Going to see Ellie tomorrow

This time we're taking the train to Grand Central and the subway to Brooklyn to spend several hours with Mimi, Tim and Ellie.

For 14 years now, I've referred to "Mimi and Tim", so it is new to include little Ellie--one month old--in the same sentence.

Yet, there they are, waiting for us in Brooklyn tomorrow, their little family--our beloved trio.

What a jarring difference a baby, a granddaughter, makes.

Numbers are expanded. Thoughts are altered. Life changes.

Bern bought Mimi and Tim a red snapper, frozen, that will take along with other food and gifts.

Every year for the past seven, Tim and Mimi have gone to Oak Island with Bern and me and John Anderson and Sherrie Ellis. We usually go this week--Labor Day week. But because of Ellie's pending birth, we put it off to September 17-24, hoping they could come. They don't feel they want to travel--and I don't blame them--so we'll go without them.

Everyone of us are readers and eaters so what we normally do is read and eat. And on the Friday before we leave, Mimi and Tim go to Southport, to where the fishing boats dock, and buy Red Snapper for our last dinner of vacation. Since they won't be there, we'll take the fish to them.

Oak Island is where we went on vacation for about 20 years--before either Josh or Mimi were born until they didn't want to go, even bringing a friend.

Then 8 years ago or so, Mimi called and asked where Oak Island was and we told her. She and Tim went and when they got back they called and said they were going every year and we'd go with them! So, that's what we've done.

Since we go after school starts Josh and Cathy and the girls have never come, but John and Sherrie come (and next year, Sherrie's husband, Jack who is retiring this year). And next year, as well, our new little trio of Mimi, Tim and Ellie. Ellie obviously won't be a reader and she'll distract us joyously from our books. But it will be heaven.

We rent these huge and wonderful houses, right on the ocean and walk and look for shells and read and eat and do nothing much. Just the kind of vacation I'm about....