Vacation

We are home from a long long trip. I suppose I am jet-lagged; mostly it feels like total bodily confusion. I am not sure if I am sleepy or not. I feel like I am moving—just a residual sensation from the trains, planes, and automobiles in the last few days. Weird.

It is good to be home. Betsy jumped up and down and cried, and Raphael followed me around singing, and Luigi hid in a corner of the attic and howled, and Ciao Ciao quit coughing for a moment to get petted, and Hank acted nice, briefly. This is why you have cats and dogs—because nobody else will ever, ever miss you so much when you are gone. The entire ground floor smells funny, but I choose to ignore that tonight. Tomorrow I will rent a steam cleaner.

July 1-5 : The trip began inauspiciously. We were leaving at 4 a.m. Saturday. I was covered with poison ivy. Vance looked healthy but he always gets sick on vacations. Friday at 5:30 I pulled something out of the mailbox that said that if I didn’t get certain documents in to social services within a few days, mom’s Medicaid application would be denied. This included things like her birth certificate (last I knew this was locked in a safe deposit box at the bank) and bank records going back far enough that the bank has to order them from the central office, and the like. It being the weekend before July 4, there was no way to get all of this before Wednesday, and that’s when my plane left Boston for a conference in England, and we were supposed to leave in a few hours to go to Maine for the 4th. On top of this, there was an offer pending on my brother’s house—it had been pending for 2 weeks, and we were fairly sure it was going to be completely lowball, but we still hadn’t heard word. And my conference paper was still really rough. But we started out as planned on Saturday at 4 a.m.

We were going to Maine to stay with Dick and Marti (Vance’s folks). Since we left on Sat. July 1st, we drove up 81 and the Taconic parkway because 95 is scary enough on a regular day, let alone the weekend before July 4th. Plus when you go up 81, you get to stop in Frackville PA at the Dutch Kitchen. It was a nice drive. Took forever though. We got to Maine really late and crashed. Woke up Sunday and there it was, Maine. Peaceful. Beautiful. The picture above is the view out of the living room window at Dick and Marti's place. And yes, you Massachusetts friends, we invited you along year after year, and THIS is what you blew off. (Except you Jesse.)


We were there for a few days. Sunday we hung around and relaxed. I went to an auction for a while with Marti but we didn’t see much we wanted. Dick’s brother Bill, his wife Sandy and his friend Marie came over for dinner. Conversation ---as usual with this family—went to politics and since Dick and Bill hold radically opposite views on politics, and the rest of us join in, it was lively. As usual.

Monday Vance and I went to Wiscasset for lobster roll at Red’s Eats. Best lobster roll on the planet. Stopped at Renny’s and bought raincoats. We dropped by Bill and Sandy’s afterward, to talk politics some more (the 5 of us are all in the same hemisphere, as far as that goes) and watch a little World Cup, Marie being really into the games. Hooked up with Dick and Marti and all ate dinner out.

Tuesday was the 4th, which in Round Pond Maine means PARADE. They have a funky, cool parade, very irreverent and idiosyncratic. Very crowded. Afterwards one of Dick and Marti’s neighbors had a little party on the dock. The weather had turned from lovely for the parade to—well, still nice, but different. It was windy and really chilly and a little rainy. The rain stopped before long, and I got to burn my sparklers (I bought boxes and boxes). Marti and Vance and I lit them all, handfuls at a time (ignoring the safety instructions on that one) and it was so entertaining for some reason that Dick is considering getting real fireworks for next year.

Wednesday was the 5th, aka plane time. Vance and I drove to Boston, where we were supposed to catch a plane to NY, where we were getting an overnight flight to Manchester. I was paranoid about traffic, so we got to the airport about 4 hours early, which is good, because bad weather was developing over NY, and the smaller shuttles were starting to be delayed. We managed to get on a much earlier shuttle—close call, we were on standby—and get in to NY. Lucky, since the plane we were supposed to take was delayed so much that we would’ve missed the connection.
Not much to say about the flight. The movie was weak, the turbulence was lengthy but mild, and we got in when we were supposed to. We landed in Manchester, walked to the other side of the airport, and got on a train to Norwich, where my conference was.

I’ll post more later.