If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere...

Part 1 of 3 (just to take the pressure off)

We just returned from a trip to Connecticut and New York where the girls were flower girls in a wedding and we all had the chance to be unabashed tourists.

We fly around the country a couple of times a year, what with our far-flung family and all, so ordinarily a four day excursion wouldn't be that big a deal in terms of travel prep. New York, however, daunted me like nothing else. Not having been in about 20 years and having become mighty comfy in my jeans and Keens Pacific Northwest world, I sort of figured we'd stick out like loggers at the Louvre if I didn't clean up our act a bit. Plus we'd be attending the lovely wedding of beloved friends and didn't want to make them regret the relationship by showing up all Seattle-ish.

The girls' flower girl dresses were selected by the bride so my role as provider of shoes, you'd think, would be fairly easy to pull off. Then again, you aren't me. I've often observed the craziness of the fact that I can ride out big events and problems with relatively little stress but the smaller tasks in life can take me down with nail-biting, stomach-churning anxiety. I made personal friends with the nice lady in the Nordstrom children's shoes department who kindly ordered pair after pair of shoes that might work with the dresses and then I went home to await their delivery, the whole time analyzing and re-analyzing the buckle in one style as opposed to the glitter on another and both those compared with the heel on a third. And I shared all this in criplingly painful detail my husband and colleagues each and every time I opened my mouth. Not surprisingly, people started turning the other way when they saw me coming. Being a pariah just gave my wardrobe insecurities more time to fester.

Feeling sure that the whole trip would be a success ONLY if I had the perfect coat, purse, cotton scarf, dress, & fancy shoes and Mark had a pair of jeans that did not cost $12.99 at Costco, I went on a shopping frenzy here-to unheard of in my mall-phobic past. While I can say with a bit of pride that my family now has some stylish outfits to parade around in, I can also say that, of course, next to none of it was necessary. Sadly, I knew this going in to it but somehow found myself compelled to push forward anyway. That little bit of sunshine reported by the retail sector for the last quarter was, no doubt, brought about single handedly by me. You're welcome.

We flew out on a red-eye to JFK late last Thursday night. Our girls are blessedly good travelers but we did notice that this was the trip when they were officially too big to sleep comfortably on the plane. When they were smaller, they could each curl up in little balls in their seats with their heads resting on a parent in the middle. This time, the parent in the middle (me) was pinned by what felt like two bowling balls to her seat while trying to hold the feet of both girls to keep them from poking the seat in front or being sliced off by the drink cart.

Eventually, though, we made it and had the joy of landing in the city at sunrise on a beautiful spring morning with the skyscrapers sparkling in the distance.

To be continued (with pictures!)...