Not With a Bang, but a Whimper

You know, usually your last day of vacation is kind of anti-climactic. But that's not the way we do things around the Johnstadt clan. Ours was no mere anti-climax. Ours was a super, hyper anti-climax. So not climactic that it was kind of climactic. (But not so much that it would stop being anti-climactic.) This was the mother of all anti-climaxes - a Godzilla movie, only the Japanese businessmen are all riding the subway, falling asleep on each other's shoulders. Outside, the city rotates slowly by behind a child, who bounces a ball. And yawns. The End.

Out of bed, and into the packing regimen. Which consists of staying out of Janneke's way for pretty much the whole day. We were semi-successful at that; puttered around the house in the morning, had lunch, ushered the kids out the door soon thereafter and hit the beach.

Some Canadians who have been regulars on our same stretch of beach were petting a puppy and taking pictures of it when we arrived. We set up shop nearby, and after a moment the puppy scampered over to us, and comically lay down in the shadow I cast as I got down on one knee and started digging a little hole to put Tessie's inflatable ring in. (So that it wouldn't blow away in the wind.) And of course the Canadians, sisters who could be 17 or could be 24, in that weird area where it's hard to tell their age, think this is adorable and immediately drop to start taking pictures. Now, we say hello when we pass on the beach, having seen each other daily for the better part of a week, but crotch photography was not the next step I had foreseen. Maybe that's how they do things up in Canada.

That's it, folks: The excitement for the day. Janneke joined us on the beach after a couple of hours, and from there on it was meals, dessert, Dominoes, and bed. Little photographic evidence is necessary.

I did take a spin around the neighborhood to get shots of some of our favorite places here before we leave, and it was poignant. I like this little place, I've gotten to know it kind of well, and it's sad to leave it. I'm ready to go, make no mistake, but it feels very odd to think that I've seen this street in the daylight for the last time. Although at supper, Janneke and I both had a simple feeling that we'd be back. It's just so easy to get here, we really like the place, it offers so much for us and for what we want for the kids, we'd be able to take much better advantage of everything because of the experience we've had...It seems almost assured that we haven't seen the last of Puerto Rico, if not this particular street. It reminds me of when I took the Lenox seniors to Ecuador in the spring. Our last morning there, while they slumbered, I ran (literally) across the narrow neck of the city to check out our old neighborhood, and our names were still next to the doorbell. Eight years, folks. Names still there. It was so weird to be back there, but it felt natural as well, as if it had been foretold. Like they had known I'd come back to look. That's how this feels now, only it's the front end of it - We'll be back. Don't bother to cancel our Pueblo card. This place is under our skin. In a very pleasant way, like a tattoo of a baby's face. Not like a chigger.



I took this picture to see if the camera was working, and then wound up
really liking it.



Bebo's, Quinn's favorite restaurant of all time. Yep:
That's what it's come down to. Restaurant logo
photography. Hey, I warned you right up there in the title.



This is Tess watching the video for "Penny on a Train Track"
by Ben Kwelller. You can get an idea for what the video is
like from what's on this one - Tess seems pretty weirded out
by it, but in reality she is this woman's groupie. "What's
her name? Can I dance like that? Is she still alive?"
I'll be honest: She was dancing along with it when I started
filming, and she stopped, making the film a lot less interesting.
But I still think it's cute. And here it finally is: Naked celebs.