Coming back from our trip and getting re-established at home was nice, until I remembered all of the figurative pots I left boiling--tapes of last weeks' TV shows still unwatched, mail unopened, chores half-done. Note to self: Hey, vacation is fun, but if you really want a good time, tie up all your loose ends before you leave, okay?

Okay! About the trip:

I saw a white deer this past weekend. Really! An albino deer with red eyes. It was so beautiful. It stood there and let me get three or four photos too. That is the best illustration of how great our trip was. Not only was everything just fine, it was super-perfect.

The cabin was cozy and decorated in meticulously clean and carefully maintained 1950's style. Super-cool lamps, chairs, dishes, and kitchen stuff. Our place overlooked the lake and was about ten feet from the water. The pier held for us our very own 16-foot Lund boat, and for another $20 rental fee, you got the motor too.

Did I mention that the guy who owned the place was a sweet little old man named Fred, who wore a fishing hat and rode by on a four-wheeler every evening at six o'clock to pick up our trash? Well, of course! This place was perfect!

It was so quiet and beautiful. The white birches with their turning leaves, the fog on the glass-still lake in the morning...Ah! It was just like those cheesy jigsaw puzzles, but in real life.

And the first night (our real anniversary), we drank the bottle of champagne we'd been saving since our wedding. I tuned the radio in the living room to a station where the DJ was playing nothing but good country music--mostly bluegrass classics but some good new-ish stuff too--and we got drunkdrunk on champagne and happiness. Just before bed, the DJ played "In Spite Of Ourselves" by John Prine. Did that old DJ guy in his dark, musty radio station out in the sticks know how perfectly he'd performed that night? We did.

We went fishing a lot, in the lovely 16-foot Lund boat with motor. C. couldn't stop remarking with happy surprise that I liked fishing. Okay, I'll admit, I could not quite get myself to bait my own hook, but when I finally did catch a few little bass, I certainly did take out my own hook. It felt good to hold the little guys in my hand, gently remove the hook and throw 'em back in the water. I especially loved being on the boat, just enjoying the water and the fresh air.

I was hoping to encounter some wildlife during our stay, and besides the white deer, we also saw some "normal" deer, two woodpeckers, and some kind of weasel-like creature. Not bad for only a few days...

During all of this, I really felt close to C. We shared everything in a way that we never have before. Like two halves of a greater whole. Love is the best thing, really, isn't it?

Well, I think those were the highlights. I don't mean to keep gushing, but we couldn't have asked for a better trip. It really was perfect.

Oh, and also, go read Andrew's entry about Carrot Top and a monkey. I loved it so much I dragged C. into the room to read it out loud to him. It's that good.