Visiting Rochester was great - I'd really never been there before - my Uncle Tom's house was in Pittsfield, a wealthy (now, anyway) country club type suburb of the city, so I had no sense of Rochester per se. It was pretty great - a nice blend of a prosperous, intelligent-seeming city center, with good museums and cultural events, and a healthy young person environment, hipster evident but not obnoxiously so. Tess took us to many things, especially the Greek festival at the church (where we had an excellent tour of the church with an excellent explanation of aspects of the iconography and ritual done by a sincere, unapologetic believer - this makes a big difference in the presentation. Excellent visit to a children's museum concentrating on play and games. We took a trip to Letchworth State Park, a beautiful place along the Genesee River, and got in some good walking. We met Mo, who seems very nice, kind and intelligent, and very fond of Tess. She's thriving there, good friends, lots to do; I'm sure she'll miss the place when/if she leaves.
We then drove down to Maryland with Tess, stopping overnight in Frederick to visit with Stephen, Gina and Maggie - they're doing well, and it's always good to be with them without everybody else around. In fact, I learned pretty conclusively that that's the best way to spend time with all of the individuals in my family - I can give much more attention to them in their own environment and appreciate them for who they are when we're not all trying to be a part of a group. I'll have to try to find a way to work this out in the future, or at least plan on how to deal with it. We stayed with Maura and Don after this (Don's doing very well, after months and months of recovery), and that was great too. Spent some time with Dad, and basically let him talk about things (which he's great at) and tried not to talk too much - too frustrating for everybody. Got him to connect to Hulu for the Criterion films, which he's clearly taking great advantage of, so that's good. And, we had a very nice evening with Peter, Laurie and Michael and his wife; this visit, more than any other, convinced me that we all do best one on one, since there was great conversation, no internal comparisons or anything, and it was clear that we have lots in common, where that's not always been evident in previous family gatherings. All his other kids are off elsewhere, doing their own things (as are all the kids, actually), but Michael is currently back home living with them - his life is still very tricky, I think. Poor kid.
Then we split up with Tess, who drove the rental back, and flew back to Illinois, where I began a pretty quiet month. I learned to play Minecraft (woohoo) and gradually wasted a bit too much time doing that, but I worked around the yard too, and got in lots of walking. It was the quiet time for the summer, without question.
This year, rather than driving, I took the train to Austin, while Barb went to a conference in Cincinnati. The ride was pretty good, although much longer than it should have been, but train travel is always pretty easy overall. It was predictably hot in Austin, but not as bad as I remembered from last year (mostly because it was very dry - no humidity to speak of at all, but they were in a drought, which is not a great thing.) We had a lovely time - Emilia didn't feel as driven to take me places this time, which was fine; Miriam is growing beautifully, and being around a 14 month old is very satisfying. No talking yet, or not much, but she had just learned to walk and was busy trying that out in creative ways. She's a very good-natured baby, didn't fuss much, slept well and ate voraciously. When Barb flew out, we kept on the same way, but then let Emilia and Errol go off for an anniversary overnight date, and then drove down to Houston for an overnight as well. We met up with Amy in her new church, had a good creole dinner, and a good visit to the Houston Art Museum, which was lovely. Then we flew back, but got stuck in Detroit due to a very tight missed connection. It was late, no possibility for a replacement flight until late the next day, so we rented a car and Barb drove the 5 hour trip to Bloomington (with a surprise guest, a young Indian man), getting in about 4 in the morning. And then Barb went to work the next day. And I slept.
Finally, our trip to Ireland. It couldn't have gone better. But that's all I had to say about that, apparently.
