Sigh.

The weekend is about to end. And it’s been a particularly nice one. Actually, it’s been a pretty good week despite the fact that I don’t think I slept at all.

I had forty ‘leven million presentations this week, including a sunrise lecture at a golf club in Suffolk that was worth getting up before dawn for. The folks were so nice and genuinely interested in the ickle cheesebox and the sunrise over the Nansemond was glorious.

My boss let me go home early on Friday (since I had effectively been at work since 6:15 a.m.) and a good thing it was, because we had folks coming over the next day and the carpets simply had to be cleaned.

JMU was in the playoffs, and lots of Jim’s college buddies, their girlfirends, wives, and kids would be converging on our house to see the game and one simply cannot have ooky carpets. Problem was, I only had a handheld carpet cleaning device, so it took awhile. But the job got done, and the house was passable.

So the next day, I left.

I had already RSVP’d for another party that afternoon, and so off I went, back across the river to a fellow curator’s house which was incredible in the extreme. The food was exquisite and the company wonderful and I was able to do that and still get back to our house in time to see most of the game.

They won, by the way.

Next week is my last full week in the office for quite some time. They’re finally giving me a sabbatical to finish the dissertation. I don’t deny that the prospect is frightening since I have to wrench myself out of the world of ironclads and columbiads and go flailing back into the realm of wooden walls – broadsides, portolans, the smell of Stockholm tar, and life before the mast.

It should be a remarkable time.