Gorman Stories

Tom has been poring over the still photographs of our vacation in Europe, and today I started looking through my movie collection.

I had to stop at this one and share a snippet with you. The scenery isn’t so great. In fact all you can see is feet walking. My feet are walking across cobblestones and pavement, and other people’s feet are walking. I have a great pedicure, thank God, but others do not. Sometimes you can also see our daughter’s feet walking beside mine. And sometimes the feet are walking sideways as if on the walls of buildings. It is an interesting but unexpected study of feet walking on a castle tour in Prague.

I have other interesting studies: Movies of trees standing alongside the road. Movies taken of my denim jeans inside a moving bus. Strange bouncing images of people moving along beside me on streets have revealed themselves to me as I watched my movies.

I wish I could say that I am an avant-garde film maker. I am not. I am an inept movie maker. I wonder what pictures I missed that I thought I was taking when the camera was not on. Yes, you have guessed my secret — I confused the “on” beep for the “off” beep.

Don’t get me wrong, I really love this little camcorder that is 4 inches by 31/2 inches with great sound. You can hear the footsteps on the pavement. So many in fact that I can supply a soundman with great sounds of walking feet. And most of my movies turned out surprisingly well considering they were being taken by an idiot.

Yes, I have memories that were a surprise and kind of nice actually. Because we did do a lot of walking on cobblestone streets with each other and other people. And those are good memories. I’m glad I’m not so swift with technology or I would have missed capturing these moments.

Every moment of this wonderful trip was worth recording. If only I had left the camera on more times accidentally or on purpose.

We have packed, we have had the house cleaned and we have eaten! Son and daughter-in-law have been hugged and my mother has been tucked into her apartment. There are only little things left to do like make a phone list to carry, since our cell phones are not international and will remain home. One final wash is needed to freshen the towels. We argued about this. No clothing left in the hampers or leave a little for later? I won.

Tom keeps adding little things like a soap box to the suitcases. But he refuses to re-weigh them, telling me that it’s only a half-ounce here and one there. We’ll see when they weigh them at the airport…

The “boys” are looking at us with pouting eyes, trying to make us feel guilty enough to stay home. It’s not working, but it’s a good try for two dogs. They will be missed. Someday when we retire and go on trips they will go with us….if they’re still alive. It may take that long to retire in this economy.

I will miss my home and doggies and stuff…..but a great adventure awaits. I won’t even chance to say that we’ll have a terrific time or a horrific time. But it will be an adventure, I’m sure of that!!!!

Wish us luck ‘cuz we’re leaving on a jet plane!!!!

It is necessary to supply the house sitters with all the stuff they will need to sit well. Chlorinate the pool, then make sure there are chlorine tabs for them to use. Toilet paper, paper towels, dog treats, mailbox key, all that jazz. So an inventory is needed and then a shopping list of things to buy. Oh yeah and an instruction list of how much to feed the dogs and how many chorine tabs to use, etc. I usually leave this to tom cuz he loves to write funny stuff on the list to amuse our guests.

This list will include the name of our pool repairman just in case….but last weekend in an effort to maintain our pool equipment, tom put in new filter cartridges and cleaned the strainer baskets to improve water flow. Sadly he was not satisfied with the pressure and took apart the gate valve to see what was impeding the flow and then put it back together again. Handy guy! Except then the valve started leaking air and we couldn’t get any pressure at all. He then replaced all the o-rings and put it together again and voila we have major water flow and pressure!!!!

Then there is the issue of leaving them a clean house to live in. Tom wanted to clean and I wanted to hire someone. He graciously gave in to me. So we hired a service to come the day before we leave. They will clean bathrooms, kitchen, floors and even wash the sheet s and remake the beds!!! Also for an extra fee they will wipe all the blinds and clean out the fridge. I could get used to doing that once a month whether we leave or not.

Then this past Friday the freezer stopped freezing and the fridge stopping fridging. So I called the repair guy who came out on Saturday and fixed our problems. Overnight all the contents went into cooler chests with ice to save as much food as possible. We will be eating a lot of defrosted chicken this week . Now the fridge is working and it is squeaky clean. No need for the cleaning service to do it! Oh, and the can opener died too. What else will go wrong I wonder??? If bad things come in threes then I hope we’re all done!

Preparing for our European RV trip means making the house habitable for the house sitters. You can hide things for a weekend but over the course of three weeks, they’ll come to know us intimately.

The lucky couple is Tom’s boss and his wife. They have a newborn and two dogs. Tom says I need to make some room in the closets for their things. Make room? Everything is so simple for a man who owns eight pairs of pants, a dozen shirts and five pairs of shoes.

Tom doesn’t take into account that I have 30 years of clothing stuffed in the closet, in five different sizes. You don’t just shove a few things out of the way. You’ve got to sort through what’s there — and factor in that you’re trying to lose weight so this is a good time to toss the big sizes.

It’s not that I can’t live with myself as I am. But visiting our daughter and her boyfriend in Belgium is like a week on the treadmill at a gym. You walk around Antwerp. You walk around Brugge. You walk around Brussels. You walk around Ghent. You walk to the grocery store, to the clothing store, to the Irish pub. Europeans walk. So we need to lose weight.

And that gets us back to the closet. I’m filling several large bags with clothes that are now too big and outdated and yet the remaining items seem to be reproducing like bunnies in there behind my back. I swear there’s more in there now!!!!  I’m ready for a vacation.

I have always looked forward to our trips as a family. It’s the planning I dread.

So while the idea of going on a vacation is exciting, the fact is I just don’t like leaving home. I love my home.

Therefore, closing up shop for a trip becomes a stressful event for me: Deciding what clothes to take, based on what is clean versus what must be washed; making sure there are snacks for the ride; leaving instructions for the house sitter on my way of managing household tasks and caring for the pets, and praying the house doesn’t burn down or the washer hose doesn’t break, all those sorts of things. It makes me a nervous wreck.

In the earlier days I would need to pack for four. And I had to stay true to my mother’s rule: always divide the underwear and necessities into two suitcases in case one gets lost. It could get confusing. When we began road tripping with the kids the problem was getting everything jammed into the vehicle. Now that is just the old man and me it should be easier…..

For this vacation, our daughter’s boyfriend suggested we rent an RV for traveling around Europe instead of hotelling it. This vacation had the making of a perfect storm: packing for three weeks in Europe, an uncomfortable nine-hour plane trip just to fly from Las Vegas to Brussels before we even begin, and then sharing an RV with our daughter and her boyfriend. But at least once we’re on the road, I’d have my own toilet.

We used to love yelling the phrase, “Gorman road trip!” We really like to spend time together as a family. This time our son gets to stay home with his wife. Don’t get me wrong: traveling with our daughter can be a pleasure. Unlike earlier times when her suitcases would explode every night in the hotel room and require search and rescue missions each morning to find her stuff, she has turned into a very tidy young woman. It fact, it is a bit dismaying because after years of being a neatnik myself, my effort s have eroded against the onslaughts of my husband’s love of clutter. Now I am a bit of a slob. The three of us in the RV? This time it’ll be our mess that she will have to contend with.

But daughter takes good care of me when we travel. She looks after me and guides me and feeds me and nags me and prevents me from buying useless souvenirs. And yet we do have fun in spite of that.

And Tom is so great at planning things. In fact he’ll plan so many different possibilities of what to do and where to go and what to see that I want to strangle him. But if I complain, daughter gets upset with me and defends her daddy — and then they both punish me by looking at me and saying, “Well what would YOU like to do?” Uh, I don’t know.

Did I mention I really look forward to trips with my family??