No It All

We covered a lot of ground our first few days in London. And a lot of underground. I’ve been to London several times and have always struggled to get my bearings and a true sense of the city. This time I realized it’s because of all the tunneling around and then popping up like gophers– messes with my internal compass.

Our first morning we headed underground and popped up in Notting Hill. It was a drizzly Friday morning which meant the Portobello Market unfortunately had less shops, and fortunately less shoppers. We met up with Geoff, Angela, Devon and Bryan. Everyone seemed to enjoy poking around as we discovered silver toast racks, vintage leather punching bags, and the beautiful Scottish goods of the Highland Store. Geoff and Angela treated me to the sharpest coat I can’t wait to wear while polishing my brass opera hooks… but we’ll get to that.

We encountered the Gail’s Bakery of England, which doesn’t hold a candle to the Gayle’s Bakery of Capitola. Jacob counted at least twelve bakeries just along Portobello Road. Our favorite places always seem to support more bakeries than logic would suggest. We admired a beautiful pub called The Castle on our way down the road, and found it was perfectly situated for lunchtime on our way back. The boys had big plates of deliciously crispy fish and chips. And our server adeptly steered them away from the typical fountain drinks available the world over and toward some interesting new choices.

And while we certainly enjoyed exploring the Tower of London, the views from the top of the London Eye, and our walk out to Kew’s garden and back, my favorite highlight of London was the Notting Hill doorknob shop.

It was one of the first places we stumbled upon and allowed me to proclaim my first trip rule: See it, Say it, Sorted. OK, well I may have borrowed that from the railway security posters but it perfectly captures my intent. You see something, speak up, and let’s do it– we all get a say in what sparks our interest.

So the doorknob store… It’s called Chloe Alberry and they call those huge doorknobs in the center of all English entry doors “Front Door Furniture.” They had knobs and latches, knockers and catches. While of course I was tempted to buy an entire house of doorknobs and worry about retrofitting American doors to English standards later, I opted for two brass “opera hooks.” They also had this finish called copper brass, which is an interesting observation meant only for design enthusiasts and my future self.

The first round of voting has commenced and the results are in. The boys say their favorite London highlights were the London Eye and afternoon high tea at the Wolseley. And my vote is for Harrods’ Eton Mess and British doorknobs.

See it. Say it. Sorted.

We’re back! And we had the best time on our trip to England. I’ve always found it hard to recap a ten-day trip so I’m going to take it in bite-sized pieces… which is quite fitting. But we’ll cover that later.

After a stop in Phoenix where Nate noticed our busser’s name was Jaimie, we made it to London bleary-eyed and broken-necked. My cell phone didn’t seem to work, despite my pre-planning, so instead of Uber we opted for the Piccadilly line. Where we waited for a trespasser to be chased off the tracks. And then for permission to go. And then for the train to start. And then finally when we were on our way, we were kicked off the train and it was taken out of service. Fortunately this extended journey allowed me to find the setting that was preventing my phone from working– as Jacob recently coined, via “the Guess and Press,” perfectly capturing my philosophy for all electronics, kiosks, and automobiles. I can still feel James swatting my hand away from the buttons and knobs in his Audi.

So we board a second train and then finally collapse with our belongings in our hotel room. Where I proceed to open my suitcase and find my pants and shorts soaked in face wash. It has exploded and then breached the Ziploc bag that’s been stabbed by the pointy corner of a tube. I desoapify my entire bag of toiletries and then rinse my pants in the bathtub. Fortunately there’s a heated towel bar.

This is when I decide a nice cuppa would be good to wake me up. The electric kettle doesn’t work. The Nespresso seems dead. Our lights are on, but the boys tell me the plugs have stopped charging. I call down and we’re rescued a few minutes later. The front desk receptionist expertly employs the Press and Guess, problem-solving the situation and determining that the kettle is blowing the fuse. She uses a key to remove the front of the electrical panel, resets the fuse, and carts the kettle away.

We gather our wits and our appetites and head to the lobby for dinner with the Purnells. Great dinner, greater company. We get home that night and I go to open the safe to get my iPad that is securely locked-up with our passports. It’s a variation of the standard hotel safe with an unnecessary wheeley thing. I try to open it, mmmm, like maybe 5 times. Regretfully, I have to call the front desk to be rescued again. This is embarrassing.

Fortunately it’s a new hotel receptionist and she breaks into the safe and then trains me. I’m sitting on the floor as she stands over me, making me practice a few times. As Jake would say… cringe. Fortunately it’s bedtime and I don’t care.

The next morning I wake-up first and beeline it to the Nespresso machine. Whereby the pod jams in the machine, like, bad. I fight it. I shimmy it. I question what I’m doing with my life. Finally I take it into the bathroom, shut the door, place it on the floor, and wrestle that bloody thing into submission. I absolutely cannot call the front reception again. I emerge, quietly victorious, only having stained the bathmat with watered-down coffee.

Later that night, we’ve walked 20,000 steps and lay out our dinner picnic from Harrods on my side of the bed. I admonish Nate not to spill anything on my covers as he eats. As I open the salad Nicoise box, the jammy hard boiled egg comes tumbling out, directly onto my side of the covers, leaving a round yellow stain.

Nate and I replay the rescue calls and this entire sequence of events– losing ourselves in a delirious fit of giggles. I top off my bed picnic dinner with the most delicious dessert I couldn’t stop talking about– a British confection called Eton Mess.

Yes, yes it was.

A couple of years back, we had an unfortunate encounter with Rat Bacon. And it’s now the pinnacle of Fucillo Family Folklore… eliciting enthusiastic reenactments and giddy giggles as I fight to control my gag reflex.

Meanwhile, last Saturday evening, the sun begins to set. We’re enjoying our post-dinner interests when we’re alerted to panicked poultry cries of alarm. Spaz is hooping and hollering so loudly you can hear her through noise-canceling headphones. But her name is Spaz for a reason.

She’s going on and on, “Help! Intruder! Oh my God, we’re all gonna die! Intruder! Run for your lives!”

Nate and I creep out. No weapons. No protective gear. Is the fox watching them? Is the bobcat back? I don’t see anything except two hens losing their shit, and the other two cowering on the highest roost in their coop.

Then I smell something.

I peer into the little coop window and a black and white tail peers back at me. It’s. In. The. Coop.

The sun is setting and I’m remembering how I’ve found cracked eggshells in the nesting box. The straw has been pushed all around in a weird way. Based on my emergency training, I point to the nearest bystander and assertively assign him the task of getting my phone. We need light. And Google.

Unfortunately, the internet convinces me I must confront the intruder. Apparently skunks can maim and/or kill your chickens. Nate gets me a big leaf rake. I get the hose and put it on the most powerful setting. Then I stealthily fling open the side door. But it’s gone. I hear it thumping and pawing on the opposite side. I shine my phone light in but I can’t see anything. For a few minutes I wonder if it’s fallen through the weakened floor of the nesting box and is trapped in the food storage area. But no, it’s just easily evading me in this expansive eight square foot house.

I fling open the second door and hide around the corner. Then I’ve got three of four doors ajar and it’s go time. I send Nate up the steps to safety so he can coach me but not get sprayed. I open the last door and blast water like the confidently untrained sister-in-law of a professional fire fighter that I am.

It runs down the ramp and into the pen instead of jumping out the nesting box doors as I’d planned. It’s circling the enclosure but can’t seem to escape. Just as I contemplate my next move, it turns itself into a ribbon of rat bacon and slips between the wood foundation and the bottom rung of metal fencing, disappearing into the night.

The coop should be condemned and I have dodged the worst of it, but we all agree my hose hand smells like skunk. I read tomato juice is a myth. After I prove them right. That night we leave our clothes outside, turn on the AC and the air purifier, and I drift off in my unfortunately located skunk bunk.

We spent this past weekend in Santa Cruz so when we got home today, Nate and I were on Skunk Patrol. I wasn’t home to put the ramp up at night, and little Pepe has definitely been back.

We do some detective work. The foundation is swept clean of rocks and straw exactly where I saw it leave– probably by a little baby skunk belly. We set up our Cabela’s Outfitter Gen 3 Trail Camera Combo to see if we can capture some nocturnal footage. We sprinkle the perimeter with red pepper and build a rake barricade at the suspected point of entry. Nate asks if we’re going to try the “rags soaked in pneumonia” method, but I haven’t had time to pick any up.

Grandma and Granddad think I should trap this baby skunk and then… well, the next part of that plan is unclear. Geoff’s skunk killing tale is not what I’d call a success story.

Nate comes in after reestablishing our wildlife trail camera and says, “Mom, I set it up and hit the griddy a few times to make sure it’s working.”

The Skunk Patrol is looking forward to tomorrow’s footage.

Speaking of movie quotes… this is undeniably one of my top personal weaknesses. It has inspired true disappointment in the eyes of countless guy friends as they strategically insert the perfect movie quote into a conversation and I smile… but not with my eyes. They can’t believe me. How can I not know this? How can I not reenact this scene with them?

Must I remind you of the time my parents made me attend a Kenny G concert instead of the biggest party of the school year?

And yet, I know I’ve seen hundreds of movies. James was a movie maniac. A cinema connoisseur. A feature film fanatic. I’m pretty sure the very first movie we ever saw together was Inventing the Abbotts. He totally had a thing for Jennifer Connelly. Some of his faves were Blazing Saddles, Coming to America, Three Amigos, The Princess Bride, and A Christmas Story. His favorite Saturday evening was, hands down, dinner and a movie. In the theatre.

Over the years we saw so many movies. And I can’t quote any of them. I like to think I’m just completely present during the show– immersing myself in the story and just letting it wash over me. Plus I have enough to remember. Why would I devote valuable space to recording movie lines on the disk drive of my brain?

The last movie we saw in the theatre together was Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, in Kahului. We had an entire day to fill before our plane ride home from Maui. It was dark. And it was raining. Of course all the boys had already seen it. James cried during the post-credits scene, when we meet Black Panther’s son. Apologies but a spoiler alert was ruining the flow…

In late December, James waited to watch A Christmas Story Christmas with his sister, Erin. It wasn’t nearly as good as the first, but it felt exactly right.

A few weeks ago, Nate and I were talking and somehow I said the word “forever” as part of the conversation. And then was possessed to say “For-eh-ver. For-eh-ver.” Yeah it was weird. Me quoting a movie? What is happening…

I look to Nate and I’m like, “That’s from a movie, right? Daddy always said that. Where’s that from?” And he says, “It’s from the one with the big, scary dog. Where they play baseball.”

Totally. Sandlot. Dad’s so proud.

Back when I was an intern, yeah, waaaay back, I had a boss named Richard. One day he asked me for my perspective on something and I expressed uncertainty about what I thought. And he said, “Jaimie, you’re here to have an opinion. So you better have one.” Clearly I didn’t need to learn that lesson twice… I most certainly have never gotten that feedback again.

So when James and I discovered that one of the core contributors to our harmonious life was that Nate rarely had a strong opinion, we got to work. He naturally defers to his brother. Or his buddy Cruz. He has these tricky stalling tactics like answering most decisions with an “I don’t know.” He is masterful at the noncommittal grunt. Or asking me what I want. Or what I want him to choose. He’s genuinely unbothered by handing over his choices to more dominant voices. In many cases, I genuinely believe it makes absolutely no difference to him. But speaking up for oneself and being in touch with what you want is an important life skill and so we practice it regularly.

A couple of months ago, I took him to Target for Gatorade and asked him to choose. He couldn’t decide. He tried to get me to do it. So we broke it into smaller choices.
“Well if you narrowed it down to two colors, what would they be?” (Yes, Gatorade comes in colors, not flavors.)
“I guess red and blue.”
“Great. Red and blue. Way to narrow it down. Now which do you think would be better, red? Or blue?”
“I don’t know. You pick it.”
“Nope, this is your decision. Let’s think about this. You know you like red, right? And that blue is new so it could be good?”
“Yeah.”
“OK, so red is the good and safe choice. And blue is a risk and something you want to try, yeah? Which do you choose… the safe bet or take a risk?”

He chose blue. I like that he took the risk.

Over Spring Break, Nate asked me if I wanted to watch a movie together. He loves doing this. Just like his dad. He proposes we watch Coming to America. Also just like his dad. I’m certain he nominated this because it was one of James’ faves, and I’m also certain he was thinking about the topless bathing scene… he told me as much.

James always quoted this movie… one of his main go to’s was “Whatever youuuuu like.” He would drive me crazy when trying to come up with weekend plans with a string of sing-songy “Whatever youuuuu likes.” Luckily Nate hasn’t picked-up this trick.

A few weeks later, Cruz’s dad asks me if Nate wants to go to a week of soccer camp in Santa Barbara this summer. Nate already has two overnight camps on the calendar. Plus a week of soccer day camp. He’s on the couch and I ask him to pause his game.

“Nate, do you want to go with Cruz to a week of overnight soccer camp in Santa Barbara?”
“Yes.”

No pause. No hesitation. No analysis of pros and cons. Impressive improvement.

Nate, you’re here to have an opinion. So you better have one. And I don’t mean just one Kiddo.

I was recently reminiscing with Jake about all the warnings he used to create and post. He’d draw signs and tape them to his bedroom door. He’d surround his Lego projects with threatening notes to the cleaning crew– they usually had a skull and crossbones at the top. We credit Pokémon for Jacob learning to read… and threatening adults for why he learned to write.

I got to thinking this blog may need its own warning label. One of my friends read a post during hospice and thought I was changing careers to become a nurse. Making me realize that I must warn all my readers that I use a lot of sarcasm. Like a LOT. I like observational and self-deprecating humor. And clever repartee. And puns. If it gives you pause… I’m usually joking. Sometimes I’ll tell you. Sometimes I like the idea of making you squirm. So for my more literal readers… I’m most definitely not planning to become a nurse… and Genevieve is a beautiful bathtub.

After my last post I got the best text from our friend. It makes me smile to know he and his wife are reading this blog…

“By the way we love your new tub and we thought for a second you were dating a woman <crying laughing emoji crying laughing emoji>

Which would be fine except please not a French <crying laughing emoji>”

He’s Italian. <crying laughing emoji>

And I got ’em good.

Consider yourselves warned…