Today's Friday Five asks what we're doing this summer. Here goes:
1. Two Sundays ago The Lovely Daughter graduated from her master's program; that was a Great Day. Most of her counterparts have an MSW; Case, as one of the oldest programs in the country, awards an MSSA. I think that Columbia, which is the oldest, also uses an unusual string of letters. At any rate, she is now MCW, BA cum laude and with Honors in Sociology, Phi Beta Kappa, and MSSA. Her brother died at the beginning of her senior year of college and her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at the beginning of her second year of her master's, so I feel great joy in saying that the girl has triumphed!
2. In another two weeks we head for Seattle. Marissa is in a wedding there (since she went to college in the PNW, many of her closest friends are out west) and we decided to go, too. I don't know how much of her we'll see, but we do plan to meet Karen Gerstenberger (!!!), explore Seattle and Vancouver or Victoria, spend a few days on a quiet beach in Birch Bay, and maybe see some whales.
3. I am going to continue my quest for good health. I am walking 3-4 miles a day now; pretty good for someone who could barely make it down the block in March.
4. I am hoping to have The Book in the hands of an agent or editor or publisher ~ someone whose hands are not mine ~ by the end of the summer.
5. I am going to take a two-week staycation at the end of the summer, a week of study leave to plan through Advent and a week of real vacation. My basic goals are to create a wall of solitude around the fourth anniversary and not to get behind the wheel of a car for fourteen days, although I suppose I'll go to the beach one morning in pursuit of my annual anniversary ritual.
Bonus: What I'm not doing? Our son Matt is clerking for a judge in The Seychelles (an island nation in the Indian Ocean, sort of near Madagascar) and working on piracy cases. I did fantasize about going there for a vacation, but the time and expense of flying are prohibitive. So I've told him he needs to land a post-law school position there, and we'll all go for Christmas.
