Reading: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children, though not noticeably

Water: rain

15 June 2002: Bs

Saturday did not start very well. It rained, and while my sister might have understood the pull of the lake on a fine day, she didn't understand the pull of a goddaughter on a wet day. Also, that pull wasn't as magnetic as it could have been, because leaving her apartment, I did some stupid damn thing that didn't put me onto Storrow Drive. I was on something or other called River Way in Brookline, and I figured that would lead me to Route 1, 2, or 128, or Storrow Drive, or something useful. Nonesuch. Also I was punishing myself and couldn't be arsed to reach into the backseat for one of my six tapes, all of which I now hated. Naturally the radio had no reception, the gas stations neither English nor maps, and eventually I decided that this route I was on (109, for those keeping track) was pretty and would eventually lead somewhere.

Three hours altogether, and I was in Storrs. Remember it took me half that time a week before. I came into Charenton the back way, which I've driven either never at all or at least never alone and not in ten years. I fled into the house to find everyone just sitting down to lunch (it was 2:00) and flung myself into the arms of the nearest person insisting I would never ever ever ever leave again.

Especially with those babies around. There's a limit to how many times I'll show my own mug, so here is Emlet with me and Red with only my arm. I never felt like I got to know Red, maybe because he was only seven weeks old? Maybe because I didn't make the effort.

Until that evening, when we were all invited to the Beasts for supper. I don't even remember what happened that afternoon. Conversation and hot-tubbing and gradually getting the monotony of the drive out of my brain, I suppose. Whither that sense of direction, anyway? Off with the ability to play cribbage and the Goodnight Moon Game, apparently. Considering I didn't know where I was and didn't have a map, I did fairly well (I discovered later, through MapQuest). Chez Beast, I got to show SPG the Beasts' river, and we made the baby laugh and laugh, and the food was of course delicious. It was a good time.