i love cape cod

Most people think of Cape Cod as beautiful in the summer, which is certainly true.  I love Cape Cod all year long, especially off season with its lack of crowds, occasional gift of a stunning day in the middle of winter, and interesting landscape including things like the opportunity to examine a whale up close and personal.  Summer is always welcome since the winter can get a bit long (someday I’ll have my Caribbean escape ensure the perfect balance of climates).  Here are some of the things I especially appreciate about Cape Cod - Falmouth and Woods Hole in particular.   If you’re a more urban type who prefers nightlife, “in” restaurants and constant stimulation, this might leave you wanting.  But if you like knowing your community, feeling safe, comfortable and casual, and appreciating the eccentric, you’ll enjoy this.  In general, the deeper you live and play in Woods Hole, the odder it can be (in a good way of course).

Since you can’t use the weather around here to tell you when it’s spring or summer, the May Fair in Woods Hole is a good indicator.  The May Fair is held the Saturday before Memorial Day, and starts with a community parade through town to the park/playground for the fair.  Everyone is welcome in the parade, especially kids and pets in costume and any sort of decoration that strikes your fancy.  Just line up in front of the Science School and start walking when everyone else does.

After traveling in a large loop around town, the parade, led by a small drum corps, arrives en masse at Taft Playground for the fair.  There are lots of games, crafts, food, a May pole, dunking booth, kids selling their old toys at tables, music, and basically anything a community member wants to do that is ‘fair-like’.  The kids all run around together while  the grown ups socialize.  K got the longest lasting Transformers tattoo I’ve ever seen, and also won an early version of an electronic game that officially switched on his desire for a Nintendo DS.  Many of his friends were there, and so were mine.

June was really rainy this year, and beach days were in short supply, but we did get a few early ones in.  We had one glorious day at Wood Neck beach, on the inlet side.  As K patrolled the waters with his net looking for sea life, I sat quietly in my beach chair drinking coffee.  So few people were around me that after about 20 minutes of no one walking around me, about three dozen fiddler crabs decided they could all emerge from their holes around me, just a few feet away, first peeking out with their stalky eyes, then climbing out and waving their massive right claws around.  Very cool.

The week before last, we went walking around downtown Falmouth after I picked him up from his day at the summer program.  He got a giant fill-it-yourself Pixy Stick at the candy store, I got lots of organic vegetables at the farmer’s market on the green, and we ate at an outside table at one of my favorite restaurants in town.  I love that he’s six and mature enough to handle himself to have a pleasant meal at a nice place.

Argentinian Malbec for mom while K checks out a bee’s activity and waits for his spagetti.

The view down Main Street.

Then we went over to the book store and got some beginning reader books for K.  It’s a specialty children’s book store with a very creative selection and knowledgeable staff.  If you tell them the books are a gift, they’ll wrap it and put theme-coordinated stickers on the gift.

We bought this one. 

There are several Fourth of July parades in town, including the bike parade down Main Street, and the neighborhood parade in Quissett.  One of the most unique ones (in the country?) is the MBL Club parade in Woods Hole.  MBL is the Marine Biological Laboratory, and Woods Hole is filled with a bunch of other scientific organizations besides MBL.  This parade consists  of all the scientists creating floats and costumes of the things they’re studying, and parading them down through the village.   Yes, it’s just as it sounds.  It’s a science town and everyone needs to let loose sometime.  Here’s a sampling:

The caption for this picture from the MBL blog:  “Representing Microbial Diversity are (carrying banner) Alexa Price-Whelan, dressed as a redox tower, and Monisha Brown, dressed as carotenoids. That purple squid to the right is course co-director Steve Zinder, and behind them are young bacteriophages. “  I have no idea.

And this, entitled “Sea Urchin Gastrulation Movement by students from Cell Physiology Course” (for real) : 

Fourth of July fireworks are one of K’s favorite things.  After this, the third year of going to the fireworks with his best friend and his family, I’m now positive it is very little about the fireworks themselves and is mostly about lots of kids together having glow sticks on the beach after dark.  This year they made circles with the glow sticks and threw them like frisbees, with one going into the surf, and the thrower running into the water in shoes and pants, in the dark, coming back cold, wet and sandy.  My boy buried himself in the sand with his friend.  Theme:  they come home very late and overtired and totally sandy.   Mine got a shower no matter how late it was, because I don’t want the sand in my bed at night, which would inevitably be the outcome.

  Lookin’ like trouble in about ten years, if you ask me.

The view down the beach, waiting for the fireworks.

 Assembling the glow sticks.

 Modeling in front of the full moon. 

View towards the Vineyard.

Light effects, glow sticks in front and fireworks in back.  Look closely to make out the three boys.

Today was an excellent beach day, followed by a four hour birthday party for K’s friend, and the party was just as good for the grown ups as the kids.  Tomorrow is a friends’ goodbye party, they’re saying goodbye to their Woods Hole beach house and moving to one they’ve purchased.   Pot luck and local band, and kids running all around.   Too bad weekends have to end.

spelling bee

Or, “How to Know if You’re Living With a Six Year Old Boy”.   Or, “Spelling Bee Pee”.

This is how my fireplace mantel normally appears:

 This is how it suddenly appeared last week:

My favorite part of this is that I had been sitting in the living room for quite some time when I noticed it.  He just did it, didn’t say a word, waited patiently for me to notice.  I have no idea how long it had been like that.  I’m pretty sure if K was a six year old girl this wouldn’t have happened.  What accounts for that anyway?  It’s not environment, it’s not how they’re raised, it’s hard wired in there by nature.  I know it.

channeling my inner hostess

Ah, motherhood.   It teaches me new things about myself constantly.   I didn’t see this Martha-esque party planning thing coming, but all of sudden, there it was, and it was fun.  I started thinking about the party in February.  His birthday is the end of April. 

It started with the invitation.  He loves cars and flames, so I found an image on the internet and photoshopped him into it, and turned it into an invitation.  Only took three hours to figure out (ha!), and we loved the result, totally worth it.  I printed him a copy to have, he figured out the printer is a copier, so he made nine copies of it and cut all the cars out.  Copies of copies of copies of K in his Gravedigger flames hat in the Ford flame car.

Cruise  on  in

and join us to celebrate K’s 6^th birthday!

Sunday, May 3 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

at Leary Family Amusements 

We can’t wait to see you!

Soon the red velvet cupcakes popped in my mind.  While K loves store bought cakes, I sure don’t, and cupcakes are so much simpler.  And there’s one I’m pretty good at.  So after some internet surfing I located and ordered a dozen sugar race car toppers.  Going to the cupcake store I have observed the beautiful sculptured icing on their cupcakes, as opposed to the butter knife smearing that usually goes on at my house.  A little more internet surfing, and I was watching an instructional video on YouTube on frosting cupcakes.   I love the internet.  And I love making cupcakes.

Nice. 

And nicer.  Bummer these pictures are so small.  The pictures are so good you’d be drooling now if they were larger.  Eventually I’ll get to a new theme that works for photos, thanks for your patience.

At kid’s parties they always give away gift bags to the guests.  The gift bags sort of drive me nuts, well actually, totally drive me nuts when they are filled with plastic Made in China from Oriental Trading.  The kids love them it seems, but things break, there are tears, then forgotten junk all over the car and house.  I thought a nice die cast car with a hand made thank you tag was a much nicer party favor.

Okay, and to keep track of who’s at our party at the crowded bowling alley?  Some cool racing badges, courtesy of internet clip art, Excel and Staples.  Excel’s my thing, for better or worse. 

Well, that was all quite fun.  I definitely had more fun with the planning than K did, but he had more fun at the party.  Bless him, he enjoyed wearing his batik Gecko camp shirt, and looked like quite the party guy.  I coached him a little bit on party etiquette and how to take care of his guests, and he was great.

Perhaps there is just a little Martha in me, but none of that insider trading stuff, thank you very much.

just say no

It freaks me out a bit that one of K’s current favorite shows is iCarly.  I thought the show was targeted for ‘tweens’ - those between the ages of 9 and 12.  He is 6.  Is the marketing off, or is he just accelerating his embrace of childhood pop culture?  I hope it’s the former, because the latter scares the daylights out of me.  I’m glad I’m raising a boy and not a girl or I’d be paralyzed with fear.

I’ve watched a few iCarly episodes, and frankly, there’s a lot worse out there.  I see the slapstick and lack of taking itself too seriously, and I can sort of understand the appeal.  I get positive reinforcement on my parenting skills and his developing value system from his reaction to Hannah Montana coming on the screen, which is the same as when he was younger and Barney the Purple Dinosaur would appear:  “MOM, QUICK, TURN THE CHANNEL, HELP MOM, HELLLLLP, GET IT OFF NOWWWWW!!!”

And speaking of Hannah, every once in a while this guy’s blog strikes me as completely hilarious, and I was inspired to write this post after reading: “Farewell and Adieu to You, Fair Spanish Ladies“.

essence of taurus

Those acquainted with the astrological sciences know that Taureans have a predilection for comforts.  K is Taurean, through and through.  I could cite many examples of his need for and appreciation of comfort, but let me just show you one, evidenced by this photo from earlier this evening:  lying on the couch, in his most comfy jams, watching Spongebob, drinking a CapriSun Roaring Water pouch with the least possible effort - a very long flexible straw, one end in his mouth, the other in the juice pouch resting on the coffee table pulled close.  Friday nights don’t get any more comfy than this.  He could teach every one of us, I suspect.

pontiac bites the dust

Well, looking at this vehicle, it’s easy to see why.  Looks even worse when you are coming up behind it on the road.   A quote I read:  “With this car, Pontiac has set out to finish what Cortez started by pilfering the Aztecs of their last remaining treasure: their name.”

I don’t follow the auto industry in general, and was surprised to hear that GM was pulling the plug on all of Pontiac, but I really have no sympathy for any of the US auto makers.   In general they make crappy cars, and the market takes care of bad producers.  I don’t think the government should bail them out, either.  Let them die naturally, get all the collateral pain overwith up front, and we’ll all be the better for it in the long run.  I stopped buying American cars in the early 90s, just because foreign cars are made better, more interesting, and more intuitive to a driver’s needs.  I drive a lot, generally 30k miles a year, and I love driving.  I have strong feelings about my cars.  I drive a Honda now, and Hondas are great cars, but I call this one my rebound car, after my Saab let me down just one time too many, and gave me yet another high repair bill to boot.  The Saab was an incredible amount of fun when it worked, but had this tendency of leaving me stranded without warning.  Kind of like some of my romantic relationships.  But I digress.

I did have a few Pontiacs myself.  I had a Grand Am, which introduced me to the joy of driving a car with a wide wheel base, wide tires, good pick up, and great cornering.  Too bad it had three transmissions before it hit 50k.  I also had that never to be forgotten icon of a car, the Fiero.

What can I say, it was cool at the time.  Well, so was my haircut, and you can be thankful I don’t have a picture of that to show you.

RIP Pontiac.

good lookin’, part 2

Some more of the photos I just can’t stop looking at. 

The light on the Cape, particularly in the evenings, is amazing.  Add a really good looking baby and you’re all set.

A short but special bond with Pop-Pop.  Can you see it?  Look at both their eyes.

So Pop-Pop would visit and bring along all the milk and frozen juice container ring tabs, for the cats.  He disliked cats, you know, but he loved me, and I loved cats, so my cats got lots of ring tabs, their favorite toys.  I still have some baggies of them left that I pull out and give to my current cats (that my dad never met).  I tell K where they came from. 

There’s that outfit again.  Sorry.  But look at the size of those feet!  Is that an optical illusion, from the angle I was shooting at?  Maybe a bit, but make no mistake, those are some big feet (and still are).  One of his favorite books, “Ten, Nine, Eight”.

From the same photo session.  This is his “portrait-for-the-corporate-brochure” look. 

Look at those nooks and crannies, around the armpits.  Love those fat folds.  Jowls shading the neck admirably.

Now, look closely at the ankles.  They’re in the rarely seen stretched position, where you can see the pale parts of the creases, where the sun doesn’t shine.  And the blondeness???  Sigh.

This is the reaction that occurs after you keep an 18 month old on planes for a whole day, then let him loose on one of the best tropical beaches in the Caribbean (Flamingo Beach, Culebra, PR).  I felt just the same, but didn’t express it near as well.

I don’t have a bowl-of-spagetti-on-the-head shot, but I have this.  I do love the attention to drawing in the belly button however.  He was careful to point that out.  When he was this age, he was an ‘innie’ until he ate a lot, then became an ‘outie’ until the food digested.  Doesn’t do that now, but we find alternate amusement in his ability to instantly transform from a washboard belly to a buddha belly.

Christmas morning.  First thing he saw and played with was the firetruck.  This is the exact moment he spied what had been set up on the train table…

The hands say it all.

And, fully engrossed, for the next two years I might add.

Mmmm, can’t get any cuter.  My favorite fleece.  Red cheeks, blonde hair, Levis, red sneakers.  Mama heaven.

All I see is joy in that face.  The beach and his cars, that’s all he needed at that moment.

Fooling around on the beach in Ocean City, NJ, where we spent a week with my friend and her family.

He loved the surf.  It was a windy day and his long blonde hair was blowing in the wind.  I swore I would never cut it.

I thought this was a throw away shot, out of focus and crooked horizon.  Then, I saw what he was doing.  Caught in the act - I thought we gave up sand eating last summer??

At the foot of Lucy the Elephant in Margate.

Mesmerized, first time holding a frog.

At Coonamessett Farm back on the Cape, wondering what to do with the bucket.

You can never go back, and god knows the present is great and there are many more good things to come.  I am appreciative of photos I can enjoy over and over again, and this is only a small sampling of what I have.  And, if I wasn’t so close to the half century mark, I’d be figuring out how to go down this path again…

Well, enough, that’s a wrap for this period of photos.  There are more, from older ages, and maybe they’ll appear at a later time.  Thanks for enjoying these with me.

good lookin’

I can’t help myself, tonight and many other times.  Sometimes I just need to go back through K’s photos, back to the beginning, and gaze at him again.  He’s getting so big, and so mature.  He’s losing his first tooth, he read half a book to me last night, I talked to his teacher today about his first grade teacher placement.    I love every moment and watching him grow, but the younger days are oh so lovely to go back to.  Makes me all soft and sappy inside.

These are the photos saved in a folder on my work computer, compiled over the years when I wanted a new screen image at work, or needed to send a photo from work during a break.   A convenient collection of the ones I love, in no particular order, though I’ve tried to put the earliest ones first.

Three days old with his Pop-Pop.  They both stayed like this for a half hour.

Twelve weeks old.  Used for his birth announcement, printed on velum.  Love that hair.  My dad used to say, “when will you give that boy a haircut?”, and I would say, “never, he looks so punk and it’s great”.

Wearing the onesie given to him by the Cape Cod Stranding Network, just before his first visit there.

With his Pop-Pop.   This was soon after he lost nearly all of his thick head of hair (K that is), except for three patches on the crown, front and lower back.  Funny looking without a doubt.  Hard as it was to accept cutting his hair for the first time, these long weird schlocks set me to it, and I was relieved when they were gone.

Some of his first solid food, and his jubilence at having it.  Four months old I believe, and his first word (swear to God) - ba-na-na.  Hasn’t stopped consuming mass quantities of them since.

Napping, clutching beloved blankies.  He still loves clutching blankies (sorry, they’re BLANKETS now) to this day.  I DON’T miss that bear quilt.

Impossible to deny those blueberry eyes.   I loved dressing him in these colors because of how it brought out his eyes.  His eyes were dark blue early on, then became a lighter blue, until they turned pure grey around age one, which is how they remain.

The jowls were serious.

Really serious.  Everybody commented on them.

Grammies are the best.

He always understood that.

One more for tonight, then I’ll give it a rest.  But I have a small stack more to share, coming soon.

Learning to stand using the plastic shape sorter thingy, which was velcro-ed to the floor.  In the background is the fire engine he loved to ride for a VERY long time.  Can you tell how much I loved that outfit?

Sigh, so nice to go back through these photos.

Well, time to play checkers with him (he plays a mean match).

you can get anything you want

eBay might just be as close to the perfect marketplace as you can get.  Old stuff, weird stuff, hard to find stuff, it’s all there.  I once read an article in an art photography magazine about a guy who sold EVERYTHING in his apartment on eBay, including a half used bottle of Listerine.  Then he went to the homes of many of the people who bought his stuff and photographed his items in their homes.   Whatever;  mostly I found it notable that he was able to sell the Listerine.

Last week K had a very strong resurgence of interest in the Titanic.  I went on eBay to see if I could find a plastic model of the Titanic for him.   He’s been pretending many of his other boats are the Titanic (and sinking them).   I am usually party to this playing either at the pool or in the tub.  I showed him a few of the things I found on eBay, and he now regularly cruises the eBay Titanic model listings.  Some of what he’s found:

A model of the Titanic sinking, ”right before the final plunge”.  The seller created the entire thing himself from wood, string, wire, and the like.

A model made out of “Deep Mined British Coal”.  “Stunning” the ad says, “perfect for your office desk”.

A six foot long radio controlled model for only $1,499 and shipping is free.  The auction posting includes a video of the ship running.  The video links to You Tube and many other Titanic model sinking videos, most of amusing quality.  These videos absorb him for quite some time, and he keeps going back for more.

A Transformers Titanic bot.

Description from the Aussie poster:  “Vintage Transformer TITANIC Bot. Strange little toy. I really dont know anything about this one. Seems to have one fin missing from prop. Winder works, so I assume you can use it in water when its not a transformer bot. Please study picture.”  No doubt.

But the one we’re hoping to get is:

Text of the auction post:

Floating/Sinking Titanic Model Perfect for the Bathtub.  Condition: Perfect. Sunk Once for Demonstration.  This posting will offend some of those who are scholarly Titanic buffs and modelists. That’s too bad, as sometimes having fun is the best thing you get to do in any day. Clearly the market for this is not the academic, as the scale and the detail is certainly lacking. This was given to the seller as a gift. As the photos show, it floats and then, by flipping a sliding bar on the bottom of the hull, a hole in the hull magically appears as if the toy was struck by an iceberg, and the ship sinks, breaking in half on the way down. In order to achieve the ideal effect, the water has to be deeper than shown in the picture, a bathtub would work nicely.

This is perfect for K.  We already have the two man submersible toy that can go and explore it.  Don’t go bidding on this now, as I’ll he’ll be quite distraught if I don’t win it!

same kid, two weeks apart

Taken summer 2006.