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I just realized I won't be able to do this tomorrow morning, since I'll be in training. Oracle training all day Monday and Tuesday, which also means I have to be at work early (bleah), which also means I really ought to be in bed soon. (But I gotta call my uncle and wish him a happy birthday first....) So here's my update.
On Saturday I went out to our family's summer cottage, which is on a lake in the midwestern part of the state, actually right on the Massachusetts-Connecticut border. It's about an hour's drive, which is really a lot less far away now than it was when I was a kid, but psychologically it's still a ways off, such that every weekend during the summer I go through this whiny waffling process about deciding whether to go out. (My mom goes out there pretty much every weekend in the summer, and she gets to stay longer because she doesn't work on Mondays.)
But anyway, I had decided to go out for the day, so I got up in fairly leisurely fashion, puttered around a bit, gathered together some stuff, and set off. I made pretty good time and actually got there before my mom, because she did the traditional grocery run whereas I just went directly to the cottage. So I had time to read a little, swim a little, and read a little more while drying off in the sun, all before she arrived. And then she showed up with already-half-melted fudgsicles, plus broccoli and corn-on-the-cob and grapes and peaches and plums and *twelve pints* of strawberries (and lots more) from the fantastic farm stand. Five bucks for the twelve pints, mind you.
The weather was gorgeous and it was lovely just to sit in the sun with a book and some crosswords. We read, and then we swam and floated on the lake on inflatable rafts chatting, and then we read more. Then mom built a fire and I husked the corn and wrapped it in aluminum foil and we roasted it over the fire, and ate it till our fingers were greasy from the butter and stained black from peeling away the charred bits of foil, and we argued over the last piece and ended up splitting it. And then the sun went down and we moved inside and read more, and ate strawberries and Doritos. I finished Connie Willis's Bellwether in the one day, which was nice as it reassured me that I'm still capable of doing that. I have so little time for reading lately. :(
Then eventually I decided it was time to go, and my mom bemoaned the fact that, as usual, she had bought way too much food, so she foisted off some strawberries and squash and a pistachio muffin on me, but I managed to escape having the rest of the Doritoes foisted. And then I drove back in the pitch-dark on the little curvy country roads where you really discover why your car has high-beams, and got back on the highway and drove back home and watched SNL and went to bed.
Wonderful day. Much as I might whine about the hour's drive (okay, and the bugs *g*), it's WAY worth it for how relaxed and just *good* you feel afterward. The sun and the trees, the water and the chirping birds, the grass and the kids playing and the fruit and the cookfire and the breeze.... It's all good. There's nothing like it. Next weekend we'll be there for our traditional July 4th festivities, and I can't wait. *happy sigh*
On Saturday I went out to our family's summer cottage, which is on a lake in the midwestern part of the state, actually right on the Massachusetts-Connecticut border. It's about an hour's drive, which is really a lot less far away now than it was when I was a kid, but psychologically it's still a ways off, such that every weekend during the summer I go through this whiny waffling process about deciding whether to go out. (My mom goes out there pretty much every weekend in the summer, and she gets to stay longer because she doesn't work on Mondays.)
But anyway, I had decided to go out for the day, so I got up in fairly leisurely fashion, puttered around a bit, gathered together some stuff, and set off. I made pretty good time and actually got there before my mom, because she did the traditional grocery run whereas I just went directly to the cottage. So I had time to read a little, swim a little, and read a little more while drying off in the sun, all before she arrived. And then she showed up with already-half-melted fudgsicles, plus broccoli and corn-on-the-cob and grapes and peaches and plums and *twelve pints* of strawberries (and lots more) from the fantastic farm stand. Five bucks for the twelve pints, mind you.
The weather was gorgeous and it was lovely just to sit in the sun with a book and some crosswords. We read, and then we swam and floated on the lake on inflatable rafts chatting, and then we read more. Then mom built a fire and I husked the corn and wrapped it in aluminum foil and we roasted it over the fire, and ate it till our fingers were greasy from the butter and stained black from peeling away the charred bits of foil, and we argued over the last piece and ended up splitting it. And then the sun went down and we moved inside and read more, and ate strawberries and Doritos. I finished Connie Willis's Bellwether in the one day, which was nice as it reassured me that I'm still capable of doing that. I have so little time for reading lately. :(
Then eventually I decided it was time to go, and my mom bemoaned the fact that, as usual, she had bought way too much food, so she foisted off some strawberries and squash and a pistachio muffin on me, but I managed to escape having the rest of the Doritoes foisted. And then I drove back in the pitch-dark on the little curvy country roads where you really discover why your car has high-beams, and got back on the highway and drove back home and watched SNL and went to bed.
Wonderful day. Much as I might whine about the hour's drive (okay, and the bugs *g*), it's WAY worth it for how relaxed and just *good* you feel afterward. The sun and the trees, the water and the chirping birds, the grass and the kids playing and the fruit and the cookfire and the breeze.... It's all good. There's nothing like it. Next weekend we'll be there for our traditional July 4th festivities, and I can't wait. *happy sigh*
