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My New Meme: 20 Simple Facts About Me

 

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Do you know that:

 

 


  • I live in the town I grew up in.
  • But not before I moved away for almost twenty years.
  • My husband and I had our first date right down the block.
  • I can almost reach out and touch one sister's house.
  • And the other two are a five minute ride away.
  • With my mom living two  minutes farther.
  • Sometimes,  I drive past the house she was born in order to get to her apartment.
  • And right past the cemetery where Daddy lies with his parents, sisters, brother in law, and nephew.
  • And through the adjacent one where her grandparents,  great grandparents,  aunts and uncles, and her sister rests.
  • I sit on the porch in the chairs that friends gave to my parents for their porch 40 years ago.
  • And each time I drive past my childhood house I curse the day I didn't buy it.
  • And that is  why I had to leave town for so long to become an artist and writer.
  • And conversely,  why I became a lawyer
  • Instead
  • Of who I should be
  • Of who I AM
  • But before I could become who I am, my marriage paled in the California sun and I stayed underwater in the pool and floated past the sago palms, drive by shootings, and Monopoly houses built in a valley as flat as a sheet of paper and as dry as my heart
  • Until the carousel flung us off again into a Cat On a Hot Tin Roof house, where Tennessee Williams brought donuts for breakfast each morning and Faulkner presided at the dinner table, and Mama's Family was always preempted by the latest crisis in The Deep South
  • Which caused parts of me to fall off right onto the floor of the dairy aisle at the Piggly Wiggly, and under the wheels of all the Suburbans in the carpool line, and all over the Carrera marble of the two-story foyer floor, to the point where the only thing I had left was the smallest, flintiest, ugliest, truest shard of me that I clenched in my fist and wouldn't let anyone pry out of my hand despite a thousand million weeping tears that I had to wipe away in order to hold the pen and the paintbrush
  • And I wear a size 8.5 shoe.

Pop Ups

Now I've gone and done it.

I've broken the blog. 


I'm posting here and there's just ....silence, except for a few brave souls who take pity on a dilettante blogger.


I'm not going to worry about it, though.

I'm sure it can be fixed.

I'll call the blog doctor - or is the blog plumber? Somebody will figure it out.

In the meantime, I'll just keep offering up my tidbits, big and small, trivial and dense.

For example, see this:


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This little Bronze Fennel just popped up out of nowhere in the garden. I see it every time I come and go and it just puts the biggest smile on my face.


You see, I didn't  buy any Bronze Fennel this year. I did buy some dill, which is a distant cousin, but I never came across any fennel.

But lo and behold, last year's seeds scattered on the wind or by birds or on people's pants when they brushed past it and despite the acres yards of tilled garden soil, it decided to take root in the one inch space between the concrete pineapple and the brick walkway.

Tenacious little thing.

I found another pop up fennel on the other side farther down the walk. Perhaps they talk to each other while we're out. Perhaps it's an invasion of mutant fennels with plans to take over the earth.

I wouldn't dream of pulling either one of them out. It's not like I have a  master garden plan that they are ruining. It's more like I buy a bunch of unrelated plants with some vague idea of what I want to achieve and then dig a bunch of holes and plop them in and hope that through some natural magic, an English cottage garden will emerge.

Most times I end up with a bunch of crowded plants in one place and barren spots in the other. The occasional pop up is just proof to me that it is possible to actually plant a few things that will not only not die but will self-seed the way you imagine English gardens do (but actually do not).

At work, we have pop ups. But those are cases that someone forgot to calendar or miscalendared, and we don't know they are on in court until we are sitting in a courtroom on another matter and hear a judge or law clerk calling out the name of our firm and we look up with a "huh"? There's the frantic phone call to the office to figure out what the case is about and the tongue-tying explanation to the court if you aren't prepared for whatever is on. It's a Maalox moment.

I much prefer my pop ups in the garden.

They rarely result in malpractice, except the garden variety.

And it's always nice to be in court, all stressed out or sometimes bored, and put your hand to your mouth to stifle a yawn (or a scream) and realize that your hand smells like fennel or lavender or rosemary, all of which you grazed lovingly with your hand as your walked out to the car.

That's a scented pop up.

I'll take a case of that, please.




For the Birds

The heat broke and gave us a crystal clear day of sun that filled my head with so much longing for the Cape that I sailed right past my exit on the way to work and had to get off at the next one and sheepishly follow my way back.

While I did spend most of my day inside, I had to drive to the Bronx for a deposition and even there amidst the bus exhaust fumes and the street vendors and the hot dog roach coaches and the flavored ice pushcarts, there were smiles on the faces of those that chose to spend their lunch house outside.

I had to depose a records person from the City of New York. These people are employed by the City in various departments and do the research and produce the reports concerning cases where the City is sued. They testify at the depositions and the trials. The depositions are usually quick as most often there are no records to produce.  The depositions are stacked up for every two hours and the City witness just remains in a small depo room while the court reporters and we lawyers change with every case.

These are not complicated or lengthy depositions, but they are formulaic and if you haven't done one in a long while, you may forget what you need to get on the record, especially when all the reports produced nothing. The witnesses are tired and bored and know that they are expected to do nothing more than recite how they conducted the search. No personal questions will be answered! No legal questions will be answered! Nothing outside the scope of their search will be answered!

Today, though, the witness was a woman with a loud, clear voice. She smiled. She gently guided the young attorney through his paces. She suggested how to mark the exhibits and counted the pages for the court reporter. She reminded the plaintiff's attorney that he might like the permit numbers read into the record.

When she smiled she flashed several gold fittings around her incisors and one front tooth. Less than "grillz", which cover the entire tooth, these were like earring jackets -  I don't know if she could change them out to match her clothing but she was wearing a lot of gold jewelry. She made me laugh when she was turning over some documents and she caught the plaintiff reacting with surprise at something he saw as she turned the pages over on an exhibit.

"Don't get excited, honey, it just means that there were no violations, not that no records were searched." He looked taken aback. "I saw your face, I know you got all excited!"  We all busted out laughing. I can't say I've ever laughed in a City records person deposition before.

Later on I rode down the elevator with her. She had her bare arms crossed. "I got to get me some warmth", she said. "Oh, me too", I replied. Good idea to eat lunch outside." "Yeah, 'cept then I got to worry about the birds.  I got so many thing to worry about and I got the birds, too!"

I walked through the revolving door behind her. Outside, on what is called "Perp Plaza",  people were hawking water and sunglasses, and a healthy contingent of guys with nowhere to go were standing against the building, waiting for the jury line getting into the criminal court across the street to die down.  The witness walked off into the crowd. I don't know if she got herself a sandwich and walked up the street to the park and caught some sun  until she had to go back at 1:00.

Me, I walked up the street to the parking garage, on high alert, looking up in the sky for birds.


Summer In New York

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The Pom Cottage is rented for the next few weeks. We hope they are treating it nicely. We are happy to have it rented. Really.

It's giving me a chance to draw a breath and get some chores done around the house.

But the heat! Oy! It's a real old fashioned New York summer. Hot, sticky, humid, thunderstorms, and bad hair days.

But don't tell anyone - I like it!

I'd rather have a summer that is in fact summery that our usual rain every weekend season of years past.

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This is Mr. and Mrs. Pom on a usual summer day (sans cami in public; 20 years too late for my arms for that!).

Isn't Mr. Pom cute - he's been working on his tan!

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Here are the Pom children and their friends. They are all on their way to the beach. Except Mystery Man. He is not a beach person.

The New York beaches are crowded in this heat wave. The traffic is terrif. Should we go? When I make plans to be up and out, who looks at us?  The dogs. They can't go to New York beaches.

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Sunday is my day to get up with the dogs. There's a 5:00 wake up call and I push the bark button long enough to get me till 5:30. The air is already heavy and full of moisture even at this early hours. The sky is tinged with rose and a few lazy, scattered clouds drift by like party goers returning froma night out. My neighborhood is quiet and only the hum of air conditioners and the occasional car break the whirring of the cicadas.

I didn't notice the cicadas until the weekend. Cooped up in air conditioning at work all week. I am always sad to hear them for it means summer is half over. If we lived back in Memphis, school would be beginning in a a couple of weeks.

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These mornings are the jewels of the summer days. I would live  my life in chunks of mornings and evenings, if I could. I have always been a morning person and usually was up and oat the beach with coffee and journal hours before anyone awoke. Now we have the dogs who see mornings as their due and wants walks and feeding and water and petting.

I've been out of sorts from this disruption in my solitude time. I am cranky and unfocused and feel that I am on the go on weekends from the moment I get up.

And then I discovered the other half of the cleaving of the sky. Summer evenings. What a phrase! What it conjures up for me. 

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Summer evenings are for sitting on the porch and plugging in the fairy lights. If I'm lucky, The Princess will make her Italian coffee and we will both read until our eyes hurt in the dim light. And when I can't read any more and The Princess and I pack up our books, I go up to bed.

Mr. Pom has taken to sleeping every night with the air conditioner on and although I hate it, on these sticky nights, it has to be done. My tolerance, however, for the heat, is greater than his, so I find myself slipping into the bed in MM's old room. 

I tell Mr. Pom that it is just for those air conditioned nights. I prefer to lie with my head by the open window in the cross ventilation. To watch the moonrise over my neighbor's house, which looks like a house on a Monopoly board in the moonlight. I see the lightening play in the distance and watch the bats swoop across the sky. 

The next morning, I watch a pink dawn slowly mottle the same grey sky and the trees are silhouetted exactly as they were the night before, only they come into view instead of fading into the darkness. I remember why I am tired both mornings and night when I stretch myself to be awake for the entire cycle of the day.

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A violent storm has broken the heat and we are lucky to have lost only a few branches and our power is on.  I stood on the screened porch, which is screened on three sides, and while it rained it was like being under a thrilling, noisy waterfall. The dogs sat behind me, using me for cover, the big babies that they are.

The air is clean and cool and I am hankering for a walk in the park along the water. I think a cup of coffee to go, my journal, and some paints are going to be my dinner tonight. Perhaps I can convince Mr. Pom to come and forgo seeing Arod hit #600?

Perhaps not.

Either way, I will.


Old School Weekend Rambling Post

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I think we've forgotten how to be home in our own house. Familiar strains are heard: lawn, laundry, cook, clutter, groceries, gardening. Simple and ordinary days.


Sunday has to be a day of rest.  There must be a Sabbath in this week or we will not survive.  If I had a pool, I would float in it. If I was near a beach, I'd sun on it. But neither of us wanted to jostle crowds or get in a car and travel more than up the road to go to brunch.



Our mini-vacation day, I've decided, will draw on the leisure activities we employed with the children when it was so hot on a July day in Memphis that even our 40-foot pool drew no enthusiasm when we knew the water would be close to 90 degrees.When the heat and humidity turn summer into winter and the four walls are closing in, you can't fight it: you must embrace it.

I used to declare it a summer in winter snow storm day. We would shop for provisions: usually Blimpie sandwiches, chips, and chocolate chip cookies. The shutters in the sunroom would be closed up, the sleeping bags would be brought down from the closets, and the sofa bed would be opened up. Oh, and the air conditioner would be lowered to 60 degrees.

There we would spend the day and into the night, watching movies and eating junk food. Eventually,  the little one would need a nap, the soda would spill on the sofa, and lethargic children would begin to bicker. Granny Pom would stick her head into the room and think we'd all lost our minds. (She pretty much thought I was the most lax mother/housekeeper on the face of the earth, which I probably was at times when measured up to a standard of living in the country on a farm.) 

 I decided to rent a British film since we'd been at the dog park and had a delightful chat with an older English chap about his long gone black lab who used to bring him the letters when the postman dropped them through the gate. I spent the rest of the walk talking with a British accent until Mr. Pom told me to get a life.

So I rented a British film: An Education. A coming-of-age story set in England in the 50's, it started off wonderfully, but  the last third of the story fell flat. However, charming actors, and beautiful clothing and sets made it lovely eye candy.  A pleasant hour and a half. We ate canteloupe with proscuitto, olives, mozarella, tomatoes, and some salami. (I guess we have outgrown Blimpies.)

Relaxed by our several hours of leisure, I did accomplish the two things I wrote about yesterday:

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The decluttering began with backyard and garage junk! Yes, that is Grandpa's 35 years old redwood picnic table and benches. All of my extended family and more had eaten around that table. It began its life on the porch on Claire Avenue. My mother gave it to us when she sold the house after my Dad died twenty years ago. It had traveled with us from NY to Fresno to Memphis and back to NY. Able to seat at least 12 in a pinch, the redwood table  was at least two inches thick and the benches were as sturdy as they come.

We have shopped for replacement table, but they really don't even make them like this anymore and if they did, they'd cost a fortune. It was so rotten in places that about a twelve inch portion of the wood had completely disintegrated. Mr. Pom has nailed it and braced it and patched it for 25 years, but it had reached the end of its useful life. Everyone said good bye to it before we rolled it out to the curb.  I'd better stop writing about it or I'll be outside under the cover of darkness rolling it back into the yard. 

Despite the 90 degrees weather, Mr. Pom made good on his promise to The Artist to make her a leg of lamb on the grill and it was awesome. (She is our little red meat carnivore.) Smoky flavor and perfectly cooked, tender and rare. I had to restrain myself from sitting at the table with the leg bone to eat the charred bits. Since my surgery, I've only eaten lamb about twice and I can only have one small piece but it was worth it.


Before we ate, he had the lamb on the charcoal grill and the veggies on the gas grill, so I took the opportunity to run out and grill my peaches along with the veggies, which I supposedly was "watching" but didn't know I was "watching", so we had burnt veggies.

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Of course, I forgot to take a photo of the other side, the pretty side! I dusted them with sugar before I grilled them. They were good, but they weren't that good. They had the same flavor as when I do them on the stove. Next time, I'll rub them in the sugar and grill them exclusively on the charcoal grill for the smoky flavor. Otherwise, seriously, you get the same flavor by doing them in a cast iron pan and then you can add a little butter and let them caramelize.

The best part of the meal, however, wasn't the peaches or the lamb, it was when the Pomegranate family sat down together and divvied up the cash on their bets as to how much mummy spent at the Arbonne make up party that she attended on Friday night. Yes, egged on by Mr. Pom, The Princess and The Artist and their father had a pool as to how much I would spend. I faked them all out by spending quite a bit under their lowest bid, with The Princess collecting her ten dollars from them. Just to even things up, I went online and purchased a few other personal essentials, such as the lavender body wash and face polish I've run out of. Darling, darling family. Next, they will be betting on when I leave and take all the money and hide out in a villa in Tuscany.

Have a good week!


The River Runs Through It

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Thank you all for your comments. You made me laugh and you made me cry. I have gotten this bout out of my system, for the weekend at least.  I am amazed at the deep feelings I am having this time around. I think the only cure for it is for The Princess to hurry up and get married and have a baby. Only kidding! Not really! Yes I am! Not! (But don't worry, she's ready, too!)


The online family of friends is an amazing, amorphous group of email names that post comments as heartfelt as any that you could receive from a trusted family member or real time friend. I can never get over how loving and generous readers are and how much they will share with you while cheering you on or just reminding you that they are there, bearing silent witness to your troubles like the stars above. Take a click over to Babelbabe and read her lovely essay on online friends. I agree with all of it (and really regret that I couldn't go on the very weekend with her and BB that she writes about!)

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Life does not move in a straight path. I should be so lucky as to have this be the biggest hurdle I have to jump over in this half of life. (That is my Italian family speaking: I should be so lucky! The poorhouse is right around the corner! God willing!) We don't do a lot of hand-holding in my family. There aren't too many hugs and kisses  over matters like this.  It's taken for granted that you will cry and then get over it. Our favorite movie line to quote is from Moonstruck when Cher has slept with Nicholas Cage, her fiancee's brother,  and he tells her he has fallen in love with her, and she slaps him and yells at him, "snap out of it!"

I will muddle through this. I will wallow and cry just enough to have Mr. Pom and my sisters tell me to snap out of it, but I will keep sharing it with you. Because I believe that there is no one universal life experience, but there are universal experiences that we all share. I hope I have realized after 50-something years that no one's reaction to an experience is "right or wrong". There is no one way to react to marriage, birth, divorce, illness, death, job loss, or just plain old empty nest. 

As foreign as a reaction may seem to me in my cultural context, I have come to understand that most stereotypes are grounded in a grain of truth. Just because I don't feel the way that you do, doesn't mean that you or I have feelings that are not valid. There is a river of sand that carries us through this coursing life and every swirl and eddy is an impression of emotion left there by the one who went before. I don't ever want to dismissal the curve of your river and dam it up so it can't encroach on mine. 

I so remember being in college and just dripping with arrogance and condescension when an "older woman" (she probably was 35!) was in one of my classes and we had to share what we felt were our most important achievements in life. When she said, "her children", my eyes practically rolled out of my head! And when mothers of friends of mine bemoaned their graying hair, I thought they were them the most shallow creatures on earth for even noticing or caring about it, let alone spending money on dying it.

And now I don't even remember what my  natural color hair is!

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And now back to regular programming:  this weekend, we are home, blessedly, happily home! As much as I'd like to be on Nauset Beach today, I would only go if I could blink my eyes and be there and be back the same way like in I Dream of Jeannie.

And thank goodness we were not on the road last night since our neighborhood was invaded by a swat team and swirling helicopters with spotlights for over an hour as the police hunted down two burglars who had robbed a house about a mile from here and then crashed their car and took off on foot after a police chase. The dogs went crazy when the helicopters started sweeping our yards, which was a good thing since we had our dogs unlocked and  our air conditioners on and we didn't hear the suspects run through my yard, knock over a big planter with a rosemary bush, and leave our side gate open!  One suspect is in custody (if the other is in our garage, they will never find him for the junk!) 

This afternoon, after a morning of appointments,  I am working on my class samples for Art Is in October. Soon as I was done with check ups,  I ran to the art store, where I haven't been in months, and bought about 10 sheets of delicious, colorful, luxurious art paper that will be the inspiration for my class models. I have the journals we will use and I am playing with the format. You really must come - the retreat will be  a sensuous journey of alluring delights!

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Later we will grills some steaks, make a corn salad, and try my hand at even grilling peaches.  I hadn't had a good peach this whole season. I've bought them at the supermarket and at Farmer's Markets and they've been mealy and hard. Then I bought 3 little peaches on River Avenue under the El across from Yankee Stadium, from a little Latina girl and her mom who were running a tiny stand as part of the NYC Greenmarkets program, and they were the sweetest, juiciest peaches I ever had. Only in NY!

Off to do some work and clean up the house. No one is home but me, and the dogs are  laid out on the tile floor due to the heat.  I should be digging out my art room and the spare room that The Artist destroyed when she was doing her art end of the year projects, but instead, I am spread out in the dining room in front of the air conditioner, with the dogs asleep around me. This is not the weekend for "should be" but the weekend of "what is".

May your weekend be filled with moments of paste, paper, and paint, and a latte or two.

Love,

Mrs. Pom


Through the Looking Glass

Sometimes I wish I could upend my life and look at it through one of those kaleidescope toys the kids have. It would be cool to put my eye up to the eyepiece and look at it all from far away and then start turning the kaleidescope until I got the parts to fit together in a new way.

I can't do that and it's just as well cause knowing myself, I'd be realigning my life every half hour, or at least every day, going from tinker to tailor to soldier to spy.I have been in the doldrums the past several months.

I come on this blog to post and really have no enthusiasm for it. I write posts and delete, second guessing what I should say, how much I should share, and always judging myself as I think others will judge me.

The truth of it is I am depressed over the youngest going off to school. Of course I want her to soar and I know that she will, but I also would like to have a family at home for another few years. I can't hold back time and Mr. Pom and I are seriously trying to recreate the best part of ourselves for each other.

It's still hard to walk in the house even now when she's not here and be alone and realize that my mommy days are over for all it's dailiness.  But my sweet Princess is still here - and even she is anticipating the loss of her 3rd floor roomie and feeling sad.My sister said to me just yesterday, don't you wish it was about ten years ago and we were all young and the kids were little? Her oldest is going off and though she still has two younger ones at home, the oldest is often the hardest to let go.  

But it's more than just that. I'm calling into question where I'm supposed to be in the life stage. We are busier than ever, yet I accomplish less and less.  I have lost all focus in my writing and my art. I am doing nothing and staring at the page. I spend my nights starting one book after another and finishing none. I upload photos, and do nothing with them. I have piles of art projects in various places and haven't touched them in months.

It is a season of change and I am floundering. I have ever gone to this blog and written so many posts that I delete halfway through.Be patient with me. I hope to muddle through and come out stronger.

I am beginning by doing a major paring down. I am decluttering and deaccessing and intend to give away tons of mixed media supplies and all the craft stuff that I've had in my closet for years and years.My fabric - I intend to make a whole bunch of simple quilt tops and find someone to machine quilt them. It's time to use it up or give it away.

And these dogs, I don't know. I am having panic attacks about how we are going to care for them during the week when we are gone all day at work. I am not reacting well to coming home and being alone with them for several hours of dog-insanity after they've been cooped up all day.

I can't help but get the same feelings I used to get when the kids were little and I couldn't do anything like write or sew because they needed 24-hour entertainment. I remember looking forward to going to bed and forcing myself to stay awake for a half hour so I could plan quilt tops in my head, as that was the only time I had to myself.Now I have these dogs and I am getting that same claustrophobic feeling. What have I done?

If you've made it this far, you're probably wondering what I have to complain about:successful kids, a second house, etc. And you're right. It's just a transition that I will weather. And hopefully come out better for it.

 I'm trying to just post and not think too much about it. And not worry about photos. It's like blogging 101 again.

Keep me in your prayers.


Oh, I Can Wait to Be Home Again

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Part of the experience of owning a second home is the logistics of getting from here to there. As much as we may pretend that it is just a hope, skip, and a jump, the fact of it is that we live a good 4 hours away from our second home on a good day, and on a bad day, or rather a usual traffic day, it easily telescopes to 5 or 6 hours away. Times two, a weekend trip ensures a jail sentence of 8 to 12 hours in a car, or in other words, an entire day devoted to driving.

 

The effect of all this driving is manifest on our speedometer and our gas receipts. It is also steadily apparent in our state of mind, or state of disposition by the time we arrive at either end. The getting-there portion of the journey is fueled with the energy of anticipation and release: Let’s go! We’re off! Woo hoo, the week is over! The return journey, like all decompressions back to reality is the reverse mirroring of the same: “Let’s go! OMG, it’s backed up for 45 miles! The week end is over!”

 

The subsequent depression is amusing if you are not the one mired in it, and equally annoying if you are not the one mired in it. In short, coming home is the bastion of getting away and we have tried to resolve this “first world” situation by remaining hyper vigilant of the other person’s moods, albeit while receiving the same observations from the other about our own.

 

This hyper vigilance extends to both the morning of, the trip, and the evening after. From past experience, we have resolved our issues into a list of do’s and don’ts. I shall share these with you so you may apply them to your own situations, however, more intense or less than our own travels. They are as equally apt for reimmersion back from two hours at the movies, a day at the beach, or return from an around the world cruise, excepting the difference of the mounds of laundry being more or less relative according to the duration of the escape.

 

Got that formula?

 

  • No recriminations are allowed for the amount of money spent, as in “do you know how much this New York Times cost and you littered the car with the pieces and I haven’t even read it”. Also included is statements along the line of,  “I can’t believe we spent that much on a stinking dinner at a place that thinks that stinking ginger is an ingredient in lobster carbonara.”
  • All dietic license stops at the bridge: no french fries, taffy, fudge, or rosemary salted shortbread cookies may be brought back, unless they are gifts and in which case they must be wrapped in such a way as to make it apparent if someone tries to sample them and to prevent that, they must be either in the car top or buried in the dirty laundry (in a plastic bag!) in the biggest suitcase in the trunk.
  • No one person should bear the brunt of the entire return driving, for that prevents that person from holding the Ace of Complaints, which is unfair to the person who slept the whole way home but still has to figure out how to wear out the dogs who are very restless after 5 hours in the back of an SUV and are intent on tearing up every sofa pillow in the house.
  • Whatever guilt a parent feels over abandoning the working teenager for the weekend, no wallets will be produced for guilt trips to American Eagle or the Apple Store, at least until Wednesday when good sense and work exhaustion sharpens the senses softened by salt water and fudge.
  • No bills  may be paid on Sunday night, regardless of whether they are about to turn off the electricity. Bills can wait until Monday night when the  grinding of workday has already numbed the senses. This is probably the most important rule of the journey as it prevents temper tantrums, crying, screaming, and the flinging of envelopes about the bedroom whilst the other partner locks themselves in the spare room until the storm subsides.
  • Bring home no dirty laundry.  This is not a metaphor. I mean do not bring home any dirty clothes. Wash them in the washer/dryer that is right on the first floor instead of the one here that is in the bowels of the horribly messy, humid, moldy basement where spiders live.
  • Lastly, no matter how loudly and vociferously your partner declares that We.    Will.  Never.  Do. This. Trip. For.  The. Weekend. Again!, you can be assured that the partner will be the very same one to call the other at work by Wednesday and say, “What time are we leaving on Friday night?” ”

 

P.S.    These are all the points I had written, until I returned home and now I will add a final one:

 

  • Never, ever walk into your house after a weekend away with your arms full of a laptop, purse, dragging a rolling suitcase, and with a shopping bag full of purchases which include two garlic and cheese baguettes (note the infraction of food rule above = chaos), unless you don’t mind sprawling face first on the tiled steps on top of your laptop when you trip over two dogs wagging their tails to greet you while one buries his head in the bag and takes off with the parmesan baguettes while you thrust your hand out to steady yourself, knock over an oak table holding up a pottery dish that somehow lands on top of you.

 

 

Tequila, anyone?

 

 

 


Cape Chowdaw: The Long, Slow Slide into Summer

Nothing is sweeter than the slow fall of dusk in July.  The drawn out summer day lingers long past the time when we would have done the dishes, fed the pets, and called the kids in from the yard to come have baths and go to bed. On these July nights, summer seeps into every moment of the ticking clock, and stays up with the blinking fireflies, the fantastically lit clouds of pink and purple,  the voices of children echoing down the street, and to, finally, the great, huge orange moon that rises up from the horizon like a pirate ship and sails from ocean to bay until sinking in the west.


Walk the path with me.

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In  summerland, we both beg the sun to stay and wait impatiently for it to drop, wishing it away along with the no-see-ums that pester our eyes, ride into our nostriles, and take a walk on our scalp. We scratch like dogs, tantalized by the smell of someone's barbecue wafting across the damp sand of the beach, our stomachs growling for s'mores though we've already stuffed ourselves with hamburgers and fries.

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Finally, the sun is a fallen souffle of strawberries and cream, a crushed pavlova set ablaze, and night's soft curtain can finally drop, bringing not the end of the show, but the beginning of this season that stands us on our head. 


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Ride the evening into night with me. Listen as the long grasses sigh with pleasure along the beach, as the water laps softly against the boats for one last kiss, and lovers fall into the silken arms of summer.



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Summer is here and now.