Just regular folks.

I’m at the dog park this morning with Elka – it’s been so hot and so busy (for me in the morning) this week, that I haven’t been able to take her to the dog park until today and she’s been giving me the side-eye allll week – like life is soooooo boring you folks are so boring, can I see my friends? So we made it here today. It’s totally not as good as New Hampshire with acres of woods and water and dog friends, but it’s the best I can do here in the regulated suburbs. We are certainly not Live Free or Die here in Rockville.

Vince and Dani are on their way to Berlin right now to meet up with Bob – this is his graduation gift to them both. Everyone is very excited, fingers crossed that everyone stays well, I’ve not seen so many people mask traveling in a long time. Bob kind of sheepishly said during our vacation in NH that he couldn’t resist and bought them all tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic on their last night in town. He was kind of worried that they’d be bored? Annoyed at listening to classical music? Jeremy and I said that they would truly would enjoy the world’s premiere orchestra playing in their home performance hall. I wish I could see the Berlin Phil in Berlin! Someday!

Vince sent us his graduate student handbook that he got (I was like – what’s a grad student handbook?) and we looked over it. There are a lot of classes and 2 qualifying exams (which I was relieved to see the format of was and wasn’t anything like mine) and Vince was like – I’m starting to get overwhelmed and I’m like, it’ll be much better once it starts, it’s killer just waiting around for something to start (he’ll start mid-late September).

I was talking to Dani earlier this week (probably the first time I’ve talked to them without Vince on the phone too) and mentioned that I was trying to get in touch with their mother to really thank her and Jeff for moving Vince from Davis to Irvine, but I felt like I was playing phone tag with her (Jeremy also said that I avoid actual voice phone calls which is true)…anyways – literally 12 hours later, Dani’s mom (Loanne) called me and said – I heard that you were trying to get in touch with me? I’m like – Dani told you? Like right after I told her? It’s not that I disapprove or anything, it’s just the speed of communication between parent/ grown child was very impressive. I talk to Vince like once a week and usually, he calls. I thought once a week was impressive. And then I asked Vince, so how often does Dani talk to their mom? And he was like at least twice a day. And then I said – TWICE A DAY? And then he said well…Loanne calls me twice a day. I was like…wha?!!!

So I recounted this story to Jeremy, Edda and Ginny at dinner last night and Jeremy joking said – you are totally jealous. And I said, I’m not jelly. And then I tried to defend myself. And then I said – Ok, maybe I’m a little jelly. Hahaha. OK, I’m only *slightly* jealous. I’m not jealous of the phone calls really, because I hate the phone, I’m mostly jealous that Loanne and Jeff are literally 10 minutes from Vince and Dani and get to see them a lot not on the phone. I do wish I could do that. Not right now. But maybe someday!

For about 3 months now, I’ve been renting clothing from Rent the Runway and it’s been more fun than I thought it would be. This might have been the best dress I rented. I wore it yesterday to a prep meeting for a golf fundraiser for Main Street, to date night and to a choir rehearsal (more on that later). So many compliments and I felt great!

A cute little bow detail on the slight open back. Very fun. And I had all the accessories – red shoes from Rothy’s more than half off from ebay, my red watch and red hot chili pepper earrings gifted from Katherine. My hair is kind of a disaster, no? That’s OK, I never really see the back.

It was our 26th anniversary yesterday and Ginny was kind enough to take Edda out for dinner so Jeremy and I headed out and he dressed up to match me and we had our anniversary dinner at our favorite local Chinese restaurant, then we went to the container store where he bought me a jewelry box and then to Ben and Jerry’s where we played pokemon go and got ice cream cones. A perfect night. Love you sweetie. We make a good team.

Let’s see, I’m sorry I’ve been quiet. Just a long time to get back into a routine. I can’t remember which day we did what, so it’s just going to be what the pictures lead me to be. We went to another archive – The Historical Society of Cheshire County. Again, very interesting and Katherine left a copy of her book about her family with them.

Such nice staff again! A pleasure to meet people who are really into history and their little town.

I did get to paddleboard – Katherine wanted to find a lake that both paddle boarding and doggie rambling could happen, but we could only find lakes which were one or the other. Anyways, we found the paddleboarding lake (no dogs allowed!) and I was the only one to partake of the activity. But it was a lot of fun and I didn’t drag the paddleboard up the eastern seaboard for no reason. PFD (personal floatation device) on!

Edda enjoyed walking around the sand.

And we all enjoyed one of my favorite lunches ever – I do like picnic lunches at a park on a beautiful day after some physical exertion. Notice I’m wearing a Keene State College shirt, I’m repping the local college. Why you may ask? Because I forgot to pack T-shirts and had to go to a thrift store to purchase some. It is not a vacation until Doris forgets to pack an entire category of clothing. Yes, I probably should have a packing list, but I like to live on the edge.

That evening we went to G. Foote’s house – a relative of Katherine’s. He went to MIT and has done well for himself, so he has this enormous, gorgeous house on a hill with 90 acres. The dogs went wild running through the woods, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Elka more happy.

On Friday we drove home. When we began, the AC would not turn on, and we were sweaty and/or grouchy. I’m usually very good at finding a restaurant along our route, but because of traffic, google was rerouting use more than usual and I’d find a place and then it turned out we weren’t driving through that town. And there were a lot of constraints: fast, not a chain, outdoors seating for the dogs and able to see and be near the car to prevent bike theft. But I did triumph and find a place to eat (not this photo, this was at a gas station).

We stayed with Bob and Katherine one night. The dogs did so well on this trip, I was very impressed and they got along swimmingly.

The next day, Jeremy dropped me off at the Philly airport where I flew to Traverse City, MI to hang out with a friend of mine and her husband and child. Jeremy continued on back home to Maryland with Edda and Elka.

Lael who usually lives in Brooklyn has a lovely lakeside home in Traverse City and invited me to spend the weekend up there. I got to know her daughter.

There was also her husband’s sister and boyfriend staying at the house and we had a very nice time at lakes/beaches/in little towns/eating ice cream and taking naps.

I didn’t get home until late on Monday night, and Monday just happened to be the first day of school for Edda. Thank you Jeremy for holding down the fort! It’s taken me a while to get back to my routine, but I’m trying!

After picking us up from the airport, we headed to Keene, NH and settled into our airbnb in the middle of town. It’s an old house, which is both great (old wooden floors and lots of charm walking distance to town) and kind of annoying (poor lighting, oddly shaped bathrooms and way not enough plugs). We had dinner at home – with a first stop at the local ice cream place. I’ve tried pretty hard to not eat too much ice cream and cheese while I’m at home, but when I’m on vacation, it’s all ice cream and cheese. Yum.

I’ve been sidelined from exercising regularly this summer with all my poison ivy drama, but I went for a jog/run on this lovely trail straight from the house and the trail was wide enough so I did not have to touch any plants.

On Monday, we went to Dublin, NH where Katherine and Bob were married and went to the town archives (!) and talked to the archivists (!). We found Bob and Katherine’s wedding certificate and Katherine left her book that she wrote about her family with them.

The archivist kindly opened the old one-room schoolhouse where they were setting up an exhibit. This is a bust of Doris Foote, a relative of Katherine’s.

They also had this old bench from a house in town with famous visitors’ signatures carved into the wood including Mark Twain and Amelia Earhart!

We drove by the house where Bob and Katherine were married.

On Tuesday, we drove to the house owned by Katherine’s grandmother and Katherine spent summers in this house with no bathrooms or electricity. It was sold by Katherine’s family to the parents of the current owner. The current owner was out of town, but told us to come and how to get into the house.

The dogs loved running freely from the property which was about a mile off the main road. Elka, especially, loved playing in the woods and high grass.

Jeremy left Maryland on Thursday afternoon to begin our week-long adventure in the northeast. He left with Elka and our minivan to pick up Bob, Katherine and their two dogs Bunter and Wimsey. Jeremy spent the night in Kimberton with them and then on Friday headed up towards Mt Washington – the highest peak in the NE United States.

Sometimes I think Elka is bored because our house is so quiet. Without little kids, it’s very staid. It’s nice to see her so excited to go on this adventure with us.

Mt Washington is famous for having very dangerous weather and has the highest recorded wind speed (over 200 mph) not in a tornado/typhoon. It can be quite cold – even in August. So once a year, they close it to traffic and hold a bike race straight up the mountain – about 7 miles at steady grades of 16-20 %.

He is a crazy person. With all these other crazy people. He did make it to the top of the mountain without stopping – which was his main goal. It was neither cold nor windy.

Then they spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the area and walking the doggies.

They had ice cream. So they ordered pup pops for the doggies which turned out to be two scoops of regular vanilla ice cream with a couple of dog treats in them! I was surprised because usually pup pops are made without sugar which is bad for dogs and for people too! But Elka ate her two scoops without complaining.

Then Edda and I on Sunday, took a flight from DC to Manchester NH where Jeremy and company picked us up and tried to fit two more people plus luggage (wheelchair) into the van. The paddleboard had to go on top – it’s larger than I thought it would be. (Katherine said she wanted to go see lakes that dogs could swim at – hence the paddleboard). I think I dropped the fuel economy down at least 15%. So I better go paddleboarding at least once.

Even though Elka is older and bigger than the other two dogs, the smaller dogs are alpha to Elka and took her bed as their own. So Elka had to squish between two humans. haha.

The granite people came today and did such a fantastic job shaving off about 3/4 of an inch of granite in the hole and helped us slide in the stovetop. And afterwards, Jeremy connected the 220 V to it (with some texting help from our electrician who assured us that we could attach it ourselves and if we had any questions to ask him and, of course, we had questions (what does the white wire do?)). And we inaugurated it by boiling a pan of water!

So hooray for us! We installed it ourselves (kind of)- with help from the electrician, plumber and stone folks. Haha, so hardly ourselves, but as Jeremy said, we were the general contractors. And now, one fewer gas appliance. As we slowly wean ourselves off of gas (both natural and automotive) and towards electric.

And, also yes, our stove has an app. And is wifi/bluetooth enabled. wtf? really.

OMG, I’m slowly recovering from the secondary rash from my second bout of poison ivy this summer. I’m not completely itch-free, but I’m like firmly on the less itchy side of recovery. When you are in the middle of being sick or unwell, you kind of forget how good you feel when you are well. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now, the grass needs trimming and I’m afraid of the outdoors. lol. It will have to happen.

Jeremy is beside himself. We have ants in the kitchen. I hate summer. Bugs, itchy, the grass grows, the schedule is whack, it’s hot, blah blah blah.

Jeremy spent Sunday morning on his bike. He’s in good shape, ready for his race this weekend. Fingers crossed he doesn’t get sick (so many people with Covid are running around (literally)) and his saddle sores don’t get the best of him.

After we got home from Long Island at 4 pm on Thursday, I went immediately to urgent care. This has been a terrible summer skin-wise. My 2nd bout of poison ivy was held in check during my 12 day course of steroids, but it wasn’t completely gone by the time I had tapered off about a week ago. I just assumed that it would clear slowly now that it wasn’t very bad. But instead, it seemed to take its time to go away and at the same time morph into little red dots all over my body which were like 40x itchier than the actual poison ivy itself. I was pretty miserable on the ride home from Long Island and when I headed into urgent care, the doc took one look at me and said – I’ll give you a third course of steroids, but you can’t take any more after this and you need to see a dermatologist. And whatever you do don’t scratch. And I realized he was right, all the raised, angry areas were due to my scratching. The actual itchy parts were tiny little pustules randomly all over my body. (I did momentarily think that I got bitten by bed bugs, but the itchiness was the worst closest to the poison ivy and radiated out from there all the way to my back, abdomen, groin and upper legs, nothing on my ankles or lower legs which were the only uncovered parts while I was sleeping.) He, depressingly, told me that the steroids probably wouldn’t clear it and it could last for months and it needed more targeted care. Jeremy has a dermatologist that he likes, but she schedules appointments two months out and I completely was beside myself thinking that I would be so itchy for months and months. And it’s true, the steroids do not do anything to this secondary reaction and on Friday and Saturday – Jeremy asked me, so what’s your plan today? And I said, I plan to concentrate my efforts on not scratching. And I did accomplish this – I didn’t scratch for two days even though I was out of my mind with itchiness. I took baths, Benadryl, the useless steroids, I bought all the different anti-itch creams from CVS and slathered away. I even read articles about turning my scratching hand into my healing hand and concentrating healing vibes into my hands and then rubbing it on my itchy areas instead of scratching. Gah, such woo woo crap. But whatever, I did what I could. But I think I can say finally this morning, all the raise streaks of itchiness hell are subsiding today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still itchy, just like 40% less itchy than yesterday. OMG. My poor body, so confused and overreacting. I’m like – please chill out, I’m ok. totally ok, you don’t need to send the army of histamines willy nilly all over.

I’ll write a few more little stories from our trip to Long Island. So, because I wanted to keep the trip affordable and funny, I did book this RV on airbnb and it was perfect, funny and cheap and totally fine – it has hundreds of happy reviewers on the website and I left a five-star review as well. And it was like 10 minutes from everything we wanted to see. Anyways, towards the end of the visit at the fire department (which was happy and lasted like an hour), one of the firemen asked us where we were staying. And I mentioned that we were staying in an RV in Brentwood. And then he kind of turned his head and said – oh, you are staying in the hood. And then Megan asked, what is your definition of “hood”? Clearly, we have different definitions of being in the hood. We’ve been laughing at this for days now.

Megan is also very well trained in claw prize machines. She studies youtube videos about this craft and I watched her win this teddy bear. You usually can’t win with only one try because you need the first try to gather information about the machine and the objects in the bin. And you can’t decide what you want and go for it, you have to figure out which one is possible to grab and then tailor your attempts towards that. This bear cost $15 worth of tries. I was impressed.

I took the last three days off and traveled with Megan to Hauppauge, NY in the middle of Long Island. We were there as sort of a pilgrimage for her father (who recently passed away) and see her family’s lore. We drove up on Tuesday, we stayed in an RV (airbnb) parked in someone’s driveway, toured on Wednesday, and drove home on Thursday. It was so amazingly successful, I’m happy I got invited to go.

First stop, the all-volunteer fire station where Megan’s paternal grandfather was active for many, many years. We just happened to bump into an ex-chief in the parking lot who knew all the Millers and happily gave us a exhaustive tour of all the memorabilia.

They lovingly maintain this old fire truck for parades and nice days.

We then went by the house where her dad grew up. It’s abandoned and rumored to have been bought by a dentist. We were poking around, when from across the parking lot came a dentist in full scrubs and the light on her head and she scolded us for being on the property and sure enough, it was the dentist and she softened upon learning about Megan’s connection to the house. We talked to her a bit as she was probably leaving a patient with their mouth open with Mr. Thirsty hanging.

This Carvel location featured prominently in Megan’s childhood, as they always drove by and commented on it, but never stopped for ice cream. We stopped for ice cream.

Megan’s grandfather was the superintendent of schools in the town, so we stopped by the high school and found this plaque which Megan has heard so much about, but has never seen it before. This was a great find.

Finally, we went to the library where there was a Myron Miller archives with old photos, clippings, handwritten letters and a very enthusiastic librarian who had collected and cataloged it all. It was super impressive (the little one is Megan’s father). Megan carefully went through the clippings and I took a nap in a leather chair.

Finally, in the morning before we hit the road, we (shhhh…) buried some of Megan’s dad’s ashes between the gravestone of his father and uncle. Megan had been carrying the ashes in her purse, so, you know, he kind of got to visit all the locations with us while we tooled around town.

I had such a wonderful time touring this little town and meeting various folks enthusiastic about their jobs and happy to share what history they could. We also ate at a lot of diners!