Yikes

I just got an email from Barnes & Noble suggesting that I get a jump on my holiday shopping, and oh by the way someone in my life might enjoy reading this:

I can kind of understand their recommendation, because I am a fan of horror fiction, and this cover made me jump.  "Spoken from the heart"?  The photo shows a creature who might like to remove my beating heart from my chest with her fingernails. 

Seriously, does poor Mrs. Bush not look like she vants to suck your blood, here?  Who on God's green Earth was her stylist, and does this stylist live above ground?  Why didn't anyone SAY something - or was this the best of the options? Good grief, with friends like that, she doesn't need enemies.

But if she has any enemies, they are likely to start wearing garlic.

in which I revisit my brief academic career

Mr. Sandyshoes, in temporary residence at the excellent Oceanography department here at MWCU, gets seminar announcements from the Geology Department as well. He forwarded one to me today. The advertised lecture was about marine sedimentation, and I thought, what the hell. That's a language I used to speak. I should go.

However, I felt as though I had a neon "IMPOSTER" sign on my forehead. It has been almost twenty years since I was in grad school for geology. From time to time I take out my degree just to remind myself, yep, it happened, and this is a real and true thing that came out of it. Then I shake my head in bafflement, put the official paper back in its official file, and get on with the laundry.

Today, though, I dashed off a flip facebook status about planning to sit in the back row with a pillowcase over my head, checked the online campus map, put on my shades, and headed out.

It's nice to live such a short walk from the university. Sure I was lost within ten minutes, but I was lost inside the right building. I walked the hallways a bit, unconcerned about being a couple minutes late, as arriving after the lights went down would lessen the likelihood of anyone jumping up to point at me and shout "HEY! You don't belong here! You should be at the grocery store!"

I passed classrooms and labs, displays and bulletin boards -- the usual Science Building stuff. One small office I walked by was shared by six grad students, each bent over their desks. The stress was palpable even from the hallway. In that brief moment, I had two strong and conflicting impulses: to shudder -- God, I remember how much that sucks -- and to do this. I'm not proud of that one, but there you go. Schadenfreude. It can be funny. At least I'm pretty sure that twenty years ago, my stressed-out officemates and I would've thought it was funny.

Thus cheered, I entered the seminar room, sidled over to an out-of-the-way seat, and settled in to see if any of it would make sense.  Happily, much of it did.

One of the things I've always loved about geology is the vocabulary.  So many delicious words!  Bioturbation, box cores, piston cores, isotopic dating, concretions.  Turbidite.  Paleointensity.  Worm tube.  (Heh heh.  I said "worm tube.")

Audience manners, I noted, have not improved over the years. You're going to tuck into a big crunchy apple during a professor's presentation? Seriously? Unless it's a "brown bag" seminar (implying bring your lunch), that seems kind of rude, no?

Something else that hasn't changed:  the mid-talk sleepiness.  I have never fought so hard to stay awake as during department seminars in grad school.  You try everything.  Coffee, of course.  Also rapid breathing, rapid note taking, blinking, not blinking, pinching yourself.  I used to fantasize that if I were made of money, I'd donate a lecture hall to a science department, and include a private room for myself behind it, where I'd put a really comfortable recliner from which I'd watch and listen to talks with complete freedom to close my heavy eyelids any time.  The talk could be fascinating, but the dark room, the white noise from the slide projector fan... what?  It was the 1990s.  They used slide projectors then.

Quit looking at me like that.  You have your fantasies, I'll have mine. 

Anyway.  I understood enough of the talk to be emboldened to attend another one.  Maybe I won't even be stealthy about it.  But I promise not to bring an apple.

two in a row

today's earworm

When I worked as an environmental consultant in Brattleboro, Vermont, there was a young woman in the same office who was having boyfriend trouble. I can't remember the details -- it seemed like there was no kind of trouble I wasn't having myself, in those unhappy days -- but he didn't treat her as well as he ought, and she left him, though it broke her heart to do it.

He made things right, they reunited and eventually married. This was the song they first danced to at their wedding. I'm surprised I remember it actually, as I had a few week-old Bean with me at the wedding who spit up repeatedly, requiring many exits from the reception and three complete changes of clothes, and I could probably have used a change myself by the time the night was through. Those early weeks of nursing are not for the faint of heart.

Anyway, it was a lovely song then, and it's lovely now.



My friend and her husband live in the White Mountains now, own a building company, and have three boys. The youngest are twins. I expect that's not for the faint of heart either.

We're not in close touch any more, but I hope all her days are best days, still.

3rd grade homework

One of the Bean's current assignments is to "begin saving some interesting items from your recycling box!"  Evidently next week they will "create something" from these "interesting items."

I hope and trust that further guidance will follow, or I will be forced to conclude that third grade teachers just like fucking with parents from time to time. Not that I could blame them.

Mr. Sandyshoes is the one with the family full of artists; this is totally his jurisdiction.  Naturally, he is away this week. 

Ugh.  I always hated doing shit like this in school. Styrofoam ball solar systems, shoe box dioramas of life in a covered wagon, ugh, ugh, UGH.  Whenever possible, I chose the essay option.  I would rather have written a 30 page report on the history of the space program than create a single aluminum foil spaceship.

Also, what "interesting" is there in the recycling bins?  It looks to me like she's going to have to make something largely out of wine bottles.  I'll do my part by making sure she has enough of them.

house and home

We are renting a three-story Tudor which sits prettily on a small corner lot with a neat front yard and the back garden made private by dense vegetation between neighbors and a fence on the street side. Thick, tall rhododendrons block the front and side windows. There is an enormous white pine, an herb and flower garden, and a hot tub in the back. The driveway is very narrow. Since the dense hedge of sharp-leaved holly alongside it scratched my arms to ribbons on Day 1, I have decided street parking is the way to go.

It's a very different setting than at home, where we have a neighbor on one side, nothing but woods on the other side and behind, and a treed island in the circle between us and the neighbor across. Here, houses surround houses on streets laid out in a tight grid. Some blocks are charming, some shabby. Everywhere has sidewalks and bike lanes, low speed limits and lots of stop signs. (After a couple of weeks here the Bean asked me, "Mommy, are there really stop signs every 15 feet in this town?" I guess I had been grumbling about it.) The density is nice in some ways -- it certainly feels less wasteful than the acre+ subdivision zoning we're used to, and the neighborhoods have histories which if I lived here, I'd want to get to know -- but not so nice, in others. It's noisier, obviously. I really, really like quiet. I savor it, at home, and when I am home again I am going to savor it all the more.

It is strange, living in someone else's house, with all their stuff. We have settled in, but everything still feels not-quite-right, and we won't be here long enough to make it so.

The girls have been given the third floor as their play space; it's cool to play at the tippy top of the house, and by happy coincidence, that room has the fewest antiques. For a bedroom, they are sharing the one opposite ours on the second floor. They're doubled up in a queen bed. I wasn't sure about that at first, because they have very different getting-to-sleep and waking-up styles. At night, the Bean needs quiet, and the Peanut is almost incapable of quiet; you can guess who's the early bird and who's hard to roust. But they felt strongly about having each other close in this unfamiliar place, and with the other bedrooms on different floors from the master, this seemed the best option. It hasn't been entirely trouble-free, but working things out is good for them, and I think they'll treasure the memory of When We Shared A Room Even Though You Sometimes Drove Me Nuts.

We spend a lot of time in the back of the house, an addition to the original structure, which has a sunroom with the TV/DVD player, and a cozy library where we've set up our desks. Well, Mr. Sandyshoes has the proper desk. I am perching at a corner table. I tried out the desks in the other two studies (yes), but the wireless is strongest here and, well, I need those Daily Show clips to stream smoothly, damnit.

I am still not used to the noises this house makes, or the shadows cast by its big dark furniture and the foliage which seems in constant motion outside the windows. It is impossible to move around quietly through the main part of the house; every floorboard makes a deep squeak. In the darkness, I see movement where there is none, and hear sounds I can't identify from rooms with nobody in them. More than once, very late at night, there has been a kind of brushing sound from the main part of the house while I worked in the library. One night, with the girls long in bed, I walked by a hallway and a light was on that hadn't been on earlier. I turned it off. Next time I walked by, it was on again. The next night it happened again. This was, of course, while Mr. Sandyshoes was back in Massachusetts for a week. Were I easily unnerved, I'd have been pretty unnerved.

I miss my shamelessly huge home theater screen and sound system. Movie-watching is so awesome at home.

I miss the Atlantic; but I love the mountains and big national forests that are everywhere here, and the great Pacific right within reach.

I miss my pantry, clean, bright, and stocked to keep us going through the zombie wars if need be. Paradoxically, in order not to accumulate too much stuff here, I feel like I am shopping all the time.

I do not miss having a bathroom right off my kitchen. Having it down the hall is a really, really nice difference.

I have learned that I do not like dark cabinetry, half-ring dresser drawer pulls, or kitchen counters made of tile, but I do like a Tempur-pedic mattress, a gas fireplace, and a good radio in the kitchen. The kitchen radio seems an obvious thing, but I don't have one at home, and now it's on my wish list. Sadly, I have no hope for a Tempur-pedic of my own, as Mr. Sandyshoes hasn't taken to it. (I won't even comment on a gas fireplace. He wants a wood stove, and I hate them, and round and round we go, but we'll end up with a wood stove.)

He has taken to the hot tub, though, and what's not to love about that? Well, besides the electric bill. I'm not sure I could stomach that part of owning one myself, but as the nights get chillier, soaking in the heat under the stars makes not-quite-right feel just fine, for a while.

unanticipated hiatus

Fear not reader(s), we are alive and mostly well.

We have been traveling a fair bit around our home-away-from-home, and it is wonderful to spend some time on the west coast.

Still and all, Noted and Blogged has been feeling a tad Lonely and Depressed. I am coming out of it though. No way out but through.

Back soon.

Arrival

Overdue greetings from MWCUville! (To recap: Mr. Sandyshoes, on sabbatical from his home institution, is visiting a Major West Coast University for the fall semester, so we have all moved out here for a few months). It has taken some time to get used to our home-away-from home. It has taken even longer to get around to writing about it, but now the girls are in school, Mr. Sandy is at work, a routine has happily settled upon us, and Noted and Blogged is back to noting and blogging.

The house we're living in is almost a hundred years old, has three stories plus a finished basement, and is full of nooks and crannies, window seats and little closets. It's a far cry from our own 1980s, basic Cape-style box.

The owners of the house are professors with grown children. They are good-humored, thoughtful people, and I liked them immediately on my arrival last month to officially begin our tenancy. We did a quick tour of the property, me taking notes on how often to water the plants, etc. I really, really don't want to wreck the joint.

Their home is full of antique furniture, Tiffany lamps, Oriental rugs, and walls and walls and walls of bookshelves filled with all the volumes two academic lives can accrue. There are books on feminism, literature, politics, geography, language, history, sociology, poetry. Books in English, French and Arabic. Initial shelf scanning revealed nothing by Stephen King or Carl Hiaasen... maybe there is a "guilty pleasure" shelf to be discovered later. In any case it feels good to be renting from nice people who read a lot.

We wrapped up the tour in the formal living room. Over the mantle, there is a painting of domed dwellings closely gathered on a hillside beneath a burning orange sun. To either side of the painting is elegantly framed Arabic calligraphy, with intricately patterned borders in jewel tones. I haven't the foggiest idea what it says, but it's lovely to look at. The man said gently, "I am from a Muslim country, and this is Arabic writing. If it bothers you, or if you think it might offend your guests, please just set it aside and I will put it back when we return." I was embarrassed for our whole country - this is what it's come to, that he felt he should say that to make me comfortable? I could only shake my head -- of course I wouldn't take it down, it's beautiful. He then showed me some old photographs "of the oasis near the cave where I was born." "It's not every day you meet someone who was born in a cave," I said. He looked at me, smiling. "No," he replied. "Americans do not understand this."

I received the house keys, unloaded boxes from the car, and we shook hands and parted ways. They left for the airport to begin their journey across the globe. I headed north to reunite with Mr. Sandyshoes and the girls where they'd been visiting friends after their flight from Boston. Though it would be another week before we dipped our toes in the chilly Pacific and I declared my trip across the continent officially completed from ocean to ocean, the solo part now did feel complete, from house to house, from home to home-away-from-home.

I know I've been away from the news, but

what's this I hear about Glenn Beck "reclaiming the civil rights movement"?

The man is crazier than a shithouse rat.

Also, he lies quite a bit. Evidently Fox viewers like that kind of thing? Weird.

For those playing along at home

Greetings from the Mountain Time zone. Just a quick post to say I am safe and well and so happy to be crossing this great land. With all the visiting and sight-seeing and resting my tired eyes I have just not left time for blogging.

I do have a persistent earworm to pass on this morning:


You're welcome.

Now to Mount Rushmore!

On the road

I'm off. It is hard to leave my babies, even though they are 8 and 6 and will be just fine with their Daddy. We will all call each other a lot.

Work is in progress to form and pour the foundation walls today as well. It is both unsettling and, frankly, a relief to leave that behind. It's not as though I can competently supervise any of it anyhow.

OK then - to the driver's seat with me! Catch you in a few hundred miles.

Leaving tomorrow

Packing's done... I think. I hope. There's room in the car if I've forgotten something, but it's a matter of time, now. I'm ready to get going, and don't want to spend the morning loading "one more thing" a dozen times.

Turns out everything I need to wear for four months takes up about three cubic feet. Remarkable. I don't know whether to be proud or embarrassed. I'm a simple dresser and I didn't pack anything fancy. Talking about this trip over dinner with some friends earlier this summer, they asked if I'd started figuring out what to pack yet, and if I was anxious about it. Nah, I said. What do I have to pack? Clothes for fall, right? And how complicated can that be, when all I wear is jeans, turtlenecks and fleece vests?

The girls are a little upset. I haven't taken this long of a trip without them before. I do get away for the occasional long weekend -- Mr. Sandyshoes is very good about accommodating visits to friends on my own -- but not for ten days. This time, when the girls see me again it will be on the other side of the country, after a long flight to a completely unfamiliar place, at the home of people they've never met. It's all feeling pretty momentous to them. Plus, their backyard is wrecked and the driveway's all torn up, and the deck is pulled apart. It must seem like a lot of upheaval. It seems that way to me, and I'm not 6 or 8 years old.

I've told them they can call me as often as they'd like, and say "where are you now?" and Daddy will show them on a map. The Peanut thinks it will be hilarious to call me before I've even turned the corner and ask me where I am. She is planning this and giggling. The Bean isn't finding any of it funny yet, but that will come in due time.

I drove around a bit today, saying a mental farewell to my favorite parts of town -- library, beach, pretty town center. When I return, it will be wintertime, and I'll have missed a Town Meeting (I know, the horror! but I almost never miss one, and this will be a biggie) and two elections (got my absentee ballots though), and many school committee meetings. It is probably for the best that I miss those latter, as I'm starting to feel more frustrated than is useful with all the goings-on of late. I love this town, but I fear the school district is being taken over by Bears of Very Little Brain, and this in a critical budget year. It'll be refreshing to spend time in a place where I know none of the ins and outs of how it's being run, and I won't be there long enough for it to matter anyway. I can stay in the loop online, of course, but it might not hurt to disconnect a bit, either. We'll see if I can manage it.

Right now though, the important thing to manage is not to stay up all night wondering what I've forgotten to pack.

T-2 days

Can't blog. Packing.

Also: foundation footers being poured today.

Also: have to go to Grandma & Grandad's to deliver houseplants and say farewell. Will try to avoid too much obvious glancing at my watch.

Also: a few pesky errands that couldn't have been done sooner.

I hate this part.

T-5 days

I AM TYPING TO THE SOUND OF

Sorry. I am typing to the sound of concrete being jackhammered to tiny bits, and asphalt being broken up, and a deck being sawn apart. To build more house, we have to wreck some alcove, some driveway, some deck. Did I mention it's loud? It is freakin' LOUD.

Still, it is a different loud than the half-dozen 8 year-olds made during the Bean's slumber party last night. Good grief girls, why all the screaming? I just don't get it. One friend in particular is a screamer, and my Bean isn't far behind, and holy shit that sound cuts through my skull like a jackhammer cannot. I had them playing outside as much as possible. Mr. Sandyshoes laid out giant tarps across the dirtscape that is our once-lovely backyard (the new septic system went in yesterday and all is well with that) so that there is a bright blue path from the part of the deck that still exists to the girls' play structure. It

...what fresh screeching hell is this? Oh, concrete saw.

... anyway the big blue tarp making a path like that looks like some sort of water park feature. I kind of want to hose it down, dive off the deck and slide like a penguin out into the yard. Needless to say that would end in all kinds of sadness, but it's fun to consider.

The best part of the party, for me, was dinnertime. I made tacos. Kids are supposed to like tacos, but holy crow, kids are also picky eaters. How do they grow, these children that won't eat anything? Anyway, I heard a fair bit of "I don't like taco meat," but I had them try just a tiny scoop on their plates and lo and behold, it wasn't what they thought it would be, and they loved it, and both pleased and embarrassed me by saying so as much as they did. (My advice, which I know you didn't ask for: Don't cook with "flavor packets." They're revolting, filled with salt and MSG and who knows what the hell else, and really no less complicated than adding your own cumin and chili powder.)

Anyway the party went well -- playing outside, sand art on the deck, dinner, cake, presents. We were about to get set up for the movie at that point but the girls were being nuts and Mr. Sandyshoes, because he is awesome, hollered "WHO WANTS TO RUN AROUND THE CIRCLE?!" and dashed out of the house, and they all followed him around our little cul-de-sac a few times, and returned panting and quiet. Heh.

Then the movie (the chihuahua one, but at least I didn't have to watch it again -- pre-screening it was 91 minutes I can never get back), then bedtime. They were set up in the playroom. As the night wore on I made a couple of bad-guy appearances to tell them it was time to sleep, and as far as I can tell it was actually quiet from 11:30 until 7:30 this morning...

...just in time for the excavators to arrive. The noise didn't get really going until just before the parents were due to pick up their girls, so there was some unfortunate overlap. We hollered thank yous and good-byes over the pounding of the jackhammer. Since then I have had some time at my desk while the girls chill out to The Lion King. Any moment my old friend will arrive, frayed from a long drive in Cape Cod-bound summer traffic but hopefully happy to be here.

And yes, I'm still leaving in 5 days, but, you know, hakuna matata.

SOTD

T- 7 days

I hit the road for the West Coast in one (1) week. This time next Thursday I will be as far west in Pennsylvania as I can stand to drive in one day. Hopefully at this hour I'll be settled in a comfy hotel room, watching whatever's on cable and browsing the AAA Tour Book for where to stay in Indiana the next night.

However, a few things have to happen before then. 

We are having a new septic system installed tomorrow. A hulking yellow excavator sits silent in my torn-up back yard as I type. Early, early, early tomorrow, its cheerful operators will be here to get the job going. They will be cheerful because they started on it today, and it looks like they'll get a jump on the weekend.  Their cheer may be short-lived, because Mr. Sandyshoes plans to ask them if the system really needs to be oriented exactly the way they've staked it.  Cheer or no, I really, really hope the job goes well, because:

Tomorrow afternoon begins the Bean's slumber party for her 8th birthday (btw, the Bean turned 8).  Six other eight year-olds will be here for a crafty activity (why yes, I am doing sand art again... the Bean requested it), dinner (tacos, again by request), cake and presents, a movie (God help me, this might turn out to be Beverly Hills Chihuahua; I tried to sell her on that new documentary about hydrofracking, but no dice), and then they will all go to sleep, right?  RIGHT?   Anyway sometime between now and when these friends arrive, I have to bake and frost a cake, take the Peanut to get a present, clean the house enough to have everyone sleeping (humor me) on the floor, and tidy it enough to have room for all their stuff. They leave after breakfast on Saturday, which is good timing, because:

A different excavator will be here by then, ready to break ground for the foundation to an addition to our house.  Did I mention we have been planning an addition to our house?  And that we got the building permit earlier this summer?  And that having the building permit means we have to start work within six months?  Which means we have to start before we leave for MWCU?  Yes.  Yes, yes, yes.  Because that's just how we roll.  Haha!  In fact, I thought we didn't have quite enough on the calendar, so: 

A friend from high school whom I haven't seen in 25 years is coming to visit Saturday - Sunday.  It's going to be really great to see him.  Sometimes, visits just need to happen no matter what else is going on. 

So that's the weekend.  I can only look that far ahead at this point.  Beyond lies packing, and nobody wants to look there. 

SOTD

No particular reason this song should've been plaguing me at zero-dark-thirty this morning -- I haven't heard it in who knows how long. Still, there it was. And thanks to the Great and Powerful Series of Tubes (RIP Ted Stevens), here it is for you, too! This is a weird little video. The blazer! The turtleneck! The standing basically still on top of a box! The turtleneck!

Holy crow, it's really happening

A few posts back I mentioned that our family is headed West this fall, to spend a semester at a Major West Coast University where Mr. Sandyshoes will be on sabbatical.  Actually, that was way back in March that I mentioned it, and here it is August and we are leaving soon.  Whoa.

In the interim, we found housing (important!) in MWCUville, made arrangements for our own house, figured out where the girls will be attending school for the first half of third and first grade, and bit by bit, got details decided on and buttoned up.

For weeks I've been aiming at using up everything in the pantry, and the shelves are looking pretty bare.  I'll have to really get creative to leave things as empty as possible.  Quinoa and chocolate sauce, anyone?  Canned pineapple and navy beans?  Come on over, I've got a decent Chardonnay to go with!

Now it is time to think about packing.  I hate packing, so I'm prolonging the list-making phase as long as I can.  It's weird, for this long of a trip.  On one hand we have to bring, well,  everything, so it should be a long list.  On the other, "everything" is really just clothes/coats/shoes, and some games, scooters for the kids because they take up less space than bikes, a few important files/documents... what am I forgetting?  Something obvious, no doubt.

We're bringing a car out.   For a while, we thought of taking all of August to drive out there all together, but the timing didn't work.  Mr. Sandyshoes is at sea on a research cruise (less lovely than it sounds, but still exciting) and won't be back in time for us to have made it the trip we wanted it to be.  So I will drive the car out myself, and rendezvous with Mr. Sandyshoes and the girls at a friends' place, and we'll do a little west coast sightseeing all together before we settle into the house we're renting.

When I tell people I'm about to drive across the country solo, I generally get one of two responses:  "Why?  Are you insane?" or "oh wow, I wish I could do that!"  The are-you-insane camp doesn't like driving and/or solitude, and is overly concerned for my safety.  I love both driving and solitude, and while not unconcerned for my safety, I'm not worried about it, either.  Common sense + car in good shape + phone + AAA + GPS = I will be fine.

Actually, I am late to the whole GPS-in-the-car thing, though I had a hand-held model way before it was common.  I didn't see the need, because I never had any trouble using good old-fashioned maps (except in Boston, where all direction-giving aids, including actual road signs, are, infuriatingly, useless).  I know people who got a GPS device, and suddenly can't navigate their own home towns without it.  How does that happen?  But it is nifty, and probably useful for locating hotels in unfamiliar places, and the little voice will give me something to talk back to.  I hear you can download a Darth Vader voice for it.  Heh.  Give me Patrick Stewart, though.  Or Alan Rickman.  Oooh, how about Ian McShane as Al Swearengen from Deadwood:  "Turn fucking left, or prepare for eternal fucking traffic lights, and the like."  That would be awesome, and I will be going through Deadwood...

I digress. 

Anyway, I'll be fine.  I've always been a very independent person.  But you know, you get married, you have children, maybe you quit your paid job... before you know it, that proud independence plays a faint second fiddle to the wife-and-mother part of life.  I miss it.  This road trip gives me a chance to taste that again, for a little while.  Also, I do plain love driving.  Which is good, because 3400 miles is a hell of a long way to drive.

In related news, I am delighted to report I have found a travel mug I don't hate.  There shall be tea on the road, without styrofoam cups!

Don't judge! Oh wait, do. Do judge.

Two judges are on my mind today:

1) Elena Kagan, whose confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court makes both history and good sense;

2) Vaughn Walker, who wrote this excellent sentence, among many others, throwing California's shameful Prop 8 out on its ass:

"A private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples is not a proper basis for legislation."

(Read more.) 

Also, watch this, though it's got naught to do with Judge Walker:

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black

Midsummer

Well folks, summer on Cape Cod is lovely, and we've been having a thoroughly terrific time of it.  Even I have not been especially grumpy, which is really something considering all the summer things I usually find to be grumpy about.  Heat, humidity, crowds, mosquitoes, relentless searing sun, blah blah blah.  There has been all that, but for whatever reason none of it has bothered me overmuch. 

We've been to baseball games, town band concerts, and the County Fair; to birthday parties, family gatherings, and reading group meetings.  We've swum in the tidal creek, the lake, the ocean, and various pools. We rode bikes in the town parade on the Fourth of July.  We've had a steady stream of guests, and were even sad to see some of them go.  We've had lettuce, peas and beans from the garden, cookouts, campfires and s'mores in the backyard and at the beach, and picnics at the Cape Cod Canal, where we watch the boats go by as we eat our dinner. We caught the tail end of the World Cup and dreamed of stretching the word "vuvuzelas" across two triple word score squares. 

Oh all right, that last was just me.

Just this week, I have noticed that the girls are starting to get on each other's nerves earlier in the day than usual.  That I'm feeling less inspired to mow different patterns into the front lawn, and more inclined to flip off tailgating assholes from New York and Connecticut (New Jersey seems underrepresented this year) than move aside for them. 

I know I am nowhere near the end of my rope yet, but I can sense it starting to fray.  Hopefully a total unraveling can be avoided altogether, or will at least hold off until Mr. Sandy is back in town.  He is intensely, if not frantically (though I just heard him actually swear) preparing for a research cruise, and will shortly be away for a couple of weeks.  My shopping list for before his departure consists of non-drowsy formula Dramamine for him, red wine for me.

Stay tuned.

How's your summer going?