A co-worker stopped by my cubicle yesterday and asked me what kind of dog I had. I told her that we had a black Lab. She said that she saw the nose prints on the back window of my car.

Sandra and grandson Joe are visiting PEI for a few days. Woody is planning to take Joe fishing today. They'll have lobster for supper. Each grandchild gets a flight to the Island as a 10th birthday gift. I drove them to the airport yesterday morning and will pick them up on Sunday.

So Marley and I will pack up this afternoon and, after a brief visit with my father, will go to the camp for a couple of days. Then, Sandra and I will take our vacation at the camp for the week. It's a good, quiet week to be there. We'll tour the lake by canoe and maybe walk around the lake on the shore. We have some work to do. There's always work. The weather forecast calls for rainy weather mid-week, giving us a chance to be quiet as well. We'll play cribbage, work on a jigsaw puzzle, and read.

This will also give me a chance to think about what's ahead for me and my work. I'm nearly two-thirds of the way through my contract. It's quite likely that the contract will be extended, but I need to be prepared in the case that it isn't. I've done very little job hunting this summer. If I'm going to be looking for work, I'll need to start as soon as we return from our break.

Vacations can often bring a renewed energy and focus, a chance to remind ourselves of our priorities. It takes the same amount of energy to work at trivialities or at important stuff, but the result is oh, so different.

It's time for a mid-morning coffee break. I decided to work at home today. It gives me a chance to tend to a few things around the house. For example, I finally had the time to update this computer to the latest Windows service pack. It's not very exciting, but there are times when we need to take of the ordinary things, making the extraordinary possible.

I reviewed a package of information from the senior center in the town where my father lives. There are many good services and activities, but nothing that he needs right now. Sandra and I will continue to stop in regularly and help with his household chores and shopping.

As we've been paying more attention to our parents' health and well-being, it's helped us appreciate what other people are dealing with as well. We hear about others' surgery, chemotheraphy, and chronic pain and have a greater appreciation for how it affects the whole family. It's an adventure, worrisome at times, fun at others.

Another big hurricane, Frances, is heading for Florida and the southeast US. The current predictions don't call for a serious threat to New England, but we may get some heavy rain early next week. Between now and then, we will have a fine stretch of late summer weather. I've left the back door open so that Marley can go out to the sunny back deck whenever he wants to.

We had a wonderful weekend in Boston. We arrived mid-morning, walked from our hotel along the Freedom Trailto the North End where we had lunch. We then took the T to Fenway for a tour of the park. We had a nice walk back to the hotel for a shower and then a a return trip on the T to the ball park for the evening's game. We had a Cuban sandwich at Luis Tiant's sandwich stand and got autographs from El Tiante. (Back in 1975, he commented about the Red Sox fans, "They make me do better than I can do.")

We had good seats, in the grandstand behind home plate. Pedro pitched and the Red Sox won the game 5-1. The crowd was standing-room only. Most of the people were well-behaved, but beer was in the air. It was also interesting that the crowd was so overwhelmingly white.

On Sunday morning, we stayed in the hotel and read the papers over breakfast and coffee.

Sandra and I don't get to the city much. This was the first game at Fenway that we'd been to in more than 10 years, the first time we'd walked the Freedom Trail. It takes less than an hour to get to downtown. We have our habits. Some years ago, we visited with my uncle, Aimo, and aunt, Catherine. We wanted to take them out to dinner. "Why should we go out to eat? We have plenty of food here," they said. We made gentle fun of them at the time, but are now becoming more like them. Why should we go someplace different when the familiar places work so well? Mel Brooks observered that we mock the thing we are to become.

This week I have several chores at work to complete in anticipation of next week's vacation. I wasn't as productive last week as I'd hoped, but I should be ok. I need to talk with a couple of people this morning to confirm that I'm on the right track.