Day 34: Eating and Playing and Shopping

OK. We're at the halfway point in our Rutland sojourn, and one trend is starting to become clear. We eat a lot here.

I suspect part of it is a match made in heaven. My mother loves to cook, and I think she goes out of her way whenever I visit. I love to eat, especially her food. Last night five of us ate spaghetti with her home-made sauce and meatballs and sausages, with salad and crusty bread. I couldn't resist the extra meatball. I awoke this morning, still feeling like I ate too much. Which I did.
(That picture of Bob and Deb with Mom was from the previous night's pot roast and corn feast.)

We have also squeezed in several rubbers of bridge between meals. LK and I haven't played bridge in years. I know some who say getting back into bridge after a long break is like getting back on a bicycle. Actually, it's more like remembering how to fall off the bicycle, but it was fun anyway.

In this picture you can see my mother (and bridge partner) fighting off my father's defense. I was the dummy, which is a bridge term and not an affectionate nickname LK has given me.

I don't believe in bragging, so I won't tell you who won all the rubbers. I can tell you that I shuffled and dealt for my father because he has arthritis, and we did very well on those particular hands.

And LK has found her own private Rutland this week. She loves the pool at Bob and Deb's, and will probably be back there today. And yesterday I brought her to a jeweler who sells Pandora to get a belated anniversary gift. Actually, it's quite belated since it represents not only this year's 25th, but numbers 21 through 24, as well. Somehow her other Pandora bracelet went missing, and I know how much she loved it, so I thought it would be nice to replace it. The fact that Pandora is about 1/10th the cost of, say, Tiffany, had absolutely no influence on my wonderful, generous spirit.

One of the nice things about Pandora is that you build your own jewelry, picking out the pieces you want and putting them in the order you want. It's kind of like summer camp arts & crafts for grown-ups. Here you can see LK deliberating over the bracelet. If you look carefully, you will also see a string bracelet on her left wrist, which at $1 was the best-value gift of jewelry I ever bought for her.

Ben arrived last night and looks absolutely fantastic. He has lost an amazing amount of weight, disproving all of my excuses for not doing so. I will take a picture or three today, but I think you will enjoy seeing the three generations of Kennedy men in, more or less, descending order. Today my Aunt Nelly is visiting, so Ben will get to meet her which is nice.

And tonight we are having another feast, I guess. Gotta go. My Wii Man is insisting I work out this morning, and he's started calling me "Fat Boy".