July 2011: USA Part 3: Deep River Idyll

This is Part 3 of the USA vacation blog.

After two weeks of traveling from Denmark to America, from Deep River to Chelmsford to Toronto to Thunder Bay and back, from Chelmsford to the White Mountains and back, and then finally back to Connecticut, it was actually a great relief to be back in Deep River without a significant travel itinerary before us for a few days.

We enjoyed the peace. Pop-Pop spent a lot of time playing with the girls: Maddie called the orange flyswatter “orange” and liked playing “orange” with Pop-Pop.

Molli Malou liked the game as well, but as you’ll see she had other ideas about how to wield the “orange.”

Alas, that first placid Saturday was quickly disrupted when the sweet and affectionate Winnie utterly inexplicably bit Molli Malou in the face, forcing a trip to the Middlesex Emergency room. That kept our streak of emergency visit rooms during trips to America alive — we still have not visited America from Denmark without at least one such visit.

Weirdly — and yet, I think, characteristically — Molli Malou actually asked me to take pictures of her constantly as she was taken through the process of getting her stitches. The girl won’t let me take pictures of her when she looks spectacular and lovely, but insists on them when her face is a bloody mess. Curious.

Now, keep in mind, her mouth was already missing all those teeth, and in jerking instinctively away from Winnie the girl had struck her head on a chair or table resulting in that big old welt on her forehead, so although it looks like Molli Malou had just lost a prize fight, she’s actually nowhere near as badly beaten as she looks, and she was in good cheer the whole time once the shock and initial pain wore off. In fact, she was more worried about Winnie than herself: what was wrong with the poor dog that could have made her do such a thing? Would she be okay?

Anyway, here she is waiting for the swabbed anesthetic to kick in before they inject the heavier stuff into her wounds.

Also weirdly, when the doctor actually sewed the stitches — one on her lip, one on her cheek — she laughed uncontrollably. Nervous reflex, certainly, but the doc, nurse, Trine and I were looking at each other in astonishment.

So here’s the giggly girl with her brand new stitches.

That picture also made its alarming way onto Facebook — at Molli Malou’s request, with an amen from the nurse. Since the nurse approved, I figured she must have anticipated it would have some kind of therapeutic value, so I did it. Now I’m not so sure it was the right thing, but if the subject desired it and a medical professional concurred, who am I to argue? Hell, title it “Optimism in adversity” and it could probably win a prize.

In fact, I would have glossed over (i.e. ignored) the entire episode, except that doing so would result in viewers of this blog wondering constantly why, from this point forward, Molli Malou always seems to have bandages on her face.

Deep River neighbor Linda was kind enough to treat us all to cocktails and hors-d’oevres at her house, with her friend Lou (Lew?), and a seafood dinner al fresco at Old Saybrook Point.

It was here that Maddie invented the game “Benejo benejo” (Danish) / “Banayo banayo” (English), which seemed to consist of running around in circles, whirling herself around poles, giggling, and chanting “benejo benejo” all the while. She and Molli Malou became experts at it on the spot, and it became their favorite game for the rest of the trip.

To this day none of us know what the word means or where Maddie come up with it, but it occurs to me now that it wouldn’t make a bad name for a dog when we get one.

(I don’t have a good picture of Linda from that dinner, but am sure one will turn up in the addendum blog of Nana’s pictures.)

The next morning, Pop-Pop and Molli Malou got to work on their house in earnest.

While they worked, Nana took Maddie to the Essex playground, which Maddie would henceforward refer to as “her” playground. Here she is riding in “her” car on “her” playground:

Back at the house, Molli Malou demonstrates her own “orange” technique in a new outfit.

Bath time!

The heat was creeping up day by day, from the low nineties toward the century mark. Pop-Pop and Molli Malou sensibly tried to take care of all their construction during the morning hours, when it was slightly cooler.

With Molli Malou’s stitches, swimming would be out of the equation for a few days, but some front yard water games were acceptable.

And at long last… a lobster dinner!

I love the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone:

So here is Molli Malou looking wistful in her house as it nears completion.

Pop-Pop coaches her through the finishing touches.

Maddie wanders along and gets in the way.

And finally Molli Malou gets her stitches out and we’re allowed to take her swimming again!

Just in time! Because the very next morning, she is being taken up north with Trine and me to visit with Adam and Mary in Beverly. The plan is to repeat our successful and enjoyable 2008 visit: lunch at the seafood restaurant around the corner from them, then a full day of riverfront foolishness. We’ve left Maddie behind with Nana and Pop-Pop to make the trip easier on all of us, and it’s only on our way up that we realize it’s the first time ever that Nana and Pop-Pop have had alone time with Maddie!

Seafood lunch within 24 hours of our lobster dinner!

(That’s Adam on the left, then his wife Mary, blocking out Mike, with Mike’s girlfriend Leslie at the end of the table, then Josh Orlen and Trine.)

Here’s Adam and Mary’s house on the Beverly River (I’m standing on a pier to take this shot).

It was a very hot day, with temperatures over 100 by noon. But we had ways to fight back.

First there was the water:

And then, of course, beer:

The following morning (temperatures over 90 degrees by 8am!), Grace had to go to her summer camp Olympics, so while she raced around the fields of Endicott College in those inhuman temperatures, Trine and I left Molli Malou with the Antczaks and rode up scenic route 127 in the air-conditioned car. Here’s Trine in Manchester-by-the-Sea, the only good shot from that tiny side-trip.

Afterwards we all drove to Route 1 and had lunch at Chili’s, where the families posed for one last picture before saying our goodbyes. (I have tons of pictures from this Beverly trip, but since it’s more a blog about the girls than about Mor and Daddy’s friends and adventures, I’ve limited them to these few.)

Back in Deep River it was still sizzling, and having heard Mary’s story about trying to fry an egg on the sidewalk with Grace, Molli Malou talks Nana into conducting a similar experiment.

The egg did not fry, but it made a very interesting mess.

Now it was Saturday, and the Lees came down to celebrate Nana’s birthday.

..a birthday which rapidly devolved into a weird costume carnival.

And as we move toward Sophie’s birthday, the next day, we find an answer to the perplexing question confronting Nana and Pop-Pop after the trip: how did we get all those footprints on our walls?

It was fun seeing how Molli Malou and Maddie measured up to their cousins through the miracle of Nana and Pop-Pop’s measuring door.

I’m omitting the heart-breaking pictures of our leave-taking as the Lees piled into their car to head home, and will settle simply with this:

After they left, the Wii came out, and it would occupy the rest of our evenings in Connecticut!

But first… our last trip of the trip: Trine and I would once again be leaving Maddie back at the house, this time to escort Molli Malou on a single, whirlwind visit to New York City!

But that’s in Part 4…