Christmas vacation: Day 12

We played it low-key at my parents for New Year’s Eve Monday.

Dad and I spent most of the afternoon on the floor, picking through piles and books of old black and white photographs he inherited from my grandmother’s house, photographs of my great-grandparents and grandparents in their young adult lives. There were depictions of happy, simpler times during family gatherings at my great grandparents’ farm and my grandparents’ home. The pictures also brought to life more of the names that I’ve discovered during my research of our family tree. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

We spent the final hours of the year watching “Enchanted” on TV and then New Year's Eve with Carson Daly. We could barely keep our eyes open long enough to see the ball drop, but we succeeded and called it a night very quickly after the hoopla died down in New York City – past midnight there but before the clock struck midnight in our time zone.

* * *

Tuesday morning we watched the Rose Bowl Parade and then packed up for our next destination: Sheboygan for another Christmas family gathering, this time with Kates’ father’s side of the family.

Once again, the girls slept for most of the two-hour drive. And they were greeted with hugs and kisses and fanfare when we arrived. Like our other family gathering Sunday, it was the first time many of them met Faye.

The dining table was covered with snacks, and conversations filled the room. And when the eating died down, there was more gift-unwrapping. Clothes, games, DVDs and toys were exchanged once more. … This time, the gift of the moment was a Baby Sniffles Ernie doll given to Faye. The significance of this is that Phoebe, Faye and I each got Ernie dolls as babies, all of which we still possess.

The party died down and we were on the road shortly after 6 p.m., heading to Kates’ parents Milwaukee apartment for the night.

* * *

The family gatherings complete, we reserved the remainder of our trip today and tomorrow for reuniting with old friends. Today’s destination: K-Town. We officially departed town 2 ½ years ago now, and it had been two Christmases since we last visited. We’ve seen some of our old friends from K-Town during meet-ups at different places, during other times. Only when we start to think about how young Phoebe was when we moved does it sink in that we’ve been away longer than what seems like a few months.

We met our good friends Laura and Kevin and Wes at their beautiful new house – that’s just across from one of the town’s Lake Michigan beaches. Laura texted me the address and we knew exactly where to find it (One of the great things about K-Town always has been that all of the streets are named by numbers, with streets running east-west and avenues running north-south. So when someone tells you to meet them in K-Town at, for example, 4303 Eighth Avenue, you immediately know, without having ever been to the place, that it’s located on the north side of town, eight blocks from the lake.). … After getting the tour of the house, we headed down the road for lunch at the Coffee Pot, a classic diner near the city’s downtown. I ordered a turkey melt, and it was arguably one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever tasted. … Over lunch, we caught up on each other’s lives, and Laura, who became a close newspaper buddy of mine, updated me on the continuing soap opera at the K-Town News. … Afterward, we headed back to their house, where Laura and Phoebe had fun making balloon animals. Laura made her a puppy, which Phoebe popped while playing with it in the car later – and it wasn’t a pretty sight.

Not just today, but throughout this trip, there has been memories, nostalgia and sentiments at nearly every turn, on nearly every road we travel. It was prevalent when we joined family in one of my old stomping grounds Sunday, and I noticed it again last night as we traveled the road between Sheboygan and Milwaukee, especially through the highway network that makes up the Marquette Interchange through downtown Milwaukee and past Miller Park, where our beloved Milwaukee Brewers play ball. My family traveled that route so many days and nights, and looking out the car windows as we passed the old County Stadium, marveling at the engineering of the old Marquette Interchange or smelling the yeast that permeated the city from all the breweries, always ranked among the highlights of the drive. And there I was last night, telling Phoebe to look out her window as we passed Miller Park.

As we drove around K-Town today, there were more memories around nearly every corner, fond memories we built over seven years there. The first apartment Kates and I shared. The family-owned diners and Italian bakeries we frequented, some of which have changed hands. The hospital where Phoebe was born. The parks we visited. The old-time stadium where I played baseball on Sunday afternoons, and Kates would walk over with Phoebe in the stroller to watch me play. And, back to my newspaper experiences, all the crime scenes I covered.

We drove by our old house and then made our way up 75th Street, to Noni’s house – the place we took Phoebe for daycare during the first two years of her life, and the neither of the daycares we’ve had Phoebe or Faye at since then can compare. There was plenty more nostalgia there as we walked to the front door, Noni’s teenage boys greeted us and the family’s little dogs barked as they swirled our feet. The boys led us to the lower level which serves as the base for the daycare, and Noni lovingly embraced Phoebe like she always used to. Some of Phoebe’s old playmates were still there, and her handprint was still on one of the walls, too. Phoebe immediately started pulling out some of the toys, and Faye naturally joined the other kids playing on the carpet.

We made our final stop in K-Town at a Panera Bread to meet old friends Raechel and Shaun. Just as we did with Laura and Kevin, we enjoyed catching up on each other’s lives and just being in each other’s company. … I established close friendships with both couples during our years in K-Town – we experienced newspaper adventures together, attended concerts together and they were among those lucky enough to hold Phoebe shortly after she was born. I miss them greatly.

Phoebe made fast friends today with all of the people we encountered in K-Town, whether she remembered them from her previous life or not. When we were ready to leave Panera, she took Raechel’s hand and made her walk to the car with us.

We said our goodbyes, buckled the girls into their car seats and were driving again. Both girls were zonked before we exited the city limits and they slept all the way back to their grandparents’ apartment.

* * *

Now we’re watching “Horton Hears a Who” – a delightful little movie I never knew was made – and I can barely keep my eyes open.

We’ve made the rounds and we’re growing weary now, anxious to get back home – to The ‘Ville. To return to our normal routines and ways.

Bittersweet good-bye

… This afternoon Kates and I are sucking WiFi at a Panera restaurant, passing the hours until I have to take her to the airport this evening and we begin our adventure with full-force … We fled here -- to Kansas City suburbia -- this afternoon to enjoy some sense of the civilization we’re accustomed to.

There’s a lot -- a lot! -- of questions and doubt circling our heads right now … It’s freezing cold here. And to paraphrase “Wizard of Oz,” we’re definitely not in K-town anymore. We’re in rural America.

Saying good-bye to Kates tonight, no doubt, will be terribly tough ... But we’re here, and we’re determined to make the best of it, for however long that might be. To learn new skills and meet new people. To test ourselves and get out of our comfort zones. To experience a different slice of life …

Over the last week or so, as the media has been producing endless prose and packages about the decade passing by, I’ve been rehashing a lot of the reflective thoughts that went into our decision to make this move -- not to mention all the adventures the last decade took Kates and I on … It blows my mind to think that I’ve ended the decade in the same place where I started it. I’m married to the woman I was with in those early days of the decade, and now we have a beautiful, energetic baby girl. My hair also is a bit greyer now.

It also has been interesting to recall all of the different places Kates and I have spent our last four New Year’s Eves. We were in Chicago for 2005 and 2006, we ended 2007 in Toledo, we spent 2008 at home in Wisconsin, and here we are in Missouri to end 2009. That’s four different states. And each of those New Year's Eve days produced their own significant highs and lows, I might add.

Next year -- I’m going on a limb here -- Nevada! Seriously, I just want a weekend in Vegas -- just once. If only to experience the Vegas Strip.

I’m rambling and really don't have point here other than to bid 2009 a bittersweet good-bye … And welcome a fresh start …

As Ellen Goodman said recently, I'm letting go ...

" ... There’s a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over - and to let go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance in our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving on rather than out ..."

So with that, I’m saying good-bye to 2009 -- you long, strange, twisted year.

Here’s some of the good year-end reading that caught my attention, made me think and helped illustrate my take on the decade …

From The New York Times, Tiger Woods, Person of the Year ...

If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).

From The New York Times, "New Year" ...

We’re all surging forward — some with more impetus than others. And now we have 2010 before us, a year that seemed unimaginable until we were right at its border.

From The Washington Post, "21st century's first decade is slipping away without leaving its name" ...

Our mouths seem destined to stumble. On New Year's Eve, in the moments before the ball drops in Times Square, Ryan Seacrest will smile into the cameras and take on the challenge of summing up the years that will be remembered for a terrorist attack on American soil, a near-depression, the election of the nation's first black president and Tiger Woods's contingent of girlfriends. "Let's count down now as the -- what? -- slips away."

Finally, from The Boston Globe, "Name that decade: It was all about you, except when it wasn’t" ...

These last 10 years will be dubbed, inevitably, the You Decade. After all, no matter where you went, there you were - on YouTube, on Facebook, on Twitter, or in silhouette in the early iPod ad, gyrating with abandon, earbuds tuned to - who else? - U2. And when you had something to say, there was nothing holding you back from reaching millions. You could read about carnage in Sri Lanka or hear about teacher layoffs in your local school district, and with but a tap and click, you could enter the debate. Or start it ...

Time magazine celebrated the Information Age by putting a funky little mirror on its cover and telling us the 2006 Person of the Year was “you.’’ But did anyone who gazed into it stop to notice how blurry the image was? As 2009 draws to a close, we step unsteadily into the next 10 years. How it unfolds will be far more complex than anything you could say in a 140-character tweet.