I was completely oblivious to MPR's arrival late that night, but again I woke absurdly early, a bodily manifestation of stress. I got to witness one of their Who's on First routines before we all left for work or errands or breakfast with RJH in Willi (me). I tore myself away from that gabfest well in time to get to Old Lyme before my mother's noon lunch period. She was unavailable, so I took myself back to the beach for another flawless afternoon. I made almost no progress with Goldbug Variations because it was much more important to watch the waves. The wind was strong enough that I avoided swimming for fear of freezing to death after I got out, but then I saw an older man splash in. If he could do it, I could, and so I did. It was, of course, wonderful and bracing and restorative, and when I got out I froze and put on my fleece and lay in the sun.
The first call I had made on Thursday was to TJZD, because she lives way the hell west, opposite to Boston. If I might have risked a return to Old Lyme, no way would I venture to Fairfield County. CLH specifically commanded me to go visit her, and I did. Perhaps I would have reinstated UncasCon if also specifically instructed? Anyway. The drive down was fine except just east of New Haven, where construction jammed traffic. I had water, patience, loud music, and an automatic transmission, so I was fine.
I saw pictures of Soulmate as a little boy where he looks exactly like RED. When I complimented Soulmate on RED's charming adventuresomeness and winning grin, he said it was mostly to TJZD's credit. But I had seen photographs and even a chalk painting, and he had a lot to do with this baby. The five of us, the three adults and the baby and the dog, walked to the playground of a nearby school, where we accidentally crashed the back-to-school picnic, and then another grouping, TJZD and I and her 13-year-old neighbor and her best friend, went to a carnival at her school, with cheap rides and rip-off games and a white elephant sale. We sent the girls off to ride nauseating rides and laughed at ourselves when we realized we would rather spend our time at the tag sale.
True to all church white elephant sales, the scariest things in the world lurked in wait. The most disturbing was a foot-high statuette of a child who looked like a Precious Moments reject and had entirely black, glass eyes, like Charles Wallace's on Camazotz (except black, not blue), like spice-eaters of Dune (more appropriate than Camazotz, because it was the whole eye), like Quint's description of a shark's eyes, "black, lifeless, like a doll's eyes." When we returned later to show it to the girls, someone had actually faced the hideous thing to the wall of the tent, which we should have thought to do. Yeah. So instead of riding rides (but I have never liked rides with spinning within spinning, even before I became such a grown-up), we mocked tchotchkes. We're old.
Not so old that I couldn't talk books with the girls. The neighbor had a bearded dragon, so we could talk about Holes; and she was about to start Walk Two Moons, which I praised possibly more highly than Holes; and the younger's mother was pregnant with her when the mothers met at the older's baby shower, so I told them about Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; and one talked about a principal's unfairness and plus they were best friends, so I recommended Bad Girls.