Admiring the White Sands of Virginia
Beach (Virginia) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Shore
Avenue was by our apartment. We took it
and drove out to Virginia Beach. The
blue Atlantic made me want to go swimming.
It was seventy degrees outside. I
knew the water would be cold even though the air was warm.
A loud, prolonged banging ripped through the
air.
“A
jet just broke the sound barrier,” Laurent said.
“We
live in Top Gun land,” I said to Florence, so she would feel her neighborhood
was cool.
Oceana
Naval Air Station was a few miles away from where we were driving on Atlantic
Avenue.
“People
around here call that the ‘sound of freedom,’” Laurent laughed.
We
parked our car by the beach and strolled on the cement boardwalk, but the white
sand encouraged us to take off our shoes and walk to the water’s edge. We must have had “tourist” written all over
us.
Florence
splashed in the water. We had to keep
her from running right out into it.
Seagulls flew around the beach.
The low sand dunes put up a feeble defense against a hurricane.
The
salty air invigorated us. We went to the
commissary hungry and had fun buying all kinds of foods that I would never
purchase on a normal shopping trip from Europe.
Back
at the house, Laurent made pasta with butter, parmesan chees, and fresh, chopped
parsley. We ate camembert cheese and
salad after that.
In
my groggy state from sleeping on a hardwood floor in a sleeping bag, I spent
the next two weeks doing all those activities that you have to do when you
move.
I
had the electricity turned on much to Florence’s delight. She kept opening the refrigerator door just
to make sure we had light again.
I
had to admit that it was nice to take showers in the morning and not in the
afternoon while there would be light in the bathroom.
With
the installation of the telephone came my job hunting tool – the phone
book. I wanted to find a job that would
fit around Florence’s school schedule.
As backup, I would call a temporary agency, if I could not find a job.
I
also wanted to avoid childcare expenses at all costs. I would end up working for a few dollars, if
had to pay a babysitter.
I
knew we would have to get babysitting in the summer, but I wanted to make sure
we were solvent when school was in session.
Summers
just killed us with its childcare expenses.
I wanted to work to be somewhat self-supporting and to have money for
some “cultural outings.” I worried about
how to provide stimulating experiences for Florence on so little cash.
With
these thoughts crowding my mind, I looked up market research firms. I had worked for one in Wisconsin and liked
the work, which was usually part-time. I
found several and wrote cover letters to two of the larger ones.
I
would type the letters once our furniture and belongings arrived. It was mid-May and Florence was still not in
school. We were waiting on her physical,
which she needed before she could begin school.
I
had to think about childcare for the summer.
Without childcare, I could not work.
I started panicking. What if it took
the movers took two more weeks to deliver our household goods.
My
fretting ended somewhat when our belongings were delivered, which created new
problems. We now lived in a sea of
boxes.
We
had little furniture. We sold everything
when we moved from France, so we could set up a wine consulting firm in the
U.S. After that, we took care of my
mother’s house in Wisconsin for three years.
I
had twelve boxes of books and no bookshelves.
The good thing about our slim pickings on the furniture was that the
military movers could not break anything.
Filling
out damage claim forms is a military procedure that a spouse becomes used to
doing as I learned on subsequent moves with the military and as a military
civilian. You learn to photograph and
.pdf valuables before they go on a truck.
None
of my Haviland dishes broke in the move.
I put them along with all the kitchen gear that I would never part with
in the kitchen cabinets. Renaissance
Florentine and Venetian families are still dominant today, because they keep
their kitchen equipment, know how to use it, and buy sets for all their
children and grandchildren.
I
knew where I would stash sherry for cooking, sea salt, Balsamic vinegar (full
of vitamin C), and glasses of water to keep parsley fresh. (My French mother-in-law does this.)
These
were my creative implements. I could eke
out fulfilling meals in this kitchen space with many cabinets. I felt like Catherine de Medici in there at
Blois.
By
Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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