Martin left for Spain yesterday, so we’re now back down to our little family of three: Mo, Miranda, and myself, plus Diggory, the wheaten terrier. The house is a little quieter and I’ve spent a lot of the day corresponding and updating the blog. I know the topics have become a bit academic recently – just an attempt to get my thoughts in order. I also read though another blog of a Burkitt’s patient in the Northwest whose treatment started back in September last year. The treatment is just so long! I always promised myself that if I was laid off for an extended period of time I’d use it to write the great American novel, or to learn to draw. So far not a lot of progress on that front. It’s probably a good warning for what I’ll be like in retirement, laying back in my Lay-Z-Boy, and growing grumpier and grumpier. Actually, although I’m only 54, I think I might actually enjoy retirement, whenever I decide I’m ready for it.

Apparently, I’m unusual in the male population in that I’ve always been attracted to strong women, and Mo certainly falls into that category. Also, we built a lot of shared experience during the 12 years that we knew each other before Miranda was born. Like many others, probably, we started living together in abject poverty without much of a clue as to where we were headed. Walden, NY, in case anyone is wondering. It used to have a knife factory, but when that closed down in the early 1900’s nothing much ever replaced it. We used to hang out at “The Talk of the Town” and play Pac-man on those glass tables, drink beer and smoke cigarettes with Henry and Ellen. From there, things got slowly less sleazy. I met Mo’s parents, and got a reputable job in NYC teaching Advanced Placement Computer Science, having spent the summer studying Nick Wirth’s book Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs; it was the skinniest book I could find on the subject! After we got married Mo joined me in my apartment in Bensonhurst in Brooklyn. (The poor fellow in the apartment next to me, who we never met, got whacked by the mob!). After that we moved to Boerum Hill in Brooklyn, and then, on a whim, to Boston – just because it looked like a nice place.

So, when Miranda finally leaves the nest, but not for a while I hope, I’m actually looking forward to resuming our former life! The coast of Maine looks like a nice place to go. The winters may be a bit tough, but global warming will probably have given it a climate like the coast of North Carolina by then.