Travelin'

Second day of the great college road trip. Haven't hit any colleges yet. Right now, we're at a hotel about ten miles from my cousin's house where we went last night for a party. It was a birthday party for the (I think) one year old grandson who is the latest to arrive. I am always a little bit in awe when I see the crop of kids that have arrived in my family. At last count, I think it's two girls who are about 5, one who's about six, and the newest arrival. One of them is the granddaughter of my cousin Katherine, who died several years ago. I remember her and me playing together when we were about, oh, eight or so, thinking about how old our grandparents were, and how easy it was to trick them. And now I'm looking into the other end of that telescope.... strange feeling. But I'm glad to see those kids.

And I got to play with a Power Mac laptop and an iPad. Damn, but those things are seductive. I like Windows 7, like being able to tinker with the innards and all that, and lord knows Win7 works a hell of a lot better than XP (we don't talk about Vista, there you go) -- but man. Even silly little things like the keys are outlined in light on the Power Mac? Really? Must be great typing in the dark....which of course I do...um..never. And you can just flick through all your photos, which I do...rarely. Even so. They're just so fun, both of them.

It's raining here today. I don't know (haven't looked, because what's the point) if it's going to be raining for the entire drive up to Vermont, but I'm thinking that it's a good thing we have pretty much the whole day to get up there. Yesterday we encountered, once again, the tendency (what do you call a tendency when it's every damn time?) of the GPS to want to lead us directly into the heart of the city, when we wanted to go around the edges? Also encountered a major traffic delay on the approach to the George Washington Bridge -- we lost about an hour, just idling slowly along there. Every time I come to or through New York, I think I used to live around here? Never again.

Well, except to see my relatives. I've mentioned that the French people treated us better than even my own relatives. That's pretty much true. But last night, seeing those kids, and seeing my cousins (perhaps not so much the guy one of them married - talking about France, he stated that they of course have a Muslim problem) -- well, it was pretty nice. It was no wonderful small town in France, but it wasn't bad at all. Plus, they invited us for Le Petit Dejeuner this morning. As it happens, French Toast.

How appropriate!