The Weekend Liz Came Up

Even though there had not been any snow, Liz had had a long winter in NJ. She needed a break and luckily I was the recipient of her 'vacation time'. She wanted to come to Cape Cod and hang out with me. I believe she said, "I am up for anything. I want to see what it would be like to live in the same town as you and what we would do if our kids grew up together." Ok, that meant a swim meet and Sunday dinner on Saturday, but she was game.

She arrived at my house and instead of letting her relax after her 6 1/2 hour drive, I let her use the bathroom and then whisked her to the beach.

It was beautiful out and the water was very calm. I explained to her that this would be the beach we would go to in the summer if she lived here.
In this picture she is trying to get that seagull to give her the starfish that it had in it's mouth. No, it did not work out.

I took her to my favorite bar where she got to experience a filthy Girlscout. Get your mind out of the gutter people, it's a tasty minty drink.

The next morning she was up early and raided the local Dunkin Donuts for her required caffeine fill. That is one of the problems of staying at my house, no caffeine other than chocolate.

One minute the sun was out , the next minute it was a blizzard. It crazy snowed for a few hours and of course I had to take her to the beach because she was taking a billion pictures of my backyard in the snow. Believe it or not, there is a beach and big ocean in this picture....

Later, I dragged her to B's swim meet where she got to meet my swim friends and watch hundreds of kids swim.....

When we got back from swimming, it was straight to my parents' house for Sunday Suppah, the Saturday version in honor of Liz. My niece and Liz fell into deep love.

Sunday we were up early having breakfast and then headed to Dennis, her family's stomping grounds when they come to the Cape. This is a picture of her favorite beach, but brrrrrr, it was freezing!!

All in all, Liz would make a great neighbor! Luckily I sent her home with the real estate section of a few papers.....

Still Playing After All These Years...

K and B have always played well together. I should bottle up whatever they have and sell it to people because it's much nicer having them play together than fight together. Need examples? You can check out proof here, here and here for starters.

Sadly, the dollhouses, Barbies etc have been put away for awhile. We just came off of a 4 day weekend though and I was anticipating the "I'm bored" by Sunday. (What is up with I am bored? I haven't been bored since I was..... hmmm..... never!) They threw me a curve though and the next thing I knew they were doing a photo shoot with each other. I guess they needed new Facebook photos. They set up the family room with a bench, lights, and props (guitar, giraffe, dolphin). I offered to take the pictures and they said, "NO, we can do it". They even had "costume" changes.

250 photos later, we were laughing while checking them all out and a Sunday afternoon was saved from the "I'm boreds"!

Less Than 6 Degrees of Similarity

B started swimming on the team at the Y in September. She has made many friends and has improved in her swimming tenfold. It has been very fun to watch. But it hasn't been all about her.

I jumped into the swim parent arena not knowing a soul. It was OK. We all had a common reason for being at the Y for one hour, 3 nights a week. I started learning people's names and matching them with which kid they belonged to in the pool. We were a group of parents from all over the Cape, but we began to find common bonds with less than 6 degrees of separation. A few months into the season, 2 of B's friends from school joined the team as well. I was already very good friends with their parents, so it was easy to bring them into the "swim" fold.

What have I learned about these new friends?

*Lee once worked at the May School. The same school that brought me to the Cape with my first real job. Suzy worked there, too. One day we had a field day going through the "did you know so and so"game!

*Laurie was in an almost deadly car accident 8 years ago and already knew Lee because Lee was her OT.

*Laurie's husband Bob works with Suzy's brother.

*Bob LOVES York Peppermint Patties.

*Mark is the mayor of the pool and can fill you in on anything you need to know.

*Dan videos his son every single night, but is also a wealth of info about the team.

*Men can have hour long conversations about septic systems.

*George did some of the remodel on Lee's kitchen.

BUT.... what I learned the other night was the best of all! Lee and I are sole sisters because we worshipped the Red Sox in the late 70's. We were one upping each other with stories for one hour. It was hysterical. We went from sending Carlton Fisk birthday cards every year, to asking Fred Lynn to an 8th grade dance, to kissing Rick Burleson's mailbox, to making scrapbooks of the team, to keeping stats for every game, to comparing who we had signed autographs of, to who lived in our town, well you get the idea..... It all started because I had been going through some old pictures and found a bunch of my Red Sox paraphernalia and brought it up while we were watching swim practice.

I am not sure where I am going with all this except to say that I am so grateful for meeting all these new friends this year. They have provided me with hours of laughs and a bond into a "new" group. My advice is, jump into a new situation and put yourself out there. You never know who you are going to meet and you just might find someone who  is less than 6 degrees similar to you.

Maine at the Cape

Maine does Cape Cod 7/08

Before I tell you about my trip to Maine, I have to back up and share my "other" Maine friends coming to the Cape. My roommate from college and her family came down to visit and celebrate our 'younger' friend's 40th birthday.

We had a very slow ride out to South Beach on the "refuge" boat. It's just what we call it. It is a hull of a boat with a crappy motor that can fit a bunch of people on it. So we're not the Kennedy's, we're over it.

We had a great time at the beach. It was a bit breezy, so the kids played towel kites or something. Who needs real kites? My sister's Berniese Mountain dog reeked havoc with the piping plovers until the girl that was hired to sit on the beach all day and protect these little shore birds told us to keep him on a leash. Yes, I said that right, OUR GOVERNMENT HIRES PEOPLE TO SIT ON THE BEACH ALL DAY AND PROTECT LITTLE SHORE BIRDS. Don't get me started.
"Piping Plovers Taste Like Chicken" notable bumper sticker.

Of course, a trip to our house is not complete without horseback riding in your pajamas.
I know, we live a crazy life.
Tomorrow...... Cape Cod does Maine.

Dinner

I went to my friend Amy's house for dinner tonight. She is the photographer I assist during wedding season. It was such a lovely time. Her table was set like you would see in a Martha Stewart magazine. Which is funny because she is so not Martha. (Thank God!) There were 7 of us, 2 women I met for the first time. It was a completely different group than I more regularly hang out with and it was great. We talked about all the usual things Moms talk about....kids, kids' teachers (as in who is strict, who is sweet and who has no social skills when it comes to talking to parents, but the kids love'em), cats and their various issues (one Mom's cat had died earlier in the day as she was booking her son's birthday party. Can't you just hear that conversation, "Um, great, save that date, but I will have to get back to you after I give my cat mouth to mouth."), how great dinner was! and if there were otters on Cape Cod (evidently, yes). The sweetest thing was that she had little gifts wrapped at our seats and some random paper cubes with letters on them. We had to shuffle the letters to make a word. The word eventually meant what our names meant. Susan means "lily" if you were wondering. My mom watched the girls because Matt was out fishing. I am so fortunate for my mom, but that will have to be a whole'nother post because the wine and chocolate are making my eyelids droopy.