Ooooookay!

Back from New York. My pops had his laptop, so I did some bloggin' on the trip. Not too much excitement, but here you go. (Typos are blamed strictly on the laptop keyboard).

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Day 1

Upstate New York

When I was a wee lad, my grandparents owned a cabin on a small like in
Upstate New York. My family used to come out for summers pretty frequently, and
stay for a week or so. It was during these summers that I learned to waterski,
fish, windsurf, etc. Days were spent swimming and having fun, and evenings
were spent outside, having some hors d'oevres and sitting watching the lake,
and maybe going for an evening boatride. It was all great, and I have many
happy memories of this cabin on the lake.

My grandparents had to sell the cabin when they were too old to take care of
it. It was unfortunate that we couldn't keep it in the family, but it just
wasn't practical.

When my grandfather died in the early 90's, some members of my family (I
wasn't able to attend) brought his ashes here for.... submersion (I'm having
problems with a proper verb). They sank his ashes in the middle of the lake out
in front of the cabin.

My grandmother died quite a few years later (a few years ago from now), and
her ashes have been in the posession of my aunt. But not for long.

The true reason for our little trip out here is to (verb problems again)
submerge her ashes out in the lake with my grandfathers. I haven't heard any
tell of the plans for this yet. In spite of that somber sounding motive, mostly
the trip is a reunion and nostalgia-fest. My aunt was able to rent the same
cottage that my grandparents owned so many years back, and here we all are.

It's amazing to see what's the same and what is different. The last time I
was here was about 14 years ago. The summer of 1990. I had just finished my
freshman year of high school, and my special ordered letterman's jacket had
just arrived. Since I'd been at camp all summer, my mom brought it from home
and I got to first wear it here. Very proud. I'm not sure if I knew at that
time that I wouldn't be back for 14 years, but my mom (who probably knew)
took a nice video of life at the lake.

And now we're back. It's me, my parents, Dave and Elaine and little Ben, and
my aunt. We flew yesterday from San Diego to Baltimore, and Dave and Elaine
and Ben came to visit during our stopover. We had lunch. I had a crabcake
sammich. I like crabcake sammiches.

We then flew to Buffalo, hopped in a rental car, and drove through the
leftovers of Francis for a couple hours to the lake. We met my aunt who was
already here, had some food, and headed to bed.

This morning, in the daylight, I was able to give the cabin a little closer
inspection. It's a lot smaller than I remember, but generally looks and
smells the same. Really fun to walk around and check everything out.

Dave and Elaine and Ben showed up in the midmorning after waking up at 3am
and driving out from B'more. We greeted them and hung out for a bit. Then mom
drove me and Dad to a nearby marina where we'd reserved a boat for rental.
It had been raining all the night before, but it was only overcast in the
morning. We got the boat, and while mom drove home, we boated home. It was
during this time when the rain came back, and by the time we got back to the
cabin, it was coming down pretty hard. I managed to park the boat in spite of
the wind and current (for which I was proud), and we headed in.

After lunch, the rain and wind had died down, and my brother was pretty
excited to do some skiing. The boys headed out on the boat with nervous
anticipation. My brother went first, trying in vain to get up on one ski, before
finally giving up and getting up on two. He then tried to drop one ski, and
lasted about 20 good seconds on one foot, the other flailing around before
finally bailing out. Good times.

My dad next went. He tried only once to get up on one ski before throwing in
the towel. He did, however, get up easily on two, and successfully drop one
and did quite well on one ski. I was proud.

I tried in vain (see a pattern here?) to get up on one ski. Close, but just
didn't make it. I did get up on two, and dropped one (close call), and did
ok on one. With a little more practice, I think I could do the zig-zag across
the wake thing. Good times.

It was cold, so we came back after just a short time. I took a little nap,
and now we're having some pre-dinner drinks. Not a bad day.

There's been quite a bit of Ben watching today, which is a lot of fun. He's
a really good-tempered little guy, and lots of fun to interact with.

Tonight, we may take a traditional sunset boat trip. It's still cloudy out,
but looking bright. I'm hoping the sun will come. That would make skiing a
bit more fun.

I saw a fish off the end of the dock. But there's not a pole to be seen!
Unbelievable.

No internet access (I'm typing this is Notepad). I'm not quite sure how I'm
going to manage for the next few days. Hrm.

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Day 2

I got a migraine last night.

I was in bed, reading my book, and all of a sudden, I noticed that I couldn't
really see the lower left corner of the letter I was looking at. I started
looking more closely at things, and within a minute, noted that I couldn't see
the left half of the letter. I had a small blind spot that was growing to my
left.

Ugh. Bad sinking feeling.

I took my meds. 50mg of Imitrex and some other triple cocktail of caffeine
and pain reliever. It worked pretty well, but not perfectly. The blind spot
lasted around half and hour, and then went away. The headache is supposed to
start at this point, but never really came.

Just as I was feeling pretty good, I started to get a headache. A squeezing,
burning feeling all through the right side of my dome. Not too terrible,
maybe a 35 on a scale of 0 (no pain) to 100 (suicidal pain). After a little
while, I took another pain med and soon after was able to fall asleep.

Today, however, I'm in a post-migraine fog. Kind of like a hangover, I just
feel a bit out of it. Not too bad, though.

This morning, I slept in pretty late, which was nice. Dave and Elaine showed
up at some early hour, and I came out to some actual sun out on the porch,
which was great.

We sat around for a little, and then headed out for some post-breakkie,
pre-lunch skiing. Repeat of yesterday, with lots of failing to get up on one ski
but successful dropping from two to one. I, however, was able to get up on
one ski not only once but twice. Very proud.

We headed back in for a nice lunch where we opened some presents for my aunt
and some for Ben's 6 month birthday, and some assorted other gifts.

After lunch, we took my grandmothers ashes and headed out to the middle of
the lake. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but when we got out there,
without a whole lot of ceremony, we lowered the plastic container into the water.
It became immediately clear that the plastic container had air in it, and was
floating. We broke the seal and loosened the top (the ashes were in a
plastic bag inside), and that did the trick. In no time at all, they were out of
sight.

We sat out there in the middle of the lake for a few minutes. We all agree
that this was really exactly what she would have wanted, and how nice it was
for us all to be together, just having shared a nice lunch outside in such a
beautiful place. Inside, I completely agreed. At that moment, there was
really nothing I knew more than that this was the Right Thing to be Doing. It's
what we wanted, and there was no doubt it's where she wanted to be.

My mom held back a few tears. Everyone else was generally quietly
thoughtful. Little Ben was experiencing his second boat trip ever, and was very
agreeable as usual.

We took a little trip to the end of the bluff, and headed back.

This afternoon has been quiet. I convinced my dad to get the computer
online, but it was so damn slow to really do anything. I saw a message from my
love labelled "Babester", but I never got to read it. I will give her a call
tonight.

We just did a late afternoon skiing run. My father was able to get up on one
ski. I told him of my wedgie technique, and that may have been the deciding
factor. The problem I was having was that the legholes of my shorts would
catch a huge amount of water and create a lot of drag. I found that if I
pulled my shorts way up in the back, it reduced the drag a lot. Anyhoo, my dad
was able to get up, which was exciting. My brother gave it a couple of great
tries, but was never successful. He's not so much fat, but he's definitely a
big body.

And now, some hors d'ouvres and dinner. I'd like to try to get online again
tonight, write and email or two, and check my fantasy football stuff. Not
sure if I'll be able to, but we'll see.

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Day 3

This morning, I slept in nice and late again, after staying up reading
"Positively 5th Street". I'm not liking it as much as I'd hoped (not enough poker,
too much murder stuff), but it's interesting enough.

This morning, as usual, we headed out for some more waterskiing. Good stuff.
Back for lunch, then a nice walk to a decent viewpoint.

It's amazing how beautiful it is here. Green, rolling hills leading down
into a lake in the valley. Lots of quaint little lakefront cottages and boats
and stuff. The blue water and green trees and blue sky are quite striking. I
really hope that we can come back here someday, and from the look of things,
I think it will probably happen.

We returned the boat this afternoon, doing a little more skiing up to the
marina. By this point our skiing muscles were a little worn out, so there were
no spectacular feats of magic.

Now we're back, enjoying the evening and having a drink on the porch.
Tonight we'll have our final dinner together, and say goodbye to Dave and Elaine
and little Ben. I continue to be impressed at what an agreeable and cute
little guy he is. He whines when he's upset, but I have yet to hear him really
cry. Amazing.

It's been nice to hang out with Jocelyn, as well. Living in Boston, I don't
get a chance to see her very often, and it's nice to see her. I know she's
eager to have Diana and me come out to visit, and I'm sure we will sometime,
but it just hasn't been a good time yet.

Tomorrow morning, we're up at 7am to drive to Buffalo for a flight. We have
one stop on our flight to San Diego, but it's unclear where that stop is,
exactly. It might be back east in Baltimore, a la the way out here, but
hopefully it's somewhere along the way. We should get into San Diego around 2pm,
which will be nice.

It's really too bad that Diana couldn't be here. Not only is it a beautiful
place and I think she'd enjoy being here, but I have so many stories and
memories associated that I believe really make me the person that I am, and I think
she'd enjoy seeing the place where a lot of my childhood happened. My mom is
already talking about the next time we're here, and making sure it's a time
she can come, so I'm sure it will happen sometime in the not-to-distant future. Here's hoping.