Bed Bugs and Travel and Lazy Sundays

Today, my youngest son Tucker returned from a trip to New York. He went with the Singers from our town, which is the small high school choir that requires a tryout. They left Wednesday night and have been gallivanting around the Big Apple since then. The trip included two concerts they gave in cathedrals, a concert by the New York Pops in Carnegie Hall, and a ticket to The Phantom of the Opera.
I know, I must be living in the wrong time period, cause I didn't get to do things like that when I was in high school. The downside though was the warning email from the director who said one of the chaperones found a bedbug as she was packing to come home.

Here's Tucker during a cooking class in France.

That meant all the parents meeting the bus today had plastic garbage bags. We wrapped up the suitcases before bringing them home. Earl stood outside on the (luckily) nice day separating the clothes then transporting them to the hot water in the washer and an extra-long dry in the dryer to kill any bedbugs or eggs. The things that can't be washed, leather shoes, ties, suit jacket, went into the freezer. Hopefully, we'll elude the bedbug issue.
This afternoon, I made a Swiss cheese and sausage quiche. Dinners are tricky things at our house since Earl works in the evenings and Grace is at work then rehearsal til 4:30. I try to prepare a meal somewhere in the middle. I was listening to Rick Steves on my computer, picking out all the stories about France, so I finished off that bottle of red wine that Tucker brought us from France. It all put me in the perfect mood to take my computer, and the red wine, out to the front porch for some writing. I've written more than 30,000 words of my sequel to The Summer of France. This one has the working title of Autumn in Aix, and Grace says I'm not allowed to send an email to the Louvre asking them how they box up and move exhibits from the Louvre. She says that will get me on some sort of black list so I'll never be able to visit again.
And I'll add some music from Pandora, but first, I visited youtube for some Midnight in Paris music. This one seems appropriate. "Dream a Little Dream of Me."

 I'm dreaming big today, and it's not even Dreaming of France meme until tomorrow.
Hope your Sunday was equally dream filled.

Saturday Snapshot -- Small Town Spring

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.
I drove 20 hours on Thursday to pick up Grace from school and bring her home. She goes to school in North Country New York, which means she's almost in Canada. I was struck by the way the trees were just beginning to get their leaves. Of course it was raining. Every time I've ever driven there, it was raining.
I was going to write something poetic, like the green leaves are barely a breath of spring on the branches.
Here, from my car window covered with rain is a shot of a small town storefront and the trees showing signs of spring.

I look forward to seeing your Saturday Snapshots.

First Paragraph Tuesday -- Minding Ben

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I'm not sure how I heard about this book, Minding Ben by Victoria Brown. Maybe it was the bright green cover that caught my eye.
The blurb on the cover says 16-year-old Grace goes from Trinidad to Brooklyn. She ends up working for an upper middle class family that baffles her and slowly reveal their secrets.
Here's the first couple paragraphs:

The whole thing, from start to finish, from first talk to walk off the plane, took about ten weeks total. That was it. Ten weeks and I went from a small village on a small island to the middle of New York City. Well, to Brooklyn, but still, can you imagine?
On the morning I left, my mother came into the room I shared with my sister, Helen, and placed her hand on my shoulder. I didn't move, I just lay there feeling her cold fingers through the thin fabric of my nightie, thinking how this would be the last time my mother would come into my room and wake me with her touch.

I like the conversational tone of the writing in these first few graphs.
What do you think? Would you keep reading?