Such a lonely blog

Sitting here all by itself waiting for someone to post. But this someone has been busy so the blog suffered. It was a week of friends and fun. Lisa and her two daughters, age 17 and 19, were up from Michigan and our friend Kimberly from NY joined us for part of the festivities which included hiking, eating out, working out, eating out, hiking, eating out, and shopping. Oh, and eating out. Lisa did a nice long post about their time here so I'm not going to go into detail but I do have some miscellaneous thoughts I can express through dots.

• Thunder, lightning, and heavy rain are absolutely no fun when you're at the saddle of Camels Hump.


• Having dry clothes in the car for the afterhike is a godsend.
• I still don't like shopping.
• There is a part of me with the maturity level of a 17 year old girl. I found myself doing covert hand and body signals to amuse both the 17 year old and myself.
• But I still wouldn't have let the 17 year old go on a date in an unfamiliar town with an unfamiliar boy even though she thought I would have. Hey, I'm a mother!
• At 9pm on the way out the door to go out for dinner, Sam asked if he could sit next to Lisa. It was heartbreaking to tell him that he wasn't coming with us, that he was staying home to go to bed.
• Kids remember everything and set their expectations by past experiences. Sam asked me "Is it OK for me to ask Lisa for trains?" while they were here. This is because last year she stayed with us and gave him a train and a train DVD every day she was here.

And an unrelated thought....Sam was looking at our fat cat and told me "Mo is very fat so soon she'll be tall!" What? He went on to tell me that after you're fat you get tall. Interesting. Estimate your current height based on his standards.

And another very unrelated thought. Ben needs to have some very minor surgery today. Or maybe not. Therein lies the problem. He needs to have a cyst removed from his back so he scheduled the removal for this afternoon. The doctor's office sent him some information about the surgery that he didn't read and apparently couldn't produce for me to read either. Current mysteries, again expressed through dots:

• Will the cyst be removed or is this a consultation?
• If the cyst is to be removed, will he be able to drive or will I need to pick him up?
• Will the surgery go on past the time we're supposed to pick up Sam at daycare? You know, just in case we need to find someone to pick him up for us.
• And the biggie? Where is this surgery/consultation going to occur?

And he wonders why I get frustrated with him sometimes.