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8/5/06

This weekend should have been a peaceful one. Both of my sons went to Maine; one for canoe camping trip along the Sacco river; the other to our Maine cottage with his friends.

So, Mark decided to go to Newport, RI, to check out the guitar festival, where many guitar makers bring their masterpieces for display.

However, at about 11:30 last night our eldest son called us, saying that our SAAB’s engine temperature registered high, air conditioning stopped working, and power steering stopped working.” According to him, the coolant reservoir is empty. Even though he tried putting the coolant in the reservoir the car stalled, and they had to have the car towed to the cottage (about 2:30 am).

Even though Mark tried to call the SAAB dealer in Maine, he could not find the one that can deal with our car within today. Without a car, my son and his friends will be stranded and will not even come back to Massachusetts on Monday. Therefore, the next step was to find a rental car for him. (Since my son is still 22 years old, they charge a lot higher rental rate!) So contrary to our expectation we had a sleepless night and busy morning.

I thought that he would give up going to Newport, but he did not. We left at about 11:00 and arrived there about 1:00PM, and spent the whole afternoon in the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where the festival was being held.

Even though I have been feeling quite miserable this week, I decided to go along.
Because of the awful weather and nausea, I spent a lot of time in bed this week and needed to do something no matter how weak I felt.

All I did today was to drive with Mark, and to sit in the beautiful hotel lobby, watching vacationing people in bright and funky clothes come and go, and people who came for the wedding reception showing off their beautiful dresses.

But I felt I did something, and felt a little normal. It was a good Saturday.