Driving up to Vermont last week, we saw the tell-tale signs of summer ending: golden rod, cooler nights, glimmers of yellow on the occasional tree, tired,drooping leaves. Sounds like me.
We went to Vermont to visit the cabin of Charlie and Annie, which we had last visited in 1981. Shortly after we got there (4 miles from the Canadian border), a couple of small, blond boys appeared from the cabin next to ours. I remembered small blond-haired kids 30 years ago, and sure enough these were the children of the small boy and girl 31 years ago. On the long drive home, we passed by Claremont, where we spent the first year of married life but didn't have the heart to go into town. Nothing there for us, but bad memories of a tough teaching year. We were familiar with the exits on highway 91, which we used to take to both Pittsfield and Pomfret for weekends.
On our minds up there were Peter and Janet who were toughing out their first couple of weeks of life with a broken leg. Mary had initially gone down with them to help the transition. Janet saw a doctor on Monday and got a cast, albeit a purple one, and a walker. That seemed to help. Peter set up their den to make moving around easier, and Janet was camped out in their first floor guest room. Johanna came home after Mary left to help out. We spoke to them last Friday night and they have survived their first week of a long ordeal. Judging by her Facebook output, she is either bored or getting a little better. Hope it's the latter, but I can understand if it's the former as well. Peter's entry which follows has more details.
We got nice photos from Margaret who had gone with Andrew and D to Chincoteague for a weekend of camping on the beach. Looked like everyone was having fun, but especially D. Andrew had been in Tampa for the run-up to the Republican convention and even had two by-lines in the paper last week. And this weekend, Margaret's in Charlotte NC awaiting the opening of the Democratic convention.
We also got a few photos from David and Paula tracking their progress through Lake Louise, Jasper area of Alberta, Vancouver and now Oregon. Paula wrote saying they were having a great time.
We talked to Joe who tried his hand at cooking crabs last weekend, and was preparing for the opening of college football this weekend!
Our garden just passed its peak. We have had a good year for beans and cherry tomatoes. The lettuce was not as full as last year, and we still can't get the hang of carrots. The big, beefy tomatoes were being eaten by some critter right before they ripened, so I picked them when they were green. And we have some green/orange/red tomatoes on our window sill.
This is my last week before classes start at UMass. I have been going over there a couple of times a week to work with students applying for overseas scholarships. I have received the course syllabi for the two courses I will be taking, and there's a lot of reading. I have started, and the material is very interesting, but there's a lot of it. I got the jitters. Margaret mentioned she has also signed up for a class at GWU.
We know Annie had a long weekend of vacation down in Hong Kong last week. She sent us a photo with her new computer. Speaking of which, I broke down and got a Kindle. Now I just have to figure out how it works.
Out in Dundee we hear that Claire is captain of her volleyball team, has a new oboe. Daniel is sitting out football season in anticipation of basketball. What happened to soccer? .
What else? We saw Woody Allen's new movie (not as good as Midnight in Paris), we had a mini-Peace Corps reunion as the director from Gabon was vacationing at Jiminy Peak, and we got a kitten!
Love from over here.
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