Catalina Wine Mixer, 2018 DC edition
While our little boy had taken ill on his long weekend in the Cotswolds, a healthy bouncing baby boy across the Atlantic was clamoring to meet him.
The London Linges have spent a good amount of time in DC over the years, making it our most visited city outside of the ancestral homeland in Cedar Rapids. Our last days in the US before moving to London were spent as guests of Gugu in DC. See last year's blog entry and the other. The year before, DC was the last trip of Mum and Baba before Bob was born.
August is vacation time in Europe, more so on the Continent than in the UK, but August in a UK office is slow, and many London restaurants close for the month. So fourteen months after our most recent, very enjoyable stay in DC, we were packing up in London for a two week trip to DC. There we expected to find the 2018 Catalina Wine Mixer, with Linges from far and wide coming to adore the new babe, Lincoln Kevin.
But we knew it wasn't going to be all fun and games this time. Returning from the Cotswolds on Sunday, Bobby had developed a fever and had grown listless, as he does when he has a fever. It is troubling when this boy loses the usual spring in his step. By Tuesday, the day of our eight hour flight (number 27 for our 22 month old), he was feeling a bit more active but still with a cold. And as we learned yet again, an ill Bobby is not always a fun Bobby. The sickness renders him even more impatient than normal, probably frustrated because he doesn't understand what why he is feeling so unwell. Making him happy is near impossible. He refuses to eat or demands his parents feed him.
Flying with a naturally rambunctious lad is hard enough, but with a grumpy, irritable lad, needing his snotty nose constantly wiped, difficulty compounds. With a miracle, his illness would just make him sleepy. Alas, there was to be no miracle for the damned. He squirmed, as he does, like a salmon on a boat deck, but now with a heightened angst. He adamantly refused to sleep.
Baba has dealt with this before. I can bounce him in the Ergo Baby until my legs burn. Like a weightlifter going for one more, I go for one more, then one more, and onward. Bobby screams (and who doesn't love crying babies on a plane, let alone screaming babies?), Baba buries the boy's face into Baba's chest, and holds him tight to stifle his thrashing. Baba bounces and bounces and bounces, bending at the knees, feeling the burn in the quads, until Bob finally can't stay awake any longer. There are several contenders for the title, but I am prepared to nominate his 27th flight as his worst flight yet. Luckily, the British Airways flight attendants are consistently kind and understanding, on this flight and previous ones, which is not how I would generally characterize the attendants on United or American.
So in DC, with family from far and wide pouring in, Bob was not always at his most charming, exacerbated no doubt by his jet lag. He screamed when bathed. He refused to be held by family members, including sometimes his baba, but other times insisting only Baba would do. It's not that he was always in a bad mood. His moods oscillated. He was so pleased with his little cousin Lincoln; he kept wanting to hug Lincoln and put Lincoln on his lap, even though he is bad at both of those things. He loved Marley and frequently petted her, sometimes even annoying her with his love; Bobby fondly referred to her as "Mah-ee". Bobby was also, however, impatient at meals, even though his gugu had made reservations several months in advance, as she was so excited to finally live since the pregnancy regime ended in June.
With Jensens (aka, Cedar Rapids' Greatest Danes), London Linges stayed in a rented townhouse for a long weekend in Eckington up the hill from the famous Rachel House (i.e., Gugu's home). We all drank our fair share of DC Brau, a DC craft beer I fell in love with years ago; it's even from the northeast, Gugu's quadrant. We made a few visits to the nearby Yang's Market, a classic neighborhood bodega offering gourmet coffee and New York-style subs along with the packaged foods you would more traditionally expect from your neighborhood corner store. The next morning we returned to buy the gourmet bagels, sourced from what is, according to Gugu, one of DC's best bagel producers (Bullfrog), and the in-house cream cheese concoctions. It is a fitting metaphor for gentrifying Eckington: hipsters buying a bodega with bars on its windows from the family that owned it for 35 years and adding expensive gourmet items to the classic Nutter Butters and jars of mayonnaise on offer. We also made a few trips to the dingy bodega at the end of Gugu's alley for assorted packaged sundries and ice; it is the closest store in the neighborhood of Rachel House.
Maybe the hot and humid weather of a Mid-Atlantic July is just what the boy needed for rejuvenation because within a few days he was feeling better. By the time Gugu's birthday arrived, on the Sunday before Midwesterns were to return from whence they came, and the Catalina Wine Mixer moved to Le Diplomate for brunch, the young lad was returning to the charming, friendly boy loved by strangers on the London Underground. In preparation for the big day, Gugu had been driving around DC searching for and sampling birthday cakes worthy of the occasion of her first birthday since embarking on the motherhood adventure.
During his two week stay, Bobby found some fun adventures in DC. Often, adults weren't ready yet to head out into the streets, and Bob would walk through the house asking in his excited voice, "Readdyyy??? Readdyyy???" He'd also clap his hands and say "Ah gohh! Ah gohh!" (let's go) as he was walking to the front door as if to lead us there. A few mornings, I took him to the Metropolitan Branch Trail, a path running nearby Rachel House and along the main train lines into Union Station, where we spotted Amtrak and Maryland commuter (MARC) trains. All throughout the trip there were lots of cheers of "Choo choo!" The boy is just wild for trains. He loved riding his trike down the sidewalks and through Rachel House, often crowding Marley and annoying her in the process. For his jet lag, he slept remarkably, basically falling asleep as soon as his belly and his hands above his head touched down into his travel crib.
While some family flew home early in the week of July 29th, the London Linges soldiered on for some of that gentrifying, stay-at-home DC parent lifestyle. Gugu's DC is based on driving everywhere. We drove to many of her favorite coffee shops for iced coffees and then more iced coffees. She directs sightseeing tours from the driver's seat. These tours seem to often involve trips to the Virginia suburbs and shopping malls, as well as drive by viewings of local housing stock and the buildings of government institutions. Bobby was impressed with Gugu's zippy driving; from his car seat in the back of the Mini Cooper, a constant refrain from him was "Vroom vroom!" (sounding a bit more like "bhoom bhoom"). Before Nainai left, she took her grandsons to Target and bought her eldest a trike. We made multiple trips to Whole Foods, in Virginia as well as DC. On a mission to spot trains, we went to Long Bridge Park in Arlington, where you can easily spot freight trains heading into DC across the site of the first rail bridge across the Potomac. At the park we also played a bit of soccer with the boy on its full-size soccer fields; he cheered for the goals he scored in the unguarded net.
We went on a few museum adventures. Mum, Bob, and I all visited the National Air and Space Museum for the first time. Bobby is crazy for vehicles, including planes, rockets, and helicopters. He loved his time there, point at the hanging planes and shouting "Plane! Plane! Plane!" Leaving Bob with Nainai, we visited the new National Museum of African-American History and Culture. The historical part is a repeat of what US kids learn in school (or at least what I learned), but the parts describing trends of cultural development were really interesting, making good use of media and artifacts to tell snapshot stories. With Gugu, the London Linges also made a visit to Mount Vernon (again giving us a chance to visit the Virginia suburbs). Bobby didn't get an adequate nap in the car so was tired and irritable on the grounds, but being able to watch the blacksmith demonstration in George's workshop village made him happy again: he was enthralled while the craftsmen made a washer for a vice mount.
As usual with our trips to DC, we had to leave much too early. But our lifestyle there is not sustainable. So much high quality dining, some casual and some fine. So many boards of charcuterie and cheese, prepared by the expert, Gugu, sourced from Whole Foods, Union Market, and Eastern Market. So many museums and interesting sites. So little work. If we could afford to be on vacation permanently, then maybe we wouldn't appreciate vacation so much.
Bob enjoyed the ride to Dulles. Along the highway, a metro Metro line extension is under construction. Loving to observe and identify, Bob was in the backseat saying "dig, dig, dig," excited by the diggers and other heavy equipment along the road. At Dulles, Gugu dropped off the last of the straggling guests from this most recent installment of the Catalina Wine Mixer series.
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| Three best buddies hanging out at Rachel House. |
The London Linges have spent a good amount of time in DC over the years, making it our most visited city outside of the ancestral homeland in Cedar Rapids. Our last days in the US before moving to London were spent as guests of Gugu in DC. See last year's blog entry and the other. The year before, DC was the last trip of Mum and Baba before Bob was born.
August is vacation time in Europe, more so on the Continent than in the UK, but August in a UK office is slow, and many London restaurants close for the month. So fourteen months after our most recent, very enjoyable stay in DC, we were packing up in London for a two week trip to DC. There we expected to find the 2018 Catalina Wine Mixer, with Linges from far and wide coming to adore the new babe, Lincoln Kevin.
But we knew it wasn't going to be all fun and games this time. Returning from the Cotswolds on Sunday, Bobby had developed a fever and had grown listless, as he does when he has a fever. It is troubling when this boy loses the usual spring in his step. By Tuesday, the day of our eight hour flight (number 27 for our 22 month old), he was feeling a bit more active but still with a cold. And as we learned yet again, an ill Bobby is not always a fun Bobby. The sickness renders him even more impatient than normal, probably frustrated because he doesn't understand what why he is feeling so unwell. Making him happy is near impossible. He refuses to eat or demands his parents feed him.
Flying with a naturally rambunctious lad is hard enough, but with a grumpy, irritable lad, needing his snotty nose constantly wiped, difficulty compounds. With a miracle, his illness would just make him sleepy. Alas, there was to be no miracle for the damned. He squirmed, as he does, like a salmon on a boat deck, but now with a heightened angst. He adamantly refused to sleep.
Baba has dealt with this before. I can bounce him in the Ergo Baby until my legs burn. Like a weightlifter going for one more, I go for one more, then one more, and onward. Bobby screams (and who doesn't love crying babies on a plane, let alone screaming babies?), Baba buries the boy's face into Baba's chest, and holds him tight to stifle his thrashing. Baba bounces and bounces and bounces, bending at the knees, feeling the burn in the quads, until Bob finally can't stay awake any longer. There are several contenders for the title, but I am prepared to nominate his 27th flight as his worst flight yet. Luckily, the British Airways flight attendants are consistently kind and understanding, on this flight and previous ones, which is not how I would generally characterize the attendants on United or American.
So in DC, with family from far and wide pouring in, Bob was not always at his most charming, exacerbated no doubt by his jet lag. He screamed when bathed. He refused to be held by family members, including sometimes his baba, but other times insisting only Baba would do. It's not that he was always in a bad mood. His moods oscillated. He was so pleased with his little cousin Lincoln; he kept wanting to hug Lincoln and put Lincoln on his lap, even though he is bad at both of those things. He loved Marley and frequently petted her, sometimes even annoying her with his love; Bobby fondly referred to her as "Mah-ee". Bobby was also, however, impatient at meals, even though his gugu had made reservations several months in advance, as she was so excited to finally live since the pregnancy regime ended in June.
With Jensens (aka, Cedar Rapids' Greatest Danes), London Linges stayed in a rented townhouse for a long weekend in Eckington up the hill from the famous Rachel House (i.e., Gugu's home). We all drank our fair share of DC Brau, a DC craft beer I fell in love with years ago; it's even from the northeast, Gugu's quadrant. We made a few visits to the nearby Yang's Market, a classic neighborhood bodega offering gourmet coffee and New York-style subs along with the packaged foods you would more traditionally expect from your neighborhood corner store. The next morning we returned to buy the gourmet bagels, sourced from what is, according to Gugu, one of DC's best bagel producers (Bullfrog), and the in-house cream cheese concoctions. It is a fitting metaphor for gentrifying Eckington: hipsters buying a bodega with bars on its windows from the family that owned it for 35 years and adding expensive gourmet items to the classic Nutter Butters and jars of mayonnaise on offer. We also made a few trips to the dingy bodega at the end of Gugu's alley for assorted packaged sundries and ice; it is the closest store in the neighborhood of Rachel House.
Maybe the hot and humid weather of a Mid-Atlantic July is just what the boy needed for rejuvenation because within a few days he was feeling better. By the time Gugu's birthday arrived, on the Sunday before Midwesterns were to return from whence they came, and the Catalina Wine Mixer moved to Le Diplomate for brunch, the young lad was returning to the charming, friendly boy loved by strangers on the London Underground. In preparation for the big day, Gugu had been driving around DC searching for and sampling birthday cakes worthy of the occasion of her first birthday since embarking on the motherhood adventure.
During his two week stay, Bobby found some fun adventures in DC. Often, adults weren't ready yet to head out into the streets, and Bob would walk through the house asking in his excited voice, "Readdyyy??? Readdyyy???" He'd also clap his hands and say "Ah gohh! Ah gohh!" (let's go) as he was walking to the front door as if to lead us there. A few mornings, I took him to the Metropolitan Branch Trail, a path running nearby Rachel House and along the main train lines into Union Station, where we spotted Amtrak and Maryland commuter (MARC) trains. All throughout the trip there were lots of cheers of "Choo choo!" The boy is just wild for trains. He loved riding his trike down the sidewalks and through Rachel House, often crowding Marley and annoying her in the process. For his jet lag, he slept remarkably, basically falling asleep as soon as his belly and his hands above his head touched down into his travel crib.
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| Bobby calls Lincoln "Lotty," which is also how he says London. |
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| Walk south through Gugu's back alley, and you'll find the local bodega. I was often darting through the back alleys with Bob to get from the rented apartment to Rachel House and back again, sipping a few DC Brau Public IPAs along the way. |
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| At the Red Hen, Bob's second Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant, Bobby was all squirms. I explained to Erica that life with a toddler is lived on the edge, just like all lives, always teetering on the brink of a major event but usually carrying on with a status quo. His wild salmon antics threatened to knock over several items on this very cluttered table (there were a lot of Linges dining here!). Baba had to leave the restaurant several times with the boy for a diversion. |
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| Pointing at ducks while we shared a very brief picnic in Georgetown. |
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| The sandwich menu at Yang's. These are the really good kind of sandwiches that come wrapped in paper. |
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| At Le Diplomate, the last big rendez-vous of this year's Catalina Wine Mixer, the boy had just about said goodbye to his cold and jet lag and was cheering up. |
While some family flew home early in the week of July 29th, the London Linges soldiered on for some of that gentrifying, stay-at-home DC parent lifestyle. Gugu's DC is based on driving everywhere. We drove to many of her favorite coffee shops for iced coffees and then more iced coffees. She directs sightseeing tours from the driver's seat. These tours seem to often involve trips to the Virginia suburbs and shopping malls, as well as drive by viewings of local housing stock and the buildings of government institutions. Bobby was impressed with Gugu's zippy driving; from his car seat in the back of the Mini Cooper, a constant refrain from him was "Vroom vroom!" (sounding a bit more like "bhoom bhoom"). Before Nainai left, she took her grandsons to Target and bought her eldest a trike. We made multiple trips to Whole Foods, in Virginia as well as DC. On a mission to spot trains, we went to Long Bridge Park in Arlington, where you can easily spot freight trains heading into DC across the site of the first rail bridge across the Potomac. At the park we also played a bit of soccer with the boy on its full-size soccer fields; he cheered for the goals he scored in the unguarded net.
We went on a few museum adventures. Mum, Bob, and I all visited the National Air and Space Museum for the first time. Bobby is crazy for vehicles, including planes, rockets, and helicopters. He loved his time there, point at the hanging planes and shouting "Plane! Plane! Plane!" Leaving Bob with Nainai, we visited the new National Museum of African-American History and Culture. The historical part is a repeat of what US kids learn in school (or at least what I learned), but the parts describing trends of cultural development were really interesting, making good use of media and artifacts to tell snapshot stories. With Gugu, the London Linges also made a visit to Mount Vernon (again giving us a chance to visit the Virginia suburbs). Bobby didn't get an adequate nap in the car so was tired and irritable on the grounds, but being able to watch the blacksmith demonstration in George's workshop village made him happy again: he was enthralled while the craftsmen made a washer for a vice mount.
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| These photos, taken just minutes apart from each other at Mount Vernon, demonstrate something about life in the age of social media. Of course, we all present our best selves on social media, where we control the information flow, and show happy smiling faces all the time. We could have published just the first picture, and you may have said, "Oh what a nice trip to Mount Vernon with such a pleasant and handsome young man." Real life with a toddler, however, is always on the verge, as described above. Tired as he was, at one point, he wasn't happy that his baba wasn't picking him up at the exact time he decided he was done walking. Hence, the temper tantrum, also documented above. |
As usual with our trips to DC, we had to leave much too early. But our lifestyle there is not sustainable. So much high quality dining, some casual and some fine. So many boards of charcuterie and cheese, prepared by the expert, Gugu, sourced from Whole Foods, Union Market, and Eastern Market. So many museums and interesting sites. So little work. If we could afford to be on vacation permanently, then maybe we wouldn't appreciate vacation so much.
Bob enjoyed the ride to Dulles. Along the highway, a metro Metro line extension is under construction. Loving to observe and identify, Bob was in the backseat saying "dig, dig, dig," excited by the diggers and other heavy equipment along the road. At Dulles, Gugu dropped off the last of the straggling guests from this most recent installment of the Catalina Wine Mixer series.
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| Triking through Shaw while Baba and Gugu drink their coffee from Gugu's favorite coffee shop (which we drove to). |
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