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"  &amp;quot;Mom wants you to know that we&amp;#039;re on a double decker tour bus in Toronto,&amp;quot; read the text message from my brother. &amp;quot;Ask her how many bushels of potatoes they produce,&amp;quot; I answered, a reference to our childhood trip to Prince Edward Island, where we boycotted Mom&amp;#039;s plans to take a bus tour in the pouring rain. When she returned to the hotel, she informed my father, my brother and me that P.E.I. produced something like 20 million bushels of potatoes a year. And yet, it didn&amp;#039;t make us wish we had joined her. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re trying to get our lazy selves to the beach,&amp;quot; I texted back. Later, I sent him a photo I&amp;#039;d taken with my phone of a large man in a small Speedo swimsuit bending over his cooler on the beach. &amp;quot;This is going to be my Christmas card,&amp;quot; I texted him. &amp;quot;Wow, you&amp;#039;re really on top of things this year,&amp;quot; he replied. It was the next best thing to vacationing with him. Better than a post card, which would have arrived after we got home anyhow, and a day or two later than our post-trip recap by phone. But wait. Aren&amp;#039;t you supposed to ditch the electronic devices on vacation? Well, I did check my e-mail every day, and I even answered some of them. But then, I wouldn&amp;#039;t want to miss the message my friend, Liane, sent after I&amp;#039;d e-mailed her a photo of me and our fellow college pal, Barb, who had come to the Jersey shore to visit from her home in Denver by way of her in-laws&amp;#039; house in Philly. &amp;quot;Aw, I wanna come and play,&amp;quot; Liane e-mailed back from Atlanta. I responded by sending her a picture of the Speedo guy. Now I don&amp;#039;t have to send her a Christmas card. A few nights later, I sent her a picture of my husband and me with a drink called a &amp;quot;Vavoom,&amp;quot; which involves champagne and some sort of berry liquor. She called me right away, but I couldn&amp;#039;t hear the phone over the band in the restaurant where he and I had escaped, sans kids. But I wouldn&amp;#039;t have answered anyway. I saved that for the next day, so I could call her from the beach and let her hear the ocean. After I hung up, I e-mailed her a photo of a lifeguard chair overlooking the gently lapping surf, prompting another sad and envious response. Then I sent the photo to my friend Robin, because she lives in a land-locked state in the middle of the country. I noticed she didn&amp;#039;t reply. Then I put down my phone and went boogie boarding with my son. When I returned to my beach chair, I picked up my book and pulled out the bookmark - a brand new post card I never did fill out to send to my brother. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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