vacation

Its been sometime since i did this but I think I remember how. Arnie and I went to pick up Kate from the camp bus which was of course late. I tore out of work to be there pretty promptly on a suffocatingly hot day. The bus was late. But Kate was one of the first people off the bus which told me that she was glad to be home. Brown, OMG, she was so brown. She went through her I'm home again ritual which involves walking from room to room touching things and making sure that all is right in her firmament. Just time to do laundry and then head out for Maine again.

Lile came for a sleepover on Friday night so that we could get an early start on Saturday. I was possessed by the notion that I needed to be at Whole Foods in Portland so that I could do all my shopping for the week and get them to have it on the 5:45 boat to Chebeague. City shopping and my indecision about what we're eating dictates that I shop every couple of days and so I never do shopping for the entire week on one fell swoop. But I did it last year and really enjoyed this once a year event. My chauffeur Juan Fangio made incredible time and we got up to Portland in 4 hours. Mapquest indicates travel time of 5h40minutes. We had a quick lunch on the terrace of Whole Foods with the dog and then set to work. I had far too many helpers who were still grooving on the adrenaline of the drive and eventually got cranky with them because we finished in double quick time but then had to sit in the waiting room at Casco Bay lines and wait for the boat to Chebeague.

More vacation stories later....

It's all relative

and today I have to fess up that it's hot. Not Arizona style hot but New York style hot where you can life the air into loving spoonfuls and just standing in one spot will insure that rivlets of not cooling water will run down your face. We've travelled the boroughs this weekend with a sensational dinner at a funny little restaurant in Staten Island that we read about in the Times. The ferry over was very romantic and the ferry trip home was equally as romantic with a requisite subway ride home that I could have done without. Saturday was about making Miss Murray beautiful with a trip to the Groomer and then a trip to the Vet so that she now has a micro chip implanted in her back just in case she decides to go walk about on us in Maine. Then on Sunday we took another boat -- cause we're practising for Maine --
and went over to Governor's Island and biked around the perimeter. Again it was hot. Although the hottest I remember being recently was last summer in Xian where we biked the 13 or so walls of the City and neither Arnie nor I made it around because of the heat.

Air conditioning is beginning to look Real good

Summer vacation

So, Kate was on summer camp countdown and now I'm on summer vacation countdown, too. Next week we hit the open road for Maine with Miss Murray in tow plus Kate and her friend Lile. I'm already stressing that we will arrive too late to do the shopping that I love at Whole Foods and I'll have to do it on line. But this pleasantly panicy feeling is just part of the vacation experience. MMurray is going to the groomer to be cleaner and even more beautiful, if possible and we've having a micro chip put in her neck although there seems to me to very little evidence that she would go walk about by herself. Better safe than sorry because a lost dog would be an ugly moment for me.

Packing lists for essentials, clothes packing lists and I am in heaven planning menus and thinking about food...It's just a different kind of cooking that you have to do when you come home from work, tearing off your business clothes and attacking the kitchen in the hope that you can get dinner on the table in 30 minutes while everybody stands around and watches you. Then I have to gather my books and make sure that I have enough of them. I always like to have a selection that includes Mystery stories, some classic that I haven't but should read, a new author and other stuff. i kind of envy Arnie with his Kindle but I'm not sure that I really want a kindle. I do but I don't.

I'm taking tomorrow off and will just loll about. I hope it will be wonderful weather and we can go to Governor's Island but if not I could finally tackle the over crowding in our storage locker which might make it easier for Alice to really vaccum our bedroom.

The theme

the theme of course is what you get to do when your children are away. It's like losing the big kahuna, the boss....you get it. Brutal work week and then we went off hiking on Saturday with MM who turns out to be a fabulous hiker. We travelled to New Jersey with the various aids of google maps and some other incompetent thing to Bloomingdale, N.J. and then kept our eyes peeled for the train head. I maintain that no matter what they've told you, and no mater what the comments are about the hiking trails, the trail head has just moved so you have to get out of your car and make the inspection yourself. The first trail that we followed quickly became a serious hike under and over huge boulders which made Arnie think quite about the return as I was still considering sliding down several rocks on my rear. Recalibrating route. Another trail and far more doable. Gorgeous day and then back to the city for lunch and then another long walk.

Sunday we went to see Julia and Julie which was just wonderful, warm and funny. and here we are again on a Monday....

We are Alone

We are alone with Miss Murray and without kate. And we have done nothing significantly different EXCEPt go on a variety of day trips that would bored Kate silly. Last weekend we took off for Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan which had become something of a golden apple for me over the past couple of years because the tickets were impossible to get. But this time somehow it all worked and when we arrived in New Canaan it was to discover that we were the only people on a tour of this fabulous house. I think our pictures do not in any way come to grips with the amazing creativity that this man and his money were able to achieve. And in addition the weather that day was great and in general the rainy summer has caused everything to look unbeleivably lush. for some reason I keep remembering that historians had written that the summer before the start of World War 1 was very beautiful. Just a cautionary note in my own head about people who don't know history are destined to repeat it ala Santanya....We grabbed a quick lunch in New Canaan and just didn't have any time to really stroll through this very tweee outpost. Instead we had to hightail it back to New York so that I could cook dinner and be ready and amiable when the Sheftalls showed up for one of our requsite dinners on the roof. Then we all went off to the Highline to see and be seen on this very new New York Park high above the streets. Accompanying the Sheftalls was Le Petit Pierre, a teenager with seemiongly impeccable lineage, in other words he's a count or something. I had a chance to practice my french and then just learned that he's a heavy metal fan....

Sunday I didnt leave my bed or take a shower. Why should I? I was finished with people and cooking!!!!