A weekend retreat in New Hampshire

3 days of clouds, conversation and hot cocoa in New Hampshire with Ilana and her family, and I feel refreshed. This is a good thing, as I'll spend the next two days frantically getting ready for a vacation in Seattle/Alaska. I have decided I am meant to be a woman of leisure, only without the seemingly requisite utter lack of personality.

Ilana has kindly documented my stay on her blog, so I needn't bother. Please see:

http://ilanadann.blogspot.com/2005/06/home-is.html

Of course, her photos don't capture the hours we have happily spent computing side by side, playing with our blogs. I used to make fun of my brother for his computer gaming parties in the garage in high school, but now I am just as guilty. But, it is a good thing to be with a friend who loves words and stories as much as you do, and has an incessant a need to express herself. At a family dinner, another of Ilana's friends kept getting boxed out of the conversation, and Ilana's mother instructed him that he had to wait for someone to take a breath, and dive in. This is good advice. I imagine spending lots of time with loquacious and opinionated people has made me a fast talker and conversational elbow jostler, just like children from large families learn to eat quickly to secure choice and multiple portions at mealtimes.

Tonight I fly back to Philadelphia, to a disastrous mess of an apartment, 5 pissed off cats, a mile-long To Do list, and a few scattered social engagements for the next 48 hours. Good lord. But then I will be on my way to the great Pacific Northwest, where I will wear inappropriate footwear and get eaten by a bear. I just know it.