Engagement

A whirlwind weekend – I’m still tired from it. In a few sentences, we drove down to Baltimore (about 180 miles, three hours driving time) immediately after feeding the girls Friday night, checked into a hotel, got the little ones asleep, fell asleep ourselves. Wife worked on Saturday down there, dragging us in tow to a couple of malls. Went to my sister-in-law’s wedding engagement party, quite to ritzy vogue affair, seven to eleven pm. Returned the following morning for a pool party, headed back up north around three. Arrived at seven, unpacked, got girls fed/showered/in bed. Enjoyed a few beers together and a burrito and then the wife and I passed out.

That’s the ephemera.

Me, I read half of a Civil War trivia book and finally – finally! – got an inkling of how I can parlay all this War-’tween-the-States stuff into a novel. Also read about a third of a slim Andre Norton paperback. Didn’t get but a fifth of the required solitude Hopper needs to survive, so that’ll all be forthcoming throughout the week. Starting with tonight.

I did have fun at the party, particularly seeing my four-year-old manifest herself for the first time as a dancing party animal. Funny, and, truthfully, a tiny bit disturbing. I still think she’ll be the one I’m going to be handing over to the church as she joins a convent, a certainty to which my wife simply laughs hysterically. I merely say that the greatest saints were often the greatest sinners. Patch, the female Jim Morrison of four-year-olds.