My visit to the North Country: Meeting the neighbors

The day after Christmas we woke to freezing rain.  It had also been raining most of the night before and that made the roads dangerous to drive on.  They take weather very seriously in the North Country - after all, if you get stranded by the side of the road it's not like you can walk a block to the nearest gas station.  Of course, bad weather is a relative term.  In Dallas, bad weather means an inch of snow.  In the North Country, they don't sit up and take notice until the snow has gotten into the double digits, or the ice is reallly caked on.

What they call a light dusting I call stay home for three days.

 

This meant we didn't end up getting out to have our pictures done.  However, my Day Two hair was not wasted as we had the reception later that evening.  We all hoped that the rain would stop so that people would be able to come.  But even if they didn't the four of us would sit and drink - I liked that plan.

Don't underestimate the people of the North Country.  Here, the women are just as tough as the men.  These are not damsels in distress, shrinking violets or delicate Southern belles.  Norwood is a factory town in an area of the country with bitter, unforgiving weather.  What I noticed about the people there is that they are hardworking, no-nonsense, pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps, whining is not allowed, if you have a headache take some aspirin and keep it movin kind of people.  They also have a super strong sense of community - family is close and friends are closer.  So they weren't going to let a little freezing rain get in the way of coming out to see Karen and Jerry's boys and their new wives.

We arrived at the hall a little before five and by that point my crazy was no longer a secret so when more and more people started arriving, no one blinked when I ran to the bar and got a vodka on the rocks, splash of cranberry.  Drew kept it full and his dad periodically came to check on my and give me a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.  I'm generally not one to use alcohol or pills to address the anxiety issue - breathing deep may take a little longer but I just can't be okay with self-medicating.  That said, my cocktail was a welcome buffer that I didn't even need by the end of the night.  That's how awesome the people of Norwood are.

The hubs and my father-in-love

 

All the people that came out to see us.  I didn't want to hide behind my camera the whole night, so I didn't get many pictures.

 

Drew and Sue and Chopper - apparently Chopper hardly ever lets anyone take his picture.  He and Drew's dad were firefighters together.

A blurry shot of Nate and Julie - I tried to get a candid of them but there wasn't much light and my camera wasn't cooperating.

Some of the people even brought us wedding presents!  Can you believe that!  I wasn't expecting anything and I was so touched that they even thought of us.  I ended up having so much fun and Mama Karen's girlfriends and the funniest women ever!  They stayed the longest and we ended up at one table just talking and laughing about aging, men, shopping - stuff that is normally pretty mundane.  But Carol, Mary and Mama Karen had hilarious stories!  It was really cool just to sit and listen to them talk. 

It ended around nine and that night Drew and I stayed up with Nate and Julie drinking and playing rummy.  This was my second time playing, the first being the night I got laid off.  There isn't a competitive bone in my body - there's nothing I want that badly that I'll step on your neck to get it.  It's another story if you take something that was rightfully mine, but I just don't have that true fighter in me.  So when Drew was beating me at rummy, his trash-talking fell on deaf ears.  I mean, I heard him but him mocking my negative number of points was met with "Yeah, and?  This is my second time in life playing this game.  I don't see you picking on your brother, who's been playing just as long as you have.  Go after the rookie, yeah that takes SKILL."  He shut up after that. 

After a few more drinks, Julie broke out her 'tall Julie' voice, which is just her talking about an octave lower.  It was the funniest thing I'd ever heard in my whole life.  She's a tiny thing, about 5'4" but then puts on her 'tall Julie' voice and goes "I'm tall Julie.  I'm 5'7."  I could not stop laughing and I wasn't even drunk!  At that moment she was golden in my book and I couldn't wait to spend more time with her.  That was the moment I knew that I was going to like her forever.  Tall Julie was the final piece in the puzzle.

The next morning we took them to the train station so they could go back to the city, as Julie had to work the next day.  Hmmm, work.  Must be nice.  The train station was in Plattsburgh which was an hour away.  It was a quaint little university town that I could aaaaaalllllllmost see myself.........visiting.  In the early summer.  For a weekend. 

Blurry photo courtesy of the kid at the train station.

On the way back home we stopped at another cousin's house and I was able to get some shots of the countryside.

 

I can't remember what mountain that was but we were in the Adirondacks.  

Like the chairs.  But colder.

This farmhouse was in the middle of NOWHERE.  I wondered if it was abandoned or if people actually lived there.  Drew said that more than likely people lived there.  WHY??

 

There was a huge field of these turbines?  Is that what they're called?  I'm too lazy to google it.

 

They just looked cool to me.

 

A real live train in the backyard!  Drew didn't get my camera fast enough but I was fascinated!  It doesn't go by often enough to be annoying - I had never seen a real working train that close before.

We got home and ate some more - I swear, I ate more on that trip than I have in many MANY months.  Thanks to that trip my stomach is no longer flat - I have belly rolls now, which is sew hawt!!  We vegged on the sofa for the rest of the night - until they broke out the Wii.  

Drew grew up fishing with his dad and that is one of his great loves.  He spent a couple of hours that night playing the Wii Fishing Master game and then spent SIX STRAIGHT HOURS the next day playing that damn game.  That right there is why I really, really don't want a Wii in our house.  It's fine in someone else's house, and I love me some Guitar Hero, but I think it would be a disaster if it were under our roof.

Tuesday morning we left.  His parents drove us to Montreal - the weather had been mild when we were there but it was going south fast.

I don't think I could ever get used to seeing that.

It was such a great trip and I'm so happy we went - my new family is pretty awesome and I love them to death.  I can't wait for them to come down here for a visit.  Right now, they'd be pretty comfortable - it's sixteen degrees outside and it's supposed to stay that way through the weekend.

Yippee.