What could possibly be better than having a Fairy Godmother? Having a REAL one, of course!
When my dad was in grad school and my parents lived in Married Student Housing, they lived upstairs or downstairs (I forget who was where) from Klaus & Karen Sitte, and they became fast friends. The kind of prank-playing friends who would build a whole snowman on the doorstep so their friends couldn’t open their door and get out.
The kind of friends who would eat Thanksgiving dinner together every year, and would keep sharing Thanksgivings for more than half a century (still counting) without missing a one! My parents moved from Montana to Idaho, just weeks before my arrival, but they continued to get together with the Sittes every Thanksgiving, alternating years hosting. The Sittes had two boys, a couple years older than my sister & me, the perfect distribution for acting out the Narnia books when we all got together for those long Thanksgiving-holiday weekends.
It’s one of the things I have long admired about my mother, that she forms lasting friendships with people she meets. She gets to know people on her travels, and gives them nicknames, and corresponds with them, and meets up with them for new trips. Her Canadian friend “Joan Junior” (to distinguish her from my Grandma Joan) she met when she & Grandma went to the Girl Scout/Girl Guide Center in Mexico when I was young. Mother and Junior visited each other and took trips together for decades. Her friend “Debbie the Badger” (because she hails from Wisconsin State with a badger mascot) she met when she and my son took a sea-kayaking trip in Mexico, and she & Debbie have visited each other and taken half a dozen trips together since.
She & the Sittes take several trips together every year, sometimes in combination with Debbie the Badger or other friends. Mostly they explore the western U.S. & Canada in their RVs (my mom has a Pleasureway mini-motorhome, and they pull a small trailer), with their kayaks and bikes on the back—but they also venture farther afield, to New York City a couple years ago, this spring to Scotland & Ireland… They periodically come through to stay at our RV park on their road trips, and when the park is full we just park them behind our house, and I can look out the kitchen window in the morning to see my mom’s little rig with its cheery blue kayak.
This coming March the Sittes are renting a place across the street from my mom’s California winter-home, staying for a month. She’s already planning their escapades! (I think we should warn California.)
My mom & my sister & I have a deal, that whenever one of us travels, we send photos to each other, every day of the trip. And every year, as the photos come in from campsites or castles, I’m grateful that my mom has my godparents in her life. I might just have to plan a California trip in March.
Kana's Chronicles 
Your family sounds idyllic:) Love your Narnia escapades….Narnia is a big deal over here too:)
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We had the first few books practically memorized, from re-enacting… ;)
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My children when young often acted out stories.. they were particularly enamored of that series of Unfortunate Events, but my daughter ( who is also here on WP) regularly connected with friends in college to dramatically read the Narnia books. We also have an area in Meadow Arc which has a tall black lamp .. we call this our area Narnia and when my daughter finds a butterfly who has left this world.. she often places the beautiful cloak they left.. over in Narnia… because we figure that was their destination all along.
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I love it! My mother had a free-standing wardrobe she inherited from her grandmother, and she matter-of-factly removed her shoes from the bottom of it every Thanksgiving, knowing that we would all be squashing ourselves in there to come out “into Narnia”… ;)
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Yes!!!!….:)
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What a wonderful story! I like to think our adult grandchildren see us that way, but that’s something for only their diaries to know. But you don’t need to worry about warning the land of the weird; they’ll fit right in down here… Unless they’re too pedestrian! Seriously, here’s hoping they have a great time and get away safely.
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No, I don’t think “pedestrian” would describe any of the three of them. ;)
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So far, I don’t believe we are on California’s No Fly List. But it’s probably only a matter of time…
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Okay, so why did this post as Anonymous?
It’s fun (albeit dangerous) to identify as Kana’s mom.
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Huh, that happened to someone else the other day too, no idea why.
It’s why I got you the “Kana’s Mom!” nametag, after all! ;)
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Hawai’i hasn’t banned you yet, so there’s hope… ;)
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Thank you for becoming one of my subscribers. I checked out your page and like the way you write and think. I just followed you as well. I’ll let you know if you steal any of my ideas before I can publish them. Chuck Kensinger
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That would be wonderful if you could join us!
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Very sweet story!
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Not many people can say they have friends for that many years. Love it! My sister and her husband are also RV people. They’ve traveled the entire U.S. and have met so many people that they’ve kept in contact with. Kudos to your folks!
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Sometimes I feel like staying-in-touch is a dying art…
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My husband and I blame technology/devices. There’s a lot of good that has come out of it, but there’s now several generations who don’t know what it is to have true friendship :(
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I think you’ve exactly hit on it. (I’m not nearly as good about this as my mother is, but I DO still write actual letters. So old fashioned, lol!)
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I can’t wait to be RV people!
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I have a fantasy of retiring and RVing with my bike in tow and biking in every state LOL. My husband HATES the idea LOL.
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My dad was never keen on the RVing idea either; my mom didn’t buy her rig till after he died. (She would rather have kept my DAD… but that wasn’t in the cards.)
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Sorry to hear about your dad. I admire your mom’s independence.
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Too funny!
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Your family adventures here and there sound unforgettable with amazing people you meet along the way. Beautiful story, Kana. I can feel the gratitude in it.
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What a wonderful story of lived family values in action. Thank you for sharing and I look forward to seeing more of your work.
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Love this story. I’m 73 and am still in contact with a couple of American friends we met in Texas in our twenties! In Japan back in 2019 we met two lovely Japanese women – kept in contact and last week met them at Kyoto station for lunch! I can’t see the Like button on your posts, by the way.
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