This morning Lobster Cove feels like Dubai. The air is saturated with humidity and it is hot. Dog days. Only Chicha the dog is happy because she has teenage boys, 10 Greek painters and two Afghans throw the Frisbee for her, all day long.
The Greek painters noisily pushed their ladders up against our windows, a sound that I incorporated easily into my dreams. The dreams included my arm sling as a means of payment or reckoning, how that worked eludes me now but it made totally sense while I was dreaming and even a fraction of a second after I woke up.
We now have a house full of boys which is immediately noticeable because the molecules around us are moving faster. This nicely compensates for my low levels of energy, far below my usual levels and something that makes me feel a little out of sorts.
The new workweek started yesterday and I worked on a few reports which is all I could manage. I guess I have to accept that I am still on sick leave. People ask me if I am busy on handing over old jobs and orienting myself on my new job, but right now I do neither.
At lunch time MP, Said and Wafa arrived to have another look at the ocean. MP told me that Wafa had broken out in song upon seeing the wide ocean as they traversed the Portsmouth Bridge. Apparently it brought back good memories of being at the Iranian shores at some point in this former life of his we know nothing about. Getting the right kind of food for them is still a little tricky; MP learned it cannot be hot and cold together and they prefer hot. So we bought them American Chop Suey at the local supermarket while we non-Afghans had French bread with ham.
Wafa and Said loved playing with Chicha. They are discovering that dogs, far from the despicable creature it is in the Muslim world is actually a wonderful companion and fun playmate. Seeing Wafa in his American clothes throwing a Frisbee filled me with joy. How badly we wanted to see this scene over the past months and how elusive it seemed even as little as 3 weeks ago. But now they are here, at Lobster Cove, imagine that!
At the end of the day we headed for Boston for a gift from Anne and Chuck: a seat at Fenway Park for the Red Sox- Detroit Tigers game. After the difficult theatre performance I had agonized over whether to go or not and was glad I decided to accept the offer. My last Red Sox game some years ago was rather boring, but this game was good: suspense, lots of home runs, seeing some good waves going around the stadium and sushi for dinner. Still the seats were hard and the sling uncomfortable in hot and humid Boston, and so we lasted only through the 7th inning, just when the Tigers were threatening to win.
Together with Anne and Chuck we took a pedicab back to the parking garage on Clarendon, all 750 pounds of us. We did not think the young cyclist could handle the four of us together but he looked us over and said, just like our President, ‘Yes, I can!’ And he could.
We arrived home only minutes after my brother and his two sons, flown in from Amsterdam, one via Reykjavik and the other two via Paris – we all tumbled very tired into our beds, most of us way beyond our usual bedtime.
Sylvia's Journal 
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