Six Years in Suburbia

One of the things Rebecca and I like best about our home is the location. A fifteen minute walk in any direction will bring you to all that is great about America – chain department stores; Home Depot, chain restaurants; Chinese take-out; and clear-cut, 20x20 fenced yards with one piece of plastic playground equipment. We are also a short walk from Metro – the easy-to-understand, color-coordinated public transportation system that serves Washington D.C.

We all know the many wonderful things that “The City,” as folks who grew up around here call it, has to offer. And I’m not even talking about the young co-eds and drugs. But while it may rank as the top one or two power cities of the world, I recently saw that Teen Beat did not rank it in the top fifty as a destination for night-life. This may be why Metro closes at midnight on most nights.

But, seriously, the fact that we can, if we choose, go days without having to get in our car to drive somewhere to partake of one of life’s necessities – the 99-cent Taco Bell menu, seeing Archie Bunker’s chair, a Starbucks mocha latte - has been an essential element in why Rebecca and I haven’t upgraded to a place that would make us house poor like so many of our friends.

Now, Rebecca and I realize that we are giving up something by living in the yuppie suburbia that we do. A move to the country would grant us access to air that contained fewer toxins, provide us the ability to see cows and smell manure whenever we wanted, and maybe even have a P.O. box as our mailing address. It would also probably increase our chances of being grandparents while Maya and Jonah are still in their teens.

Which, finally, brings me to the point of this blog post. Yesterday, December 14, we celebrated Maya’s 6^th birthday.

Because we’ve gone ice-skating a few times recently and she’s gotten pretty good at it, Maya wanted to have an ice-skating party. Here she is carving it up yesterday.

Because none of the local ponds were frozen over, and anyway, I can’t think of any local ponds, we had to go to the local skating rink. In keeping with the theme developed above of how great our location is, how many of you reading this live near an ice-skating rink that is accessible by public transportation?

Having the party at the ice rink rather than a local pond was fine by me since it set my mind at ease that none of our guests would fall through the ice and get trapped. What a head-ache that would have been for us!

After deliberating over who to invite for two or three days, Maya settled on ten of her friends, including Jonah, her cousins Gabriel and Bella, five of her classmates, and Celeste, her friend from our street. Rebecca sent out the E-vite and we were all set.

The way it went was this, we rented a “party room” at the ice-rink that consisted of four cinder block walls, three folding tables and enough folding chairs. My mother-in-law made a tray of baked ziti, Rebecca made some cupcakes,

I poured the drinks, and my father-in-law provided the entertainment.

Thus fortified, the skaters strapped on their skates and headed to the "sheet" to flop around on the ice for a couple of hours. Of the young ones, only Jonah had skated before. But, I’m happy to say that no one hurt themselves except for Bella (no stitches were involved). There were also a few of us old folks that were lacing up skates for the first time in years (my sister Cathy)

or, in some cases, ever (my cousin Mike).

Neither of them admit to any bumps or bruises.

After skating, we came back to our house and gathered around the Christmas tree while Maya opened her few birthday presents. We had asked folks not to bring presents, but no matter how many times you tell that to grandparents, they don’t get the message. And anyway, Maya has been to a few parties recently where the parents did not tell folks not to bring presents, so she was excited to have some presents to open.

Maya was really excited to get a jewelry box from my parents and a camera from me and Rebecca. When Rebecca was tucking Maya into her bed last night, they debated keeping the night light in the room on or off. Maya wanted to keep it on in case she woke up and wanted to take some pictures.

After Maya opened her presents, she, Jonah and Celeste ran around the house crashing into things. This prompted my Dad to remark that someone was going to end up in the emergency room. That would have been no problem, from our house we can catch the 9A bus and be at the hospital in 24 minutes.