Two weeks in Maine. The memorial was a success both in the people who came out to The Farm and the fact that there was no obvious strife between us sibs. Mother would have been proud.

We also managed to agree on the future for The Farm. We will keep it in the family for the foreseeable future. It stays as is for about a year as we try to decide what to do with all the "heirlooms" that pack the place. It is full of antiques that were either out of my grandmother's house or my grandfather's workshop. We need to move them out, make some needed repairs, and then we'll rent the place out to a farmer who needs a place to build his future.

I spent the remainder of my time staying with Charlie. It was an interesting experience. I moved into his little one bedroom apartment after my life fell apart and it was from that place that I moved to Guam. It was my safety cave at a very difficult time. I have strong positive emotions connected with that apartment and it was a privilege to be able to stay there. Thanks, Charlie.

While I was in Maine I touched base with a lot of my old stomping grounds. I have only a few regrets for things I missed. I never did get to the Houlton Farms Dairy ice cream drive-in for an Awful-Awful. Imagine a milkshake so thick it is almost pure ice cream and so cold you could inject CO2 into it to make blocks of dry ice. On a hot July or August day there is nothing better. I didn't get down to see where they are building a replica of the pinnace Virginia in Bath.

But I DID get to the 4th of July used book sale in Bath where I bought a bunch of books including Swallows and Amazons which I have wanted for years. I bought Charlie a copy of The Oxford Dictionary of Ships and the Sea. I value mine and thought he'd like to have a copy.

I wandered around Bath and drove out of town for a ways. I visited what's left of the Brunswick Naval Air Station to see what happened to all the places I used write contracts for. The base is undergoing some serious changes since it was closed a few years after I left.

I got home on the afternoon of the 6th and Wakana headed out to Japan on the 7th for a visit with her family and to get some minor medical stuff taken care of. She needed to see her dentist and getting the work done here would have cost as much as the airfare. Plus she needed a quality physical and to consult with a couple of specialists. To contradict the Republicans, socialized medicine is the best.

Wakana arrived home this morning and life will soon be back to normal. He bought a ton of books while she was there and mailed them home. She bought several through Amazon Japan. And there is a big and lovely difference in the systems. She ordered them online and they gave her a choice of paying with her card or paying cash at the local convenience store. She walked up the street, paid cash, and NEXT DAY she returned to the convenience store to pick up the books. In Japan when they call something a convenience store they really mean it. You can go there to pay for your mail order, arrange to ship something large across Japan, and pick up lunch. (We once used a convenience store to send our suitcases home from Hiroshima because home was our next stop and we didn't want to carry them any more. And it was cheap.)

As contrast I ordered a couple of books from the American Amazon a week ago and I do not expect to see them for another week or so. And I had to expose my card to the risk of ID Theft.

In the meantime, and the island chain we live in, Saipan and Tinian are suffering through the second week since their undersea cable broke. They do not have home internet and only the most basic phone connection. Here in Guam our basic north-south road suffered a slow sinkhole that severed that line. There are three ways to make that connection. Marine Corps Drive which has now been reduced from 6 lanes to 1. The run past the airport which is a two lane track. and the run through Barrigada and back to Marine Corps Drive via Hamburger Road which is as much fun a driving through a WWI No-Man's Land for all the potholes and trenches. I tried to go north yesterday and ran into miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic on all three routes.

While Wakana was away I finally pulled the TV out away from the wall and hooked up the stereo, the big speakers, and a computer so now we can clearly hear the TV and we can access Netflix, Hulu, and other sources. I also tried to replace the kitchen sink faucet but I couldn't get under the cabinet far enough to get a good grip on the joints to pull it apart. The only thing I managed to do was disconnect the hot water side and not put it back together again. D'oh!

I will not be going back to JFK. I have quit my job. I will spend this next semester taking biology and chemistry at the university so I can qualify to teach science in high school and, hopefully, get a job closer to home. The students at JFK have really put me off teaching, at least teaching English.

Wow! This has gotten long. Time to take a break.