I’m in the Chautauqua house’s third floor bedroom, where M’s dad used to play free cell and check her stocks. A complicated upright fan runs in the corner. On the street below I can hear S, T and four or five other kids playing a modified four-squaresque game. T approached the group and asked if he could play. There is nothing as heartbreakingly beautiful for me as a parent as watching one of my sons approach a group of people he doesn’t know and asking if he can be included in the activity. T’s very good with this sort of thing, which makes him somewhat not my son, or my son plus everything I never had. I recruited S to back him up by mentioning the activity was vaguely competitive. S was ready to kick ass within thirty seconds.

Today was a good traveling day despite some (literal) roadblocks. I woke near four-thirty and the entire family was out the door by 6:15. The boys bundled up in the backseat with blankets, stuffed animals, and video games. We free-fell south through Wisconsin, caught fifteen minutes of accident traffic on the Edens, then ran into a motherfucker of a backup on the Indiana toll road. Turns out a FedEx truck spilled its contents all over the pavement. Forty-five minutes’ worth of crawling later, to the point where I turned off the car a couple of times, we inched passed the detritus of packages that, alas, will not reach their intended recipients. I imagine some pissed people are wondering where their pants, toasters, and Oriental Trade trinkets could be. Check the Indiana Toll Road, people. I saw them.

The rest of the trip was uneventful except for my reminding T not to hit the gearshift with his foot about 4,000 times and a particularly disgusting Indiana rest stop. When the hell are they going to upgrade those facilities? Awful. Thank you, Ohio, for getting your shit together as far as rest stops are concerned. We pulled into the Institution just before the 10 hour mark at 6:15 local time. M forgot to ask her mom to get diet coke so I walked over the plaza and picked up a bottle. After unloading the car and inhaling half a pizza I showered and let the exhaustion of travel creep into my legs. I walked over to the concert, read Tunneling To the Center of the Earth in the back row, but left when I discovered I wasn’t in the mood for Britten’s (sp?) serenades. T and I watched a little Disney Channel, his head in my lap, before he went outside to meet the latest neighbors.

S and N just invaded the room. Where do they get their energy? More later. The night promises to be cool. Excellent.