Corduroy...the universal solvent

We drove to see my mom for a couple of days -- really just a couple of days of my family is all I can subject anyone to. We’re a lovely family, really, but as my friend Tom puts it, “There are no small personalities in your house.” So we keep visits to quiet, fastidious, seemly people like my mother to a minimum so that we leave on the near side of the cusp between terribly-entertaining and just plain terrible.
On the drive back we took a spur of the moment side trip to Williamsburg, Va. We never know how the smalls are going to take anything so we keep it last-minute and short. That way if it’s all ‘where are the hamburgers this is booooring’ we haven’t invested much energy, planning, or cash into the venture. And if they like it, we can always go back. To our nerdvahna delight, they loved it. We bought the boychild a tricorn hat he wore all day, and the girlchild a lace-trimmed bonnet (I think it’s called a tippet or a tuppet or something) that framed her face like a doll, and proceeded to walk their legs off. Before long everything was ‘ye olde.’ Ye olde silversmith, ye olde milliners, ye olde lunch break. The boychild was thrilled to walk on the same floors of the Wythe House George Washington had walked on and wanted his picture taken in the room where GW had slept. I have no idea why. I hope it’s something they’re doing at school. We saw a pair of oxen and the girlchild asked their names. Rusty and Red, as it happens, but I never would have thought of that. That’s what’s cool about kids. They really have a different view of things.
And around lunch, when the lines of tourii were snaking out the tavern doors, we hied over to the Wmsburg Inn and had a civil lunch with very minimal manner-prompting. The boychild had something on his hand his napkin wouldn’t remove, so before we could stop him, he wiped his hands on his pants. Improper, but highly effective. Who knew corduroy is the universal solvent?

So it’s New Year’s Eve, and the girlchild requested we go out to dinner more in the coming year, since she and her brother now have manners. I think we might just have to do it.