We got the house in N’ton all buttoned up for our departure from the states. Before we left, a week earlier, in a moment of stupidity, I agreed to have a window salesman come to the house on the morning of our flight out of the states because we didn’t have enough to do. He continually referred to us by name in his sales pitch. In mid-sales pitch, he decided to switch my name from Charles to Chuck. He rambled on with stock jokes and endless facts and statistics. After he left, I commented that detainees in Gitmo would offer all manner of information after 10 minutes with this guy, if they didn’t claw their own eyes out.

I did get a chance to tell a topical joke I hadn’t told in years prompted by the window salesman’s sample vinyl window he brought with him in a neat little carrying case. Why did the ethnic carry a car door through the desert? In case he felt hot, he could roll down the window. This only encouraged Mr. Window Salesman who told a really bad (in contrast to mine) off-color joke. I'll spare you.

I’m appalled at the spelling and grammatical errors in the first post on this blog. Who wrote that? My excuse is that I had only 2.5 hours sleep at home after our flight. (No sleep on the redeye on our way over.) I’ll have to use spell and grammar check in the future.

In contrast to my sleeplessness, Sarah slept really well on the flight. She was outfitted with a neck pillow, airplane shades, and red airplane socks – a sight to make your eyes sore – and a prescription sedative. I had not been paying attention to her gearing up as I scoured the inflight magazine version of the Brookstone catalogue. I looked up for a minute, saw her and ran for the exit. I was forcibly restrained by two flight attendants. She said I would now get to know her, warts and all.

In typical kid fashion, James is counting down the days to his two “birfdays.” July 8^th, if you wanted to know, is his real one and we are having a small gathering with his dad and a few others. On Saturday, July 10^th we head with his friends to Woburn, home to a safari park. (Apparently, unbeknownst to most, just an hour from here is England’s vast savannah.) Luckily James is only counting down in days and not hours or minutes. It really is sweet. He seems to be adjusting well to my arrival – we get on well – and judging from past conversations between him and Sarah, surely trying to figure out how to reconcile my presence in his life.

More driving today. This time to the big city of Bishop Stortford. (All towns and villages have two words in their names. Yesterday we were in Saffron Walden. We live in Brent Pelham. And on and on.) More of a challenge today because of traffic and roundabouts. Much to Sarah’s dismay, I like to look left as I enter roundabouts. Old habits die hard.