Wordless Wednesday 99

Alive and well in Olympia

I thought this long summer break would be a time of intense online activity, and a time to revive this blog.

It may well be -- but not yet.

I have here for a week and a half, and have been doing anything and everything but using my favorite social networking sites.

Facebook has been serving as communications central for getting together with friends here; I've issued a few tweets, but haven't felt much desire to follow Twitter; I figure I'm going to have to clear my Google Reader when it gets to 1000 unread posts.

Replacing all of this are emails to my family back in France, connecting to my work email platform to check up on how my students are doing on their foreign internships, and some online work on the syllabi for my classes next year.

Of course, plenty of offline stuff is going on: seeing my family and friends, outings to restaurants and shows, reading, watching movies and baseball games...

It's summer and I think I needed a break from all of my routines. But I'm not gone forever.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer as much as I am. I will be back in touch.

Homeward Bound

(Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau)

Whether grey and gloomy, cool and misty, or warm and watery, Olympia is sounding awfully good to me right now...and I'll be there in little more than two days.

I'm home, she's home, we're all home

At some point, in the wee hours and far too shortly before we left Olympia, my youngest daughter's accumulated "stuff" was looking like this.

It was just as well I was asleep.

But we made it home, our full allowance of 8 suitcases in tow:

Departure from my parents' garage

28 hours later, this accumulation of sweatpants, T-shirts and other accoutrements of American teenage life was neatly packed in our utility trailer that had been stored in Toulouse:

And, most importantly, she's home: