Many years ago, my family was sharing a beach rental with the family of a first cousin who is very close to my mom. My cousin’s husband, Al, spent the majority of the day on the couch reading books while the Jersey Shore was experiencing the best weather all summer. It was a nice, hot July with perfect surf. My brother and I spent just about every moment of the day in the surf. But his behavior was somewhat odd to my brother and I at the time, so we asked him what he was doing.
“I’m in vacation mode,” he replied, his eyes heading back into the book he was reading. Such a statement has become a family mantra over the years as to explain any vacation activity in which the person is doing whatever pleases them at that particular moment. I think Al was happy to be lying on the sofa in a nice quiet vacation rental enjoying the breezes coming over the dunes. I certainly can’t blame him; as a sportswriter covering NASCAR, he would be traveling most weekends of the year to the various tracks around the country. There is a certain joy to lying on a sofa without an expectation for the day.
I took off this past week, a vacation that was somewhat overdue. I can tell when that happens since I didn’t check my work email till Thursday and even then that was to send a note to my boss about attending an NJLA meeting next week. I scanned the email subject lines for an emergency but didn’t find one, thankfully. I barely touched Twitter to the point where even catching up on a day’s worth of tweets seemed insurmountable. I emptied my Google Reader of all the political stuff, but left all the library stuff for next week. I won’t say the week hasn’t been completely library unrelated, but these are the personal projects that are fun for me.
At any rate, Kathy and I went up to Boston for the weekend (as noted in the ”The GIANT blog post”) which was enjoyable. I spent Tuesday at the beach with the families of my uncles on what was a perfect weather day. (Pictures below.) Wednesday I went with a friend to the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Thursday and Friday were spent doing not much of anything but yard work and laying around. Right now I’m waiting for my cousin and his wife to show up at the house. But this richly deserved rest will be the energy I will need for the week back. Tons of fun!
Agnostic, Maybe 