Summer Days and Summer Nights

I won’t lie. I miss the hell out of Mrs P.

Luckily I have a lot of good friends, ones that I can hang with in New York, and ones I can reach by phone around the world – and my family makes for pretty good company, too. So it hasn’t been terrible. But without my girl, things aren’t complete. We’re supposed to be together – we’ve got a plan!

Relax, I tell myself. The plan is still in place. It just feels like a giant interruption.

Meanwhile, I have been having quite a lot of fun.

There was the giant Phish festival – SuperBall IX – in Watkins Glen, NY, which is practically a home town for me, with Seneca Lake and Geneva – the birthplace of my grandfather – right there. I’ve been going to Seneca Lake since I was three months old, but I never went to a three-day rock festival at the race track and camped out on the grounds – over Fourth of July weekend. That was awesome.

superball stage
The stage at SuperBall IX
superball art
Installation art at the festival
superball grounds
View of the SuperBall grounds from atop the Ferris Wheel

I even managed to get up to the old lake house and have a swim!

superball at the lake
On the dock! (Fingerprinted…)

My campgrounds for the weekend were comfortable and pleasant:

superball campground
Roughing it (not)

***

Also, I went to Nantucket with the GRP – my old reggae band from college. What a fantastic weekend that was!

My friends took a great shot of me walking on a beautiful beach:

Rindy on a Nantucket beach
I like long walks on the beach … lol

Seneca Lake

Seneca Sunrise
Seneca Sunrise

Our trip to Seneca Lake was so much fun I really didn’t want to leave at all. I woke up at 6am on the first day to take this picture of the sunrise. The fact that we were still experiencing jet lag was a major factor in getting the shot.

Uncle Bob, Will B, Mom and I got in a round at Seneca Lake Country Club, and I was reminded how much I love that course. You always start the day thinking you’re going to break 80 and then struggle to break 90. (Bob and I tied for the low round at 89).

Seneca Lake Country Club
Seneca Lake Country Club

Swimming in the lake was made all the more fun by lots of active swimmers and even a huge black lab, Hobart, who likes to “save” swimmers by attempting to drown them in the water.

Hobart
Hobart

Back in the USA

It’s good to be back.

We breezed through immigration two weeks ago and life is good. I would post some pictures of us coming through the gates and Xianyi getting fingerprinted, but snapping is completely forbidden by Homeland Security.

Then we went up to the Lake for a few days, which was awesome. We hung out with Uncle Bob, who is an ardent reader of these pages, and who was a gracious and very fun host:

Uncle Bob
Uncle Bob

Special thanks to Katie, who owns the house at Seneca Lake with Jody. Without these two Kellow girls holding on to it, Busia and Pop Pop’s house on the Lake would have been long gone. Good job, girls!

So, finally, I’m back to writing on the blog. There’s so much more to say, but it will have to wait a few more days…