Back to normal

The household is back to its normal trinitarian state now: father, son, and holy spirit. Just kidding. But in truth, Natalie is safely in Rome, having spent a world-class evening and day with my friend Eric as she recovered from jet lag, and Mary is home from New York. The latter is particularly good, as we have spent too much time apart this spring. Between my trip out West, going to Mexico with mom, my week in the Northeast, and now her week up there with her mom, we have spent a full month apart out of the last three. Which is fine, but a lot.

I am happy not to be going to work today. I suppose I'm particularly tired out from spending a week not just primary breadwinning, but also being responsible for all meal planning and execution as well as carting Graham to things (fortunately not so many) and also scooping the cat box. We gotta get Graham on that. And then, in the end, putting Natalie on a plane, which was not particularly hard work, but it's always bittersweet saying goodbye and sending her off on her next adventure.

But now, it's time to put on the lake manager hat. My neighbor and partner in lake crime prevention John and I have a date to meet on the dam and "exercise the valves", something we are supposed to do annually but didn't get done last year because we were too helter skelter, in our own lazy Southern way, to get organized to do it.