"A stay-cation?" my coworkers chided, "That's no fun!"

So I looked up places I could go. Florida seemed liked a good idea; I could sink slowly into the sandy beaches for a few days. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was not cooperative. It was likely that I would be sinking slowly into muddy beaches as the rain pelted my face into a permanent frown.

I texted Tom. "Can I stay at your place for a few days?"

"Stay as long as you want," he said, "My studio is tiny, though."

Good enough for me.

Then I IMed Bekah. "Are you and Jon free next week?"

"Are you serious? Yeah."

Again, good enough for me.

Before I left, I got a text from one of my coworkers. "Rochester!"

I wrote back, "The sunny beaches of Rochester!"

"Have a good vacation."

I got to Tom's place just before he came back from work, so I saw him riding in on his scooter, as if he was back in college, except he was dressed up in shirt and tie. He is in his second and final year of orthodontics residency in Rochester, and apparently he is required to dress up everyday in a shirt and tie. He said it's disgusting because his tie will always end up with pieces of gunk or food or something by the end of the day. Recently he'd taken to wearing a bow tie in protest.

Tom drove me around Rochester and said we should try to get a Garbage Plate for dinner. Apparently, it's a famous local dish that resembles nothing so much as what I'd end up making with a fridge full of leftovers. We skipped it, though, because, well...

"I don't think we should go there. There are a lot of prostitutes around."

"..."

"And someone got shot near there recently."

The next day I drove an hour or so to Syracuse to visit Jon and Bekah. Now considering that I generally find college kids patience-trying, this could have been bad idea jeans, but the Lees are probably two of the least affected kids that I know. They bought me dinner and gave me a little tour of the campus.

By chance they happen to be taking the same math course, and though not in the same section, they sometimes work on their homework together. They were having some trouble with it last week, so they went over to get help from some upperclassmen friends. They sat down to get started when the upperclassmen guys asked Jon if he wanted to go work out. "Yeah," he said. So they all left to go work out, and Bekah was sitting there working by herself. When the guys came back later, they were sans Jon. When Bekah asked where he was, they said they dropped him off on their way back.

And the thing is, as they were telling me this story, there wasn't any annoyance or guilt. Bekah, the older sister - generous, self-giving - and Jon, the younger brother - carefree, sister-loving - were both highly amused by it, as was I.

They thanked me for coming and wished me a safe trip back. Bekah asked me to text her when I got back to Rochester, ever the ahjummah.

Now I'm waiting at the airport for my flight back. I've no tan to speak of, nor any sand in between my toes, but it turns out that the beaches of Rochester were even sunnier than I had hoped.