return

Last entry I was packing the boys for two weeks away. Today, I am packing to go and get them.  We have spoken once and received one letter from each boy.  Both times, everyone sounded great, and I am taking the silence as a reflection of their good times.  My neighbor's son is there too, and he reported "Oh, Max and Alex?  Those guys are having the time of their lives!"  He also said he hadn't showered yet.

Guess what?  It was all just fine.  Good experience for all of us.  Nice to have a break from cooking, cleaning and most of all, breaking up fights.  Also, we dropped them in New Hampshire, and kept driving to Maine.  So odd to vacation as a small pod of three instead of our tornado of five.

Maine really was "all that" but one magical night stands out.  Thanks to Facebook, we met a friend of mine who moved to Maine in seventh grade whom I hadn't seen since.  She took us for lobster at Chauncey Creek, in Kittery, Maine, a lobster pound where the locals go, and we reconnected after 30 years, like it was yesterday.  She looked so much the same, and of course, so different.  Her parents moved from dense suburban Philly to a house at the end of a mile-long dirt road in rural Maine just after sixth grade.  Our lives diverged there, but for a brief moment, we intersected again and there I was, eleven again.  In a good way.