The Vacation is Working

I wondered how relaxing it would be to be with my thoroughly-on-vacation guys while I tried to balance a bit of beach time with 6 or 7 hours of class prep time each day. Surprisingly, it has been incredibly relaxing. I suspect that at least part of the reason (besides the wonderful view) is that when I'm not working, I'm not working: no cooking (Barnacle Boy has been getting up at 6:15 and going to the bakery for my lemon buns); no laundry (towel and bathing suits get dried, that's it); no tidying (and it looks it, abandoned soda cans are scattered hither and yon). So there is time for an afternoon swim in the waves, to walk 5 miles along the waves, to sit on the deck and write and still sleep 8 hours a night. There's a lesson here somewhere...

The view from vacation

I returned from my chemistry meeting Thursday afternoon, went into my office Friday, then left early this morning to come spend some time on the Jersey shore. One week left (and a bit) before classes begin and I'm excited to be having some low key time off. Retreat was time away, and a respite, and there have been family visits of all sorts, but this is time with just my boys (all three!) in a place we go often enough to have worn grooves. No need to think, we can just settle into the rythym of it all.

Right now I'm sitting on the deck watching the waves, the view is amazing, but it does come with the occasional wart - as you can see! We're staying on an island, essentially a large sandbar. Beach erosion is evident this year - the high tide is nearly to the boardwalk. The gradual erosion of older homes is also evident. Every year we see small family cottages replaced by enormous shore homes. Even the little Catholic church down the street, which dates to the late 1880s, is accomodating the new age, with an electronic ticker sign on the corner advertising Mass times.

Goals for the week: walk morning and evening, play silly games in the waves with the boys, eat lemon buns from the bakery with my morning tea, and...sigh...prep to teach next week (but this beats my office by far).

Pocket Guide to WMD

I spent the last week at my professional society's national meeting. There is always a huge exposition along with these meetings - hundreds of vendors peddling their wares, loads of tsotchkes to bring home to Crash and the Boy (lobster lollipops got best of show in my book). This year, the FBI had a booth - hoping to recruit chemists. A couple of my students have gone to work in forensics - real life CSI - so I thought I'd see if there was any good information I could bring back to put up on the career bulletin board. I picked up the basic info, then spotted the brochure: A Pocket Guide to WMD

A Pocket Guide to WMD? Does the generally public really need to have in their pockets a guide to identifying weapons of mass destruction? or listing the associated laws? (Yes, it is illegal to produce, obtain, possess, demonstrate, or teach others to make weapons of mass destruction.) My favorite part of the guide shows the standard warning symbols for biohazards, nuclear materials, and flammable or explosive chemicals, advising us to be able to recognize these symbols. In bold print, it goes on, however, to warn that we should "not expect to see them on a WMD device".

Interestingly, the brochure didn't provide any information about identifying actual devices, like the guides to identifying energy ship sillouettes from WW II, just broad definitions. ("Any weapon involving a disease organism.") The brochure itself seemed to me to be an incendiary device, the sole purpose to suggest we be ever vigilant for we know not what.

Urban Sophisticates

Crash is at a week-long writing camp in the city called a Plop and a Plunk - run by his quirky, but inspiring 7th grade language arts teacher. How inspiring? My child - who historically loves to read, hates to write - begged us to rearrange vacation plans so that he could go to this camp and...write?!

He and his fellow campers climbed onto the local train yesterday afternoon (sans parents), headed for the big city for the first day of their big adventure. They met with a photographer to talk about her work, then went to a local cafe to talk and write. It's been rainy and unseasonably cold, so I figured Crash would have gotten hot chocolate, which he did. He reported that his buddy Wild Man ordered a cappuccino. Such sophistication! (Though most of this group considered ordering something caffeinated "risky behavior"...)

Today they are going to the Rosenbach museum to see Bram Stoker's brainstorming notes for Dracula. Wish I were there!

A Fine Cup of Tea

A riddle, what does a Best Western motel have that the Ritz Carlton does not?

The answer - a great cup of tea. Or at least a microwave in the room so that water may be brought to the boil for said cup of tea. It was rainy and damp in Mystic, CT yesterday and the tea was a welcome start to breakfast, even if it had to be in a styrofoam cup. Last spring, at a conference held at a Ritz, the room had note inviting you to have a fine cup of tea. Made with water below the boiling point, in a carafe covered with coffee oil. Not hardly!

No tea is my travel penance; so I'm glad in this month of being "on the road" to have had at least one wonderful cup.