"Go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell"
- Sam Philips (Sun Records) to a gospel-singing Johnny Cash
Right, so: I'm back in Chicago after a month on the Island. If it was weird to go back for so long, it's just as weird to be back after so long. Or at least it seemed so when I got here. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
First, there was Family Week, which is a tradition of a few years where my immediate family gets together for a week in the Summer without any holiday or other constraints imposed on us. One year we went to Cape Cod, and there's persistent talk about going on an Alaskan cruise, but this year we all were on the Island, doing Island things: for instance, eating the best sweet corn in the world from Harbe's Farmstand out on the North Fork; or just walking around Manhattan and deciding against going to the Museum of Television and Radio (all viewing booths were reserved); or going out to a Fire Island beach (which included a walk in the woods, a West Nile virus warning, and a lost child). There was a lot of food, a few movies (I liked Winged Migration better than March of the Penguins, but ultimately I felt like both were sort of bloated versions of PBS shows), and a surprising amount of Sudoku.
(If you do the puzzles on websudoku.com, it tells you how long you took to finish the puzzle, and then tells you whether you are above or below average -- but you have to assume that the people who go to websudoku.com are dedicated players.)
Then, there was my trip back, and I know Ethan is going to tell me that I'm a wimp for not stopping somewhere to watch a rock concert, but I opted instead for just driving straight from the Island to the Second City. I left later than I wanted to, but doing so allowed me to go food shopping, both for the trip back and for my proposed bagels-and-lox brunch the next day. I had a good amount of food for the trip, and, thanks to all the water I drank, and the fact that I could turn on the cruise control and stretch my legs, I was in no particular pain after fourteen hours in my car.
(Cruise control is a little weird -- when you take your car off cruise control, you half expect your car to say, "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that"; and also, since it seems as if the pedals are being pushed, but you can't feel yourself pushing them, you half suspect that your legs have gone numb. And also, when you put the car on cruise control -- and I can't stress this enough, people -- the car still needs you to steer it. There was at least one point where I thought to myself, "Well, now that the car is on autopilot, what should I read?")
However, though my trip-food was excellently chosen, my bagels-and-lox choice was a little excessive. I misjudged one or more of the following: how many people are around for the summer; how many people I know are vegetarians; how much fish people like on their bagels. Ah well, there are worse things, I suspect, than a surplus of bagels from New York.
I also suspect that there are worse things than a surplus of fish from New York, but after lox for breakfast and lox for lunch, I am hard-pressed to imagine something that fits in that category.
Right, so: I'm back in Chicago after a month on the Island. If it was weird to go back for so long, it's just as weird to be back after so long. Or at least it seemed so when I got here. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
First, there was Family Week, which is a tradition of a few years where my immediate family gets together for a week in the Summer without any holiday or other constraints imposed on us. One year we went to Cape Cod, and there's persistent talk about going on an Alaskan cruise, but this year we all were on the Island, doing Island things: for instance, eating the best sweet corn in the world from Harbe's Farmstand out on the North Fork; or just walking around Manhattan and deciding against going to the Museum of Television and Radio (all viewing booths were reserved); or going out to a Fire Island beach (which included a walk in the woods, a West Nile virus warning, and a lost child). There was a lot of food, a few movies (I liked Winged Migration better than March of the Penguins, but ultimately I felt like both were sort of bloated versions of PBS shows), and a surprising amount of Sudoku.
(If you do the puzzles on websudoku.com, it tells you how long you took to finish the puzzle, and then tells you whether you are above or below average -- but you have to assume that the people who go to websudoku.com are dedicated players.)
Then, there was my trip back, and I know Ethan is going to tell me that I'm a wimp for not stopping somewhere to watch a rock concert, but I opted instead for just driving straight from the Island to the Second City. I left later than I wanted to, but doing so allowed me to go food shopping, both for the trip back and for my proposed bagels-and-lox brunch the next day. I had a good amount of food for the trip, and, thanks to all the water I drank, and the fact that I could turn on the cruise control and stretch my legs, I was in no particular pain after fourteen hours in my car.
(Cruise control is a little weird -- when you take your car off cruise control, you half expect your car to say, "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that"; and also, since it seems as if the pedals are being pushed, but you can't feel yourself pushing them, you half suspect that your legs have gone numb. And also, when you put the car on cruise control -- and I can't stress this enough, people -- the car still needs you to steer it. There was at least one point where I thought to myself, "Well, now that the car is on autopilot, what should I read?")
However, though my trip-food was excellently chosen, my bagels-and-lox choice was a little excessive. I misjudged one or more of the following: how many people are around for the summer; how many people I know are vegetarians; how much fish people like on their bagels. Ah well, there are worse things, I suspect, than a surplus of bagels from New York.
I also suspect that there are worse things than a surplus of fish from New York, but after lox for breakfast and lox for lunch, I am hard-pressed to imagine something that fits in that category.