aborted vacation

I've heard there are people who dislike using the word "abort" to mean other things cut off (space missions, running of computer programs) because it reminds them of aborted pregnancies to which they object. Well, tough.

After completing our stay at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (described in previous post), B. and I headed north - not quite to Seattle, but somewhere in that general direction - to visit her brother and family who have settled out there. A. and his wife M., not quite retired yet but working from home, are now rattling around a huge house they've had built for themselves out on the expanding edge of civilization, about the desirability and aesthetic qualities of which I prefer to express no opinion whatever. Two of their three children are nearby and we got to their places too - a son (married with two daughters aged 8 and 7: great girls, they read a lot) whose house is literally right over the back yard, and a daughter who lives up in the mountains where the smoke from the forest fires is so strong she can't work in her garden but who hasn't gotten around to changing the house's air filter, tsk.

We also got to see a couple friends from the area, and out on a family meal expedition to a locally famous breakfast cafe crammed into a decommissioned circa 1900 school gym basement. Powerfully crowded place, despite which everyone even in the waiting area was unmasked, tsk, but fantastically fast service: from the moment we were actually seated until our meals arrived took (I had my watch out) ten minutes. That's not to the ordering or the drinks, but the full honking meals. The food was OK. The world's largest cinnamon rolls are huge, but they taste like ... a cinnamon roll. I couldn't resist ordering a "whole hog omelet," which lacked snouts or trotters but was packed with slightly burnt ham, sausage, and bacon, folded into the egg patty instead of mixed in.

Good thing for trying it that we went there on Saturday, because later that day, M. tested positive. A little fast for her to have gotten it from the cafe. A. tested negative, so did we, but we were taking no chances. We called off our last day, including more friends with cats, packed up into my trusty little car and headed home over a day early, eating fast-food window service and wearing masks whenever we couldn't avoid human contact, near-constant availability of classical music radio, and regular text-messaged photos of our cats from our cat sitter our only company.