The kids are all right

I could have called this post:  "new ways to procrastinate" "killing time when you should be cleaning up" "you should see my in-bin" "you would think I have nothing to do" "things you can do with the junk you find in thrift stores" or on a more positive note "sharing the cultural of my youth with the next generation."  There you go.

Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do

Fooling around with blurred focus at the pool today.  There's something freaky about these that I love.  They just remind me of Major Tom hurtling through space or of fetuses floating around in the womb.  Our visceral relationship with water fascinates me.

portland

Two days in Portland.  Best meal:  flatbreads for pizza (not picture, there was a quick exit/diaper incident).  Best day:  Peak's Island bike ride. 

Best night:  walk through Old Port. 

Best place for kids: Portland Children's Museum.

we'll return...

bar harbor

After so many miles (1,853 in two weeks), I am so glad to be home.  There's been a lot of nesting, swimming and summertime lazing around here.   Lots of computer time, too, I must admit, editing all my vakay pics.  The more I shoot, the more I grasp what it is I don't know, but also, the more I compose my pictures, rather than firing away, hoping for a catch.

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.