Upper Valley

We’re visiting the Upper Valley today, where Derek grew up and where we lived for a while.

We visited Derek’s cousin and her husband for a while. It’s always nice to see them; they’re funny. Their kids are older than ours: college freshman and high school junior.

Everybody’s kids are older than ours. My cousin is 48, and her kids are both in college. They’re empty nesters, already.

We waited a long time on purpose, though we didn’t mean to wait quite as long as we did, I think. Sometimes life gets in the way.

We wanted time together first, without kids. We had originally thought 28 is when we’d start a family, but we ended up being closer to 38.

I had Desmond at 35, Aislyn at 39. When Desmond was little, other women used to ask me, “Is he your only?” And I’d get so offended that they asked that instead of “Is he your first?” I don’t think they meant anything by it, though. In my 30s, I looked like I was in my 20s, anyway.

This was supposed to be about the

Upper Valley. Oops.

We had a little pizza from Enfield House of Pizza because we couldn’t find an open Ramunto’s. But we didn’t eat much of it because we ran out of time, it was too hot, and not all that tasty, even with eggplant on half of it.

We visited all of our old digs: the Enfield ghetto where our first apartment is located, George’s Market, our little town house apartment in Claremont, Books-a-Million that used to be Borders, our old basement disaster apartment in Kellyville with the nutty neighbor, Derek’s grandparents’ and Mom’s old house in Newport. We listened to a Spotify playlist of all our old tunes from back in the day.

It was rainy, but it was a good day. Lots of laughs and fond memories.

Then we came home and Mom and the kids had made a ham and salad and potatoes, chocolate chip cookies, and also cleaned the downstairs. We had dinner and everything was delicious.

So a great night, too. Good refresh before tomorrow’s inventory.