13 posts tagged “vacation”
Been having too much fun to post since Wednesday, I guess. Here's a photo from one of mine and Cappy's adventures from earlier in the week -- taking Jackie the cat to the vet for her post-surgical checkup. She was as good as any of my cats (and better than some) with the exception of a huge stress pee on the weigh scale right after I took her out of her carrier. She hid behind the fan on the counter while we were waiting for the vet, but then let me cuddle her and hold her for all the pokey-proddy stuff.
She's been very sweet and loves to be petted. She purrs when petted in the cage, and rolls around and rubs her cheeks up against the bars, etc. She did have another big stress pee when I wrapped a towel around her and brought her into the living room to sit with us on the couch one evening, so there's still some socialization to do. The red couch of fabulousness missed the hit, luckily, and all the pee went down my shirt and leg and into my slipper.
Thursday was my first ever baseball game, with tickets from a lawyer my office uses for great seats to watch the Reds beat the Jays. Here was our vantage point:
Row 18 behind home plate.
And look, they opened the dome! Here it is, in progress.
I had a lot of fun. What cracked me up were the 10-year olds behind us who trash-talked every player on both teams like it was their paid job. But they also had encyclopedic baseball knowledge, just like I imagine Cappy did at that age. Cappy was still working the strategy around the sacrifice bunt when I heard the one kid behind us explaining it to his friend. Anyway, I had a blast and I'm all ready to do it again today as Cappy treats me to Phillies vs. Jays. He's in his Phillies cap (and yes, he does know how to wear it properly, M------l and cranky), and he's going to get me a retro Jays cap. Yes, there will be pictures.
I'm out of time to continue this post, since it's nearly time to leave for the game. Catch you later, after the Jays beat the Phillies yet again.
Today was supposed to be my first writing day since May 9. Coming back to this missing kid novel cold having not turned my brain to it at all in the last two weeks -- yeah, I knew that wasn't going to work. I've wasted a number of hours this afternoon in avoidance behavior and re-reading parts I've already written. So now I'm spending the next couple of hours on household chores to make my day somewhat productive.
But as I'm bustling around, that doesn't mean I can't load up some odds-and-ends photos from Martha's Vineyard that didn't fit into the other posts I did.
This is a line of cabanas, I guess, on Chappaquiddick, the standoffish island, but they weren't within the public beach limits. So, more exclusivity, I guess. I forgot I had this photo till I was re-watching Jaws the other night (filmed on the Vineyard) and there were cabanas like this, only yellow-striped, on beach in the movie.
These caught my eye in the grocery store. They are the only donuts that I ever thought of as "scary". Kind of like whiteface clowns. Just a little too garish.
Here's a pink carpet of petals in the neighborhood of the Edgartown house.
This chair was in the Edgartown house:
I couldn't figure out, if it's not for sitting, why is it even in the kitchen?
There were more stashes of tennis balls for the poodles in any corner you looked in.
Here's the classic postcard shot everyone takes of the cliffs at Gay Head...
Finally, here's me looking out to sea:
Yesterday morning, on our walk to the ferry dock we caught a parade in progress. The local wee schoolkids were promenading to the dock to toss flowers in the sea for Memorial Day. Here they are sitting down dockside, waiting for the appropriate bit of ceremony.
We didn't stay for that part, we were headed across the Chappy Ferry to Chappaquidick Island. Here's the view across the channel. We're on one ferry, in dock, looking across at its sister ferry, in dock on the other side. Yes, you can just about spit across the gap.
On the Chappaquiddick side, it was the kind of quiet that comes with exclusivity. Big, private homes hog the seafront, and plebes like us don't get access. It was a while trudging down the main road, down the middle of the island out of sight of water for the longest time on any outing so far this week, in the beating sun. It started to feel like Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
No one else was walking. Vehicles passed us frequently, heading into the private drives of the family enclaves. We eventually found a little bit of a nature trail, into the woodsy area. Here are some cool pine cones I've never seen growing in fours this way before:
I know this green stuff below is some kind of fungus, but it reminded me of the oxidation of copper on old buildings. It's exactly the same color and pervasiveness.
We finished up on Chappaquiddick's tiny public beach, what I figure must be the token, least-they-could-get-away-with amount of public space they had to provide. It was right beside the ferry dock as in, "just stop right here, you don't need to go any further into this exclusive island space." Since taking a photo of the ground under my feet in Sedona, I'm starting to do that everywhere I go. So here's the most shell-full beach I've been on yet this trip. I used to have a jigsaw puzzle that looked like this -- it was one of my all-time favorites, because of the level of difficulty.
Below was my Sedona "at my feet" photo. One of my favorite things about traveling now is the difference between landscapes, more than the attractions.
All week here in Edgartown, Cappy and I have been noting the amount of contractor and yard work going on all around town. It all seems to be in preparation for the start of the "season", which begins this Memorial Day weekend. Which is why Cappy wisely claimed the week before Memorial Day for us to enjoy the place. The town's been quiet, with not a lot of people about, just the way we like it. We were dismayed to see Mad Martha's ice cream shop with the windows soaped up, looking dead earlier in the week, but predicted it would open up again by the weekend, and sure enough, by yesterday early afternoon, it was bright and refreshed and the staff were eager and waiting for customers, with new ice cream containers barely dipped into yet. They were offering us lots of samples and we had the place to ourselves for a while. We're not even going near the place today, though, because we know it will be swarmed. Yes, the Influx has begun.
Starting yesterday, Friday of the long weekend, we started to see it. A few more people on the street, clogging up the sidewalks, and more seeming to arrive by the hour -- all the folks who could get Friday off for an early start. Yesterday we started seeing college preppies tooling down the street shouting out the windows and SUVs with New York plates driving like they're still in the big city, not a pedestrian-dominant seaside town.
This morning, walking out to the post office and hardware store (we broke the shower -- don't ask), it was full-on tourist sidewalk slowdown, and yet another busload arrivng at the Edgartown Visitors Center as we walked by. Cappy hates the slow-strolling, space-occupying tourist locust hordes. We're hoping the Newes pub with the wooden nickels won't be too jammed tonight for our last dinner here. Today's been domestic chore day for us, Cappy cutting the grass and putting the VW bug away, me in charge of laundry, and both of us tidying and starting to pack our bags up to leave first thing in the a.m. What a fabulous week it's been, and what fine company to spend it with.
Aaaaugh! Vox just ate my post when I went to insert one of the last photos! Let me see if I can recreate it quickly, so the Cap'n and I can get off on this afternoon's excursion.
Yesterday, we went driving around to see more of Martha's Vineyard's sights. This is our trusty steed, which lives here at the Edgartown house.
This was one of our maps for the day. I'm not used to seeing Google maps with so much blue on them.
We drove to Menemsha, which is where the dock scenes of Jaws were shot. Just about every weathered gray structure looked like it could have been Quint's shack.
In the evening, we went out to dinner (photo of us in previous post again) to a place called Detente in Edgartown. I didn't get photos of our food, but for the record, we had a seared scallops appetizer, I had beef tenderloin with mashed potatoes done up in a crispy spring roll wrapper and Nutella pot de creme with vanilla shortbread and ginger cookies for dessert. Cappy had the roasted wahoo (a kind of fish) with gnocchi, and a nice Muenster cheese for afters. All very lovely stuff.
And here's a cat photo from two nights ago that I forgot to post. She came out from under the VW when we were heading out to eat and hung around for a few pats. My only cat fix of the trip so far. A fluffier black cat was on the porch when we arrived home last night in our dressup clothes, but ran off before we got close.
At the Lobsterville Town Beach:
And out to dinner:
More details tomorrow...good night.
No, I didn't get one of Cap'n and I looking goofy in our bike helmets. (Actually it was only me, he didn't look nearly as goofy.)
We biked six miles out and same again back to Oak Bluffs, today, a mere drop in the bucket of a Hotrod ride. Since I've frequently been photographing our food, here's what we picnicked on when we stopped on the big rocks at the harbor.
That's roast chicken we had for dinner last night and smoked gouda on the crackers. And angel food cake we made as well (from a mix -- this is vacation after all).
We saw another cormorant or two, but hardly a gull. To a Torontonian like me, it's very odd to be at a waterfront and not be harrassed by gulls when they see you have food.
I was playing around cropping photos of our bikes snugged up against each other above the rocks where we ate, and I came up with a couple of compositions that interested me, so I thought I'd share several.
The original uncropped photo:
Here's the first crop I did, cutting out the van, but trying to keep in the dramatic rocks:
Here's the second crop, which I like better, because of the sky, even though it hardly shows the rocks:
Then I thought, why not crop it right down to show the bikes, all cuddled up together cutely, and that's when I finally saw the gull in the picture:
Here's a zoom for you:
I love finding these details I didn't even know were there when I took the shot.
When we last saw our intrepid vacationers, it was cold and rainy. Tuesday came out bright and sunny, and it's staying that way.
Highlights from the last couple of days:
Enjoying fresh local cod two different ways the night before last. Mine was baked, with garlic mashed potatoes and the Cap'n's was fish and chips (the most addictive fries I've ever mooched).
Yesterday, we walked the trail through Sheriff’s Meadow and around the Sheriff’s Pond protected area, and caught this family of swans and cygnets. I didn’t know I even got a clear photo till I got back to the house and uploaded them.
There is such a thing as a free lunch. Cappy's mom had been given a gift certificate from a local cafe and she and her boyfriend never used it so they left it for us. We used it for lunch at Espresso Love (motto: "Feel the Love"). Cappy had a turkey club and I had macaroni and cheese (gouda and gruyere) with prosciuttio and token side salad. I cannot resist anything with prosciuttio.
Really good food and the coffee Cappy had sent him into such raptures, he had to buy a bag of the beans (La Minita was the label for the blend). (We also noticed a blend called Grumpy Monkey and both thought of Cranky.)
After lunch, we walked out to the beach and the Edgartown lighthouse.
More birds worth watching. Seagulls were diving for scallop shells and then flying high over the stonework surface around the lighthouse, dropping the shells to break them, and then snarfing the scallops inside. It was very cool to watch. Here’s one shell, freshly lunched on.
Then there was this guy, I’m not sure what he is, but he joins my bird-in-silhouette collection with the raven from the Grand Canyon.
Late afternoon was hammock-time. It’s a double hammock, but we didn’t bother futzing with the camera timer to get a photo of us together in it, so here’s each of us in turn, for posterity.
Last thing in the evening, we went to the Newes of America pub, where you can collect wooden nickels for every draft beer you buy. When you get up to 500 nickels, your name goes up someplace, and when you get another 500, you get your name put on one of the chairs in the pub. So it’s something only the locals and regulars can accomplish. Cap’n’s mom is going for her second 500, so anybody who comes to use the house helps her out by consuming beer for the cause (except non-drinkers like me). It used to be two nickels for a tall one (25 oz.) and one nickel for a short (dunno what size that is), but after we sat at the bar and Cappy told the bartender he recognized him from a previous trip up, he got four nickels for his first tall one, and then the good-guy bartender slid us five more just because. (He was also a good-guy bartender because he happily, even gratefully, switched the TV over the bar to the Daily Show for us at 11.
And some other fun pix – a bear bench downtown (if such a tiny place can be said to have a downtown), and another bench with penguins on it.
And finally, more lawn bunnies (the real kind) for the bun-crowd.
Now we're off biking on today's adventures!
So, the Cap'n and I are here and we are totally in vacation mode. I'm not even putting my watch on in the morning. We don't care what time it is, and we're loving it.
Getting here:
Saturday was travel day. This was my itinerary: taxi, then ferry to the Toronto Island Airport. Porter Airlines Bombardier Q400 turbo-prop to Newark (I have to give the shout-out because my friend Ray is an engineer on these craft for Bombardier).
Cappy had driven from Philly to Newark to pick me up. Five-ish hours drive to Falmouth, Mass. Shuttle bus to the ferry terminal. Ferry to Martha's Vineyard, then local bus into Edgartown, and a few minutes' walk with all our gear to where the family place is. We were in transit for 11 hours each, and I was very glad I'd switched from the original plan to fly into Boston, where I'd only have shared two hours of the car trip in the middle, instead of five. Our first shared food of the trip -- the decadent Cinnabon Bites. Yes, we set the tone early.
I won't bore you with too many travel details, but I will say that Cappy and I are perfectly matched on level of organization and wanting-to-be-on-time-ness.
Edgartown is one of the little towns on the island, an old whaling town. Photos of the house below, because I didn't take any till Day 2, since we arrived in the pitch dark around 9 p.m. (And thank goodness I carry a flashlight in the outside pocket of my suitcase on all trips, because we needed it when Cappy was trying to make the key work and we had to look for light switches inside.) We walked out for food and met up with one of the local residents. I was so pleased I'd made sure to keep my camera with me, even to go to the convenience store to grab pizza slices.
The House:
It's been in his mom's family since the 1960's. Cappy told me ahead of time that the house was small, so I wouldn't be expecting some Kennedy-esque estate. And that the ceilings were low inside, "because people were smaller back then", How far back? "Oh, the 1600's." It's the second-oldest house on the Vineyard. You'd think it would have some name attached to it, but it has no plaque out front, official or otherewise, and while other places in the area proudly plaster the dates they were built above their lintels (and I haven't see one of those earlier than 1835 or so) and the namesof the people who first owned them, this one is unremarked.
I think it might be a saltbox house (two stories on one side, one story on the other, small windows due to a scarcity of glass at the time), but I'm no student of architecture. That side porch part (behind which is the kitchen) might be an add-on, and some of the saltboxes had lean-tos added). Nonetheless, it's way neat inside, with, yes, ceilings I can touch just by reaching up over my head, and some really old original woodwork, doors with latches, not knobs, and so on. Modern conveniences throughout, however, so we've got the indoor plumbing, flatscreen TV, DVD/VCR, and wireless internet (w00t!).
Another feature of the side porch:
Cappy's mom and her boyfriend own two standard poodles that they bring up when they use the house. You can never have too many tennis balls around.
It's been showery and cool since we arrived, but the sun and warmer temps are due tomorrow. Here's Cappy, cleaning up after the fire we had in the old fireplace last night.
Another couple of shots of the interior:
The steep, steep stairs and the old front door (not currently used):
Dining room:
Here's the fabulous view from the dining room window.
Does it get any better than this? No, it does not. Until you hear that the story about the house is that it was run as sort of an unofficial brothel, three sisters servicing the whalers. I do hope that's true. Maybe that's why it doesn't have any pompous plaques on the outside.
Detail from the window sill:
A stuffed poodle, for obvious reasons, and a seashell full of wooden nickels. Those are story for a later post.
More pics from the area around next post. I want to save this so I don't lose it.
Back at work today, so here's the wrap-up on my week off to-do list. Towards the end of the week the weather got nice and hot, so I leaned a little more toward socializing on patios and left a couple of the projects undone.
yoga class (Saturday) done
- get groceries (Saturday) done
- clean house (vacuum, tidy, clean bathroom, clean kitchen) done
- make cork board with real corks (I've been collecting them for over two years, which isn't as easy as it sounds, since I don't drink) - FAIL
- try a new recipe: the panko-coated cheese balls (finally) done
- make rabbit ravioli - DONE and had some. A bunch more is now in freezer.
- do all houseold filing (several months' worth) done
- sort tax stuff and bring to accountant (will drop off Monday -- as good as done
- finish changing drawer knobs on triple dresser (half done - it's harder than it sounds - the threading in the back of the knobs wasn't done properly and it's hard to get the screws in) - FAIL -- didn't even look at this
- change sheets done
- find Day of the Dead fabric online for a bedspread (YGRS's kitchen curtain material inspired me) - Done in the sense that I found what I want, but the vendor isn't answering my e-mail asking for more details. Will phone this week.
- find source of cat pee smell in front closet & neutralize! - Not finished -- about halfway through closet -- it's nothing on the floor, so it must be something that fell on the floor a while ago, and got hung or put back up on the shelf. The hunt continues, maybe tonight
- eye appt. (Wednesday) done
- mount various mementos in shadowbox (half ALL done)
- hair appointment (Friday) and spend afternoon with sister - DONE
- meet up with author friend I only see every six months (if that) also Wednesday - done
- trap momcat and kittens at an artist acquaintance's place (maybe) I'm off the hook so far since she hasn't got back to me. She still never got back to me -- no points off my score
- WRITE! - been doing some but just realized I have to re-think the whole novel ending -- DID reconceive ending (with help from the intrepid Bobavey who listened to my yammering and asked good questions) and have started writing new ending
It totally sucks to wake up a half an hour before your alarm would normally go off for work -- and you're on vacation.
It is awesome to get this kitten picture in e-mail.
These are two of the litter of four rescued kittens that my trapping partner fostered a little while ago (they weren't from my colonies). They've now been adopted and their new mom took this. I love their expression, all, "What?"
