Still High

Temps are low but I'm still high on the weekend I had with my twins, AJ and Mia, in my home town of Morristown, New Jersey.  Maybe when I've been in upstate NY for 20 years, the time I lived in Morristown, I'll refer to Brookfield as my home town...but maybe not.  Morristown is where I raised my kids and where one kid still lives.  AJ and Mia turned 34 on Friday and I wanted to be with them on their birthday.  It had been years and years since we all were together on the special day.  AJ came home from Nevada where he belongs to the National Guard to wait 90 before his active duty assignment.  He's staying with Mia in her cute apartment across from Drew University.  I pulled in on Friday after a five hour drive through, incredibly, torrential rain.  I mean, it didn't let up the whole trip. Between the pot holes, gusts of wind, and wipers going full tilt, I was knackered when I climbed up the three flights of stairs to Mia's place.  Thankfully Father AJ was there to carry up all the birthday packages, bags of grapefruit I bought for her before Christmas, and the 99K Singer sewing machine I bought her for her birthday present.  Mia was still working at Care Station in Springfield so AJ and I went out to Poor Herbie's Pub in Madison.  Mia came home and we had birthday cake, presents, and conversation that lasted to the wee hours.  Saturday morning Mia had to work.  I don't know how she does it.  She had just returned from four days of skiing at Mount Tremblanc and a visit to Montreal where she gave in to some of the bugs she's exposed to from patients and got very sick.  It takes a lot to stop Mia.  I wonder where she got that from?  AJ and I went to the Bargain Box Thrift Boutique which benefits the Morristown Medical Center.  I scored some lovely flatware, lots of matching teaspoons, tablespoons, forks and knives for 25 cents each.  It has a pretty fluted, artsy edge.  I was looking for pants to wear to work but most rich people are very thin (protein cost more than carbs) and everything I wanted was about a size 2 or 4.  I found a gorgeous Saks 5th Ave. camel wool full length men's coat for beans and brought it home.   I love big wool coats and have a couple in the car at all times.  If I run off the road down into a ravine on King's Settlement Road I'll be nice and warm.  No more waist length cutesy nylon jackets for me.  I'm totally into warmth and natural fibers in my old age.   I also found a J. Crew angora cable knit sweater - fantastic buy - for Mia and a "Hand Knitted by Dagmar Lund" Norwegian sweater for myself.  I didn't find a single pair of desperately needed trousers but I'm rolling in sweaters and coats.  After we departed the Bargain Box we met my dearest old friend and the twin's God mother, Aunt Carol Hewson and her son John Scott at the Famished Frog.  We had not been all together for years and had a long, leisurely, delicious lunch that lasted for four solid hours of exchanging and sharing golden memories.  Scott was Eric's first friend in Morristown.  When I went to work as a ward clerk on the dialysis floor Carol was a nurse on the staff.  The rest is history.  I made Carol and Scott promise they would come up to the farm in the spring for a weekend and a visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  We left our friends and returned to Mia's apartment where your truly took a sweet little nap before Mia came home.  We set out to Giotto's in Montclair where we were joined by Tim O., Mia's friend, and had a fabulous dinner.  With Mia and Tim going to work on Sunday morning we reluctantly left the restaurant (we closed the joint) and went back to Mia's where we played with the "new" sewing machine until 2 am or so.  I woke up Sunday morning in time to see Mia do her "seven minute workout" and eat the breakfast she prepared for us.  Father AJ took me to the Grace Episcopal Church in Madison - a lovely service filled with little kids and a lovely children's choir.  I was very impressed.  We went to the newly renovated Swiss Chalet Bakery for lunch and the Sunday NY Times.  We bumped into Mia and AJ's friend since B'Nai Or Nursery School when they were 3 years old, Meri Carleton Foglyano.  What a thrill!  I was hoping I would find someone from my past in town and there she was. After a brief visit with Meri and a spinach croissant we headed back to Mia's apartment to pack.   Spouse had called to say he dropped a large log on his big toe and I had to come home.  Somehow I knew something catastrophic would happen while I was gone.  It always does.  I said goodbye to my youngest and drove the four hours north in lovely weather, quite unlike the awful rain that plagued me on the way there.  Spouse was hanging on by a thread.  He removed his sock to reveal a purple, bleeding toe with the nail floating on a bed of goo.  I sent him to the ER right away where they cleaned up the toe and sewed the nail back on to act as a cover for the new emerging toenail.  Ugh!  Monday morning came too soon and I was off to work.  It's Thursday now and I am still high on the weekend I had with my kids, in the upscale, trendy towns we used to frequent and are a rare special treat for me now.  I can't wait to go back, which I hope to do before AJ is deployed to God-knows-where.  In the meantime we are experiencing a ridiculously cold and snowy week.  The bucket of bolts continues to get me where I need to go.  I'm thankful it got me to Morristown and back without blowing a tire in the potholes that are everywhere you turn.  The doggies are still happy to have me back.  Spoiled babies, I adore them...and the babies I gave birth to 34 years ago - one of each - on the same day.  Pretty cool.