Vacation is over

But it was a good vacation.  I was off for 2 weeks, spent nearly all the time in Rhode Island.  My sister arrived in the US just after her children were here and drove up here with her daughter Anna.  Anna left for her trans-Canadian trip and Molly & I went to RI.  We had a nice few days at camp first, which was a treat.

The RI trip was great.  Lots of beach and eating.  Too much eating.  I gained 5 pounds and have to report to my doctor this afternoon.  He won't be pleased, but he's a nice man and will understand the temptations of constant supplies of cookies and chips.  Two weeks to gain, 3 months to lose is how it usualy goes.

My mother is in good shape, but she is old.  It's hard for all of us to deal with this--she's always been youthful and energetic, and now she's slowed down and is very cautious about what she does and how she does things.  Which is good, just strange.

We read a lot in RI--I always take a bunch of books there and we all spend quiet times reading in the evenings.  My sister asked if I read that much at home--heck NO, I watch TV all the time, which is not great.  But it's how I entertain myself.  I am getting tired of TV, though, which is a funny thing.

So it was a quiet trip.  We had lobsters, fresh flounder, and every night we had delicious corn.  Yum.  We ate lunch at Champlin's, which we always do.  Molly cooked a lot of dinners--she's a very good Italian cook and her food is great.  I made meatloaf for my one dinner contribution.  It was good.

I got home Sunday afternoon and went to Linda's for a drink in the evening.  Two book groupers came to Linda's, looking for the group.  We changed the date of the meeting but they never got the word.  Oh well, we had a good mini-meeting anyway.  The rest of the group is meeting tonight at the boat house.  I'm making curried chicken salad because I can't think of anything else to make.  And watermelon.  This month we read The language of flowers, which was a good book but had a little too perfect ending.

Dogs are fine--Treasure was spoiled by my sister & the attention lavished on her, so now she pokes me and tries to stand on me while we're on the couch.  DOWN TREASURE! is something she's not really recognizing as a command.  Tess is very tolerant of Treasure, and they have started to play with each other--Mean Vicious Fighting Dog is their favorite game.  They ran around a lot at my mother's house, chasing each other.  My mother is really tolerant of that behavior, which was nice.

Work is OK, I'm working with someone on a technology grant, hoping to get funded for a subscription to streaming videos during the next year.  We'll see how it goes.