Friday, August 14

Got up early this morning. Today is preparation day for COMPANY! Antoinette and Scott are headed up to spend a couple of days with us. They're driving all night tonight.

We had coffee and made a grocery list, decided on activities for the weekend with guests, and gathered the dirty clothes and linens.

Sooooooo---Bob went to do the laundry and grocery shopping. I stayed home, cleaned up, made potato salad, coleslaw, brownies and poached chicken (for chicken salad or chicken Caesar salad).

Later, we hung the hammocks in the forest by the sea and read for a while. I'm reading Heat--a book about a cook/slave who worked among other places in Mario Batali's Babbo kitchen (I actually had dinner there once). Tom and Lorraine came by to make sure the water is okay and we chatted again--almost hated to see them leave--they are great people, so interesting, funny, and caring (they own the cottage). Wish we could stay longer--those three weeks with my mom, though necessary, took a chunk out of our time here and our Maine plans. This is our last week here--we leave on August 22 for Albany.

All of a sudden, Bob announces that we're taking the boat out. i was a bit skeptical because the tide was going out, not coming in and you remember that the last time this happened, we dragged the boat through the mud and I fell three times. This did not happen; instead, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset, saw 5 otters playing right near us in the water, and almost got lost (LOL!). We made it back to the cottage, set up for our guests, ate the most delicious chocolate cheesecake from a local bakery.

tomorrow, Antoinette and Scott come in and we'll go to the winery, the bakery for our ordered Maine blueberry pie, and the lobster pound (Chris's) for 6 lobstah--dinner will be outside (if the mosquitoes don't eat us alive). There's wine, beer, snacks--you name it. Bar Harbor on Sunday after Bob's famous sausage gravy and biscuit breakfast. Yum. I'm ready.

My mother is a lot better and back on the wound vacuum. That's a good thing. Also, she's feeling better, starting to walk around a bit and was told that she is definitely not being released from the hospital (she's been in over 5 weeks now) until they let her eat to make sure everything's okay. Then she will have to go to rehab. I don't know how much any of this will take and I am very nervous about our Mexico City trip. It's all in the timing. Right now, I would be willing to fly from Albany to Phoenix in order to get there to take the plane from Phoenix to Mexico City on Sept 10, then fly back here to Albany to get the car and drive back in October after our Mexico City trip. If I'm needed here, it's here I will be (Bob might spend some time with his family in LI if we stay longer than planned).

I just have to get to Mexico City to see my little Ana, and her precious parents, Matt (who will be 32 on August 18th--wah!).