking lord) during a snow emergency. For obvious reasons--emergency vehicles and snowplows have to get through somewhere. 

For smaller streets, they suggest people move their cars to local parking garages where apparently you can park free if you arrive within two hours of a snow emergency being declared, and leave within two hours of it being lifted. Which means you are going to be shoveling out the space in front of your house so that you have somewhere to park when you get booted from the garage (you won't want to overstay your welcome--parking garages in Boston routinely exceed $30 for a couple of hours of parking. There is not an overabundance of parking in cute ol' Boston). 

And this is where I start to be amused. If you shovel out a parking space, you have the right to park there for 48 hours. There is an ordinance for this. It's on the parking page for Boston. So if you have to leave your space to drive to work, or go to the store, what do you do? You leave space savers.  And these can be literally anything. If you want to be amused by what people leave to save their spaces, do a google search, or go to this link for 25 Things People Value Less than a Parking Space. 

(actually from Chicago)

Now, as much as this makes me laugh, you have to know that this is serious business, especially during a February full of snow. I have heard stories of people who ignore the space savers getting their cars keyed or windows broken.  And having shoveled for 20 of the last 23 days, I understand it. I do. I think we should all be glad that Massachusetts has strong gun laws because at the level of crabbiness that is rife in the "city" these days, people could die. Not kidding. 

I have to tell you that things are getting a bit rough with another blizzard expecting to dump a foot of snow here on Sunday. Our level of amusement is going down. And the level of danger is going way up. Several towns have canceled this week's school as they fight to get thousands of pounds of snow off of school roofs. Why do almost all public schools have flat roofs? I wish I knew. Must be cheaper to build--one of Weston's new schools (opened this year) has a flat roof. Those need to be cleared. 

Yesterday BH was at Home Depot where there were workers up on the roof clearing off the snow--flat roof.  Several building roofs have collapsed in the area. My brother's historic building near Boston Common had to hire snow removal trucks and men to take off the snow from the fifth floor flat roof--and you don't want to even consider that cost.

Teamworks Auburn roof collapse (photo credit: Auburn police)

Our public transportation has ground to a halt. All subways and trains were shut down for a day this week to get the snow off the tracks. It's crazy. I have to tell you that a lesser "major city" would have given up by now. So as of now I'm going to take the quotation marks away from "city" for Boston--we are definitely a city. Boston Strong, I think they call it. 

Folks, it's hairy out there. If you are in the Maine, Mass, RI, NH areas, please please be careful. I hope that Sunday's storm is the last of it for the season, but I don't have high hopes. 

And for those of you in warm places in the US, I suggest that now is not the time to make wisecracks. We're close to disaster level out here and I think you'll find that New England rarely mocks tornado, earthquake and fire destruction. You can mock us in mud season, promise.

Have a good stahm or Why New England is not for the weak - Weston, MA

My view out the patio door 7 am

This past Sunday I learned about Winter Storm Juno. As those who remember their mythology, Juno is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Hera. Hera was always my least favorite goddess--she's married to her brother Zeus (err, what?) and he is a pain in the butt always turning girlfriends into swans so she won't smite them because somehow she was always smiting the girl and not her trampy husband. Yes, trampy. Anyway, apparently Hera (Juno) eyeballed eastern Massachusetts and said "wench! you must die for looking at my husband-brother!!" 

Juno was the perfect storm. Please don't ask me to try to remember everything the weather dudes said but it was something about warm wet air coming from the south hitting Canadian winds (blame Canada when it doubt) and doing some kind of samba, or maybe it was cool air from New York (second choice on blame) hitting warm air from Canada--wait, what warm air from Canada? See how easy it is to blame Canada?  

Whatever. All the factors were together for a storm that would drop 24-37 inches on Boston and its metro west suburbs. Think about it, 37 inches!! That's the size of a four year old child...just swallowed up in the 20 hours of the storm. Fortunately my kids are around four feet tall so I could see them above the neck. Mostly screaming with laughter.

Anyway, check out this Weather Channel photo of the storm obliterating New England. Where is Boston? I dunno, but the satellite equivalent of a finger over the lens is up there too. What is that? The wing? Check out the link below the photo for cool other swirly stuff photos.

Photo credit: http://www.weather.com/storms/winter/news/winter-storm-juno-weather-images

Now, if you remember my last blog, I am all about embracing winter. So when BH left me to face Snowmaggedon or Snowcapalype by myself (he got out of town on Sunday night), I thought okay...let's do it! I had a snowplower guy named Joe, who was all set up to have a good "stahm" as all the plow guys  kept wishing each other in their Boston accents "have a good stahm, Georgie..." and I am all fit from my Kung Fu Fit and ready for battle. 

Having lived in Miami for six years, I am a pretty good pro on the getting ready for a weather emergency. Here, in no particular order, is how I went about it on Monday:

1. Firewood. BH brought a bunch in for me and a good thing too. All supermarkets were sold out on Monday. Fortunately I had had to cut down two ash trees in the fall (well, unfortunately for them, but they would have crashed my house during the winds). Of course my puppy ate about two of the largest logs while I was out shoveling on Tuesday, but I was still ready for power out as I now had chips to start the fire.

2. Emergency power. First I identified all neighbors with generators and brought them cookies. No, just kidding on the cookies--I can't bake. I do have three neighbors with generators and all are incredibly nice about saying "come on over" in case of lost power. We did not lose power for even a second, fortunately, in spite of some pretty nice wind gusts and snowy pine trees wanting to drop onto the power lines. Nice work, NStar. The only bad show on NStar is they are about to change their name to "Eversource." I am about to obliterate their marketing agency on my other website. Wait for it. What would you rather be? A star or a source? Weird. I digress.

3. Emergency light. Three flashlights, check! Went to REI to return a ski helmet and bought an emergency lantern that plugs into USB and also charges your electronics. And possibly bakes cookies. I never had to figure that part out. As an aside, the line at REI was HUGE--bigger than all supermarkets. Number one purchase of those in line: gloves. Number 2: snow shoes. Number 3: cool lighting like mine. I wanted the snow shoes but I'm waiting for post season and used ones. I am cheap.

4. Food. We have tons of food and none would go bad like in Miami. As in, oops, you lost your power, stick the milk in the snow drift. Of course, when the snow was coming down three inches an hour like at the height of the storm, you'd find the milk in maybe April. But in spite of tons of food, I could not resist the urge to go buy Campbell's chicken noodle soup (almost sold out) and beer. And shelf-stable milk. What can I say? I didnt' want to find the milk in April. I found the Lincoln supermarket to be pretty not panicked...no lines.

5. Water. I found myself filling bathtubs with water like I did in Miami until one of my neighbors said to me "if you need to, just melt the snow." (I think she might have added "idiot-brain" but I chose not to hear it). We have a gas stovetop so power outage would not stop the cooking...also see fireplace (I have four of those) above. I drained the bathtubs again but left the five pitchers of water around. Old habits die hard.

6. Electronics. I charged everything. EVERYTHING. A DVD player we haven't used in 10 years so we could watch Toy Story or whatever. Ipads, Ipods, Imacs, Iphones, Samsungs...you name it, it was plugged in. They're still plugged in. 

7. Fill'er up. Yes, I filled up both cars with gas. There is no chance I am taking out the hooptie (my 2003 train station car with 112K miles) in snow but like I said, I am trained from Miami days. I could always siphon off the gas for the generator I don't have which would run the oxygenator for the carp pond which I also don't have. Yes, that was my neighbors in Miami in 2005. I am clearly traumatized by a hurricane named Wilma (Flintstones vs. Greek mythology--which would you rather?) It was a scene at the gas stations--lines in both places, all polite, all filled with snowplow guys wishing each other "a good stahm".

And so the snow started at around 2 pm on Monday--the kids activities got canceled (not sure why, this was just flurries) and we bunkered in. Here is how things looked at 7 pm on Monday. Why yes, my bunker does have white wine and a Harry Potter book. Doesn't yours?

At 3 am, I woke up to the noise of the town snowplow. I looked outside and could not believe the huge blanket of snow already down. I checked the house and everything looked okay so I headed back to bed where the kids had somehow noted the empty warm spot and moved in. Sneaky suckers. 

At 7 am, I woke up to a patio backdoor that looked like the first photo. Yep, that looks scary. Very scary. Not all of that was snowfall--the winds tend to blow everything there but it is the door the dogs go out to do their stuff. Now what? I looked out the kitchen door--drifted up to 1 1/2 feet of snow. Garage doors: forget it. Office door: nope. Front door: aha! Only about eight inches near the door, none of it looking like it was going to fall in.

Once the kids woke up, we ate up, geared up and then Lalo and I hit the front walkway. Nico suited up but then turned back: Brazilian boy. We decided to shovel out to the street so my old labrador could get out to do her stuff. All around us was the sweet sound of snowblowers. I hate the sound of snowblowers but I do get their usage in this much snow--I am still sore today from all the snow shoveling. Joe the snowplow dude showed up with his massive Ford pickup truck with the yellow blinky siren on top and made a giant hill in about 10 minutes and then pulled up, rolled down the window and said "just doing a first run...back latah" (or however you do that Bahston accent).

Height of the storm: 8 am and Lalo is kicking it! 1/3 of way to curb...

An hour into the front walkway, Lalo gave up and started tunneling into the hills left by the plow. I suggested that the next plow to pass might bury him forever, so he went over to our own garage hill and tunneled there. Me, I shoveled. And shoveled and shoveled. I cleared the garage door, the path to the kitchen door and the front walkway every hour and a half. Three inches every hour, folks. I think it was a total of 24 inches in our area, which means I was out there about six times (the nighttime accumulation I did only once).

Garage snowplow hill in front of unused garage (thank God)

New England is not for the weak. Even snowblowing ain't easy, kids. Those machines are big. Fortunately I have great neighbors, one of whom came over around 11 am and said "let's sled!" and we all trooped up the dead-end street with the hill and sledded down the road. The middle of the road. And screamed with laughter as we bowled each other over. And jumped out of the way of snow plows. And dogs. Oh, the dogs. Later we let the dogs romp in the two feet of snow, and it is just like all the youtube videos show...bounding up and down with little hills of snow on their snouts. Really good fun.

Come here, Tennessee doggie! Let's romp!

After clearing up some more in the afternoon and watching too much TV and half-heartedly doing homework, we again headed over to the neighbor's for dinner. And wine. And story-telling. And sledding (for the kids). Then we walked home through the enormous mountains of snow and went to bed. 

So, Juno, you may be one pissed off lady but I'm no swan.
Still embracing it...though the arms are just a tiny bit sore...

Embracing winter - Carrabassett Valley, Maine

My two kids sandwiching one of their friends

So it's my first winter in New England in 24 years. That's insane. But true. We've enjoyed sledding and skating and making snow angels, right here in our own backyard. Then our friend-neighbors--can I go with "Friebors" or does that imply Star Wars characters? --invited us up to ski with them at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine. We jumped on the chance, even though Sugarloaf lies roughly four hours north of us and there are plenty of other mountains closer. After all, we had a four-day weekend to play with--one day of Martin Luther King Jr holiday and one of teacher planning.  I also invited along a friend from Wellesley days who now lives in Freeport with her kids. I have a handy reference of the cast of characters at the bottom of this blog.

We had typically New England weather. When we went up on Friday afternoon, there were "snow squalls". As an aside, I just love New England weather euphemisms. What I know as "hail", they call "ice pellets." And you know how I feel about "nor-easters" as that was in a prior blog. At one point, on the worst day of skiing, I asked the guest services person what the conditions were like and she said they were "tricky to difficult." That is a euphemism for there are only 3 lifts open and 11 trails and they are all covered with sheer ice or slush or both. Or you could also call it "spring skiing." However, I digress.

Snow squalls are little whirling dervishes of snow gusts that attempt to blind the drivers so that they will visit snow banks which is part of the tourism feature of any winter highway. We had no issues, although we were warned twice by signs on the Maine Turnpike (after the sign, which I literally anticipate every single time I am in Maine--"Maine, the way life should be." That's just cute.) We heard from our friends and other skiers that the conditions on the mountain that day were roughly equivalent to a tornado-led whiteout. 

Sugarloaf Mountain. Awesome, but only about half open.

We were staying in a condo I found in VRBO.com. I love these condo rentals in general--we've had nothing but good luck with them. Our 3-bedroom condo was not ski in-ski out but it was close to midlift so we walked five minutes in our ski boots, snapped on our skis, and descended another minute to the Snubber (possibly the ugliest-named ski lift I have ever met) to ride up to the base lodge area. Love it.

Now on the first day we had to rent equipment and get the kids all set up in ski school. First the kids. In a word, the ski school at Sugarloaf Mountain is fantastic. Truly. Okay, that was two words. Friendly, helpful, and they feed the kids some kind of mountain crack that cures a boy scared of skiing and chair lifts and makes him love every minute. Even when we had The Incident. But that's for later.  The classes went from 9:30 to 3 pm, and included lunch. The kids loved it. 

Then BH and I trompled up to rentals. After filling out monstrous amounts of paperwork about how we will not sue anyone or attempt to climb trees while wearing skis or whatever else I initialed, we had our equipment. And here is my plea to all you MITs out there. Please, please, please invent a better snow boot. That is one technology that has not changed in the 25 intervening years of my last real skiing. Dang, they're uncomfortable. And not pretty. There must be a better way. And yes, I know that they are how they are so I don't shatter my ankle in 15 places...still....

In another aside, I have to mention one big change from 20 years ago. Helmets: somewhere in the intervening 15 years since I have last really skied, everyone, or close to everyone wears helmets. There doesn't seem to be that whole Hell's Angels macho thing that you don't need to wear one, whatever. I think I only saw one person without a helmet during the whole four-day weekend. I credit the media on showing that crap happens like running into a tree--even to Michael Schumacher. So, good on us all. Plus they're warm. Love my helmet. It's purple.

And then we were out the door. Here is the truth of the truth and the snow of the snow (sorry ee cummings, I am butchering you), it is in fact just like riding a bicycle. Within five minutes, I had remembered everything including what happens when you cross your ski tips, or catch an edge. Within 20 minutes, I had crashed while trying to snow my friend's daughter (turns out that ice is not good for snowing). Within an hour I was loving it again. And a good thing too because Saturday was minus nine degrees. That's Fahrenheit. That's coooooooooooolllllldddddd.  And here I am getting to my point.

On our second lift ride up on the Whiffletree quad (I kept calling it Whifflepuff: I'm re-reading the Harry Potter books and it just sounds right), we sat next to a well-bundled up skier from Maine. And after hearing we had moved from Brazil, he said to us "The secret to surviving winter in New England is to embrace it."  When it's snowy and cold and horrible, snap on the skis and get out there. When the driveway freezes and your snowplower guy doesn't show up, skate on it. Embrace it. And that is what we are trying to do: embrace it. And wear face masks, two layers of long underwear, put those hot spot thingies in our boots and gloves and freeze. And embrace it. 

This blog would go on for pages and pages about how much we embraced it and had fun even after the superquad broke and we had a half-hour line at Whifflepuff on Sunday. And then it rained all night Sunday to Monday, killing off most of the snow and exposing the ice fields. At one point there were eight of us skiing together on an intermediate slope--even our experts skier was with us, and we had So. Much. Fun. 

Pretty much the weather we got (minus the 80 degrees) in four days. Oh plus minus-9.

The only not-fun is what I called The Incident. On the last day of skiing, which was Ice Monday, the kids were with us. The eight year old beginner skiers. And we decided to take them up a longer beginner run, which in retrospect was a major error on my part. Lalo was going to make it down no problem because he was skiing behind his hero (see cast of characters). Nico was going to look at the long downhill and freak out. And he did. He couldn't turn on the ice (in his defense, I could barely turn on the ice). We tried to make it down with him snow-plowing (apparently it is now called Pizza-ing) between my skis but the ice made us cross skis and crash. It took us nearly 40 minutes to get down a 7 minute slope. 

At the end, he was trying to make it down one bit by himself, and started going too fast, could not pizza, crossed his skis, fell and kept sliding fast towards the tree line. So I crushed him. Yep, it is an unknown ski move where the momma bear freaks out, skis over and tackles the child with her own body to stop the slide. I can only imagine what this looked like to the rest of the skiers out there. Nico then unsquished himself, shook himself off and said "mom, I think I'll walk from here." He walked down in his ski boots, then snapped his skis back on when he got to the bunny slopes and took off. No permanent damage. We skied for two more hours...but on the bunny slopes.

The weekend was filled with skiing, good food, fireplaces, kids and friends, laughter, the DeflateGate AFC championship game watched at our friend's condo, and a lot of freakin' cold weather. I embrace you, winter. What's next?


Cast of characters:

Me and the BH (Brazilian husband): intermediate and beginner skiers, respectively. Well, BH is higher than beginner--he can get down just about any hill but really only picked up skiing as an adult. I would not push him down a black diamond though unless I was pretty sure his life insurance is up to date.

The twins, age 8: skied once in Illinois (400 feet of vertical drop, I think it was officially measured).Did awesome.

The Freibors: Alyson is a Minnesota-Wyoming girl and a high intermediate or low expert. Her Slovak husband is craque. That is Brazilian for holy cow. He wore a bright red jumpsuit on the hill which looked orange to me with my red goggles. His wife called him Big Red, I called him traffic cone. Not to his face. He could push me down a black diamond too.

The Freibors kids: Luke, age 13, Lalo's hero. Pictured above. Lalo would follow him down a black diamond probably. Alex, age 10, the snowboarder. Sam, age 6, the card-carrying ski school bomber. He did at least 50 more miles than the rest of us by skiing down the lower slopes and being hauled up on the Moose Caboose snowmobile. And Ava, age 2, who was in child care and skiing. And will be better than me by next year.

The Wendys: my friend from Wellesley who is around the same level as I am (oh, all right, she's bettter) and who I love to ski with given our skiing together 27 years ago (!!!) at Wellesley and having numerous adventures, one of which was skidding out on the highway in her Chevy Sprint and winding up in a huge snowbank. No harm, no foul. And her kids who I am not sure I'm allowed to name so I won't, a 14-year old girl who is better than I, and an 11 year old boy who also fit in the intermediate level.

Rain in winter - Weston, MA

So at this very minute, I am supposed to be in Chicago visiting my parents. I haven't seen them since August and I really miss them. But I had to cancel my flight due to weather. Not outside weather, but because it was raining in my garage.  A lot. 

Here's what you all know: I am from New England/New York. I grew up in suburban NY and CT and went to college in Massachusetts. Then I left. I lived in San Francisco, then Evanston IL as a student, then New Jersey in a rented condo. Then I left again to Brazil, Miami and Brazil again. After 15 years of no winter to speak of, I am back in the very heart of winter. And I thought I knew what I was doing.

Most of my hubris was based on a couple of facts: 1. The former owner of this house did a marvelous job of maintaining it, and left us instructions on many systems and contractors. And 2. I am an intelligent daughter of New England. So as winter approached, I did all the things I knew I had to do: chimney cleaning, winterizing the landscaping (I spent an hour protecting a tiny willow tree from deer by wrapping it in netting), piling lawn furniture in the space under the deck, calling a company to reverse the water in the irrigation system so pipes wouldn't burst AND I kept the heat up around 55-60 degrees for the three weeks we were in Brazil. I am soooooooooo good at this, right?

Wrong. This morning BH and I walked the kids and dogs to the bus stop and then we walked home so I could throw my bag in the car and take off for the airport. As I opened the garage door, I heard it. Niagara Falls. Inside my garage. 

Specifically, the Falls were in our third garage. We have only two cars that were parked in the first two garages--I call them the monster truck and the hooptie. Look it up if you don't know what I'm sayin'. Anyway, our third garage is used for one of my sons' art projects (large cardboard boxes, broken electronics, paint sets--all fodder for art) and the other son's athletic equipment (ski helmets, skates, 4000000000 soccer balls--all fodder for an athlete), and BH's work bench, currently itself a work in progress. 

And a waterfall. As I stood dumb in horror, the water cascaded out of the fluorescent lights, the electric wiring and the garage door central rail. Just as I was about to call BH, he came around the corner and said "there's a lot of water coming out…oh, I see." And we stared and then looked outside at the light rain and melting snow and said, no way is this an overflowing gutter issue. Houston, we have a problem.

It was at this exact moment that we simultaneously realized that we had no idea where to turn the central water supply off. We had no idea where the circuit breaker box was. We knew nothing. Fortunately, I also have no ego when it comes to home care stuff: I called my best buddy in the neighborhood and cried for help. She sent her husband, who works with home construction, and without whom we would have seemed very foolish indeed.

He came right over, located swiftly the main water turnoff and the circuit board and we powered down. In those moments, I realized I would not be able to get to Chicago so I went inside to cancel my flight. By the time I was back, a plumber had been located who would come early in the afternoon, and the two men had noted several clues. The ceiling had been patched before…highly suspicious. The hose was still in the outside faucet (okay, so I didn't know I had to do anything about that). And the leak was localized. But no one could locate the water valve for that area of the house, and we needed to open up the ceiling to figure out where exactly we had a pipe issue.

The short of all this is that we did find that the pipe had burst  in a place that it had burst sometime in the past. I called the former owner and she immediately told me where to find the addition's water valve--the rest of the water in the house could be switched on. The plumber pulled out a massive plasterboard cutter and carved a rectangular hole right where the leak was. Uncanny, really. 

An hour after he arrived, the plumber was gone. Dave was his name. Efficient and good-humored. He's on the rolodex now. The neighbor has come back with massive fans to dry out the garage before we shut up the plasterboard again (by the way, this is where an American house kicks Brazilian butt: our house in Brazil is cement block--to get to a leak, we have to get out the BIG tools. Jackhammers and pickaxes). 

And so I read with some chagrin my last post where I was making fun of the fire department's warnings for the freeziest day in four years last week. Here's the relevant part of the post that I blithely ignored:

--To keep pipes from freezing, wrap them in insulation or layers of newspapers, covering the newspapers with plastic to keep out moisture. Allow a trickle of warm water to run from a faucet that is farthest from your water meter or one that has frozen in the past.  This will keep the water moving so that it cannot freeze.  Learn how to shut off your water if a pipe bursts.

Live and learn, baby, live and learn. 

Wicked Cold - Weston, MA

 

Large barbecue or panoramic shot of Ribeirão Preto? Neither, it's Guaecá and the world's biggest fish on the grill. Called "filhote" or puppy.

So it's Monday and we've been back from Brazil since Saturday morning. I admit that I complained more than a couple of times about the heat in Ribeirão Preto, a city often referred to as the inferno of Brazil. Whooops, wrong translation: I hear it is the California of Brazil. 

Only if it is the Central Valley of Cali...the place is hot. The day before we left it was 100 F/39 C. Strangely, people there do not believe much in air-conditioning so you sit around like fried frogs all day, jumping relentlessly into whatever cool body of water you can find.

I am not a fan of hot. I have always said that I prefer the deep cold to the deep hot. You can always add more clothes but it's hard to take away more from naked. Not that I run around Ribeirão Preto naked, not because it would be illegal (though possibly it is) but because there are lots of whitey places on my body that I would like to never burn. Okay, about 100% of my body fries in about 13 seconds there. 

I admit I take away a great deal of Brazilian glee (they just love to ask about the cold and how much I am suffering) when I say that I am happier in the cold (oh, right, I have central heating) than in the hot. I have not missed one day of walking in the conservation land because it has been "too cold" yet I've missed many a day of exercise in Brazil because it is "too hot."  This answer makes Brazilians literally shiver--most Brazilians hate the cold. And profess to love heat more than cold, even though they bitch and complain every time it gets over 30 celsius ("Nossa, que calor!!!")

Prepare for screaming on Thursday. Also try not to laugh where it says "milder" on Sunday...31 degrees is "milder"? Uh oh.

So, here it is. I am on the verge of my first test of "loving cold". This Thursday morning is supposed to dawn colder than any other in FOUR YEARS. Just for me. Just to test me. This is truly a test if I am a Yankee, a New Englander, a stoic soul who will just claim "it's wicked cold today." Oh, all right, only people from Maine say "wicked [anything]"  but just for a moment I can be one, no? I've got my Bean labrador slippers on so that counts.

Let's face it: the New England winter is a test of Hercules. If you can make it through four months of frozen tundra (just watching my senior labrador bite the dust this morning on the black ice made me cringe), two months of seemingly two hours of daylight (oh, all right 9 hours, but the gloaming is loooooong), and windchill that would knock the nose off of Pinocchio, well, you've done it. You are a New Englander and you have won the right to a year's supply of Dunkin Donuts coffee. 

On the bright side, today was a sunny breezy day. Very sunny. Very breezy. Very cold. I still went for a walk with the dog. Speaking of Coal, he has decided to accelerate his hibernation schedule in the last 24 hours by eating one steak off the barbecue and stealing a half of the cheese round we brought back all the way from Brazil. He is following Weston's Fire Department's list of preparedness. Yes, they emailed me today to make sure that I, the Brazilian expat, was okay with winter. Oh, all right, the whole town got the email...

--Be a good neighbor. Check with elderly or relatives and friends who may need additional assistance to ensure their safety.
--Food provides the body with energy for producing its own heat ** (Editor: Coal's VERY hot)
--To keep pipes from freezing, wrap them in insulation or layers of newspapers, covering the newspapers with plastic to keep out moisture. Allow a trickle of warm water to run from a faucet that is farthest from your water meter or one that has frozen in the past.  This will keep the water moving so that it cannot freeze.  Learn how to shut off your water if a pipe bursts.
--Make sure your car is properly winterized.  Keep the gas tank at least half-full.  Carry a Winter Emergency Car Kit in the trunk including blankets, extra clothing, flashlight with spare batteries, a can and waterproof matches (to melt snow for drinking water), non-perishable foods, windshields scraper, shovel, sand, towrope and jumper cables.

BH's favorite part of the list is the whole sand in the trunk thing. Brazilians use sand for other stuff. Mostly for lying around on. 

So, folks, as they say in the military (at least in the movies):  I'm going in. Cover for me. Wait, no, give me that cover. Preferably the down one.

See you on the other side.

On Nor'Easters - Weston, MA

How my kids envision a "nor'easter"

I spent a year in Brazil writing daily blogs about everyday life there. I found a lot of humor in daily contacts and in circumstantial occurrences as well as the underlying culture of the place. It was the type of blog that can only be written when you are relatively new to a place because things strike you as strange, or funny, or sad, or wonderful or all of the above. It was focused on São Paulo state because that is where I lived--though it is called Brazil in My Eyes, it was really My Little Corner of São Paulo in My Eyes. 

The idea of this blog was bringing new eyes to the place where I grew up and lived for the first 21 years of my life--New England.  I can't count my five years in California or two in Illinois or six in Miami because as I'm sure most of you realize, this country is so completely different from one end to the other, west/east/north/south. Don't get my started on Californians. Or Texans. One day I'm going to go spend some time in Texas and get a blog going on all the Don't Tread on Me stuff. And fried butter. Fascinating stuff. 

Things that have amused the heck out of me so far: the endless fundraising (seriously I must get a flyer a week to donate money, teddy bears, toys, my time, etc), the Bostonian accent (yeah, this is JAH-vis (Jarvis) Appliance--we've got yer "PAAAHT (part)", the soccer mom culture (I've got 6800 miles on my four month old car from driving to activities) and the school bus stop which is my favorite social time every day. I hate when the bus is early. 

One of the recent amusements has been the "nor'easter". Now, please note that I am amused by this only because we have yet to face a serious storm here. I note that wikipedia says that we had a "Halloween 2014 nor'easter" and I recall that as flurries here in Weston. We went out in snow boots and ski jackets and the neighbors laughed at the tropical folk. 

The reason to be amused by the "nor'easter" is because of the absolute joy the use of this word brings to media folk. If you have any journalist friends, whisper it in their ears and watch them light up. A nor'easter is (summarizing 1500 words of wikipedia) a badass storm. Not a hurricane which loves warm oceans and winds, but a storm that loves the cold. A Canadian storm.  No, just kidding though I do note that wikipedia blames Nova Scotia in general.  If you want the technical definition, have at wikipedia: "A nor'easter is formed in a strong extratropical cyclone, usually experiencing bombogenesis." (source here). Sounds cool, right?

Holy crap--look what Canada did! Nor'easter March 2013. From wikipedia

Well, it's not cool. Yesterday it brought all day rain. All day. Which was a good thing in the end because early in the morning we had some snowy ice that was completely hard core. My 11-year old labrador from Brazil had no idea what it was, ran out the kitchen door, skidded on the stoop, sledded on her stomach down three steps, and wound up in a huge heap by the concrete garden rabbit. No permanent injuries but a sadly bewildered face. I skipped kung fu fit due to serious fear of driving in the yuck.

What's funny to me is I don't remember the term being used when I grew up in Connecticut. We had bad storms yes, but the media (okay, then relegated to a box called a TV--no personal computers or internet then, kiddies) didn't froth themselves up repeating the word every five minutes. 

I am in fact so completely opposed to the overuse of the word now that I am considering taking up the cause of Edgar Comee who according to Wikipedia 

"waged a determined battle against use of the term "nor'easter" by the press which usage he considered "a pretentious and altogether lamentable affectation" and "the odious, even loathsome, practice of landlubbers who would be seen as salty as the sea itself". (source here). 

Apparently Mr. Comee send hundreds of postcards and spent most of his life railing against the term. According to wikipedia, he was profiled in the New Yorker for that battle. I like him. Well, he's dead now, but I mean posthumously. 

All this frothing about storms reminds me of living in Miami for six years. Lordy, that town's media love a hurricane. I learned so much stuff about when a storm is in the box, out of the box, dirty side, clean side, which category was which speed and if my roof had grippers on it to keep it from flying off (it did). I can still see a number of the local news journalists almost bouncing from the excitement of impending doom.

All joking aside though, a nor'easter took down two huge pines in the backyard here two years ago--my backyard has a major hole where those majestic 35-foot trees grew. The former owner told me about it and losing power for 10 days. Which is why I have figured out how to light the fire in the four fireplaces and know which of my neighbors have generators so I can go hang out over there. 

Now I know better to challenge Mother Nature (what could possibly go wrong, indeed), so I'm just going to keep the fingers crossed that these badass storms could just buzz off this year. I can only handle so much welcome back to New England and fighting with the leaf care guys is exhausting enough.  Makes me want a snowblower.