Kingston

is not my home, but it's where my family lives. So it's home, almost as much as South Pasadena, the town where we spent the most time when I lived with them. They bought a house here for the first time. The walls aren't white and the carpet isn't beige. My mom planted a saucer magnolia which she is very proud of, even though it looks like a bush. I'll probably have my mail sent here when I'm away.

It's a nice town. They live next to a cranberry bog. It was founded in 1726. (South Pasadena split of from Pasadena in 1888 because they wanted to be a dry town.) It's right next to Plymouth, "America's Hometown." There are pilgrims buried very near here.

My little sister (who's 20) and my little brother (16) picked me up from the airport and we got lost on the way home. It was my fault. We were driving around Plymouth County in the dark, because there are no street lights anywhere here, but the moon was full, and we drove past this steeply white church in a sort of field backed by heavy woods. It scared me to see it. Because it was old and ghostly and I think I was thinking of the headless horseman or something, and also because, you know, the whole non-Christian thing I do. I was creeped out today by the crypts in the Unitarian graveyard. Am I fearing death? That's new.

The best thing about here is the smell. It smells all piney. Which smells like vacation to someone who grew up in a semi-arid area (LA is not a desert!) and always went to evergreen places for trips. Lucky mom. (Which isn't to say that LA is a place people should feel deprived about living in, because it's totally awesome. Irvine, on the other hand...)

The worst thing about here is that I used spray-on sunblock and did a bad job judging whether or not I was adequately coating myself with SPF. I have an odd blotchy sunburn on my legs and shoulders. That's today's travel tip. Be careful with the spray-on sunblock. Another bad thing is that the water in Plymouth Bay is goddamn cold. And it's full of shellfish-poisoning microscopic lifeforms of some sort. Gross.

And my little brother is Marianne Moore. That's a good thing. Yay Ricky!