an email letter exchange…

(…sorry, that is the best I can muster at this point!)

J- wrote:
13D,
Hope your brief trip out here was fruitful for MiddleSon. I am sorry I did not get the chance to see you, but it sounded like a quick trip. We have been having such humid weather for here! Must be that global warming stuff! ( maybe your brilliant son can work on that too…)
I just got M and the kids off for a week of fishing with his family, in northern Canada. I will be mostly working and taking care of the pets. And if I get some time, I look forward to watching movies in bed like I don’t get to when everyone is home! Gee, I sound old, or maybe just tired.

So mark your calendar. M and I will be married 20 years this December 28th. Due to the proximity to the holidays, we think we will delay the party to the end of January ( then it can be my birthday party too)
J-

Hi J-!

Yes, we were in and out of town pretty quick. As you know the weather was really hot, but for us it was delightfully less humid!

You don’t sound old at all to me (of course we are the same age!) Every summer Hubby volunteers at a summer camp where our kids attend for a week and I get the house to myself. I definitely take advantage of lazy chick-flick movie watching, and I look forward to that week every year. This year MiddleSon was too old to go, so I gave up half of “my” week to take him to California. That is why Hubby didn’t come with me — he and Youngest were at camp.

Before the trip, I asked MiddleSon to think of something in Los Angeles that he would like to do/see and we would go there. When we arrived on Thursday, he still had not told me anything and was acting the typical disgruntled teenager with a lot of “I don’t care” statements. So Thursday afternoon/evening we went somewhere that I have never been and always wanted to see: Venice Beach. I really loved it and enjoyed myself, but MiddleSon just complained the whole time and parked himself on a bench to continue reading his Dean Koontz that he had picked up in the airport.

That night at the hotel, he finally mentioned somewhere he wanted to go, rather reluctantly as if he expected me to say no. He told me that Six Flags Magic Mountain had some of the best roller coasters in the world. So after our Cal-Tech morning, we headed out there on Friday in the 110 degree heat to ride roller coasters for 7 hours. I think MiddleSon didn’t expect me to keep up with him, but I was a trooper and we rode 10 scary rides before heading home (7 different, 3 we rode twice).

So Saturday we just slept in, dehydrated and exhausted from our very full day which started early and finished late (dinner after Six Flags).

We drove around a little more in L.A. before we headed to the airport, but that’s about it. We enjoyed our visit to Cal-Tech, but MiddleSon has at least one more school to look at before he is ready to choose. I am happy that he is at last showing some interest at all. Last spring, Hubby was laughingly telling people that MiddleSon seemed to be hoping that a college would just fall out of the sky and land on him so that he wouldn’t have to think about making any decisions!

Well, we would LOVE to come to your anniversary party, but we are currently already booked to go on that fabulous jazz cruise for the 3rd year in a row Jan 21-28. So if you have your party mid-January the weekend of the 14th or push it to February we would love to make it, but otherwise we will be sorry to have to miss!

Take care and enjoy your movie and alone-time! We’ll try to get together next time!
Your friend,
13D
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