Today was spent in the car once again, driving to pick up Caitlin at camp, take her to the new school we’ve been considering for her, back home for a while, then one more trip to camp. The drive in southern New Jersey is very pleasant this time of year – almost no traffic, verdant fields filled with corn, and lots of butterflies. You pass the town of Pureland (I'm not sure I would qualify), go through the fringes of Swedesboro, and skirt both Elmer and Shirley. There are two roadside ribs-and-barbecue places on the route, and a house that advertises “Goats for sale”. I don’t think there’s a connection between the two.

Every year when I was a kid we would travel for the month of August. We would come back from our journeys – Maine, New Hampshire, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland – about this time and I would marvel at how different it felt to return to tall corn that formed walls on either sides of the roads home, and how spacious our tiny house felt after the confines of a microscopic travel trailer that had to hold four people.

My husband had laser surgery on his eyes yesterday, which I had been tremendously apprehensive about after reading horror stories of post-surgery vision problems. He walked out of the surgical suite and proclaimed that he could already see better than he had in years, despite the swelling that must have accompanied the surgery. He went back today for a check and the doctor there said he’s testing at 20/25 vision in both eyes, which before had been 20/200 and 20/400. He’s had no discomfort, just some blurriness from the drops he’s using. I’m waiting for a surgical treatment for aging eyes, which forces me to scatter reading glasses throughout the house and at work so I’ll always have a pair handy to read the fine print that seems to cover everything these days.

Music: Bought the new Loudon Wainwright CD, So Damn Happy, which contains all live tracks. I'll have to listen to this a couple of times to see if it's going to resonate with me. Also listened to Gillian Welch, Ben Folds Five (the mere fact that there were only 3 of them in the band made me like them), Suzanne Ciani, and Kasey Chambers. It's a long ride.