Boomerang "Kids"

From GypsyNester.com

I'm an advice column junkie. I can't help it. I kick off my morning with a frothy soy latte, my “Crack”berry and a heavy dose of the “Dear crew”. When I'm lucky, I can persuade David to play along with a game of “What would Abby do?” If he's is in a particularly sporting mood, we can delve far beneath the layers of the written word. What if the husband, “Chip,” is really in need of Viagra, and is not, in fact, having an affair as “Horny in Hoboken” thinks? What if the meddling mother-in-law, “Madge,” has a point-- maybe “Good Mommy in Leavenworth” is, indeed, a bad mommy. Normally, I can convince myself that it is a game of good clean fun. The anonymity of Chip, Madge and Horny are fascinating and comforting--these semi-fictitious characters have problems too.

Today's column was just plain disturbing. It involved a mother who is a newly retired homeowner with an outstanding mortgage. Unless she was the CEO of a major publicly traded corporation, this lady is on a whopper of a fixed income. Now get this—she has two butthole sons, aged 22 and 24, living in her home and she has asked them to pitch in and pay $30 a week. “Stressed-Out Mom” says that they are now “ranting and raving and calling her a bad mother.” She goes on to ask if she is being unreasonable. What?

Kick those pot-smoking, Cartoon Network-watching, little punks out of your house! How can you even ask if you are being unreasonable? It's time for you to grow some balls and live the life that you have worked your butt off for. They are friggin' able-bodied men who are completely taking advantage of your enabling ways. Are you going to raise their kids, too? Because sooner or later, one of them will actually get a date with a loser girl who doesn't care that she's seeing a guy who lives with his mommy. Then you are going to have quite the zoo on your hands.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about Boomerang 'Kids' and how hard it is for them to make it on their own in the big, bad world. Granted, our generation tended to be more involved with our children's education, nurtured their every talent, made sure they were safe from balloon-related latex allergies--but the helicoptering MUST stop at some point. The longer we wait, the bigger and badder the world will seem to our offspring.

“Stressed-Out” should have started her sons along a different path a long time ago. Isn't part of the job to teach your kids to care for themselves? I didn't raise my son and daughters to be good kids, I raised them to be real adults. That means once they are of age—they are on their own. They began hearing about this early and often. As they headed off to college, they didn't expect to hear, “Honey, come back any time things get hard.”--“Watch out for the screen door,” was a bit closer to the mark. They know I love them. Enough to want them to have lives they are proud of. That's not going to happen in my basement.

See also: Sell the Nest

Veronica, GypsyNester.com
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Jump Up! St. Croix

From GypsyNester.com

Four times each year the people of St. Croix take to the streets of Christiansted for Jump Up, a Caribbean flavored festival showcasing music, art, food and dancing. The town is packed with revelers on the oceanfront boardwalk and throughout the narrow, 18th century Dutch streets as native and tourist alike "jump up" and celebrate all things Cruzan.

Traffic is closed to vehicles as pedestrians visit the shops, drink in the bars and streets, eat local dishes and, at every turn, find themselves awash in the sounds of island music.

The highlight of any Jump Up are the Mocko Jumbies, the famous stilt walkers known for their distinctive dancing. The meaning comes from Moko, an African god and Jumbi which is a West Indian term for spirits or ghosts, so they are "Good Gods" or "Good Spirits." This art form originated in Ghana, West Africa and was adopted by the people of the Caribbean. It is said by many that Mocko Jumbies ward off the evil Jumbie spirits that roam the St. Croix rain forest by night. History aside, the Mocko Jumbies carry on the tradition of an art form that is pure joy to watch.

Along Queen's Cross Street are vendors selling pates, (a local dish of fried bread stuffed with beef, chicken or saltfish), kebobs

straight off the grill (go for the local lobster ones), and rum drinks with sugarcane juiced right before your eyes. It's delicious and educational. A hint to the newbie...at the bars, order your drinks "stateside" or you may find yourself not remembering your Jump Up experience at all. On St. Croix, rum is cheaper than everything else in your drink, so it is poured liberally. Ask for the Cruzan Rum, it's local and it's exceptional.



Nothing evokes the Caribbean mood like the lively Calypso of a steel pan orchestra and at Jump Up you may have the pleasure of seeing three or four different groups. Quelbe, the official music of the Virgin Islands, is always in the air. Just look for the Quadrille dancers in the street and there you'll find a scratch band keeping Quelbe alive. Quadrille, an ancestor to traditional square dancing, was once popular throughout the Virgin Islands but now, on St. Croix is perhaps your only chance to see it. There's always a Soca or Reggae band or two to scratch that street dancing itch when your feet just have to jump up.

Jump Ups start at 6 PM island time and are celebrated in February near Valentines Day, the first weekend in May in conjunction with the Half Ironman Triathlon, just after the fourth of July to commemorate a local boy who made it big, Alexander Hamilton of ten dollar bill fame, and Thanksgiving weekend, a great time to visit St. Croix and to shop for unique Christmas gifts. Pick something up for family or friends or just give yourself the gift of a great time on St. Croix.

see all St. Croix articles

David & Veronica, GypsyNester.com

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My Dirty Little Secret

From GypsyNester.com

David and I have one chick left in the nest. He graduates from high school on June 8, 2008. And I am marking the days. I keep a gigantic calendar and mark a red X each day. For my son's sake (and to avoid horrified looks from house guests), I keep the calendar between the mattresses of my bed.

I'm fully aware how bad this looks, so I will explain myself. I LOVE MY KIDS! But, when June 8 rolls around, I will have spent almost twenty five years of my life raising them. I deserve this dirty little secret.

This callousness does not make me impervious to the emotional milestones along the way. I recently received my son's cap and gown picture taken at his school. My heart literally stopped when I saw it. I have spent many moments in the privacy of my bedroom looking at them and wondering how my baby has gotten so big. And in time I will be strong enough to take the photos down from the ceiling above my bed. Maybe when we put the house on the market.

I have learned that it pays to plan to avoid random emotional outbursts. My oldest daughter will never forgive me the coyote-like howling from the front row aisle seat that occurred at her graduation ceremony. So I have resolved that on June 8, I will not sit at my son's graduation in the vicinity any of these people:

1) Other mothers graduating their youngest child
2) Single mothers graduating their only child
3) My husband

The school community at large will thank me (I'm kind of notorious).

I have similar plans for my son's last Tuesday with us, the last macaroni and cheese dinner, his last Dentist appointment and, of course, the last time he throws his shoes and socks off in the middle of the living room floor. Trust me, it pays to have your bases covered when you have the tendency to be an emotional wreak.

If all else fails, I can just take a peek under my mattress...

Veronica, GypsyNester.com
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Life After Kids

From GypsyNester.com

When Veronica and I came up with the idea to write this blog about life after raising kids, and actually looking forward to it, one of the first things I did was Google "empty nesters." I wanted to see if anyone was looking at this the same way we are. You know, isn’t it great that the kids have moved out and we have life to ourselves again? To be untethered and free to wander the globe. To be Gypsy Nesters instead of empty nesters. But no, just about everything I could find is lamenting how terrible it is to not have the kids around anymore. The main item on the first page I clicked into was an enormous ad for an Alzheimer’s patch. Holy crap! We just finished raising our kids, we’re not dead! If twenty some odd years of child rearing has caused me to lose some memory (or eyesight, hearing, mobility or... um... I forget... whatever..) by golly I’m gonna count it as a plus and learn to like it. Do I really want to remember every battle fought along the way? I think not. I’ll gladly let my memory fade just enough to color the overall picture and recall it as pretty good stuff. I must be missing something here. Are these people daft?

There is even a syndrome name now, because these days even the smallest emotion or complaint must be labeled as a syndrome, Empty Nest Syndrome. No doubt, right this second, several pharmaceutical giants are frantically testing some drug that was originally intended to treat some truly dreadful disease to see if they can market it as the only way to escape the treacherous death grip of EMPTY NEST SYNDROME. That reminds me, I didn’t sleep all that great last night, I must remember to get to the doctor to get something done about this insidious Periodic Interrupted Sleep Syndrome (better known as PISS) that I’m suffering from.

But I digress, (yet another syndrome perhaps?) back to the original dilemma. Shouldn’t we be looking forward to this portion of life? Most of us have made more than a few sacrifices to get here, so I say, stick a fork in me, I’m done. It’s not selfish to take a little time for yourself at this point, it’s insane not to.

We are animals, and as such, continuation of the species is one of our prime motivations. However, unlike the other critters, when we have finished the job, we’re allowed to have some fun. Give yourself a pat on the back! Job well done, the kids have grown up into large human beings fully capable of feeding themselves. I, for one, am a firm believer in letting them do their own hunting and gathering. Trust me, when they get hungry, they will find food, but you have to let them do it for themselves. Otherwise they’ll end up like zoo animals. If you feed the tigers everyday, they never learn to hunt. Then when you put them in the wild, they starve. Personally, we taught our little cubs that if they get really hungry, they can always kill and eat a bag of Ramen noodles.

They’ve gotten pretty good at it too.

David, GypsyNester.com

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Honey, Who Are We Again?

From GypsyNester.com

I've read that one of biggest pitfalls to having kids is that couples tend to forget who they were prior to breeding (though I personally think the the loss of perky breasts is high on the list). As a Gypsy Nester, one who is looking forward to life after kids, I thought I'd share a secret.

David and I offset this pitfall with "date nights". Admittedly, most of our date nights were spent talking about the kids, ordering soda water to get the baby puke off my little black dress and worrying that the nanny cam may have malfunctioned. Difficult as it was to apply lipstick while avoiding chocolate covered toddlers -- date nights were not to be given up.

Hint for newbies: If you must bribe the tykes to stay with a babysitter, bribe them with non-chocolate type treats -- they are sticky, yes, but they don't leave stains. Also bad: Pixie Sticks, Grape Kool-aid, breast milk after an onion laden lunch.

No excuses were allowed. If there was ever an excuse to bail on a date night, David and I had it: the projectile vomiter. As an infant, one of my children could hit a rented tuxedo from a hundred feet away. No kidding.

Here's how we avoided the flying spew: The babysitter was hired to arrive two hours before we left. Then, making a huge deal of it, we would "leave" the house. While the sitter dealt with the obligatory screaming and yelling by the kid(s), we cleverly used the diversion to sneak back in. Then we got ready. We always made sure that the babysitter was equipped with Pixie Sticks and onion milk so we could make a clean, unnoticed exit. Not only we were able to go to the party, but we saved thousand of dollars in dry cleaning bills.

Sex on date night was mandatory (I apologize to my kids in advance, I know how gross the thought must be to you). We found that it was very important to have sex while not wearing sweats and a kid pounding on the bathroom door. Also, if the soda water worked properly, I was always at my sexiest on date night. I was also sure to wear perfume, as soda water isn't a magic elixir.

All kidding aside, every once in awhile we were reminded about who we were as a couple. When that happened, we were sure to point it out -- we made a BIG DEAL ABOUT IT. Trust me, this is really important. It showed us that now that we are about embark on our new lives as Gypsy Nesters, we have a foundation to build on and, more importantly, remember what said foundation is.

Be advised: Every once in a while a date WEEK is also necessary. It takes at least five dinners to stop talking about the kids. This is the breeding couples equivalent to the WILD WEEKEND. Remember those?

Veronica, GypsyNester.com
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Traveling Low To The Ground

From GypsyNester.com
Also see: Walk!

Traveling low to the ground is our style of getting around. We're not big on throwing money into all inclusive resorts, hate being told what to do and enjoy meeting the "real people" at our chosen destinations. It's all about discovering things for ourselves and jumping into the culture at hand. No set plans.

We love to be afoot, seeing everything from ground level. You'd be surprised at how much you miss whizzing by at 60 miles an hour (though we have found that the best way to find out about a place is from a good taxi driver--the true ambassadors of the world--and the snarkier they are the more we love 'em!). Street food, weird shop owners and cheesy tourist diversions are all more enjoyable when you discover them for yourself. We'd have a lot less to write about if we woke up in a gated resort with nothing more to think about than the planned menu and whether we're going to play golf or join twenty other tourists on a day trip.

We've learned the "international sign language" that gets us through much of the tasks at hand. This sometimes involves some innovative on-the-fly signing. Imaging poor David in the Italian pharmacy trying to get the point across to the stunned man behind the counter that his lovely wife is all clogged up and in the need of an enema. Hilarious fun. Or the night in a bar in Spain "discussing" American politics via cocktail napkins and crazy arm flapping. What great memories (really!).

Sometimes renting a car and pointing it in a general direction is a great way to go. We spent a week in France in some wonderful places we would have never found in a guidebook. Stayed in a room in a Medieval castle, watched pastry eating "tough guys" in Bordeaux and ordered the special at a cafe in a quaint little seaside town. Our waiter at the cafe actually went to his home and returned with an encyclopedia to show us a picture of a ray so we would know what it was we were eating. Who says the French are unfriendly?

Our goal as Gypsy Nesters is to try new things, see as much of the world as possible, taking the time needed to truly fall in love with a place, gathering out-of-the-box memories as we go.

For us, this can only be accomplished low to the ground.

Also see: Walk!

David & Veronica, GypsyNester.com ... Read more