Andy Smallman

We’re back from taking Chloe to her college in Canada and I’m more than a little bit tired. Not only is there the drive, there’s the border crossing AND the emotional part of dropping off your first child at college. So yes, we’re back home and the house already seems a little different. The door to her room is open at 11pm and it’s not because she’s out for the night. She’s out for college.

Today’s picture is of Chloe and her roommate, Andrea. Andrea is from Bolivia and is extremely sweet and nice (I think she could pass for 14 or 15 but that may be more a reflection of my age than Andrea’s). We also met Andrea’s mom who accompanied her from Bolivia and was experiencing all of the same parent reactions that Melinda and I are feeling.

It was a great two days. Quest University knows what they are doing and puts on a great orientation for parents and students. We participated in sessions on the neurology of what is happening in both parents and their children, details about college life at Quest, and a couple of casual receptions that allowed us to schmooze with the entire faculty (referred to at Quest as “tutors”).

Chloe had sessions of her own, including one on how to co-exist with the wildlife in the area, namely coyotes, cougars and bears. How’s that for an initiation??

We’re off to take Chloe to college today, something I’m sure I’ll post about tomorrow. I’ve created this post in advance of our departure, and set it to publish while we are away.

This photo was taken in France 11 years ago, meaning Chloe was 7 years old. We were taken to France then, along with Melinda’s ENTIRE family, by her grandfather who wanted to celebrate his 90th birthday in style. It was an incredible two weeks in France, the first in Paris and the second at a villa in southern France. For anyone who cherishes family and wants to be part of a celebration of your life in its sunset years, a celebration that includes you, I recommend something like this.

As you may have figured out, I’ve chosen this photo today in honor of Chloe. I’ll tell you, taking your child to college certainly gives a parent pause to think. Rising quickly to the top of these thoughts is, “Where did the time go?” Her first day in kindergarten seems like last week, for instance. And I can see her proud preschool face when the sun came out in February and she asked us to fill her kiddie pool.

Today is one of those benchmark days, indeed.

This is the last night in our Seattle home as a family of two adults and two children. Tomorrow, Melinda and I take Chloe to Quest University in Squamish, British Columbia where she begins college next week. It’s one of those very exciting moments in a family, shown in emotional scenes on TV and in the movies, the child all packed up and being delivered to college. I can safely say that we are feeling all of those things a family is expected to feel right now.

Most significantly, though, I’d say we are all feeling excited. Chloe is well-prepared for this next step and as parents, Melinda and I are excited for her to take it in her life. We aren’t lamenting the loss of her daily presence in our lives (as much as we will miss her), but are focusing on the naturalness of what is happening. It helps that she won’t be too far away, about a 3-4 hour car ride (depending on the border).

I asked Chloe what she wanted to do tonight, expecting her to want to go out to dinner. Instead, she wanted the four of us to eat together around the table at home, a tip of the hat to the importance she places on the routine we’ve had for over 18 years. Her lone request was, get this, rainbow sherbert for dessert.

Before eating, Ella gave Chloe a going-away gift she had found – Milka chocolate! Ella was pleased to find it at a local drugstore, especially so when we thought it was only available in Europe.

Changing subjects, my dad is home from the hospital and resting comfortably. The news continues to be excellent.

I spent most of the day with my parents (that’s my mom with me in today’s photo). About two weeks ago my dad fell while on a hike. After a visit to his doctor to see what was up, it was determined he should see a cardiologist, which he did yesterday. The cardiologist discovered his heart wasn’t beating as it should and recommended a pacemaker be implanted, scheduling the surgery for today, less than 24 hours after seeing him. I met my parents at the hospital just before my dad was wheeled in to surgery, and then spent the rest of the day with them there.

To cut to the important part of the story, everything is fine, exceptionally fine, in fact. My dad returned from surgery not only awake and alert, but lucid enough to joke with the nurse that what he’d really like in terms of pain medication was a beer (okay, to be honest, he referred to it as a “microbrew”). Shortly after that he was able to take himself to the bathroom. And by the evening, after he had devoured a dinner, we watched a very entertaining Seattle Mariners baseball game (and “entertaining” and “Seattle Mariners” have not been used in the same sentence much around here lately).

I took this picture with my borrowed cellphone, trying to capture some of the Bellevue city skyline behind us. My mom and I had walked across the street from the hospital to grab a bite to eat at Whole Foods. Having not been in Bellevue for well over a year, I was stunned by the changes.

Sitting between Melinda and me in this photo is Mia, one of our former students (from last century!!) at PSCS. It’s always so much fun to meet up with former students, seeing how they’ve blossomed as adults. How is it that they’ve gotten old enough to be called adults? To be married? And in some cases (not Mia’s), to have kids?

It’s crazy.

We sat near Mia at the wedding of Sorrel, another of our former students. This was a couple of weeks back, soon after we returned from France. Sorrel and her twin brother Gus were the first students ever enrolled at PSCS so seeing them both, and their parents, recently brought back a flood of memories.

One of these involved Chloe. She was a toddler when PSCS began and was often in the car when we were taking students places. One time, Gus, 13 at the time, kept trying to get her to talk to him. He said, “Say Gus, Chloe. Say Gus.” She sat stoically, saying nothing. Arriving at his house, he hopped out and ran up to his door. Immediately, Chloe said, “Bye, Gus.”

Speaking of Chloe, on Friday we deliver her to college. Does that mean that she, too, is blossoming as an adult?

Hmmm… How to make sense of this. Yes, that’s Ella on the left, posing next to our TV. We were watching a video (yes, a video as in V. H. S.) that my parents had created for her when she was probably 3 years old. We found it in a box in our basement. You see, Ella wanted to go through some old boxes to find photos and mementos to consider as decorations in her pending room remodel. And in one of the boxes was the old video tape.

The concept of the video was to feature a preschooler interacting with other characters, the preschooler considering different careers. The parents (or grandparents in this case) sent in a photo of the child that was manipulated to be superimposed in different scenes. So tonight we got to see Ella as a police officer, a firefighter, a teacher, the president, and in this picture, an artist.

Frankly, I didn’t know Ella had painted the Mona Lisa.

I apologize for the quality of the photo and am hoping it gives you a sense of how funny this was for us tonight. Oh, I chose to feature this photo over one of Ella as the president (or sliding into home as a professional baseball player) because of its French connection.

Let’s see, there’s got to be flour and butter and sugar. I know that. And blackberries, of course. Maybe some cinnamon and baking powder (because I always use those in my baking recipes). I heard lemon juice is useful. And then more sugar and butter. Lots of butter and sugar. And more blackberries.

What else?

Well, judging from this photo you need blackberry pickers. That’s Chloe’s friend Alex, there on the left. You may recall that he visited us in Nantes in May. In fact, he attends Quest University, the college to which we will be taking Chloe on Friday and for which Chloe and Melinda made a huge Costco trip today to pick up sundries and things. But sundries are not part of a blackberry pie recipe. And what I was trying to get at when I started this paragraph was the missing ingredient.

Friends. To fully have a good blackberry pie you need to share it with friends.

Last night we had dinner with Alex and his parents, they having invited us over. Deb, Alex’s mom, made an incredibly delicious blackberry pie using blackberries they had picked with Chloe yesterday morning.

I’ll say it again. 6 – 2.

That was the final score of today’s Seattle Sounders soccer game, our local team hammering the visiting Columbus Crew. The team set all kinds of records, and one player, Lamar Neagle, scored 3 of the 6 goals, a hat trick.

Why am I telling you this? Because Melinda and I were at the game, that’s why! Can you imagine a better way to spend an 80 degree summer afternoon in Seattle than watching the home team lay waste to the team with the best record in the Eastern Conference?

I can’t.

Want to know something else? The last soccer game we attended was exactly one year ago today and it was when we saw FC Nantes win. That’s right, Melinda and I know how to attend soccer games.

On Thursday at school, teaching staff member Liana asked if anyone wanted her two tickets to today’s game. A quick check of our home calendar indicated the appropriate void so I snatched them up. Melinda & I bussed into town, saving the hassle of driving and parking. The craziest expense of the day was paying $8.50 for a beer (but, hey, it was a “Kilt Lifter”).

The title of this post explains the picture and there isn’t a heck of a lot more to add. One signature dish in our neighborhood that we missed while in France was this dessert from Bai Pai Restaurant, mango sticky rice.

I stayed at work for two extra hours tonight, so much is there to do to prepare for the new school year. By the time I got home it was well past 7. Rather than put together a dinner then, Melinda, Ella & I decided to head to Zeek’s for a slice of pizza and then to Bai Pai for the sticky rice. Chloe has a babysitting job.

The sticky rice did not disappoint. An uncanny combination of sweet and savory, it’s the kind of thing that hits some sort of spot that is best described as “right.”

What I didn’t mention in yesterday’s post was the fact that when Melinda and Romain arrived at SeaTac Airport yesterday, they discovered that something was amiss with his scheduled flight. You know, the one for which he has had tickets for months. The short of it was fairly quickly determined. His flight had been cancelled. Now the airline was trying to accommodate a large number of stranded passengers.

To Romain’s advantage was the fact that he was a lone passenger, much easier to place on other flights. Still, the first option given him was to wait several hours at SeaTac and then fly to Boston for a 10 hour layover before catching a flight to Paris.

Um, you can do better than that, right?

Indeed. In the end, he left Seattle two hours later than originally planned and flew directly to London. He waited four hours in London and then flew to Paris. We are happy to report that he caught a Paris to Nantes train and was reunited with his whole family at our beloved train station in Nantes a little before midnight (3pm in Seattle) today, as evidenced in today’s photo, sent to me by Laurent.

If you haven’t, you might want to take a look at the blog Romain kept while he was in Seattle. In a word, it’s lovely.