Sylvia's Journal

I am licking my wounds, or welts, rather; huge painful bumps on my neck, arms, legs. They are red, sore and itchy, not your usual mosquito bites; some nasty White Mountain insect that preferred me over everyone else.

We went for a swim in the ocean as soon as we arrived home from the long drive back from Franconia. I don’t swim, one can’t with one arm, but made sure all welts were exposed to the salty seawater. It was as warm as Lobster Cove gets and sitting at the beach I was acutely aware that I am going to be away from this beautiful place for an entire year. Some people wonder why?

I went to bed early, as I am still perpetually sleep deprived. I slept a little better because I had an unlimited number of pillows available and the floor didn’t slope me down the bed as it did the previous two nights. Still, it was hotter than Hades for the third night in a row and the little airco we bought some years ago could not produce enough cold air to justify its name. It does wear me down all this not-so-good-sleeping.

Steve’s the only one up this early because he has to start his new job at Merck’s animal lab in Boston. There is  a new commute to check out and you don’t want to be late on your first day of work.

Reinout and Maurits decided to return to Manchester rather than spend the night in Plattsburgh NY after depositing Michiel (David) at his dorm. Apparently the deal was that they would not walk up with him to see his room and literally drop him off at the entrance. And so dad kept his promise. I don’t think I would have made such a deal if I had deposited my child thousands of miles away in a foreign country. I would have wanted to know where he is going to live for an entire year and who is looking after him. But maybe that is typical girl logic, hardly known by this family of mostly boys.

They arrived back home around 11 PM and, unfortunately, brought back most of the junk food we had sent them off with. It has been a week of indiscriminate eating and grazing and I can feel it. We can do better than that, especially now that our garden is in full production mode: peas, beans, tomatoes, basil, chard, potatoes, raspberries, cucumbers and kale.

I am counting the hours until the next milestone in my shoulder recovery: stitches out – tomorrow morning, just in time for Sita and Jim’s engagement dinner at our house on Tuesday evening.