With a side of relish

Okay, tomorrow turned into a bit longer. I won't give you any lame excuses. I will just say that I now live in a different house than I did last week, work at a different job and am about 1/4 of a million dollars poorer.

We have had quite the whirlwind August. We spent most of the early part entertaining family in Portland and lounging at Tall Guy's family's lake house on Cobbosseecontee, just outside of Augusta. There all six of his dad's siblings gathered, along with his dad, to reminisce and eat and play games. It was a wonderful few days.

Leaving Augusta, we made our way down to Gloucester, Massachusetts, where my mom had rented a house on Good Harbor Beach. It was the first time my family has ever gone away together and it was delightful. We had 4.5 days just laying on the beach and lounging around the enormous house she rented. We didn't think that it would be as noisy in Gloucester with my two family members under age 5 as it had been in Maine with seven family members under age 8, but those kids are little miracles and they managed to make as much noise as a gaggle of rugrats.

After vacation came the period of August called THE HOUSE. We are mostly still in that phase, except that I have started THE NEW JOB, which is taking up more time right now than THE HOUSE. We had an easy and uneventful closing, 4 nights of furious packing, 2 days of moving (thank you to everyone who helped) and then we lived in a house. We have unpacked a lot of stuff and shoved a lot of stuff into the basement (much to Tall Guy's disapproval). We bought a new living room set from Bob(ble)-Head's Discount Furniture in the color Camel, which apparently requires the workers who assemble these pieces of furniture to travel to the middle east to hunt, kill and skin an indeterminate number of camels in order to make my 3-piece living room set in seven weeks. What this means is that we have zero seating in the living room for another 42 days, give or take a day if a camel really gives chase.

My new job will be fantastic once I get the library organized and learn what is in the collection. I have one more day here before the students arrive on Tuesday, so most of that won't happen by then, but no one here seems too concerned, which is reassuring. I hate introducing myself by my last name, but I like teachers and I like helping people find things that they need. Oh, and getting paid. I like that.

Because resting is for the weak, we will be traveling to Boulder, Colorado this weekend to witness the nuptials of some friends.

Finaly, random thoughts:
*Can't someone trade JD Drew for one of those Little Leaguers from Walpole? The man is being GIVEN $14 million to stink up Fenway.

*I have a new obsession with orange cherry tomatoes from the farmer's market in Portland.

*Moms are wonderful, especially when they help you clean your new house.

*I loved working for the United Way of Greater Portland and have a new and deeply-felt respect and admiration for the work going on at that agency. I will miss the people who work there and hope that my new colleagues are 1/2 as fun.

*W is still dumb.

*Tommy Lee Jones (of Pamela Anderson and Motley Crue fame) has a tatoo of Mighty Mouse. Heh heh...Mighty Mouse is so lame.