laziest day

Halfway through our east coast vacation, we're suffering with high heat and humidity as the remnants of that hurricane (Albert?) make their way up the coast.  Ninety-plus degrees with similar humidity are a good excuse to stay in and lounge around, so we did.

This year's vacation is weird because it's just DH and me.  We left the kids out of the planning because they're all supposed to be working.  As of this writing, DS2 just landed a job but the other two are working at finding one, although DD had an interview today for a position that's a great fit for her, so we'll see how it goes. 

We're also not doing our usual jaunt to Mystic, because my brother hosted a mini-reunion at his place near Boston, so we did an overnight there instead.  I have played more cards in the past two weeks than I've played in the past five years, but that's OK -- last week I taught my boys and their visiting cousins the very basics of whist, our family's favorite game.  We'll have to revisit when I get back because my siblings caught me up on some of the finer points of bidding... let's see if I can remember everything they said!  They are all much better than I am at paying attention to all the cards, not just the trump suit and the picture cards.  It's a great mental workout and a fun way to spend time together.

The next day, DH and I toured the Adams National Historical Park at the suggestion of my sister-in-law.  I had not been in Quincy center for years, and the re-design makes the historic places so much more accessible.  The visitor's center has a great half-hour video to prepare you for the tour, starts with a trolley ride to the birthplace homes of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, and then takes you out to John Adams' later home, Peacefield, where several more generations of Adamses lived until they deeded it over to the nation. We had a little time before our tour shuttle left, so we walked from the visitor center over to the United church where both former presidents and their wives are encrypted.  John Hancock's father was minister there -- founding fathers everywhere you looked!  The tour was excellent.  I particularly liked Peacefield's all-original-to-the-family-everything.  Wallpaper, floor boards, carpeting, dishes... the family stipulated that nothing be changed, and so it's all the original stuff, very nicely kept.  The stone library building built by JQA was amazing, too.  My only regret is we spent literally not time in the garden at all!  There simply isn't time on the tour for it, which makes sense because half of the year it's barren.

Plans are somewhat vague for the rest of our trip, but we'll be heading back up to Boston for a Red Sox game on Thursday (fingers crossed we don't get rained out.) 

It's simultaneously nice and weird to have no responsibilities.  Lots of time to read!  I finished Unseen Academicals, my last Discworld novel (although I may have missed one or two of the witch-centered ones.)  Pratchett's later novels all deal with self-discovery and acceptance, but not in a politcally correct way.  His faith in people was wonderful, and made his books a joy to read.  He was as keen an observer of human nature as you are ever like to find, even if he often wrote non-human characters. 

This same attitude ("humans are actually pretty great, even with all their flaws") was the underpinning of the novel he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.  I read the book before I watched the new Amazon mini-series, and rather liked the mini-series better.  The book had kind of a "showing off" vibe to it; some parts were written specifically to be amusing and didn't always help the flow of the story.  The mini-series managed things better, particularly the denouement, which I absolutely loved. 

Also watched season three of Stranger Things with DS1 (along with pretty much all of Farscape) and enjoyed it as an aesthetic experience but like many others, find it lacks a central message. It got really out there this season and while it was a lot of fun, it's hard to find any substance there.  Remarkably, one thing that came through this season is patriotism (!), along with family, and trusting your friends. I'm curious to see how the events of the last episode affect the characters going forward.

Health stuff: My little toe is still (fill in your own expletive) broken. I'm trying to keep it up as much as possible, but I'm not encouraged.  It's hard to wrap it in a way that the wrap itself doesn't end up making it hurt.  It will heal eventually...  My new doctor called to say yeah, all those test results mean we don't really have to do anything now, although I apparently missed a blood test last week (oops).  So I'll do that when I get back, no big deal. One odd thing was I developed an absolutely huge bruise on my forearm from the IV placement. It's finally starting to fade after growing for several days, and it still hurts like heck. Other than that, things are OK but I am really not sleeping well at all out here.  I try to go to bed at a decent hour and just end up lying awake... jet lag. I will just get used to the 3-hour time difference when we are going home!