I know I said I wasn't going to be blogging while still on vacation, but this morning I got myself a cup of coffee, settled in to watch the Ted Kennedy coverage on MSNBC, and opened up the laptop. And...it was like reconnecting with a dear friend. And I got a little fidgety. And I couldn't resist the pull of composing just one little blog post about our trip. One of the great things about this Maine trip is that a few friends were able to come up to join the family - my darling, hilarious, always fun high school friends Abby, Jennifer and Max, and Max's amazing fiancee, Kasia, who I was so happy to finally meet (Kasia, here's your story).

Max and I were hanging out yesterday and he asked me about seven or eight times if I had written about him on my blog recently, and then, when I replied no, began asking why not, and explained to me that he doesn't really read my blog, he just skims through it every now and then to see if he's made it into any posts. I mean, what can I say? My friends and I are honest with one another.

So to celebrate the fact that I'm finally getting some quality time with Max and Kasia, who now live in Poland, I thought that I would, in fact, dedicate some space to the famous Max Bobbitt. Especially because I have a very nice picture to post:

I must now add Baby Bjorn skills to Max's long list of other talents (drawing, devising complicated plans to catch lobsters, being a terrific friend, getting Mina really fat, rowing a wooden dinghy across a probably dangerous and shark infested body of water just to say we did it).

Obviously, this Maine trip is a little different than the one we experienced three years ago. Yet we are still able to make a day out of doing, well, not much. As J said, when he's up here he has absolutely no desire to do anything productive with his life.

Amen. Long live vacation. Long live August in Maine.