Frag'n Friday!

*The nice thing about living on Cape Cod is that it doesn't snow until it is winter. Not like everywhere else in Mass that is going to get slammed tomorrow night.

*I trashed or filed over 1000 emails this morning. Phew, that felt good!

*I am going to freeze my ass off watching one kid cheer tonight at a football game and then sweat whatever is left off tomorrow at a swim meet for the other kid. I'll probably be a size 6 by the end of the weekend :)

*There are a lot of elderly folks living on Cape Cod. Today I overheard 2 of them talking about the oxygen pump one was carrying around. "Is that liquid or gas oxygen?" Gah! Is that what we have to look forward to?

*I walked through Macy's last night where there were fully decorated trees and Christmas music. Not. Quite. Ready.

*Halloween is not my favorite holiday.  If there was a Scrooge for Halloween, it would be me and I would say, "Bah Pumpkin". I do like the candy part though.....

*I am off to bundle up! Have a fantastic weekend and a safe Halloween!

My Homecoming Princess

I don't remember there being a big deal about homecoming in my high school. I think I remember them crowning a king and queen at a football game, but there was no dance and no fanfare. Maybe if I had been the queen, then it would have been more memorable with lots and lots of fanfare.

Evidently, on Cape Cod, homecoming is a big deal. Some schools have pep rallies, some have kings and queens and most all have dances. So while K is going to one school and cheering for another (yeah, it's complicated), she was able to experience a pep rally, a competition between the classes, a football game and a dance.

Then she slept for 13 hours straight. 

"It's hard being a teen." Reverend Tim Tom (from the show The Middle)

Frag'n Friday

*It's bad enough that my appliances are playing beer pong. Now I have to worry about teens soaking gummy bears in alcohol. Yeah, that was on the news this morning.

*Speaking of appliances, I got a new washing machine! It's shiny and so is the floor under it! Little things are important in life :) And no, it will not being playing beer pong anytime soon, she's too young (um, new).

*It's homecoming weekend here, complete with dance and football game. Oh, yes, there will be pictures.

*Last weekend was B's first swim meet since March. She dropped 8 seconds off her 100 free! Yikes!

*It's also Octoberfest downtown this weekend and the chamber of commerce has set up pumpkin people in the park. Any store, family or non-profit group could make a pumpkin person. Here is ours (the Women of Fishing Families).

*A new Barbie has come on the market with Tattoos. Disturbing to a point, but I am surprised that she is drawing more heat than the name of her little doggy, Bastardino. The newscasters couldn't even say the dogs name on air. Oh Barbie, and we always thought Skipper was the tramp.

*Have a fantastic weekend!

My Appliances Play Beer Pong

Remember when you were little and you imagined your stuffed animals playing while you were downstairs or in school? (Think Toy Story if you didn't have stuffed animals that played.) Now that I am older, I am thinking that maybe my appliances, car and camera all hang out, play beer pong and decide which one should screw with my checking account and break. They must have gotten really carried away lately because first it was the dishwasher who spewed water all over the kitchen floor. A few weeks later, the maintenance light in my car went on and I thought, "No big deal, I just need an oil change." Well, when I went into the Honda garage yesterday, the man noticed my 10% off coupon and said, "Oh, that will save you about $30." Thanks to my stellar math skills, I knew that meant I was going to be spending $300 on my "oil change" (read: major servicing at 55,000 miles).

I have been having dreams about my camera not working properly and have seen a lot of pictures on my computer that were blurry, so putting 2 and 2 together (see, stellar math skills), I am thinking that I have to send my baby away to get checked out. My camera is like an appendage, this could be very hard.

Last night, I was finally sitting on the couch surfing Facebook on my laptop while watching TV while the girls finished up their homework (yes, a Walton's moment), when I could hear water running into the washing machine. That would have been music to my ears, but I had moments before just heard the load finish. That's right, the washing machine must have lost at beer pong yesterday and it became the next major appliance I need to replace.

I hope the girls understand and appreciate their presents under the Christmas tree this year. B's present will be a picture of the dishwasher, K's will be a picture of the washing machine, mine will be a picture of my camera and the family present will be a picture of the car. Who knew I could finish my shopping by the end of October?

Chatham 300

Chatham is celebrating it's 300th birthday next year. This has resulted in much fan fare and celebrations and historical research around town. I was asked to write a small blurb on something having to do with the fishing community for a book that will be published for the event. Here it is.....

I am blessed to live in a town where fishing has been one of the mainstays of the local ecomony. I feel very lucky to call the fishermen my friends. Fishermen  have increasingly taken a backseat to the tourists and multi-million dollar homes in Chatham. However, the Chatham Fish Pier is the one place all those tourists love to visit in the summer. 

The fishermen and their families have taken some hard hits from the government in the past 12 or so years. The restrictions have been so confining that many of the men have found other jobs, have been forced to sell their boats and their homes. Many of the men started fishing with their Dads when they were little. Many of the fishermen now, do not want their children following in their footsteps. 

My favorite thing about the fishing community is how loyal they are to each other. No matter how much they jockey their positions out on the sea to get the best and biggest catch, they are one family in a time of need. I have seen men gather at the Pier when a fellow fisherman’s boat sank. I have seen them come together to prepare for a hurricane or large storm. The most touching times are when a fisherman or child of a fisherman is battling a life threatening disease. The families rally, donations come in and the community comes together as one to help. I have been blessed to see this happen over and over again. 

My daughter(14) went fishing one day this summer with her dad. He bought her pink fishing boots and new Grundens. He picked her up at 4:30 in the morning and by the time I saw her at 11 AM, she was laughing, joking with the crew and rinsing out fishing totes. A highlight of her day was bantering on the radio with the men who had watched her grow up. These men (and women) are the salt of the earth and I am so proud to be considered one of the family. 

My Invisible Shield Rocks

So, I am in a corner stretching and pretending I am invisible. My "fierce" (read: slow) 25 minute walk on the treadmill has netted me a loss of 87 calories and a chapter of the latest Danielle Steel novel.

My "brisk" walk on the treadmill is the result of starting to work out a month ago. In my head I am 27, but somehow my body has aged quicker than my head. I hurt my good knee walking too rigorously on the treadmill in week 2. That has really annoyed me but, of course, has not stopped my day-to-day activities. Activities that include hauling little kids around, cleaning the house and carrying 40 lb camera bags around wedding ceremonies.

So far at this gym, I have kept to myself. I hop on my favorite treadmill ( 3 from the wall with a view of the parking lot) and read a book. I guess I trained myself to read on a treadmill a long time ago to fight the immense boredom of it. I haven't braved the stretching/mat area because it is right in the middle of the gym. Who wants to see a 44 year old woman doing sit ups? Poor planning on the gym's part. Plus the high schoolers on the swim team are usually in this area. Have you ever gawked at high school swimmers before? Beautiful, in shape, non-flabby bodies. Not people I ever want to work out next to.

So I stretch far away against a wall, next to a scale that basically taunts me and very close to a leg machine. Not room to do situps, but an ok place to stretch and observe for a few minutes.

What I see is older people walking on the treadmill, in shape older men cruising on the step machine, sweaty people, laughing people  tatooed people, men with too much body hair, serious excercisers and the smiley lady that walks around and checks in with people. She's never checked in with me, though, probably because I have my invisible shield around me and she can't penetrate it.

One of the swim team moms, asked me to do a class with her because she noticed that I was working out in the gym (my shield must not have been working that day). This mom runs half marathons for fun. She must have mistaken the 'now me' for the 'best shape of my life college me'.

Hmm, if my invisible shield can alter people's perceptions of me, then maybe I can start doing those sit ups in the middle of the gym?

Sundays In My City

The girls and I went apple picking the other day to our favorite apple picking place in Stow, MA (Honey Pot Hill Orchards). We couldn't have asked for a nicer day to go!

 

That Awkward Moment When....

Yesterday at swimming, unbeknownst to me, B and her friend were playing the game "that awkward moment when....". From the lobby it looked like they would swim a lap and then crack each other up while they waited to start the next lap. The funny thing was is that the adults in the lobby were sort of playing the same game.

For the girls in the pool, it went like this:

That awkward moment when... your coach tells you you did a good job, but tells everyone else they did a great job.

That awkward moment when.... you pee a little in the pool while you are doing the breaststroke.

That awkward moment when.... you have to stop swimming to let half the lane pass you because you are so slow.

For the moms in the lobby, it wasn't that we were actually playing the "awkward game". It was just that we were listening to one woman tell us of her trials and tribulations with Match Dot Com. Combined with a few other dating disaster stories I have heard, I came up with this list...

That awkward moment when.... your date proceeds to nod off throughout dinner.

That awkward moment when... you realize your date has left his ugly sweatshirt in your car and you really were not planning on seeing him again.

That awkward moment when... on your date, you realize that you have a mutual friend in common and wonder why your friend has never tried to fix you up before.

That awkward moment when... you find out your date is a lot older or heavier or balder than his Match picture.

That awkward moment when... you figure out that your date is only visiting the Cape and really lives in NYC.

I got up this morning thinking of how I was going to tie the "awkward game" together for this post, walked into the living room and opened the curtain to look out at the lawn on this beautiful day.... and there it was, the clincher to this post...

That awkward moment when... you open your curtains to find a dead raccoon in the middle of your yard. *

*Totally not kidding and am still skeeved out by it! The girls and I got out the snow shovel and removed it to the unclear border between our yard and the neighbors' where there is lots of ivy growing. 

Happy Anniversary!

My parents have been married for 411, 984 hours.

Otherwise known as 17, 167 days.

Otherwise known as 47 years.

That's a lot of time for 2 people to be married to each other.

A lot of things have changed too, and I don't just mean the color of their hair.

In 1964, gas was .30 cents a gallon and a 1st class stamp was .05 cents.

Lyndon B. Johnson was President and the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series.

Movie tickets were $1.25 and you could see the likes of Goldfinger, Mary Poppins or My Fair Lady.

The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and Barbra Streisand won Album of the Year.

Theirs was an unlikely story of a girl from Winchester living in a Boston apartment  under an apartment of a boy from Medford. The girl from Winchester was a nosy neighbor and would always get in her upstairs neighbor's business.

Thank goodness she didn't let up because this unlikely pair have been each other's rocks for 47 years. Through good times and trying times, they have stuck like glue. And thank God for that because they wound up with 3 great kids and 3 fantastic granddaughters (so far).

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! Love you tons!