I'm a little late this week as we had a very busy weekend and by the time Sunday evening rolled around and I had some free time the thought of pounding away on the keyboard just didn't seem like what I wanted to do. Last week at work was pretty calm without too much drama. Jo did a bit of traveling to her favorite destination - New York - and I made sure that the house felt loved and cherished by staying here. We continue to march ever closer to the Pfizer merger with Wyeth especially now that both the European Union and the Wyeth shareholders have given their blessing. Next big step is for the US to say it's ok - stay tuned. Friday afternoon we tackled the dismal garden as we continue to have torrential rain and cool weather which are combining to give us a bumper crop of slugs - but since we were actually trying to grow vegetables we aren't have a successful year. However, we did harvest our first crop of yellow and green beans which will figure prominently in the photos next week.
From a weekend standpoint our big event was a visit by the daughter of my college roommate. Alyssa is a chemical engineering student on a co-op program and was doing a semester at Air Products in Allentown, PA. To reinforce the "It's a small world" theorem, she is living in Kutztown, PA where my grandparents were from. Alyssa joined us Saturday morning for a whirlwind tour of southeastern CT as we attempted to show all the sites to her in about 36 hours. Remember, this isn't New York city so cramming all the sites into 36 hours isn't really as difficult as it sounds. We started with a stop at our favorite local lobster shack to enjoy a lobster roll and a photo op. This is mostly to torment those in the Midwest and West that can't stop and grab a lobster roll at the drop of a hat (but then we can't get a thick crust pizza or sopapillas - so there is some balance to the universe). Next up was a visit to the Submarine Museum associated with the submarine naval base in Groton. Then onto the Mystic seaport to see what it was like when whaling ships sailed the high seas. Learned a lot and got to see everything from the only 
remaining wooden whaling ship out of water being refurbished, how rope is made, and how they made ships watertight before fiberglass and steel (that is us practicing the fine art of stuffing hemp into cracks - just in case you didn't want to come all the way to CT to find out the secret watertight recipe). Then it was off to Westerly, RI to enjoy Shakespeare in the park (Two Gentlemen from Verona in case you are keeping a list of the culture we have been exposed to over the years). It was a great production, but lets be honest, Shakespearean prose leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to understanding what the heck is going on. Really felt sub-titles would have helped in modern English (American?). We figured out the plot although it is clear that Proteus gets off way too easy in the end (don't know what I'm talking about? Get out your Shakespeare and do some reading it will be good for you - oh yeah, no fair Googling it). We enjoyed pizza and homemade chocolate chip cookies for our dinner while sitting in the park waiting for the play to start. We then traipsed home thoroughly tired but feeling content on the amount of the area we had crammed in. One fun fact, we did point out to Alyssa was that she covered 5 states in 12 hours - not too many other places in the country that you can achieve that.
Sunday we woke to rainy weather - there's a leap this year - which worked fine as we enjoyed homemade blueberry pancakes (no the blueberries didn't come from the garden, we only managed three blueberries at all this year and we ate them right in the garden after picking). Alyssa had brought shoo fly pie from PA and while we considered cutting in we saved it since we had enough other tasty treats. Then we loaded into the car for day 2 of our tour. First up was walking the beach in New London and snapping a shot of Alyssa wading into the Long Island Sound. Then it was off to tour New London's Revolutionary war fort - Fort Trumbull. After a quick bite to eat, Alyssa had to pack up and head back to PA. We really enjoyed seeing Alyssa and it was nice to pick up information on what was happening with her family as we hadn't had a chance to visit them in a few years.
From a weekend standpoint our big event was a visit by the daughter of my college roommate. Alyssa is a chemical engineering student on a co-op program and was doing a semester at Air Products in Allentown, PA. To reinforce the "It's a small world" theorem, she is living in Kutztown, PA where my grandparents were from. Alyssa joined us Saturday morning for a whirlwind tour of southeastern CT as we attempted to show all the sites to her in about 36 hours. Remember, this isn't New York city so cramming all the sites into 36 hours isn't really as difficult as it sounds. We started with a stop at our favorite local lobster shack to enjoy a lobster roll and a photo op. This is mostly to torment those in the Midwest and West that can't stop and grab a lobster roll at the drop of a hat (but then we can't get a thick crust pizza or sopapillas - so there is some balance to the universe). Next up was a visit to the Submarine Museum associated with the submarine naval base in Groton. Then onto the Mystic seaport to see what it was like when whaling ships sailed the high seas. Learned a lot and got to see everything from the only 
remaining wooden whaling ship out of water being refurbished, how rope is made, and how they made ships watertight before fiberglass and steel (that is us practicing the fine art of stuffing hemp into cracks - just in case you didn't want to come all the way to CT to find out the secret watertight recipe). Then it was off to Westerly, RI to enjoy Shakespeare in the park (Two Gentlemen from Verona in case you are keeping a list of the culture we have been exposed to over the years). It was a great production, but lets be honest, Shakespearean prose leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to understanding what the heck is going on. Really felt sub-titles would have helped in modern English (American?). We figured out the plot although it is clear that Proteus gets off way too easy in the end (don't know what I'm talking about? Get out your Shakespeare and do some reading it will be good for you - oh yeah, no fair Googling it). We enjoyed pizza and homemade chocolate chip cookies for our dinner while sitting in the park waiting for the play to start. We then traipsed home thoroughly tired but feeling content on the amount of the area we had crammed in. One fun fact, we did point out to Alyssa was that she covered 5 states in 12 hours - not too many other places in the country that you can achieve that.
Sunday we woke to rainy weather - there's a leap this year - which worked fine as we enjoyed homemade blueberry pancakes (no the blueberries didn't come from the garden, we only managed three blueberries at all this year and we ate them right in the garden after picking). Alyssa had brought shoo fly pie from PA and while we considered cutting in we saved it since we had enough other tasty treats. Then we loaded into the car for day 2 of our tour. First up was walking the beach in New London and snapping a shot of Alyssa wading into the Long Island Sound. Then it was off to tour New London's Revolutionary war fort - Fort Trumbull. After a quick bite to eat, Alyssa had to pack up and head back to PA. We really enjoyed seeing Alyssa and it was nice to pick up information on what was happening with her family as we hadn't had a chance to visit them in a few years.Afterwards, besides collapsing and catching our breath - we are getting a wee bit old to be running all over town like that - we got the laundry done, dinner made, bills paid, and ourselves ready for another work week. Jo is off to Delaware this week to work with the HR leadership team at a house her boss owns in Delaware. Me - you guessed it - keeping the home fires burning.
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