We plan a quiet familly celebration tonight after he gets home from his job at Burger King. He started working there a few weeks ago. We were all surprised to find that they are an employer that actually follows the applicable labor laws. They required completion of working papers (none of his previous three employers bothered with that). Burger King also has restricted his hours to those allowed by state law for workers under the age of 16. (Sean is looking forward to being able to work more hours and make more money.) In two preveious jobs he had worked until midnight, even at age 14 -- which is absolutely against the law. (Yes, we allowed that... he is a big, strong, healthy kid who likes to keep late hours, so we did not object to him working that late on a Friday or a Saturday night... but it is, nevertheless, illegal for anyone under 16 to work that late.)

I may have another trip to France coming up, this time in July. Nancy hates flying (and that is expressing it mildly; she feels much more strongly than that) but she commented last year that if she were to be tempted to join me on a trip, Nice would be the kind of destination that could do it. Well, we'll just have to see...

We had a quiet weekend. Saturday morning Nancy and I went to a local farmer's market (every Saturday morning on the U.R.I. campus) and bought lots of plants -- she got flowers and I got vegetables. (She has planted her flowers but my veggies are still sitting on our front porch, no time, no time.) There was an annual festival in Kingston but it looked very crowded and we were running short on time (and had picked up a lot of plants already) so we skipped that and headed over to U.R.I.'s East Farm Arboretum to see the flowering crab apple trees. Wow! Gorgeous. She pointed out a particulary striking bird on one of the trees and I began laughing... what a middle-aged kind of morning, visiting a farmer's market, looking at flowering trees and watchin a bird! The reason we were running short on time was my need to set things up for Jennifer's birthday party (shopping for chips and soda, etc. and then cutting up veggies to go with dips, etc.) Her birthday had been last week but she was having her friends over to celebrate on Saturday. Nancy and I went to her mother's house for dinner so I just left Jennifer money to order pizza for her party. Sean is having his friends over a week from this coming Saturday... apparently there are too many competing social events this coming weekend.

Saturday night Sean and a group of his friends went to a carnival over in Narragansett. I gave him my cell phone so he could call when he needed a ride home... which he did... calling while paused at the top of one of the amusement rides. I borrowed Jennifer's cell phone so that I could call him if I had trouble finding him in the crowd but he spotted me as I was looking around for him. As we were leaving, both of the kids he was with pulled out their cell phones, one to tell his parents he was ready to be picked up, the other to say that he was getting a ride home with us. Cell phones are everywhere. Sean will be driving soon and sooner or later I'm going to have to get a phone for him.

Sunday morning Nancy and I met her mother and three of her sisters (plus one nephew, three nieces, and one brother-in-law) at a small dockside restaurant in Matunuck for breakfast to celebrate Mother's Day. (The restaurant is about half a mile down the road past East Matunuck State Beach, just across the breechway from where the Block Island Ferry docks at Point Judith.)

[Oh, I finally did rebuild my list of journals that I try to read.)

To list of all 2001 entries

Back to Jim's Home page