Stay Awaycation

I know that when the harassing emails from my sister begin arriving, it's time to tend my blog. You see, after the tree fell out of the clear blue sky last week, I said, "My vacation starts now," and I fled to the mountain house with the kids. On Saturday, Matt's entire family joined us. Matt came too. Now we are having a week-long mountainpalooza. I sorta forgot to mention it to you guys. There's no internet at this house, so I was going into town to blog but then I got distracted by a nail salon, and I got my toenails done. Later my mother-in-law said the color looks like leprosy. She's not really wrong. (Essie's Chinchilly, if you're interested.) It was cuter in the bottle.

So as you can see, that was a lot to deal with.

Otherwise it's been so relaxing that it is almost unnarratable. But I never let that stop me, do I? So here are some things that have happened:

I finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. You know, I read the second and third book in that trilogy with enjoyment, but I think they could have been way tighter. The first one is really the only one I'd recommend, I think. I loved all the Swedish stuff though--gender equality and hopping on and off the tunnelbana.

I also read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. That was good, I read it in two evenings.

The boys (Matt and his two brothers) got smashed in the hot tub drinking Malibu Rum with pineapple juice. So macho, I love it. I had some myself. I don't remember the last time I drank Malibu rum.

I am also cross stitching. What? Yes. I am a stranger even to myself.

We went on a family tubing excursion at Deep Creek, just inside the national park. Awesome as usual. Hank's tube was, once again, bungeed to mine. He actually fell asleep in his tube as we floated down the creek. Imagine feeling able to do that, to just conk out in the middle of a river, in a small flotation device.

We went out for dinner last night and all ordered drinks and only Matt got carded. Odd.

And when the hostess was seating us in this little private room, we asked if she could turn up the air conditioning. While explaining that she didn't yet know how to work the machine (it's a new place), she said, "Actually you guys are breaking the cherry on this room." She said that in front of our four kids. My sister-in-law Robin and I turned and looked at each other with identical OMG faces. Laura goes, "What did we break?" And we said, "Nothing! She just means we're the first to be in here. We didn't really break anything, she's teasing!" Afterwards I wondered whether that hostess really knows the origin and meaning of that expression.

We are playing competitive Boggle on Robin's ipad.

That is really all there is to report. I am obviously a terrible blog citizen this week, as the only internet our various iDevices can find up here is the non-3G "Edge" network. You know that when you see that little "E," you better also be reading a magazine while waiting for your webpage to load. Once I even saw a little "O" up in the corner of my phone. I don't know what network that is. I think it stands for "Oh My God, stay right where you are and we'll come rescue you!"

I'll be back around to catch up with all of you next week. Muchas smooches.