On Vacation

How can I be on vacation? Vacation from what? But I feel like last week was indeed a vacation, at least from my [normal] life. My boat partner and her husband, J and J, had their vacation to the Azores aborted at nearly the last minute. We have been in essence podded together this summer, sailing without masks but seeing no-one else but family and store clerks. They live in rural Pennsylvania, beautiful but not so cultured. And so, J and J came and stayed in my lovely basement instead of the Azores, which is almost as nice. It certainly was nice for me!

J had done her homework, and gotten timed tickets to open museums in DC. The African-American History Museum, the newest and everyone’s first choice, was not available. But they got the Portrait Gallery (my favorite) and the American Indian Museum, which I had never been to, and for the day I wasn’t available, the Spy Museum. The best weather day of the week J and I went sailing, while husband J did a major gardening chore for me and worked on his novel and played with my dog. The whole week was the best of fall weather, warm enough to be outside, bright bright sun, not too hot, rated 10-out-of-10 every single day by the Capital Weather Gang in the Washington Post.

It was so nice to be out and about! We spent hours inside the museums, which were not at all crowded and thus felt safe. Husband J had been a middle school teacher and had been on several field trips to the museums, but there was enough change to keep him going, reading every sign on every display. We had drinks and nibbles at a sidewalk cafe one day, deli sandwiches dining outside at the new Eisenhower memorial with J & J’s lovely DC-suburban resident daughter another. Most of the food at home was takeout, where they delighted in our easily available Central American, Ethiopian, and Vietnamese cuisines. I was also pleased to be enjoying so many different flavors not cooked by me.

But I am used to being alone, and I was not displeased to have a day of isolation and solo recovery, before plunging back into my [normal] life. Which is, tbh, isolation most of the time too, and it suits me.