Sunday, 21 July 2002
Mark and I took off for the Cape at about 8:00 last night. We were hoping to miss the traffic, but as it turned out, there was not much on the road. There wasn't, but we still didn't arrive until close to 11:00 PM, and by that time Mark singing in the car was about to drive me to homicide.
We unpacked, and I didn't notice much until this morning.
For those of you who don't know the Provincetown / North Truro area, P'Town is at the tip and NT is next. The Cape is skinny there, and the inhabitable section is even narrower. NT has basically two main roads, Route 6, which is the four-lane limited-access, and Route 6A, which is the beach road, where most of the cottages are.
Monday, 22 July 2002, 9:07 AM.
Mark and I felt much more rested when we got up yesterday. We looked around a little and then I drove out to the campground to find Linda and Hal. I couldn't find their campsite, and finally asked a very friendly woman who insisted on walking me there because she'd once got lost in Hong Kong, and somebody had walked her to her hotel. I'm sure Hong Kong is more intimidating then the North Truro campground to the average stranger, but I meekly accepted her help. The campsite was empty, so I wrote Linda and Hal a note and was walking out of the campground when I saw them drive in. I gave them our address and then took off, so they could set up. About an hour later they joined Mark and I at our condo, and we went off in search of John and Karen and the kids.
We finally ran them to earth at their favorite beach. They had mostly finished swimming and were all sitting or laying on the sand, reading summer books and tanning themselves. They all looked pretty good. Jenelle and John had just gotten there the day before, so Jenelle wasn't very tan. She is going to start student teaching this fall, and Karen is really excited that one of her two student teaching jobs will be at the elementary school across the street, where Jenelle was a student not that long ago. Lauren is doing more practical work in her nursing course. Chelsea is still in high school, trying to learn to drive, and her voice has dropped about an octave and she has gotten much bigger.
Linda and I took a walk in the water and over the sand dunes. Starfish were stranded at all over the dunes, and were drying out in the afternoon sun. We rescued a couple of dozen of them, and then started to look for shells. To our surprise, many of the shells we picked up were inhabited by hermit crabs. Several of the shells they inhabited looked a bit the worse for wear, and some of them seemed too small.
That night we all went down to P'Town to shop. We just browsed the shops... Karen had been to tired to go, the girls went on their own, and John has seen everything a dozen times... but Linda and I did go into a shop that sold colorful shells, and looked for new hermit crab houses. We didn't buy much.
This morning Linda and Hal came over when Mark had just finished showing me his stretching routine for his back class.
Tuesday, 23 July 2002, 7:46 AM.
Well, after that we sat around for about an hour. Mark and I still had not showered.
Then we went to P'Town to shop. P'Town is more visually interesting than anything else. You've seen two men or women hold hands, you've seen them all. I love the little streets, and the shops, and the fact that the shops lure you in and out. A treat for the eyes.
In fact, it's all the entertainment and exercise I need, and for not much money. I have more things than I need, but managed to come away with postcards and a good escapist book.
At the Provincetown Bookshop I asked for the Shakleton diaries, and got my choice of four. I bought the largest, with the most pictures
Went to the post office, where I discovered that the price of stamps has gone up, and I bought 10 postcard stamps (or rather, Linda bought them for me, because I was out of money). Wrote postcards to Mom, Dad & Jo, Cathy, John, and Sue G. Didn't have Sue's address so didn't mail it. Also don't have John's, but
Owe postcards to John, others.
Wednesday, 24 July 2002, 7:43 AM.
In the morning, Mark and I sat around for a while and chilled. Mark showed me his back exercises again, and I did them, and now I am sore. When it got to be about noon, and nobody had showed up at our doorstep, we went over to Linda and Hal's campsite. They weren't there. Then we went to John and Karen's. Hung out there for a while. Weather was hot and humid. I wasn't in the mood for much.
Went with John to the North Truro museum, run by the local historical society. (It must be fun to be on the North Truro historical society.) Saw display of work implements in old hotel. Second floor has rooms as they were. One of the rooms was dedicated to XX, a local woman who used to have
One old lithograph, of XX Darling I used to have. Bought it for a song back when I was in high school -- I don't even remember where. People told me it wasn't worth much, because of the water damage, but it was in better shape than the one in the museum. I wish I still had it, but it was big and heavy and I was moving around a lot in those days, trying to keep my possessions down to the essential, and storing my memorabilia with friends and family.
John showed me the old tool section, and told me he had several of the old tools, including a planer.
I was more interested in what the women did. And it is more and more
Progress has been the result of science and the preservation and transfer of knowledge.
Wine tasting yesterday at x winery. Very good wines, seven estate wines, which means (as I discovered) that the grapes are grown at the winery. (What do you call a grape farm, anyway?) Seven acres of grapes. Not much, you would think, but they got an enormous amount from that small farm. Big capital investment, with the building and equipment, but perhaps not as much as farming. I kept thinking of Nebraska with its thousand-acre farms and enormous tractors and combines.
At night Karen and John, and Mark elected to stay home and do "whatever it is we do." (John's words.) I know Mark started reading on the bed but he was asleep by the time I got home. Linda, Hal and I went after Provincetown's and shopped the rest of Commercial Street, roughly that section East of McMillan wore. We didn't stay long, about an hour, but I was exhausted by the time we got back to the car. My only purchase was a dish scrubber for Mark.
8:25 AM.
Today is cold, gray, and overcast. Mark is taking a shower. At 9:00, John and Karen, Linda and Hal, and perhaps Lori and Andy will meet here so we can all go out to breakfast. I still have to shower, but at least the bed is made and everything is reasonably clean.
Thursday, 9:35 AM.
Breakfast yesterday was great. Best waffles I've ever had, with fresh whipped cream and strawberries on the top. I got mostly the sweet stuff--Portugese fried doughnuts, French toast, stuff like that. Mark gave me some of his bread pudding. Why bother eating out, if you don't eat just what you want?
Jenelle, Lauren, Chelsea and their respective boyfriends showed up together a bit later. Haven't figured out the boyfriends' names yet, but all three of them went to Farmington High, graduated in the class of 1999, and used to hang around together. Lauren's is a charmer. (He's the only one I've talked to, albeit briefly.) Jenelle's is shy and seems devoted, and Chelsea's likes to play with the little kids.
Chelsea had no money and borrowed a $20 off her father.
We were supposed to climb the monument after that, but Mark and I went back to the condo and read for a while. Nobody showed up, so we went back to John and Karen's. Everyone was at the bay beach. Mark and I drove over to the ocean side, and Mark swam for a while in the pounding surf. The waves were too strong to swim, he could only body-surf, so he stayed in only ten or fifteen minutes. Then we went to the North Truro Library. Great looking place, but the only internet-ready computer was booked up for the next two days, in 15-minute increments. Mark had been hoping he could walk in and do market research for a peaceful half-hour or so. We stayed a few minutes and then left.
When we got back we went to the beach for a bit. Mark and I took out John's kayaks. The waves were coming to the shore. Mark had John's sea kayak, and I had a small, flat-bottomed general-purpose kayak that kept getting blown around by the wind. We didn't get very far but I got some good arm exercise, at least to my right arm.
Then for dinner we cooked hamburgers, cheeseburgers, corn on the cob, salad, and had cookies for dessert. John and I watched part of a program on maximum-security prisons.
We watched the sunset from the bay side. Very nice. Got a great picture of Chelsea and what's-his-name.
After we got back,
Mark is doing his exercises, and I should be, too, but I prefer to write.
Mark finally suckered me into doing the aerobics. I can't do them all the way he can. Pooped out right after the double elbow-to-knee move. Am not in the best shape for climbing the monument. If I'd remembered we were supposed to climb the monument, I would have done the stretches instead, or opted out of the whole thing.
10:27
I went to take the trash out and George from Taunton introduced himself. He is staying nearby. He did some cedar shingling for Linda's nephew. He and his wife have two children. I think the older one is six. Very friendly. Related to the couple on the end, unit 31.
Friday 8:22 AM
Went to the ocean side yesterday. Mark went in and behaved like a porpoise. He loved it. First went with Sarah, who is a spunky little thing and a great swimmer. Very social, very good around adults. I went back to pick up Lori, but the beach was a town beach and all the parking was taken anyway, so Lori and I drove back and picked them up. Then we went back to the house and waited for everybody to have lunch and get organized. D-Day is nothing to getting four kids and four adults ready for the beach. Andy drove the van, with Lori in the front seat, Mark and Lauren and I in the center, and Boyfriend(?),
Lori informed us that "the Cragins," as she calls John and Karen's family, aren't much for ocean-side swimming, and prefer the bay. But Lauren and Boyfriend(?) went with us, and even went in, briefly.
Andy, Lori and I had books and were trying to read, but Mark had none, so he annoyed the rest of us by questioning Lori about her book and fidgeting. Lori had a semi-text book about having a healthy heart. I was trying to read "The Curve of Binding Energy" by John McPhee, and only Andy had something that could reasonably be called beach reading: one of Milan Kundera's greatest hits, I forget which one. We had just started to read when we noticed that it was almost four-thirty, and we had to get back so the kids could get ready to go on the whale-watch, which left from P'Town harbor at 5:30.
On the way back, we noticed people honking at us, and we pulled over. The rooftop carrier had popped open and we had shed two boogie boards. We drove back, where the manager of the campground told us he had seen them fly out and land in the middle of the road, and he had turned his car around to come back, but by the time he did that, the boards were gone.
Locked myself out of the condo yesterday. Forgot Mark's dry underwear, so he had to go without. John came back with us and found the key to #20(?), opened that, and found the key inside to our place.
Last night the kids all went on a wale-watch, so the adults had the place to themselves. That was good. Karen made spaghetti, and then we watched the ending to a moderately interesting British spy thriller set in Greece. Then we went out to -- I think -- Race Point -- to watch the sun set. John parked the truck to block the view of an older couple, but they were very gracious about it and insisted we stay where we were. They sat in chairs on the beach. A seal played just off-shore for our amusement, the sunset was spectacular, and the conversation desultory and undemanding.
Then we went home.
This morning Mark harped on his theme -- that he wants to go home early. He always announces this somewhere in the middle of the trip. He wants to get back to the office so he can check his e-mail. And he thinks Kitty is lonely without us. I have news for him--Kitty barely notices us, most days. All he thinks about is his territory.
8:37 AM.
The arrangement last night was, if they aren't here by 9:00, we aren't going out to breakfast. Mark is doing his exercises, and I am sitting in his beach chair, by the window in the bedroom. I type rather than dictate when Mark is in the room.
In fact, if there were one thing I could change about this vacation, I would have another room in the condo, where I could go and be private. Mark has no sense of my personal space at all. Or of my time. He was elbowing me this morning to get up and make the coffee, and last night he was poking me to keep me awake.
Mike says he is "Not beachy." seems like rare good sense, to me. But the tops of his toes were burned. He could be an honest man. I don't know and I don't care. Some people just can't tolerate much sun. I am one of them. When you can't tolerate the sun, you know it. I had untreated melanoma for about 20 years, an irregular mole with variegated coloring, as big as a dime, on my leg. It was finally spotted as melanoma only about six years ago, and removed. Fortunately, it hadn't traveled beyond the excision area.
Had a nice conversation about moles with Andy. That's when melanoma really comes in handy, when you're trying to talk to a doctor and you have a disease that interests him but is outside his area of specialty. Andy is an emergency room doctor. Chatted cheerfully about "growths I have known,"
Have an idea for the 4 phases of man. Used to be that most people died in their 40s and 50s. So there were children, adults, and then a select group of old people.
Now there are more ages of man. Childhood, teen-aged, young adult, adult, and then two stages of elderly, the active and the inactive or very old.
This should mean that there is more respect for the elderly, not less.
9:14 AM.
Mark is busily packing up our food supplies. He is very anxious to get back, now that we have decided to go.
9:35 AM.
Mark is finally in the shower and I have a few seconds alone when I can dictate into my microphone. But, having said that, I find that I have pretty much talked or typed myself out. In a way, I am also glad to leave early. This way, I will get set up for the week and can make whatever arrangements I need to.
I have figured out how to keep two documents open at the same time. That will facilitate my dictation considerably. I can copy a paragraph to one, and then re-dictate it.
9:46 AM.
The shower has stopped running, and my moment of peace is over.
Mark and I took off for the Cape at about 8:00 last night. We were hoping to miss the traffic, but as it turned out, there was not much on the road. There wasn't, but we still didn't arrive until close to 11:00 PM, and by that time Mark singing in the car was about to drive me to homicide.
We unpacked, and I didn't notice much until this morning.
For those of you who don't know the Provincetown / North Truro area, P'Town is at the tip and NT is next. The Cape is skinny there, and the inhabitable section is even narrower. NT has basically two main roads, Route 6, which is the four-lane limited-access, and Route 6A, which is the beach road, where most of the cottages are.
Monday, 22 July 2002, 9:07 AM.
Mark and I felt much more rested when we got up yesterday. We looked around a little and then I drove out to the campground to find Linda and Hal. I couldn't find their campsite, and finally asked a very friendly woman who insisted on walking me there because she'd once got lost in Hong Kong, and somebody had walked her to her hotel. I'm sure Hong Kong is more intimidating then the North Truro campground to the average stranger, but I meekly accepted her help. The campsite was empty, so I wrote Linda and Hal a note and was walking out of the campground when I saw them drive in. I gave them our address and then took off, so they could set up. About an hour later they joined Mark and I at our condo, and we went off in search of John and Karen and the kids.
We finally ran them to earth at their favorite beach. They had mostly finished swimming and were all sitting or laying on the sand, reading summer books and tanning themselves. They all looked pretty good. Jenelle and John had just gotten there the day before, so Jenelle wasn't very tan. She is going to start student teaching this fall, and Karen is really excited that one of her two student teaching jobs will be at the elementary school across the street, where Jenelle was a student not that long ago. Lauren is doing more practical work in her nursing course. Chelsea is still in high school, trying to learn to drive, and her voice has dropped about an octave and she has gotten much bigger.
Linda and I took a walk in the water and over the sand dunes. Starfish were stranded at all over the dunes, and were drying out in the afternoon sun. We rescued a couple of dozen of them, and then started to look for shells. To our surprise, many of the shells we picked up were inhabited by hermit crabs. Several of the shells they inhabited looked a bit the worse for wear, and some of them seemed too small.
That night we all went down to P'Town to shop. We just browsed the shops... Karen had been to tired to go, the girls went on their own, and John has seen everything a dozen times... but Linda and I did go into a shop that sold colorful shells, and looked for new hermit crab houses. We didn't buy much.
This morning Linda and Hal came over when Mark had just finished showing me his stretching routine for his back class.
Tuesday, 23 July 2002, 7:46 AM.
Well, after that we sat around for about an hour. Mark and I still had not showered.
Then we went to P'Town to shop. P'Town is more visually interesting than anything else. You've seen two men or women hold hands, you've seen them all. I love the little streets, and the shops, and the fact that the shops lure you in and out. A treat for the eyes.
In fact, it's all the entertainment and exercise I need, and for not much money. I have more things than I need, but managed to come away with postcards and a good escapist book.
At the Provincetown Bookshop I asked for the Shakleton diaries, and got my choice of four. I bought the largest, with the most pictures
Went to the post office, where I discovered that the price of stamps has gone up, and I bought 10 postcard stamps (or rather, Linda bought them for me, because I was out of money). Wrote postcards to Mom, Dad & Jo, Cathy, John, and Sue G. Didn't have Sue's address so didn't mail it. Also don't have John's, but
Owe postcards to John, others.
Wednesday, 24 July 2002, 7:43 AM.
In the morning, Mark and I sat around for a while and chilled. Mark showed me his back exercises again, and I did them, and now I am sore. When it got to be about noon, and nobody had showed up at our doorstep, we went over to Linda and Hal's campsite. They weren't there. Then we went to John and Karen's. Hung out there for a while. Weather was hot and humid. I wasn't in the mood for much.
Went with John to the North Truro museum, run by the local historical society. (It must be fun to be on the North Truro historical society.) Saw display of work implements in old hotel. Second floor has rooms as they were. One of the rooms was dedicated to XX, a local woman who used to have
One old lithograph, of XX Darling I used to have. Bought it for a song back when I was in high school -- I don't even remember where. People told me it wasn't worth much, because of the water damage, but it was in better shape than the one in the museum. I wish I still had it, but it was big and heavy and I was moving around a lot in those days, trying to keep my possessions down to the essential, and storing my memorabilia with friends and family.
John showed me the old tool section, and told me he had several of the old tools, including a planer.
I was more interested in what the women did. And it is more and more
Progress has been the result of science and the preservation and transfer of knowledge.
Wine tasting yesterday at x winery. Very good wines, seven estate wines, which means (as I discovered) that the grapes are grown at the winery. (What do you call a grape farm, anyway?) Seven acres of grapes. Not much, you would think, but they got an enormous amount from that small farm. Big capital investment, with the building and equipment, but perhaps not as much as farming. I kept thinking of Nebraska with its thousand-acre farms and enormous tractors and combines.
At night Karen and John, and Mark elected to stay home and do "whatever it is we do." (John's words.) I know Mark started reading on the bed but he was asleep by the time I got home. Linda, Hal and I went after Provincetown's and shopped the rest of Commercial Street, roughly that section East of McMillan wore. We didn't stay long, about an hour, but I was exhausted by the time we got back to the car. My only purchase was a dish scrubber for Mark.
8:25 AM.
Today is cold, gray, and overcast. Mark is taking a shower. At 9:00, John and Karen, Linda and Hal, and perhaps Lori and Andy will meet here so we can all go out to breakfast. I still have to shower, but at least the bed is made and everything is reasonably clean.
Thursday, 9:35 AM.
Breakfast yesterday was great. Best waffles I've ever had, with fresh whipped cream and strawberries on the top. I got mostly the sweet stuff--Portugese fried doughnuts, French toast, stuff like that. Mark gave me some of his bread pudding. Why bother eating out, if you don't eat just what you want?
Jenelle, Lauren, Chelsea and their respective boyfriends showed up together a bit later. Haven't figured out the boyfriends' names yet, but all three of them went to Farmington High, graduated in the class of 1999, and used to hang around together. Lauren's is a charmer. (He's the only one I've talked to, albeit briefly.) Jenelle's is shy and seems devoted, and Chelsea's likes to play with the little kids.
Chelsea had no money and borrowed a $20 off her father.
We were supposed to climb the monument after that, but Mark and I went back to the condo and read for a while. Nobody showed up, so we went back to John and Karen's. Everyone was at the bay beach. Mark and I drove over to the ocean side, and Mark swam for a while in the pounding surf. The waves were too strong to swim, he could only body-surf, so he stayed in only ten or fifteen minutes. Then we went to the North Truro Library. Great looking place, but the only internet-ready computer was booked up for the next two days, in 15-minute increments. Mark had been hoping he could walk in and do market research for a peaceful half-hour or so. We stayed a few minutes and then left.
When we got back we went to the beach for a bit. Mark and I took out John's kayaks. The waves were coming to the shore. Mark had John's sea kayak, and I had a small, flat-bottomed general-purpose kayak that kept getting blown around by the wind. We didn't get very far but I got some good arm exercise, at least to my right arm.
Then for dinner we cooked hamburgers, cheeseburgers, corn on the cob, salad, and had cookies for dessert. John and I watched part of a program on maximum-security prisons.
We watched the sunset from the bay side. Very nice. Got a great picture of Chelsea and what's-his-name.
After we got back,
Mark is doing his exercises, and I should be, too, but I prefer to write.
Mark finally suckered me into doing the aerobics. I can't do them all the way he can. Pooped out right after the double elbow-to-knee move. Am not in the best shape for climbing the monument. If I'd remembered we were supposed to climb the monument, I would have done the stretches instead, or opted out of the whole thing.
10:27
I went to take the trash out and George from Taunton introduced himself. He is staying nearby. He did some cedar shingling for Linda's nephew. He and his wife have two children. I think the older one is six. Very friendly. Related to the couple on the end, unit 31.
Friday 8:22 AM
Went to the ocean side yesterday. Mark went in and behaved like a porpoise. He loved it. First went with Sarah, who is a spunky little thing and a great swimmer. Very social, very good around adults. I went back to pick up Lori, but the beach was a town beach and all the parking was taken anyway, so Lori and I drove back and picked them up. Then we went back to the house and waited for everybody to have lunch and get organized. D-Day is nothing to getting four kids and four adults ready for the beach. Andy drove the van, with Lori in the front seat, Mark and Lauren and I in the center, and Boyfriend(?),
Lori informed us that "the Cragins," as she calls John and Karen's family, aren't much for ocean-side swimming, and prefer the bay. But Lauren and Boyfriend(?) went with us, and even went in, briefly.
Andy, Lori and I had books and were trying to read, but Mark had none, so he annoyed the rest of us by questioning Lori about her book and fidgeting. Lori had a semi-text book about having a healthy heart. I was trying to read "The Curve of Binding Energy" by John McPhee, and only Andy had something that could reasonably be called beach reading: one of Milan Kundera's greatest hits, I forget which one. We had just started to read when we noticed that it was almost four-thirty, and we had to get back so the kids could get ready to go on the whale-watch, which left from P'Town harbor at 5:30.
On the way back, we noticed people honking at us, and we pulled over. The rooftop carrier had popped open and we had shed two boogie boards. We drove back, where the manager of the campground told us he had seen them fly out and land in the middle of the road, and he had turned his car around to come back, but by the time he did that, the boards were gone.
Locked myself out of the condo yesterday. Forgot Mark's dry underwear, so he had to go without. John came back with us and found the key to #20(?), opened that, and found the key inside to our place.
Last night the kids all went on a wale-watch, so the adults had the place to themselves. That was good. Karen made spaghetti, and then we watched the ending to a moderately interesting British spy thriller set in Greece. Then we went out to -- I think -- Race Point -- to watch the sun set. John parked the truck to block the view of an older couple, but they were very gracious about it and insisted we stay where we were. They sat in chairs on the beach. A seal played just off-shore for our amusement, the sunset was spectacular, and the conversation desultory and undemanding.
Then we went home.
This morning Mark harped on his theme -- that he wants to go home early. He always announces this somewhere in the middle of the trip. He wants to get back to the office so he can check his e-mail. And he thinks Kitty is lonely without us. I have news for him--Kitty barely notices us, most days. All he thinks about is his territory.
8:37 AM.
The arrangement last night was, if they aren't here by 9:00, we aren't going out to breakfast. Mark is doing his exercises, and I am sitting in his beach chair, by the window in the bedroom. I type rather than dictate when Mark is in the room.
In fact, if there were one thing I could change about this vacation, I would have another room in the condo, where I could go and be private. Mark has no sense of my personal space at all. Or of my time. He was elbowing me this morning to get up and make the coffee, and last night he was poking me to keep me awake.
Mike says he is "Not beachy." seems like rare good sense, to me. But the tops of his toes were burned. He could be an honest man. I don't know and I don't care. Some people just can't tolerate much sun. I am one of them. When you can't tolerate the sun, you know it. I had untreated melanoma for about 20 years, an irregular mole with variegated coloring, as big as a dime, on my leg. It was finally spotted as melanoma only about six years ago, and removed. Fortunately, it hadn't traveled beyond the excision area.
Had a nice conversation about moles with Andy. That's when melanoma really comes in handy, when you're trying to talk to a doctor and you have a disease that interests him but is outside his area of specialty. Andy is an emergency room doctor. Chatted cheerfully about "growths I have known,"
Have an idea for the 4 phases of man. Used to be that most people died in their 40s and 50s. So there were children, adults, and then a select group of old people.
Now there are more ages of man. Childhood, teen-aged, young adult, adult, and then two stages of elderly, the active and the inactive or very old.
This should mean that there is more respect for the elderly, not less.
9:14 AM.
Mark is busily packing up our food supplies. He is very anxious to get back, now that we have decided to go.
9:35 AM.
Mark is finally in the shower and I have a few seconds alone when I can dictate into my microphone. But, having said that, I find that I have pretty much talked or typed myself out. In a way, I am also glad to leave early. This way, I will get set up for the week and can make whatever arrangements I need to.
I have figured out how to keep two documents open at the same time. That will facilitate my dictation considerably. I can copy a paragraph to one, and then re-dictate it.
9:46 AM.
The shower has stopped running, and my moment of peace is over.
posted by Susan at
2:41 PM
