The Willimers in America

Playing Catch-up - Big Time !

Should I mention the fact that it’s approaching two months since my last confession? Or is that a bit clichéd for a blog? Skip over it Chris, move on....

December flashed by...and surprisingly I didn't manage to get anything recorded here from a month that included Tom's Birthday, our friend Ryan’s birthday, Tom's Christmas concert, and...well, Christmas itself. In sequence, Tom had a reprise of his movie party on his birthday - five boys, much pizza, and The Benchwarmers on DVD. Tom had a mini-election amongst his guests to determine which movies they would watch, but the second choice (Star Wars III - Revenge of the Sith) never got shown due to 'big screen' fatigue and the attractions of a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ board game. Sugar products were carefully controlled this time, and a much more sensible but fun time was had by all.

Tom's Christmas Concert was heart-warming and tear-jerking in all the right ways. The whole fourth grade had been practicing for several weeks, and performed several songs, both traditional and modern, Christian and Jewish. We also saw the fourth grade orchestra sawing notes out of their violins, and the slightly more accomplished fifth grade musicians. As well as the swelling of pride and emotion at seeing him throw himself wholeheartedly into performing, we were impressed by the sincere dedication and pride of the teachers involved, who obviously love music, love the kids and worked very hard to make the whole thing accomplished and fun at the same time. And a huge bonus was that the concert was covered live on our local cable channel, and we were able to set the recorder and watch it over and over again. All we need to do now is work out how to make copies for everyone.....

My birthday sneaked past with a small celebration with friends. Given that in our family, I am the one who likes to try new restaurants (as opposed to picking old favourites) we went to the previously unvisited Siam Thai restaurant in Lambertville with Ryan and Amy, and had a very good meal. 

And Christmas was a quiet affair, as we accomplished Linda's objective of staying in our pyjamas all day, We didn't notice until we changed in preparation for our guests on Boxing Day that Thomas had been wearing the same pyjamas for almost 48 hours.

While having time off work was fun, we didn't actually do a lot over Christmas week, though we did arrange to visit the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens with some friends. This involved yet another American landmark for us - the first time either of us had ever driven a car in Manhattan! (I need to collect these landmarks together somewhere). The parents of Tom's friend Luc had suggested it, and being native New Yorkers they were unphased by the idea of driving cross-town, and knew all the right radio channels to tune to for traffic news. In the event, it was a fairly simple and short drive, coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel on the eastside and driving north a few blocks before cutting across Manhattan and straight over the 59th Street Bridge (of Simon & Garfunkel fame). Queens was eye-opening - at the same time very normal and ordinary, but also unmistakably New York - though not the hustling busting Manhattan you see on TV shows like Law and Order. This was full of ordinary people and stores, more like a Robert De Niro movie. The Museum was fabulous, and would be added to our overseas guests suggested itineraries, if it wasn’t so difficult to get to. A very well put together solid history of movie-making with a well-judged slice of interactiveness - just right for all the family. Even the temporary exhibition they had was of classic video games, with something for all of us. The drive home was more like the nightmare we expected, as we headed back through southern Brooklyn at 5pm on a Friday evening, lost sight of our guides and got stuck in the monumental traffic jams. Just under two hours to get there, 3 and a half hours to get back....

The turn of the year brought some interesting challenges. Unless you scour the business news (and even if you do you might have missed it) you won’t know that at the end of 2006, Dow Jones bought out the Reuters share in Factiva, so now Factiva is wholly owned by Dow Jones - in fact Factiva isn't even a company anymore, it is a brand, or a suite of products within the Enterprise Media Group of Dow Jones. I am now wholly employed by an American company, and having a Green Card has made the whole process a bit simpler - though there were some challenges. Our healthcare insurance changed, my UK pension is now frozen, and I have to deal with such standard American concepts as a 401(K) - essentially an almost compulsory private pension scheme which everyone has for retirement. All in all we have had to sort ourselves out to really establish a long-term financial future in the U.S.

Then of course, as we got absorbed by a larger company, we all braced ourselves for the inevitable redundancies. This time around I felt a lot more confident and comfortable - since I know that I am doing a good job and am valued by my new boss - but also that our group is successful and could only grow during the changes. Unfortunately two of my closest friends did not make the cut, including the head of the family that took us under their wing when we first arrived here. They are now faced with the prospect of selling their recently purchased house, disrupting their son's education and heading back to England. With 26 years of service, the redundancy package was hopefully comfortable, but the disruption to their lives is scary in the extreme.

I really want to get back to commenting in this blog on things that happen in my daily life, and react more immediately to stuff. So I was annoyed with myself when something happened last week that I wanted to talk about, and I was so far behind. But now I can bring myself to write, and though the feeling has ebbed away a little, it is still in my consciousness.

Last week I had a client meeting at Merrill Lynch, whose offices are in the World Financial Centre. That is (was) right next door to the World Trade Centre, and though it was damaged in the terrorist attack, it survived, and has now been fully restored. I knew that the PATH station at WTC had re-opened soon after the attack - indeed it was hailed as one of the markers of 'business as usual' - but I had never traveled into New York that way before. So after checking the route with colleagues at work, I got the normal train as far as Newark, changed onto the PATH line, and headed to downtown Manhattan and the WTC. Passing the time on the train journey with my Blackberry, I was absorbed in email, and not ready as the train slowed on reaching its destination, and swung slowly into the light - we were actually in the hole at Ground Zero. The PATH station at WTC had previously been between and below the twin towers, and now it looked just like a Lego model with the top removed. All the platforms and walkways of the rail station had been restored (after all, thousands of people use/needed to use this route every day for work) but the original loop configuration of the station meant that as the train emerged from the tunnel, it did a gentle circuit around the large hole, like some weird reverential Disney ride. It’s five and a half years now since 9/11, but the emotional impact of that place is still hugely powerful, and I was knocked back for some time. Above ground, work is moving on, and the foundations for the new Freedom Tower are beginning to take shape. The site is bounded with just the right mix of security, and memorial (though the commemorative book and photo sellers that hover round the station entrance are despicable - no proceeds to charity there...) - the official slogan used around the site is “Think Back, Move Forward” which sums up the mood and experience of Ground Zero perfectly.

And then more birthdays - our friend Lisa celebrated her 40th on Feb 8th - and knowing the Sprague’s it would be a huge surprise if there wasn’t a surprise party. Rob hired the Nassau Inn, the historic hotel we stayed in on our first reconnaissance visit to the US, invited a nice-sized crowd of old friends and family, hired a great dance band and a wonderful evening was had by all.

Then another good friend David Anderson celebrated his 60th, and we went to a 'quaint' local restaurant now officially known as The Hillbilly Hall with three other couples all ten (or more) years older than us. We had a very different and heart-warming evening, where we all read poems we had written for David's birthday.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, we passed the 49th anniversary of Linda's birth with a few simple events. I had been in Chicago for two days before the big day, and after arriving home at 2.45am on her birthday I elected not to go to work, which meant I was able to take her out to lunch. We were able to have some quality time together, chatting about where we are in life, with our financial future looking fairly rosy, our next phase of plans for the house continuing to take shape, and sharing some thoughts about where we will be in five, ten, fifteen years. Dinner in the evening was a bit more lively at PF Chang’s with Ryan and Amy and Natalie, but time together and alone - without diversions (TV, Tom, work etc) feels really good these days.

Tom's travel soccer takes a break in the deepest winter - pitches are unplayable and snow could disrupt the schedule. So we signed Tom up for indoor soccer to keep his hand (feet?) in, and hopefully improve his skills a bit. We also got him to 'play up' - that is, play in the age group one up from his qualifying age, since he was right at the top end of his age range, and being in a travel team meant he should be at a higher standard. When the rosters arrived (and as coach I got to see the list for all the teams) we had our doubts. There are only 4 fourth graders Tom's age in the whole division, and not many 5th graders - the majority of boys are two and three years older than Tom. We wondered if we had done the right thing. After four weeks of playing with the 'big boys' I am so proud of him. He is far from intimidated, he works very hard, and has been scoring goals for fun (as Ron Atkinson would say) - good goals too! He needs to improve his ball control to be really effective, but I really am very proud of how he has applied himself to this - I had visions of having to drag him along every Sunday. I only hope now that his new found confidence will not get blunted by the rigors of being back in the group of boys who gave him a hard time socially in the Fall.

So now I've caught up - again - hopefully I'll feel free to write as and when I feel like it. We'll see...

A Christmas Letter

Whenever I go through a period when I haven't been blogging regularly, I find it increasingly hard to 'catch up' - I'm faced with two choices. Either forget about the intervening weeks (or even months !!), which seems like a bit of a betrayal, or else try and write about all the things that have happened - but the longer I put off the decision, the more catching up there is to do and the harder it actually is to get started. What I need is a really good excuse to write a summary of the year...say something like an 'end-of-year' or Christmas letter....mmm...

We get several Christmas letters every year, and while it might seem a little impersonal in some ways, while also a tad egotistical in others (do people who don't already know what's going on in your life really want to be told all the gruesome details ?) we find it nothing less than interesting. So I hope you find this one the same way it leaves us. BTW, this text is liberally sprinkled with images from the year, all of which can be found on my Flickr site.

So another year rolls around. Only recently, we were trying to make arrangements to meet up with a friend, but he was having difficulty finding a suitable time. "After all, it is my birthday this weekend"...this reminded us that it was a whole 12 months ago that we'd been to his 40th birthday party, and about the same time since we'd written our last Christmas letter. And what is quite remarkable is that time seems to have flown by, despite the action-packed and eventful year we have had.

The title of ‘Biggest Event of the Year’ for us (which was a close run thing) was finally getting our Green Cards. We started the process of completing paperwork and gathering documents back in September 2004, and had elected to use Consular Processing, since we had heard that this route was rather quicker than the 'normal' route. Little did we know how abnormal the whole process was going to be. To cut a long story short, we had our permanent visa application approved in February, and needed only to visit the US Embassy in London with more paperwork in order to have the visa issued. We expected 6-8 weeks notice of an appointment some time in April, but when April arrived with no word, we were told to wait patiently as there was a backlog. With May arriving and still no word, Chris pursued the lawyers at Dow Jones to get some kind of status. We were politely told that our appointment had been arranged for April 20th, and we had not attended (that much we knew...) Some frantic to-ing and fro-ing between the embassy and both UK and US lawyers got us a revised appointment for late June, which we turned into our first long UK visit since David's wedding in 2004.

The disruption in planning our UK trip also affected plans for Chris' Mum to visit us. When we realised that we could not confirm our travel plans any time in the first few months of the year, Chris and his brother spontaneously arranged for Mum to fly out in March, once the worst of the winter weather had passed. Chris and Nigel were both concerned about how Mum would cope with the demanding journey with her ever increasing years, so we took great pains to make sure she has as much assistance as she needed.

We know that Mum likes to simply spend time with the family, so we didn't do too much in the way of outings. We visited Camden Aquarium again - we'd taken Mum there on her very first visit, but it had since had a $53 million refurbishment and was worth another look - but Mum spent a lot of time in one of three chairs enjoying the spring weather and our new house.

We'd already had other visitors earlier in the year. We'd seen in the New Year with Roger and Sally Huggins and the girls, who'd flown in on Christmas Day. We managed to see some parts of New York that we'd never seen before, both intentionally and unintentionally ! Roger, ever the Beatles fan, wanted to see the Dakota Building and the Strawberry Fields Memorial, then Chris took us on a mysterious circular tour of undiscovered parts of Central Park, trying to locate the Zoo. We also took in Philadelphia, especially for Sally to go ice skating at Penn's Landing.

Then in April Marcus and Janet Goddard (and Jamie) made us part of their American tour, spending a few days with us after a whirlwind visit to New York. Philadelphia was on the agenda again, as was apparently aimless wandering disguised as navigation by Chris. This time we were also lead by dubious locals on a tour of Philadelphia's least friendly subway tunnels, with visions of the worst kind of Hollywood horror movie flicking through our minds eye...We got out unscathed and (eventually) found our way back to the car.

When it eventually came round, the UK visit combined Factiva work, visa processing and a vacation. First, Chris had to deal with an increasing amount of pressure at work across the timezones from a new and unsympathetic boss, whilst simultaneously arranging the last paperwork task for the Green Card, the medical. Then we were finally ready for the Embassy appointment. Many people had told us how routine this would be, provided all our paperwork was in order - and, boy, was ours in order ! We had two complete sets of every piece of documentation, including birth certificates, immunization records, salary details, work references, plus we had extra copies to hand over and a spare set of some papers "just in case..." Our paperwork couldn't have been in any better order, so as we sat in the Embassy early one late June morning we were feeling pretty confident. Then the immigration officer started asking Linda some difficult questions about her past – “Has she ever been in trouble with the police?”, “Did she have any other relatives in the US ?” and - the clincher – “Had she ever been to Minnesota ?” Turns out Linda had a double - a woman with an almost identical maiden-name and an almost identical birthday who had been arrested in Rogers, Minnesota for holding up local coffee shops. The immigration officer could not issue Linda's visa without first conducting a fingerprint check with the FBI in Washington DC. So we left the Embassy that day with no passports, no visas, and with the prospect of Thomas and Chris heading home alone - and David looking forward to his sister's extended stay. All was well, however, as our stamped passports arrived two days later - the Embassy had confirmed that Linda was not actually the female leader of the mid-West "Arby's Gang", and we were able to relax and spend the last week of our stay on a well-earned vacation.

We'd asked Thomas what he wanted to do in England, and he had unhesitatingly opted to ride the Pepsi Max Big One, which is the tallest roller coaster in Europe, and located at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. So we drove the 230 miles to Blackpool - which, as a cultural journey, turned out to be a greater distance than the trip back to New Jersey ! We had both been to Blackpool in times gone by, but had obviously blacked out the experience. In New Jersey, the boardwalks at Atlantic City or our nearest shore destination, Seaside Heights, are known for their tackiness, but they could not come close to the sumptuous tastelessness of the Promenade at Blackpool ! Having said that, we stayed in the most amazing hotel, which was like a little oasis of style and class, but was also built right on top of the Pleasure Beach, allowing riders of the coasters to literally peer in through our bedroom window as they flashed by - Thomas thought this was ace ! . In one exhausting day we 'did' the Pleasure Beach until it could be done no more - and we discovered that we had travelled 4,000 miles to a town with the only permanent Doctor Who exhibition in the world.

We always have mixed feelings about returning to New Jersey after a trip to England - but increasingly the return trip to New Jersey has us "going home". This feeling has only intensified since we bought the house last year, and of course now we have a cat waiting for us. Having a Green Card now gives us an extra level of permanence, since it now allows Chris to change jobs. Previously our visas were attached to Factiva, and while it didn't really affect us day-to-day, we were looking forward to revelling in the feeling of having our future and our choices firmly in our own hands.

This feeling lasted around 40 minutes of Chris' first day back in the office, when he was marched into a room and told his services were no longer required by Factiva. Whilst this was obviously somewhat of a shocking welcome back, it wasn't altogether unexpected. After five years in the same demanding role, Chris had become noticeably burned out, and had had trouble adapting to the direction his new boss was moving the department. After a few fraught weeks of writing resumes and checking finances however, everything fell into place. Chris had already had several interviews with large companies like Thomson and Bloomberg when he received a job offer from Dow Jones. Then, that same day, a colleague in another group in Factiva reached out and offered him the perfect position. It was a shame that it took all this drama and disruption to arrive at the result, but things are much better now in every way - Chris is happier and more fulfilled, and finances are on a much stronger footing !

This Fall we adopted another American habit, and became Soccer Mom (and Dad). Tom had a try-out for a local travel team in May, and made the team. From August to November we spent at least one weekend day (and sometimes both) travelling to games in central and northern New Jersey. Although new this year, the team has been very successful, with 7 wins and 2 draws in 10 games, plus visits to two tournaments where they were unbeaten in 6 games. Tom is not the best player on the team, but he should get more focus in the Spring when half the side (including our coach) are also involved in Travel Baseball - which takes priority here.

We've also created another Willimer tradition by taking a vacation trip at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the major family holiday here, and we've previously found that no-one is around and/or we get invited to have dinner with someone out of sympathy. So after setting our sights on Niagara last Thanksgiving, this year we visited Washington DC for a few days away. Washington is very impressive, unsurprisingly full of history and pomp for what is, after all, the seat of American government. But it has the advantage over London of being laid out recently enough to maximise the visual and emotional impact of the buildings and monuments. We visited Arlington Cemetery, the Air and Space Museum, and took hundreds of photos up and down the National Mall. As a vacation destination, Washington DC deserves several days of anyone's time. Anyone planning a visit to the Willimer's in the future should be prepared for a possible one night stop-over in the Nation's capital.

The end of the year has been full of Christmas and birthday preparations as usual - although this year Linda has not been Room Parent for Tom’s class (some lesser local rival stole the position from under her nose...) but she has had more time to concentrate on her stamping and scrapbooking business. This Fall she has been to several conventions, had a partnership with a local craft shop and done successful workshops at the local library - all creating great interest and bringing in extra business.

Plus one more American tradition adopted, when Chris hit a wild deer with his car on the way home from work... It happens fairly often here, unsurprisingly as there are so many deer around, but it can often be dangerous. We've heard of several people having hospital visits as hooves and horns come flying through the windshield. Luckily for Chris (but not the deer) the front grill took all the impact. No injuries, just one dead deer and a $1000 repair bill

So, that was 2006 in New Jersey. We're hoping for lots of visitors in 2007, but in the meantime, until you book our spare room, we wish you all best wishes for a happy Christmas.

Linda's Birthday

Linda consistently goes out of her way to make special days (birthdays, Christmas etc) special for others. So it's only right that Tom and I do what we can to make Linda's birthday as special as possible. We had hoarded a veritable treasure trove of gifts, including the ladies watch Tom had so determinedly won for her at Dave & Buster's, and presented them to her early on Feb 7th, along with a cup of tea.

I had chosen to 'work from home', so after Tom was away on the school bus, and I had completed a 90 minute conference call, we were able to do what comes naturally for a birthday treat - hit the shops. We had a nice lunch in Panera, and then headed home to meet Tom from the bus, before heading out to see Nanny McPhee at the movies, followed by dinner at Bob Evans.

We all had a really good time at dinner, especially as we persuaded Tom not to use his Gameboy at the restaurant, and instead had a wonderful chat about all sorts of subjects, including school, pets, friends and holidays. As we get older, the simple statistical irrelevance of birthdays (the older you get, the more you've had !) inevitably makes each one seem a bit less special. But today ended with probably the nicest way for anyone to spend their birthday - really enjoying the company of the ones you love most.

And if that's not enough, Linda is now two years away from one of those landmark birthday celebrations that cries out for an outrageous gesture....watch this space.

Boys Weekend

Last weekend, Tom and I were left largely to our own devices. Linda had a Stampin' Up party on Friday evening, and then spent all day Saturday at a scrapbooking convention. She had to get up at 6am in order to be at her friend Janet's for the drive to Northern New Jersey. Funny how she can do that on a weekend day when she wants to, but never gets out of bed till the very last minute during the week.

Anyway, Tom and I had a pleasant Friday evening eating home-made pizza and playing video games, then on Saturday morning after Linda had left we had to get ready for February Fun. Every year during February the elementary school organise a month of Saturday morning activities. There are a whole variety of subjects, including sports, and Tom signed up for 'Lego Science' and 'Cartoon Capers'. In Lego Science, they learnt about the impact of friction on vehicles, and built Lego cars to experiment with small wheels, big wheels and tracks. In Cartoon Capers, they learnt how to build up a figure from a stick-skeleton. It's a very worthy attempt to entertain the kids during winter weekends when there's not much to do outside.

I picked Tom up at 11, and we headed to Philadelphia for the annual Philly Auto Show. We went last year, and whilst we'd had a good time, Tom had had some behaviour problems which were down to his medication. So there was a bit of trepidation. However he was on great form and we had a great time. After he'd beaten me in the Grand Prix simulator, we headed to Tom's favourite restaurant, Dave & Busters (but only to play video games) where Tom defied the odds and my words of wisdom to win not one but two watches in a Mechanical Crane-Grab game. After winning one watch on his first go, he was determined to win a ladies watch for Linda's birthday in four days time. Later we spent an hour or so browsing books in Borders, and finally had dinner at the Chinese Buffet.

I have to say, had I spent the day exactly the same with two or three adult male friends, I don't think it could have been much more fun (there might have been more beer involved !) than it was with my 9 year old son  - who just happens to be my best friend as well.

Tom's Surgery

Tom lost his baby eye teeth almost a year ago, but the replacements had not yet dropped. So his dentist sent us to the orthodontist, who recommended a dental surgeon, and last Wednesday he went in at 8.30 to have the adjacent teeth extracted.

I suppose there is always some concern about that kind of procedure, but the concern for us (and in all honesty, much of the resulting amusement) came about from his reaction to the anaesthetic. He was an absolute star at the clinic, and the procedure went off smoothly and successfully. But of course the nurse helped us wheel him to the car and get his prone body inside (I discovered that our newly 9 year old boy was now an absolute dead-weight when he is not able to help me lift him - boy !) and we got him home and tucked up in bed, supporting his head throughout the trip. The nurse warned that it would take 'a couple of hours' for the anaesthetic to wear off.

The next three hours were a mixture of high amusement, concern and comforting, as he went through a whole range of different experiences - talking in tongues (for the first 40 minutes, we could only make out one word in about 20), seeing things move around the bedroom, including Linda's bathrobe, and being really scared about it. Finally his head got straight, and he spent the rest of the day eating. By bedtime, he had eaten 3 bowls of porridge, 2 bowls of ice cream, a large milk shake, two bowls of pasta and sauce, a banana and a lemon curd sandwich. I guess anaesthetic will do that to you, too !