toby of the day: our summer vacation

Toby has not flown on an airplane since we came back from japan last October. That flight, described in detail here, was sufficiently awful to swear us off of flying with Toby forever. And by forever I of course mean 10 months. Historically, Jon and I have tended to take elaborate trips, and like a couple of heroin addicts we usually rationalize those trips by telling ourselves that this will be it, after this we’re staying home, only to get antsy after a month or two and suddenly we’re on the interweb buying tickets to Thailand. So for us, 10 months is kind of like forever. Sure, during those 10 months, Jon and I traveled a bit for work, I went back to Japan, and jon and I both went to bochum germany, which jon described as the scranton of germany, mostly because to call it the detroit of germany would make it seem too cosmopolitan. But those were definitely trips for work, and so by june, we were crawling out of our skin at having remained so sedentary. Because, really, while Germany in January might be many things, it is not Thailand. I realize of course that Seattle is also not Thailand, but I would point out that it is also not scranton. And it’s only 2 hours away. And has some really nice hotels. So recently, we braved the skies again with toby in tow, as well as our friends ed and michelle and their 5 month old son milo. Here’s a little summary of our trip.

Thursday: car to airplane to car to hotel. Toby liked the airplane, if only because we spent most of the 90 minutes stuffing him full of dried fruits to keep his ears clear. We ate lunch, and toasted the start of our vacation with some tasty beer. Then toby and I made some vague attempts at napping while jon slept like a hibernating bear. Then dinner at a brewpub down the street where our waitress managed to create toby a fruit bowl filled with fruits she snuck out of the bar and off the dessert plates. Those seattle folk sure are friendly.

Friday we spent the morning gawking at other gawkers at the fish market. Toby found the market to be somewhat uninteresting until we discovered the construction they were doing behind the fish market involving a number of digging trucks and a crane. I believe if we had offered to just leave him there with a sleeping bag and a handful of dried cherries, he would have been set for the rest of the trip. But we didn’t and instead we packed him up and headed to the space needle. At the bottom of the needle is a little amusement park, full of cleaner than average carnies and even what toby called a “big train” otherwise known as a roller coaster. In truth, it was one of the smaller roller coasters I’ve seen, but you wouldn’t have guessed that based on the squeals of the preteen boys riding in the front car. Toby was too short to ride, so we headed over to the carousel which toby called the “scary horse”. Given such a name, as you might imagine, we didn’t make it onto the carousel. But, we did which make it onto a flying elephant and dragon ride, called dumbo and puff, I guess to avoid copyright issues associated with rides that only include flying elephant. It was a successful ride in that I did not get dizzy, and toby thought it was the greatest thing since tiny rocks. Then we went up the space needle. Then we came down. Then lunch. Then toby surreptitiously vomited lunch all over his pants, so he and I caught a bus back to the hotel. The bus was full of physicists wearing fezzes. Toby was blissfully sleeping in my lap or I would have followed them. Then we did some other stuff which I can’t remember because it was not yesterday, but it can’t be as interesting as the physicists in fezzes, right, so really, what does it matter?

We started Saturday with a leisurely brunch. Afterwards, hopped up on pancakes, toby tried to break into the museum of mysterious things because he desperately wanted to hug the stuffed yeti sitting in the stairwell. Unfortunately, the
most mysterious part of the museum was the fact that it was not open even though according to the hours it should have been. After that we worked our way over to the sculpture garden. There, jon overheated and insisted that we find a cool spot with beer before he passed out because it was easily 85 degrees out. So we were working our way back toward our hotel, searching for beer on the way, when we ran across some very helpful people holding what might be described as an outdoor informational seminar. Their gathering might also be called an anti-gay protest held by religious wackos. but that difference is mostly semantic. in any case, one woman in particular wanted very much to let milo and toby know about appropriate versus inappropriate places to put an erection. While her list was a little sparse, she was surprisingly detailed about the few places that she did include, and quite loud. Whereas I, with my prudish nature and all, would be a little embarrassed to be standing on a street corner yelling at passing children and families waiting to cross the street about erections and rectums, she seemed to find it completely natural. Unfortunately, both milo and toby were asleep at the time, so they missed out on her wealth of information. And while someday I may remember to counsel toby on things I might avoid were I to have an erection (sharp objects, paris hilton), I worry that now he may never know this woman’s useful tips. At least I can only hope. After our run in with the zealots, we finally found some beer and toby and milo awoke and ate snacks. Then Jon and I went to dinner by ourselves where we tried to come up with something to talk about other than toby while toby hung out with ed, michelle and milo and introduced them to a range of youtube videos that I can only assume they never imagined existed. Like this one. And maybe this one. Then we came home, and we all went to sleep.

On Sunday I picked everyone up in our zipcar minivan and we headed onto a ferry over to Bainbridge island. Toby enjoyed the ferry and jon and I only briefly discussed a rescue plan for what we would do if he jumped from my arms and fell in. We spent a few minutes trying to reach the front of the boat where the wind was very strong. At this particular moment, I have difficulty envisioning a time when we will ever encounter wind again and toby will not say ‘remember the boat? Windy!’ but I’m sure if you ask me in 6 months, he won’t be saying that and I’ll just stare at you blankly having forgotten about this episode entirely. In any case, the ferry docked and we drove for a couple hours to port townsend where we ate at a brewpub then wandered around the tacky shops. Ed and michelle did not buy a hand carved wooden moose, but clearly wanted to, so if you’re looking for what to buy them for the holidays, now you know. Then we piled back in the car and returned to the ferry. We played a delightful game of “where’s Edward?” which involves asking “where’s Edward?” while lifting your hands, palms up, next to your slightly shrugged shoulders and then looking around. A similar game called “where’s Michelle” was also played. Toby is quite the expert at both games, as well as a third game called “where’s Milo?” In contrast, he is not a big fan of “where’s mama?” or “where’s daddy?”, at least not when he can play the highly superior “where’s Edward?”. We returned, rested and headed out for hip, upscale Vietnamese food suggested by our concierge. Perhaps because it was the first non-brewpub food that he had encountered for a few days, toby seemed particularly enthusiastic about dinner, and even voluntarily ate some carrots. Our waitstaff was not as enthusiastic, and appeared rather perplexed by the presence of two patrons under 2 (and 4 patrons over 30). I think we were not really their demographic. But the food was delicious.

Toby and I spent our last morning touring the library across the street from our hotel. It’s awesome. We spent much of our time at the children’s section, which was bustling with playgroups. While most of them seemed entirely reasonable and cohesive, there was one special one. It was kind of like when you assemble a Swedish desk and are left with a perfectly functional piece of furniture and a whole bunch of screws and strange plastic bits that just don’t fit together at all. These women were those screws. Their leader was patronizing and bossy and did a surprising amount of yelling for someone in a library. Below her was a moneyed grand dame, mostly interested in where they were going to go for tea. and at the bottom was a flustered woman who seemed unable to stand up to her 3 year old, let alone the playgroup leader. I would describe their children, but I can only assume they had snuck out of the library to find themselves good therapist because I never saw them. Toby didn’t either because he was busy reading about dinosaurs. After the library, we took a little stroll, had our last lunch of bar food and beer and headed back to the protective san francisco fog. The flight home was a breeze. Next stop: indonesia.