Garden State Escape

I’m just back from battling the traffic demons known to inhabit the Connecticut state highway system. In a rare outcome, I won both matches this week. This didn’t happen without planning. I scheduled our Monday trip after the rush hours and before the heavy equipment could be moved in for repaving. I avoided the Merritt Parkway because that is not a place to traverse on a spring or summer evening; there’s always something being worked on with the attendant four mile long back up. Today I shot the gap between the rush hours, leaving New Jersey around 11:30 and arriving home just after 2:30. I have to give it to Connecticut, it tried, dodging the innumerable 18-wheelers and accursed left exit slow downs but we made it in just over three hours, which is kind of remarkable.

Birthday Dinner for Wingman

Even more remarkable, you may rightly ask? The time I got to spend with my daughter and her family for the past few days. We arrived Monday night with the FBR expecting us on Tuesday afternoon. Our stolen march produced a very surprised granddaughter Tuesday morning as she tried to down her pancakes breakfast. Monday night was also Wingman’s birthday so we arrived with a birthday cheesecake to go along with the one Wingmom had already gotten for him (he is a well known cheese cake aficionado). We inflicted our rendition of happy birthday on the poor guy before we let him have any of his treats. He’s in the middle of a very busy time as he and his partner are negotiating the contract for their new business.

Of Course, Her Abuela had Been Shopping for Her

In a bit of serendipity, the FBR had Tuesday off from school as it was a local voting day. I mentioned we might stop at the Turtle Back Zoo that day and was greeted like a hero (it’s what I do). It’s much different going to the zoo with the now 8-year-old granddaughter. Instead of guiding her around the place, my Favorite Panamanian and I just tried to keep up. I had the zoo map downloaded on my phone and she would periodically stop and demand the phone so she could do a map check. It made a grizzled old infantryman proud. Her one priority was the penguin house since they are her favorite animal now.

Petting Sting Rays with Abuela

While enroute to the penguin house, we stopped by the otter enclosure where the FBR acquired a new #2 favorite animal. Since it was a very hot day (guess I didn’t mention that) most of the animals were lying in usually the most well concealed location within their enclosures. The otters were no different lounging next to their pool. That all changed when they saw the FBR. One of them fell in love with her immediately (it happens). He jumped into the pool and rushed over to her. He then spent the entire time we were there, performing back flips in front of her and coming back to touch the opposite side of the glass from her extended hands. It was almost mystical. A bunch of other kids trooped to either side of her but the otter only had eyes for the FBR. The otter’s partner tried to break up the fun by diving into the midst of some its partner’s back flips. We noticed before the FBR’s effect with animals. When she was just a toddler a chipmunk came up to her in our back yard and allowed her to pet him (much to the horror of her mother). In previous zoo visits, peacocks always followed the FBR around. Hard to explain but so fun to watch.

Otter Playing with FBR

Since it was a day off from school for the local area, the zoo was inundated with numerous groups of kids identified by matching t-shirts and harried chaperones. I counted myself lucky the days of chaperoning something like that are far behind me. By lunch time most the chaperones that passed us had a glassy look in their eyes as they tried to corral their highly mobile charges. The FBR coaxed us into a train ride (okay that might have been our idea, since it involved sitting down). She also decided her face needed to be painted along with the golden nails her mom had equipped her with. My Favorite Panamanian decided to take a break so I escorted the FBR up the hill to the petting zoo. While enroute we diverted into the bird exhibit where we walked into an enclosure and had literally thousands of canaries buzzing us. I was reminded of a Hitchcock classic at times but the FBR reveled in it. 

Penguin House

Touching Hands

Onto the Train

Those Fingernails

Face Painting Time

Result

We decided to go for a late lunch to a nearby restaurant, recommended by my daughter, McLoon’s Boathouse. We were not impressed as we had wait nearly an hour for our food once it was ordered despite the place only being a quarter full. Our waitress was so distressed that she inveigled the manager to come over and apologize and she took one of our complete meals off the bill. The food was good but I was so hungry at that point, well, you understand. My Favorite Panamanian and the FBR entertained themselves during our wait with funny cat videos on my wife’s phone. There were times I thought they might fall to the floor laughing.

Surrounded by Canaries

FBR Feeding her Canary

Lunch at the Boathouse

We returned to my daughter’s home ion time to join them for a walk up the block to help Wingman celebrate his birthday with dinner at their favorite neighborhood place, Artie’s. The food was great there as well but the company even better. They are so fortunate to have a place like this in their neighborhood which seems to improve every time we visit. I’m so happy they ended up in such a great place and who’d thunk it, in New Jersey! I’ll admit my foot and knee were barking as we walked home after dinner after a full day chasing the FBR around the zoo in 90-degree heat; still, couldn’t have been happier.

Funny Cat Videos Reactions

Too Funny

Wednesday saw the FBR back in school so we escorted her to the early morning bus stop and then rested a bit (okay, a lot). The big event of the day was going to see the FBR play baseball. We picked her up from school and hit a local diner for an early dinner before moving to the ball field. I noticed a definite uptick in baseball acumen since last year’s escapades. The FBR is a natural athlete but we have to work on her batter’s eye as she swung at pitches well over her head. It was good night for her team as they won their first game of the year. The FBR thought a post-game ice cream would be adequate recompense for her efforts and who was I to argue. It was well after her bed time by the time we got home but she was still a bundle of energy as her parents tried to ease her towards a shower and bed (not a task for the weak of heart).

At the Bus Stop Wednesday Morn

FBR Batting

And Manning the Hot Corner

Once she was semi-settled, the adults adjourned downstairs to watch an old movie that my daughter really wanted me to see. A Matter of Life and Death was a lot of fun to watch with her. It relates a fanciful story of a WW2 British pilot who cheats death in the pursuit of love. All too soon our visit came to an end this morning as I drove my daughter to the train station since she had a business meeting in the city and then escorted the FBR to her bus. At the appointed hour we made our way north and once again cheated Connecticut out of it usual pound of flesh for anybody with the temerity to try and drive through it. A very fun week, seeing all three granddaughters, but I’m ready to spend a night in my own bed.

No weigh in today, at 24 pounds lost towards 25-pound goal (I hope), tomorrow I’m in the pool for first time this year in the USA!

In my A-Z watch, nothing one fell since I last posted, since I was away from the movie library and having too much fun with our hosts.

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RECURRING CHARACTERS:                                

ABFA – Amazing Best Family Athlete - my daughter in law; BR3 – Blog Reader #3 – granddaughter #3; BRS - Blog Reader the Sequel - second granddaughter; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract women; CRC - Connecticut Riverboat Captain – another close friend from high school, renowned sailor of the big river; Curbside Girls – close friends of my daughter acquired during him her single days in Brooklyn; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of course); FBR - First Blog Reader - first granddaughter; First Friday – celebrations to mark the First Friday of the Week; Great Aunt - my elder sister; Keene Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene, NH; Kindergarten Friend – friend since kindergarten whom I reunited with after many years; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3^rd Musquetera (musketeer); Namesake Nephew – son of Great Aunt and Soxfather named after me; Neighborhood Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member; PanaGals – female relatives /friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we have lived & their spouses; PCR - Pittsburgh College Roommate – high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; PCR+1 - Pittsburgh College Roommate’s wife; Riggins - also known as the Grandpuppy, son's dog; Seis Amigos - two couples from our condo complex and my wife and I; Soxfather – my brother in law; Tia Loca – wife’s younger sister; Wingman – my son in law; Wingmom – Wingman’s mom, of course