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Friday, July 29, 2005
Quilt Store Fridays
Each Friday between 10:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M., cleaning ladies move in here to do a bit of domestic archaeology...hunt for the legendary floor. While that happens, we visit one of many quaint local quilt stores. Now, for the uninitiated, a quilt store may or may not sell finished quilts. These do not. They display fabrics and provide inspirational examples of sewing projects...wearable art, pillows, quilts, etc. Lydia and I absolutely love these places. It is a tradition that we slowly crawl through quilt stores on cleaning lady days.
The kids....heh, heh. Each store, knowing that women with kids are their best customers, provides a playing-with-toys area...some very nice ones. So the kids go along and they don't complain too vigorously. That said, let me add that they wish we were doing something else. However, since all the rest of our vacation time is devoted to their fun and education, Lydia and I feel that while we "do" quilt stores, those kids can just suck it up and be little soldiers. Today I bought such beautiful fabrics, I had to keep opening the packages and peeking at my purchases all the way home. YUM!!!! I love beautiful fabric!!!!
The other nice feature of Quilt Store Fridays is that when re get back home and open the door, everything smells lovely, shines, sparkles, is in order...it's all good.
Then we go out to the beach and the kids are happy, too.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Good and Bad
Last week one day while pushing Sadie down the beach in her stroller, I met a little old lady and her itty bitty chihuahua, Honey. Let me just admit that Honey is a miracle of chihuahua perfection...she does tricks!!! My favorite is where Honey stands on her fragile back legs and holds out a paw which she allows people to shake. Insanely cute!!!!!!
This week we have the busy beach eroders. With all the damage done by last summer's huricanes, Wild Dune Beach has diminished by about half last year's width. Signs everywhere appeal to visitors to stay off the dunes as only they can prevent the ocean from just washing over the island and erasing all the homes and landscaping. A few days ago as I served dinner, I looked out the window and there were two men grunting and straining to shove a catamaran up onto the top of the dunes directly in front of us. Completely unnecessary because a full service marina awaits visitors on the other side of the island. Those guys got their boat up onto the dune and went home to dinner. Next morning, they took their boat back down into the water leaving two huge ruts. Each day since then the ruts have grown deeper as the beach eroders work their evil magic. I took numerous digital pictures of this in progress and said that I intended to send them plus the boat's registration number to the island police. Absolutely for sure if I did this, the eroders would have to appear in court and pay a fine...which next time they are tempted to avoid paying marina fees by wrecking the dunes, would make them think a bit. Lydia begged me to let it go because she can't stand controversy. I have listened to her so far, but feel as though by my silence I am participating in something bad.....hm. Good grief, it would only cost them $15.00/night to tie up across the island, about a mile away.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Call For Pizza
Here at the beach I am the cook, laundry person, tidyer-upper (sp?), and so forth. Lydia has her hands full managing four children, one a baby, but she also helps me by loading the dishwasher, cleaning up the kitchen after meals, and folding laundry. Andy takes out the trash for me. Ashley makes her own bed. My aim is to have everything at all times, comfortable, nice to look at, and clean. I always want to serve pretty meals which are also delicious and satisfying. I want everyone to always have at hand clothes that are clean, nicely folded and put away.
I want to have fun electronic games ready for play at a second's notice and in two locations...lots of different games in each place. And, of course, I try to be sure that all the beach toys are at the beach on time, all the pool toys are at the pool when wanted, etc.... beyond this, I also, want to be available to walk the baby in her stroller up and down the beach so Lydia can have a chance to swim and boogie board with the other kids. They have more fun when she gets a chance to play with them.
Then I want to be in the ocean and pool twice/day myself. Lately I've been involved in beachsand sculpture, too. I've had a book sitting here for a week and only managed to read up to page 158...that's a low for me.
So today around 6:00 P.M. when I got into the kitchen and realized that what I had planned for dinner was going to take an hour to prepare, I suddenly gave up. I called for pizza delivery, took my book out onto the porch and waited for the delivery guy. When he showed up with three hot, delicious-smelling boxes, I carried the boxes into the kitchen, set a roll of paper towels beside the boxes, opened the top box, pulled off a slice of pizza, picked up my book and went back to the porch.
Lydia poked her head out the door, "What's up?"
I gestured toward the book with my pizza slice and said, "Everyone help yourself." She smiled and closed the door. A couple of hours later, I came in to find the kitchen clean, a box of left-over pizza in the fridge, some enthusiasts watching the next-to-last day of the Tour De France, some playing video games, some doing their blogs, one reading the newest Harry Potter book, the baby toddling around making everyone laugh. It looks like life went on while I was AWOL. Maybe tomorrow night I'll call for Chinese food delivery.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Unlikely Coalition
Dan called. He has been babysitting Pork Chop for me and Pork Chop loves him. Porque will not let Dan out of her sight. As part of his business, Dan spends a serious time on the phone, pacing to and fro all over the house, barking and snarling at business wrong-doers, at those doing little and expecting to be well paid…people like that. Literally for hours/day, Dan’s on the phone shaking up his business. And one half inch from the back of his right foot, there’s Pork Chop, with him every single step of the way, saying, “Right! You tell’im, Dan. Bark your heart out. I’m here for you.”
Dan and Lydia have had a cat, Hoity, since before they were married eight years ago. Hoity is a charter member of the establishment. If any animal on-premises were to demand rights of ownership, that animal should be Hoity, a huge, beautiful all-black with green eyes cat. I was sure that this Porque-sitting venture would not work because of warfare between Hoity and the haughty Chihuahua. However, through the magic of Dan’s personality…or something…there has been no bloodshed. Hoity and Porque exist in a hissing, barking stand-off. This has gone on for two and a half weeks.
One other preliminary fact…Hoity’s food and water are in the laundry, a room with its own outside door, a door which includes a special anytime-access cat door. When Dan is in the laundry, Porkee waits in the doorway, shrieking and woofing but not entering. It’s part of the stand-off. Hoity has his spaces and Porque has hers and neither intrudes but both have plenty to bark and hiss.
OK. Now we get to the current events. Last night Dan went into the laundry to renew Hoity’s food and water and there was a raccoon eating the ‘old’ food out of Hoity’s dish. Hoity stood by hissing ineffectually. Meanwhile Porque, in the doorway, for once sided with Hoity and both raged abuse at the wild intruder but neither moved to score a point for the home team. The raccoon was not in the least concerned with Dan/Porque/Hoity. It ate all of the cat’s left over food and then exited through the cat door. Immediately Dan nailed the cat door shut with a piece of sheet metal.
At the beginning of summer I told Dan that if he succeeded in making peace between cat and dog, for his next act he might want to try walking on water. Hm…I don’t think we can give Dan the credit for last night’s coalition of opposities. Credit goes to that arrogant enemy of house pets, the raccoon. For a few minutes he managed to get Hoity and Pork Chop on the same side.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Sand
Sand. Sand....sand..everywhere. When we come up from the beach, we shower at a place beside the pool house...three places where we can stand and pull the chain. Cool water comes down and washes off all the sand....NOT! I clean sand out of the bathtubs every day...wipe it out of the sinks, sweep it off the porch...and sometimes feel it gritting between my teeth. It's great building material, though. Lydia maintains a picture blog of their sandcastles for the kids. Click here.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Kids
The first week here at the beach we amounted to Lydia, Little Benny, Baby Sadie, and me. Then Dan came down for a day or two bringing with him Andy and Ashley, his other kids. So for most of this past week we’ve been a larger group of vacationers. I’m experiencing culture shock.
For an old lady, an extremely out of shape old lady, to be with tiny children 24/7 is a change. Lydia does all of their care, but they are powerful personalities, requiring attention. The insistence of their needs and wants goes on all day and right up to their bed time, somewhere around 8:30 P.M. Add to that the fact that Baby Sadie got one new tooth last week and another is coming in right now and you have a child who needs plenty of holding and snuggling and so forth and so on. At night she wakes up frequently and cries until soothed and nursed back to sleep by Lydia…who, to her eternal credit, jumps up the second she hears even a tiny peep from the baby. Benny, a child with his own super-crowded internal agenda, has to be told everything about 10 times. “Benny, Benny, Benny, Benny, Benny, Benny….BENNY!!!!!!!” The good side is that these children are adorably cute, charming, sweet, cuddly, interesting, and funny.
And now two teenagers. Mothers of teenagers know that no matter how hard their children try to please, well, they’re teenagers. They criticize food prepared for them and eat it as a special concession. “I don’t know if I like this. I’m trying it, but I’m not sure…” That’s a sample. Whatever they do eat is consumed in a configuration that requires the entire upper body to slump up and over the table, fore arms planted on either side of the plate. They want, at great length, to tell you their thoughts and reactions to everything…mostly consisting of “Like…like….like…like….yuh know, yuh know, yuh know…” They experience sullen sulks at one another and at others in their vicinity when they feel sulky. When you ask them to do something, they tell you that they already did it. On the positive side, both of these kids are sweet and kind to the little children, play with them and help to entertain them, never even think a cross thought about them. That is worth everything to me. I’ll keep on sweating over a hot stove to prepare criticisized meals, make beds, do laundry twice/day and dishes, tidy and clean, listen to minutiae of life’s least important details as long as the teenagers are so dear and sweet to the small children.
I am impressed with Lydia beyond words. How did she grow up to be so kind, so controlled, so funny and entertaining even when she’s tired? She was always a wonderful little girl, but as an adult, she is magnificent. Her children have a SUPER MOTHER. By last night she was so tired that I thought she’d break down and scream, “ALL OF YOU CHILDREN GO TO BED RIGHT THIS MINUTE AND LEAVE ME TOTALLY ALONE FOR THE NEXT TWELVE HOURS!!!!!” But that didn’t happen. She more than sweetly saw each little pest into bed after an evening of fun, love, happiness and entertainment. Then she sat down to work on the sandcastle website she’s doing for the older kids. Lydia brought about thirty books to the beach, has had time to read only one of them, but right now she’s over on the mainland buying two copies of the new Harry Potter book so both older kids will be able to read it without having to wait for turns. If I had any tendency to get on my high horse and lay down the law to these four kids, I’d have to first consider that Lydia, who does 99% of the childcare, is only and always kind to them. Yes, this summer is a bit of culture shock…been a long time since I had a child with me 24/7 and then that child was the perfect little Lydia. However, this is a good experience. I enjoy it.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
The Seaside
“It bucked him up like a week at the seaside…” At the seaside. We’ve been here, for two weeks, three to go. How bucked up am I? Well, quite a bit. Now I can get to the top of the island and back along the beach, pushing a stroller complete with baby and assorted beach toys, and I can do it without feeling as though I may not live to make the return trip. I just trot along briskly and think about colors of the sky/water/beach/sun/umbrellas, and beach chairs and bathing suits and don’t need to monitor my nearness to expiration date. So I’m in better condition overall. How about the down side? That has to do with sunburn. I turned out to be allergic to the really effective kind…my face rose up in blisters which at the same time hurt, itched and burned. Part of a bottle of caladryl later, the blisters have dried into hideous scabs, making me look like a person with a ghastly disease. Also, the boo-boos I sustained the day that I was smacked down and tumbled across the bottom of the ocean, those don’t want to heal. I’m burned to a crisp, scabby, my hair is wild and crazy…a sight likely to frighten the weak and timid.
On the other hand, I feel cheerier than when I came. Ugly or not, I’m chirpy and rested. This has something to do with the way the ocean is. Why do all kinds of people come here year after year, super rich to normal people who have saved and scrimped for the chance to be at the ocean, why do they make the annual pilgrimage to the beach? Maybe it has to do with the fact that the ocean is an overwhelming, unconquerable force of nature. Cuts you down to size, sitting on the beach staring out at an endless expanse of something entirely beyond human control. However rich and powerful you may be, that ocean is not going to answer the phone, take a memo, respond to billing, feel sorry or give in. Everyone gets put into his or her place in the overall scheme of things while looking at the ocean. Only a maniac would be angry with the ocean…the ocean just is. It doesn’t either care or not care. Makes you feel like a child at home. The rules are the rules. Period. You don’t try to dominate; you accept. Comforting from one point of view, oddly like going home to Mom and Dad for a while. Which may account for the fact that grown men with important responsibilities will come to the beach and after a few days fly kites, help to build sand castles, chase Frisbees, body surf, boogie board, wear silly bathing suits, play alongside their children. Next to a gigantic ocean, they, too, feel like children, little, allowed to be carefree kids for a while.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Life's A Beach
Now on an island off the coast from Charleston, S.C.
No particular agenda eacept ocean, pool, lunch, ocean, pool, dinner, bath, read, bed time...every day. Kids love it. Everyone sunburned badly because for some reason none of our sunscreens are working. Same is true for everyone here. All rednecks.
Have experienced high waves for a couple of days, actual surfable waves. One slapped me down, rolled me across the bottom of the ocean, tumbled me like a shirt in the dryer, threw me out onto the beach where I lay asessing my situation. Decided that I would likely live, got up, and found all my pockets full of sand, my arms and legs skinned, one foot freely bleeding. We're getting the edge of hurricane Dennis and the wind and water are terrific.
Friday, July 1, 2005
Myrtles and Classified Photos
Walking Porque today I very nearly sneezed my nose off. The crepe myrtles are just barely underway and every street is lined with them...what I formerly called "pink trees". Pollen!!!
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This A.M. I had to down tools to rush to a little violin recital featuring Benny. Leaving the house, I saw between me and the street, right beside my myrtle tree, a guy standing doing nothing. I said, in my nosy way, "What's up?"
He squirmed and looked embarrassed and said, "Hi."
Now suspicious, I asked, "No, not 'HI', what's up? What are you doing? You're too old to just be standing on the street curb on a work day; plus you don't live here, plus it's not a bus stop."
He said, "Working for the city."
I riposted, "Now the city pays guys to stand around making no sense and doing nothing?"
He wriggled and looked at his shoes, "Just doing it for the city of Norfolk."
"Right. My point. DOING WHAT?"
"Uh, working for the city."
"Norfolk now pays people to behave inexplicably and to make a mystery about their category of employment?"
"It's classified," he yielded.
"HA!!!" I squawked. "That's rich. Nothing whatsoever done in the name of the city of Norfolk is classified by any government agency with authority to withold info from the public. No, Bubba. You ain't the CIA. Nor the NSA. Nor the FBI. Nor anything sensible and I want to know what's up." I was getting loud.
At that point a woman approached from a position out in the street from which she'd been taking pictures of the yellow building. She was well dressed and held a camera. "Hi," she greeted in a calming the masses manner.
"No, we've had HI," I answered. "What are you people doing? If this guy hadn't engendered suspicion by failing to give me a sensible answer to that question in the first place, I wouldn't still be asking."
"Working for the public safety," she replied.
"Taking pictures to protect me? I don't think so. I don't feel one bit safer knowing that you took pictures. Now, if you brought a bull dozer and began to knock down the yellow apartments, I might perk up, but take a picture? Naaaw. I'm not going in my house and calling up my family and yelling, ' Oh, thank God!!! Some lady took a picture out front of my house. Now I'm safe!!!' "
She pulled out a pen. "If you have a bit of paper, I'll write down my name and number and you can call me later. I don't feel free to discuss what I'm doing while out here in the street, but call me and I'll tell you what's up." I gave her a grocery store receipt and she wrote and I went to Benny's recital.
Just now, home from recital and numerous errands, I called the number. There was no answer but a machine which said, "Hi. This is Linda Bryant, Assistant Commonwealth Attorney, violent crimes unit. Leave a message."
Taking 'classified pictures' for the city of Norfolk. My word, what a lame thing to say. There the woman stood looking at the best witness she could ever want for anything having to do with the yellow buildings and she fed me a line of baby talk. In her place, I'd have been pumping the citizen for information after the first sentence, not standing there making up a silly drama. No wonder prosecuters don't get more convictions. Lord, have mercy. Well, you get what you pay for. Those people don't get much of a salary. In her shoes, though, I'd want to win just because I'd want to win. I'd look at someone like me and say to myself, "Self, this nosy little old lady is in the right place. She's the kind that gets herself into whatever is going on. She must have seen what happens across the street. I must ask her to tell me everything she knows." Instead, "We're taking classified pictures." Oy, vey.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
It's Possible To Cook Like A Lunatic
I know, because I did it. Lydia kept telling me about a dinner party she had arranged for this evening. She kept asking me what I thought she should serve. Those facts coupled with the knowledge that I'm going to be away for five weeks and should empty the fridge of things which might spoil...So I volunteered to cater her party. I put off starting the job because I had one more book to finish of my most recent grocery store book binge. That complete, I stood with the fridge door open for a long time considering my options.
Eventually I made aubergine au gratin. Also I produced two main course salads and baked chicken in teriyaki sauce, sliced it up. I made deviled eggs. Outdoors, I picked an enormous sack of Black-Seeded Simpson lettuce, came indoors and cleaned it and put it into the fridge to recrisp. All of this began to seem like work. By 4:00 P.M. I was hot and sweaty amd wondering if I am a lunatic. Before I actually collapsed on the kitchen floor, everything was finished and Lydia came to collect it. At the last minute I also did a big pot of just-picked Crook-Neck Yellow squash. I did succeed in cleaning a lot of stuff out of my fridge. Also I washed and put away many, many pots and pans. Further, I am tired, so maybe I can sleep tonight. All good points, but I still think I'm a lunatic. What kind of a nut would do all that work for no pressing reason? I could have put the stuff in a sack and given it to a neighbor. There was no moral imperative at work calling out to me to toil over a hot stove on a hot day. Crazy. If I ever run out of other more interesting ideas, I'm going to take my head to a shrink and see if I qualify, officially, that is, qualify as a wacko.
Oh, that latest book binge...the best of them was The Hundredth Man by somebody Kerley. Very good. It's his first book and he looks my age. Guy shoulda started before this. By now he could have produced many entertaining tomes. Instead, he wasted his life earning a living. People!
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