Once, years ago, when I hadn’t posted anything to my blog in about 2 weeks, my brother called me to make sure I was still alive. We’re getting close to there now.
Last week Tuesday we left for vacation – right after I had been up against deadlines, deadlines, deadlines – grading, online graduation, starting to get ready for summer classes….
But it must have been a successful vacation, because now that I’m back, as I think about all the work stuff that needs yet to get done, I just don’t give a F. I mean I still care about doing it well, but it’s not keeping me up at night anymore.
I didn’t completely disconnect while we were away. Since it’s before Memorial Day, lots of stuff on the Island wasn’t open yet. We spent most of our time biking, and one afternoon we went and sat outside the library on their wifi for a couple hours and Mark read on his iPad, and I cleaned out email on my laptop. And then as soon as we got back, Friday evening, while Mark was ordering and we were waiting for our pizza, I was right back at again.
Since so many things were closed, we only ate one dinner out on the island. Our first night there we got carry out sandwiches from a bar, where they had a long table blocking the doorway, with menus. You could call from your car and order, or they’d come out and take your order. They hadn’t ordered any liquor yet so I had a ginger ale with my sandwich. Or sandwiches – we got a cheeseburger and what they called a firecracker chicken sandwich, fried chicken with Siracha mayo – and split them.
Everything had to be gotten at the grocery store, beer, food, coffee …
We knew a lot of stuff was closed Wednesdays, so we didn’t even try Red Cup – we went to the grocery store and bought coffee and yogurt and bananas and milk, and food for dinner: a package of Zatarain’s rice mix, sausage to put in it, a box of corn muffin mix, and a bag of greens and some salad dressing. We didn’t buy ice cream; we went home for breakfast and thought maybe after our ride we’d get a milk shake at Albatross but even though the sign on the door said see you in May, they were closed. So, at some point we went back to the grocery store for ice cream and beer.
Thursday we thought we’d have more luck, but we found Island Bread was closed permanently – somehow we didn’t notice even with all our trips to the grocery store right next door – and Red Cup was just not open for the season. The cop we talked to outside confirmed what we had tried to figure out from the Internetz.
We bought chips & salsa and had a Downton Abbey marathon – TV (DVD watching, really) in the middle of the afternoon. And ate the same dinner Thursday night as we’d had Wednesday – rice & beans & cornbread, and ice cream.
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So that’s how I spent my spring vacation.