Early for the Party

Here in Atlanta schools are starting tomorrow, so we’ve spent part of our visit shopping with Annabelle to get what she needs to start high school. I get it, that back-to-school is often synonymous with fall, but it’s still a little weird to see all the pumpkin spice and jack-o’lantern shaped cookies at Target when it’s still July and 90 degrees. But they’re not the only ones— when we went with my cousin Elaine to run an errand in Home Goods, all of their Halloween decorations were front and center. 

“We can probably find that at the store near us when we get home next week,” I told Heidi when she showed me a few cute things. “If they’re not sold out and ready for Christmas by then!”

Between the Raindrops

After a magnificent thunder storm this afternoon followed by a steady downpour, Heidi and I jumped at a chance to take the dogs out when there was a slight break in the weather around 6 PM. The air was thick and steamy, and fat drops plinked from the canopy of towering oak and silver maple as we weaved our way in and out and up and down the slick streets of Midtown Atlanta. Gray light filtered through heavy clouds and the green of the grass was popping. So was the neighborhood— it seemed like every dog owner was trying to catch the same break that we were, and several houses had loud music playing with folks gathered on the porch, partying and watching the rain. As for us, our route was a little more than a mile around, and the dogs got to stretch their legs and take care of some business, before coming home and going back to sleep.

The Shape of Summer, a Few Final Thoughts

Looking back over all those summers it occurred to me that there have been very few summers in my life where I had to go to work every day. I had a couple summer jobs: I was a counselor for a summer school program in England 1980, that waitressing job in 1982, which I wrote about, and in 1984, when I was in graduate school, I sold ice cream on the boardwalk for the summer. 

From 86-89 I had a full time job in the kitchen of a small catering and cafe business in Virginia Beach, and from 90-92, I worked as a cook for United Airlines in their flight kitchen at Dulles Airport. Those are the only 2 jobs I’ve ever had where summers were *gasp* included. I also taught summer school a few years at the beginning of my teaching career, but it’s been decades since I did that. 

Obviously, the shape of most of the summers of my life has been the privilege of having 8-10 weeks off and the resources to enjoy them. I do feel humbly grateful for that.

2019, Part 2

After a rough ending to her chemo treatment, my mom had a few weeks off at the end of June and beginning of July before starting 4 weeks of daily radiation. Her doctors were optimistic: the tumors were shrinking, and there was much hope that the surgery scheduled for the end of August would result in a good amount of quality time. 

Once the chemo was over, Mom started feeling better almost right away, but she was still on pretty heavy dosages of pain meds, so driving was out of the question. Throughout the entire ordeal, all of her treatments took place at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, 90 minutes from her home, and it was through the kindness of friends that she was able to commute.

Traveling there once a week or so was one thing, but making the round trip every day for radiation seemed prohibitive, and she would be in the hospital at least a week and probably more after the surgery, so Heidi and I decided to drive out there with the dog, and rent a place in Rochester for all of us to stay. I found a new, loft-style apartment with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths just 7 blocks from the Mayo downtown campus. 

If the circumstances had been different, spending a month in Rochester, Minnesota could have been a great summer vacation. The place we rented was right on a bike path and within walking distance of several parks. The weather was beautiful, low 80s and sunny most of the time, and there was a weekly festival with food and music every Thursday, a really good farmers market on Saturdays, and an amazing dog park 10 minutes away. The grocery stores were also very good, and we joined the Y to play racket ball, swim, and workout. 

My mom was tired, but in good spirits, and she usually felt up to getting out to a park or shopping at least once a day. On the weekends we drove back up to her home in the Twin Cities so she could sleep in her own bed, go to her own church, and spend time with her friends. I hadn’t spent so much time with her in decades, and in that respect it was a wonderful month.

The shape of that summer was an awareness of how precious each present moment was and being able to enjoy each day, despite the uncertainty we were living with. I loved Rochester for making that possible, even though it broke my heart a few months later when we all returned for the final act.

2019, Part 1

In 1995 my mom moved from our hometown of Washington, DC to the Twin Cities in Minnesota. After a delay of 25 years, she had recently finished her college degree, and she was ready to move from administrative assistant to legal affairs. So at the age of 55 she left behind her entire family to move to a new place where she knew not a soul.

I’m proud to say that she thrived there, building a happy and successful life. And when it came time to retire, after weighing her options, she chose to stay there in the community she had become a part of. With modern technology and the means to travel, the thousand miles between us didn’t seem so bad, and even as she approached 80 she was fiercely independent, and rightfully so.

But in March of 2019, when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, the distance suddenly became a sobering complication in our all out effort to support her in the battle for her life. 

I will be forever thankful for my brother and the fact that he was able to spend the month of March with her and help navigate her initial testing and diagnosis at the Mayo Clinic. And I feel fortunate that I was able to take a couple weeks off from school to get her started on chemo. And then my aunt came out for another six weeks to see her through, followed by my sister and my niece. Along with her friends, we all pitched in to support her through the grueling weeks of chemo, knowing that radiation and surgery were on the horizon. 

2015

In October of 2014, Virginia recognized same-sex marriage, and for us it seemed like the clock was ticking. Heidi and I had been together for 16 years by then, and it seemed miraculous that we could actually get married in our home state. We were worried that our right might not be recognized permanently, though, and rather than taking the time to plan an elaborate wedding, we went down to the courthouse on New Year's Eve and got hitched by a justice of the peace.

Because I had spent my whole life without ever believing that marriage was an option, I didn't fully comprehend all the social and emotional weight the institution carries. For example, I didn't realize how disappointed my mom and brother and sister or Heidi's parents might be to miss the ceremony. I also never considered that after a lifetime of attending other people's children's weddings, that Heidi's mom would insist that we have a reception that she could invite her family and friends to, but that's what happened.

So the summer of 2015 kicked off with a dinner in Buffalo for 60 guests, complete with toasts and speeches and gifts. Our party was June 27, serendipitously the day after the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor made same sex marriage the law of the land. Even though the guests were mostly conservative and Catholic, their goodwill seemed heartfelt. 

In August, my mom took us on an Alaskan cruise. We spent 10 days starting in Anchorage with a weekend in Denali and then a week aboard the Norwegian Sun sailing from Seward to Vancouver. I never considered myself the type of person to enjoy a cruise, but this one was magical. The scenery, the wild life, the history and culture, and even the slow pace of the days spent at sea were enchanting. 

After we got married, Heidi and I agreed that, as unlikely as it seemed, we actually felt different. Literally nothing had changed, but for the fact that we had a piece of paper codifying our relationship, but we felt lighter and happier. The shape of that summer was celebration and affirmation, a couple of things we got that we didn't even know we were missing.

2006

I thought long and hard before I committed to the five week summer institute that was run by our regional chapter of the National Writing Project. It would consume every day of the month of July, Monday through Thursday, 8:30-3, not to mention the at least half-hour commute. I have been spoiled by living less than 3 miles from my job for the last 30 years, and to me? Ten minutes is too long to get to work. But a close friend and mentor had encouraged me to apply for several years, and it turned out that this was the year.

I didn't know a single one of the 30 people I would spend most of my summer with that year, but by the end of the first day, I was all in. In the morning, there were 2 interactive presentations made by our peers, and in the afternoons we had either writing group, literature review, or another presentation made by an expert. Of course writing was the foundation of the program, and I never wrote as much as I did that summer. 

I had read many times how critical it is for a writing teacher to write, but after that summer, I was motivated to find three other teachers who wanted to be in a writing group, and we have met regularly ever since. And a couple years later, I connected with an online group of teacher-writers through the annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge, and as a result I started this blog and the daily writing practice it has become. And, yeah, I'm a way better writing teacher.

I recently listened to an episode of This American Life about summer camp. The whole premise of the show is that people who have never been to camp simply can not fathom what is so freaking amazing about the experience to former campers. 

But I know. 

It's the intensity: it's being immersed with a small group of people in a common, meaningful activity. That was the shape of that summer, and it is a dynamic that, to this day, I strive to create in my own 6th grade class.

2002

It was a little hard to believe I was turning 40, and Maine is an incredible place, so in 2002 I asked my family if they would spend a week on Mt. Desert Island in June to celebrate my 40th birthday. There were 10 of us: Bill and Emily, Riley and Treat (who were nearly 10 and 7 at the time), Courtney and Jordan (who were recently engaged), my mom, Heidi, Josh, and me. 

We rented a place that had recently been a bed and breakfast, with an awesome commercial kitchen, a big dining room, and lots of bedrooms. It was across the street from the ANP beach at Long Pond, and we got a canoe for the week so that we could explore the lake after returning home from our morning hikes.

Except for Heidi and me, no one else had ever been to the island, and we had never all been on vacation together. It may have been the first time, but it wouldn't be the last. The shape of that summer was an overture of interlaced motifs that we would all hear again.

2000

After eight years of teaching summer school, 2000 was the year I finally called it quits and gave myself my first proper summer break as a teacher. And that year, we made the most of it. 

We stayed with Josh and his mom in Cape Cod for a week. Our visit included a whale watching excursion from P-town, where after 2 years of fighting me for Heidi's attention, 4-year-old Josh finally reached up and took my hand willingly. I could hear both Heidi and his mom oohing and awwing behind us as we crossed the street hand in hand on our way back to the car, but I had known all along that it would only be a matter of time before we were fast friends.

A week or so later we drove down to Lynchburg to welcome Heidi's goddaughter Allyn, and then it was up to Maine to stay with Ruth and her boys. After a fabulous week of hiking and playing, we picked up lobsters packed to go and headed straight to Buffalo to spend some time with Heidi's family. 

And the big finale? Heidi had surprised me for my birthday with plane tickets and a hotel reservation in Paris, and so we jetted off for a week in France. 

The shape of that summer was freedom to reconnect and recharge, and as busy as it was? We went back to school relaxed and ready to start a new year.

1989, Part 3

There was so much we didn't know, but most of it really didn't bother us. For example, in case of a fire anywhere on the ship, the kitchen crew is supposed to be the first ones in. "Don't worry, we reassigned that duty," the Boatswain told us. "The hoses are about 50 pounds each."

And when we did the abandon ship drill, each of us was designated to a different lifeboat and directed to bring food. As a joke, I grabbed a number 10 can of sauerkraut and reported to my station. When they saw what I had, the other crew members were not amused. "Did you even bring a can opener?" asked one.

We also were not aware that the kitchen staff is responsible for cleaning the captain's quarters daily. To this day I'm still a little skeptical about that one, but my sister kindly channeled her former summer job as a motel maid and handled the duty.

I also had no idea how much Kool-Aid 35 men could and would drink every day, and halfway through the deployment it became clear that it wouldn't last. My solution was to cut back on the drink mix and add some extra sugar. Since nobody ever mentioned it, I can only assume it was fine.

Unquestionably, the biggest mistake I made was not to listen to the supply officer's advice. Preparing almost everything from scratch took all day, and we were in the galley cooking and serving and cleaning from 5:30 in the morning until 7:30 at night. We scheduled breaks for each other, but it was grueling. And the crew didn't really appreciate the difference in the food we made and the food they were used to. In fact, the opposite seemed more true: we heard a lot more complaints than compliments.

"When are you going to serve the captain's favorite meal?" someone asked early on. It was another custom I wasn't aware of, and to be honest, the thought of pandering to that crass curmudgeon did not seem appealing in the least. Even so, we heard almost every day how much he loved meat loaf along with pointed reminders of this mariner's tradition. 

The fact of the matter was that I hadn't planned to make meat loaf, so I didn't actually have the ingredients for it. But when we received word that our job had been completed ahead of schedule and we were going home early, I took a look at our leftover inventory and knew just what to do. The galley was oddly equipped. Because of the extreme danger of shipboard fires, there were no gas burners or other high heat appliances. There was a meat grinder, though. 

And so after breakfast on our last day at sea, I took all the leftovers in the cooler and ground them up into a mixture of vegetables, cold cuts, pasta, and bread, and I added them to the ground beef I had been planning to use for tacos, along with some eggs, tomato sauce, and ketchup. Then I poured the mixture into hotel pans and put them in the convection oven. Next we cooked all the potatoes and threw them in the Hobart mixer with our leftover butter and milk. Finally, we sautéed lots of onions and added beef base and a flour slurry to make gravy. 

Lunch that day was our final meal on board, and at 11:30 am we plopped those hotel pans full of mystery meatloaf and mashed potatoes onto the steam table and started serving. Oh. my. lord! I had never seen those merchant marines so excited. And oh how they ate. They returned for plate after plate piled high with meatloaf and potatoes and smothered in gravy. And when the galley was squared away and we walked on deck to see if land was in sight, we found the crew literally lying around holding their bellies and groaning contentedly.

As we completed our exit paperwork, the supply officer came by. "I heard everything went really well!" she said. In a couple of months, the ship was headed to San Diego, traveling to the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal, and she wondered if any of us had any interest in signing on. 

Our answer? Was a hard no. The shape of that summer was understanding that this was a one-of-a-kind adventure. We knew that we should enjoy the ride, because we would never be there again.

1989, Part 2

"Oh, no. We don't need any of that," I shook my head.

My first task as chief cook was to plan the menus and then meet with the supply officer and order all the food we would need for the time we were out to sea. After recording my requisitions for meat, fresh vegetables, bread, eggs, cheese, pasta, and other basic pantry staples, she had suggested adding some frozen meals, like lasagna or meatloaf. 

Both my upbringing and my culinary background were strictly cooking from scratch, and giant aluminum foil pans of anything were not part of that vision. The supply officer raised her eye brows and shrugged. I was the chief, after all. 

Our ship was designed for construction, not cruising, and so a Coast Guard cutter would tow us up the Atlantic seaboard to Newport. We were scheduled to get underway around midnight, and after a day of drills and other preparation, we officially reported for duty at 8 PM. We stowed our gear in our adjoining cabins, which were separated by a shared bathroom and shower, and went to bed, because breakfast was at 6 AM.

I don't remember my alarm buzzing, but I do recall rising in the dim light and making my way to the head. When I opened the door, I saw my sister across the way in her cabin, arms spread wide, and staggering back and forth past the door. It was then that I realized that we were actually at sea, and the boat was rocking rather emphatically from side to side. 

Standing still was a challenge, but somehow we dressed and reeled our way down to the galley. Coffee was brewing 24-7, and so we put some orange juice concentrate into the cold drink machine, set up the cereal bar, and began cooking bacon and sausage. Scrambled eggs were on the steam table, but we would cook eggs to order, too. 

Service went pretty well, although several guys wanted to know where the doughnuts were. When the captain came through the line, he did not seem impressed. "I'll have fried eggs," he said. "Make sure to get the snot out of them."

1989, Part 1

It was fun living at the beach, but in the 80s there were not many jobs beyond the military, tourism, and other service related industries. So one by one, my family moved north. First my mom left to pursue a government relations job when the Navy subcontract project she had been hired on to ended. Then after spending the summer he graduated from college at the beach, my brother also moved up to DC. in search of a career. 

After my dad died, my sister was still in college and I was working as a cook at a local cafe and catering company, and so we hung in there for a couple more years, but by the summer of 1989? It seemed like it was time for us to move up to Washington, too. In retrospect, I think I might have stayed but for the fact that my girlfriend at the time, as well as my friend Curtis, also wanted to move to DC. 

Our lease ran through the end of August, and a friend of my mom's had an interesting proposition. His company owned several merchant ships, including an "ocean-going construction platform" that was contracted for the first three weeks of August to do a job at the Newport Naval Station in Rhode Island and another just off the Jersey coast. This particular vessel needed a chief cook and a kitchen crew of two, and the jobs were ours if we wanted them. 

I can't remember what the pay was, but it was enough that my sister, my girlfriend, and I gleefully accepted.

1983

I didn't have a solid plan for the future when I graduated from college in May of 1983. Since being in school was really the only thing I knew how to do, I applied to a few graduate programs, one of which was Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. ODU had a rolling admissions policy at the time, and so I hadn't heard from them by the time I packed up all my stuff and drove south to my mom's place in Virginia Beach. It was probably just as well I didn't have any set plans; things were about to get complicated. 

After attending my graduation ceremony, my dad had flown down to Florida to visit his sister for a few days before returning to Saudi. While he was there, he experienced some severe abdominal pain. A doctor diagnosed him with Crohn's disease and recommended surgery to clean up the probable bowel abscesses that were likely causing the pain. My father called my mom and asked if he could come to Virginia Beach for treatment; my brother and sister and I would all be there for the summer, and he was worried about having major surgery with none of us nearby.

Before heading to my mom's, I had spent a couple of weeks visiting friends, and I rolled into town the day after my dad's surgery, which had not gone well. His appendix had burst in the OR, and after removing it, the surgeon had closed without any further procedures. At least that's what we knew. When the three of us went to visit him in the hospital that evening, he broke it to us that they had actually discovered stage 4 colon cancer. 

The initial treatment plan was six weeks of daily radiation, and so my dad rented a house four blocks from my mother's place, and my brother and I moved in with him. His radiation therapy was in Norfolk, 25 minutes away. My sister was still in high school, living with my mom, and my brother had a summer job in the kitchen of a motel down the beach, and so my role was to keep house and drive him there every morning in my yellow VW Rabbit. 

The shape of that summer was uncertainty, waiting around in limbo to see what would happen next, without much control over it. Dad spent the rest of his time in his pajamas on the living room couch smoking, reading the paper, and watching TV. The radiation was tiring, and he didn't feel like doing much else. I cooked and read and went to the beach. 

He wasn't cured by the end of the summer; although the radiation had been somewhat effective, the prognosis was vague, but not good. He would be screened every 4 months to check the progression of his disease, and they figured he might have a year. My dad was determined to return to work, though, and that's what he did. In the meantime, I heard from Old Dominion. I was accepted into their MA program in English literature, and so I packed up my stuff and moved down the street to live with my mom and my sister and continue my daily commute to Norfolk.

My dad defied the odds, continuing to work for another two years before surgery forced him to retire on disability, and then living another two years beyond that. I got my masters just in time for my sister and I to move back in with him for those last couple of years. 

But those were other summers and other stories. 

1982

By the summer of '82 my parents had split up, and my mom was living in Virginia Beach. My college's summer term requirement left me free of school from February to August of that year, and after a brief stay with my dad in Jeddah, where it became clear that there was literally nothing for me to do there except sit around his apartment, I came back to the States to sit around my mom's house. 

Well, that's what it seemed like until she informed me in no uncertain terms that I had to get a job. Living overseas since the age of 13 had precluded any kind of formal employment for me, and I was kind of at a loss about where to start. Turned out, it was the want ads, which my mother handed to me every day before she went to work. Residing in a resort town expanded the number, if not the type, of opportunities. After interviewing for a lot of waitressing jobs, I finally got one, despite my lack of experience.

The Lighthouse Restaurant was one of the pricier establishments that catered to tourists. Located all the way down the beach at the mouth of Rudee Inlet, the place had several ocean view dining rooms. After two 8-hour days of training, I joined the staff on Thursday lunch shift.

It was not a hip place to work, by any means. Waitresses were required to purchase brown polyester uniforms and white nursing shoes. In addition, we had to wear hair nets. We looked like diner employees, and if the owner ever saw us on the floor without a smile on our faces? We would get a warning from the manager.

Early on, it became clear that there was a system of favoritism in place, both for customers and staff. Any party not dressed appropriately, or with small children, or of color, would be seated on the patio, a glassed-in room overlooking the parking lot. Young couples and people who had clearly been drinking were often seated out on the deck, an open-air space cantilevered over the riprap of the canal. Preferred customers got the main dining room, and their status could be determined by how close they were to the floor-to-ceiling windows with that unobstructed view of the beach and the Atlantic.

As for the staff? Well, tips were always better in the main dining room, not that I would know personally. They caught me without a smile a few too many times to get that assignment. I usually got the patio, and I remember that it seemed like the kitchen was the fun place to work. Whenever I pushed through the right-hand swinging door to pick up my order, besides being met by a blast of heat and rock and roll, there was always hilarious banter among the white snap-shirted guys on the other side of the stainless steel counter as they cooked and plated the tickets.

The shape of that summer was learning what a full-time, below minimum wage job was like: pulling scratchy polyester on over salty skin in the heat of the late afternoon after a day at the beach, driving down the strip in my bright yellow 75 VW Rabbit, punching my time card and carrying trays of over-priced seafood through a kitschy, nautical-themed restaurant, and then meeting friends who were down from the city after work on the weekends. 

I sure was glad to go back to college that fall.

1980

My Aunt Harriett married a guy whose parents had emigrated from Portugal to New Bedford Massachusetts after WWII. Unfortunately, Larry has a fear of flying, and so when my mom rented a vacation home in Cascais, Portugal in the summer of 1980, it was only Aunt Harriett who flew over to meet us there and explore his family's country. 

We started our trip in Lisbon, spending the first night in a hotel before picking up our white minivan and meeting Maria Joao, the realtor who guided us around the coast and up into the hills of Malviera de Serra to the sprawling villa we would call home for the next 2 weeks. The place came with a maid, a gardener, a pool, and a dog. It was the home of a Voice of America reporter and the furnishings and landscaping seemed out of the 1930s, a place where Hemingway might have felt at home. 

We made ourselves at home there, too, shopping at the local farmers market and cooking breakfast and dinner. During the day we explored the castle at Sintra, the riviera town of Estoril, the working fishing harbor of Cascais, Cabo de Roca, the westernmost point in Europe, and other Portuguese towns, Fatima, Teixeira, and Porto, among them. Feeling so at home in another place seemed like a magic trick of some kind, like living a different life for a while, the one where at the end of an amazing day you gaze out over the Atlantic while relaxing by your pool and snack on strawberries picked that morning as your dog snores peacefully at your feet. 

The shape of that summer would shape many of my summers after that-- I love nothing more than barreling around a beautiful place from a rented house in a mini-van and imagining what a grand life it would be.

1975

In June of 1975 my dad left our home in New Jersey for his new job in Saudi Arabia. The plan was for him to get settled in and then the rest of the family would move overseas to join him in October. It was the summer between 7th and 8th grade for me, and moving seemed too far away to worry about. My mom, on the other hand, had a lot to worry about. She had to pack everything we wanted to ship over, (with a 3000 pound limit), get rid of the rest, sell the house, and the car, and pack up the three of us kids, our dog, two cats, and the stuff we would need until our shipment arrived three months later, all of which had to be transported to the airport and checked first on a flight to London and then on to Dhahran.

Wow. Until I wrote that paragraph, I never fully considered the magnitude of what my mother pulled off. 

Here's what I remember about that summer. Despite being ridiculously busy, my mom must have also been feeling a little flush, because my dad's new job paid a lot more than the old one. For example, after our usual summer trip to visit family in suburban DC, she packed us into the station wagon and headed south instead of north. The four of us went to Williamsburg, stayed in a hotel, and visited Busch Gardens, Colonial Williamsburg, and Jamestown. It was a summer vacation the likes of which we'd never had before, including dinner at the King's Arms Inn in the historic section of Williamsburg. None of the three of us had ever been to such a nice restaurant. 

I also remember Mom being a little less frugal when shopping that summer. Of course we had to have enough clothes to last us an entire school year, but there also seemed to be a few more treats at the grocery store, too, and maybe a bit more cash in her wallet than we were used to seeing. There were a few bumps, of course, like the time when she decided we shouldn't bring our dog, and we cried and begged and offered our own money, and so she figured out a way to make it work. And despite everything she had to do, I remember my mom being generally upbeat and excited about the move, and so that's how I felt most of the time, too.

The shape of that summer was change and opportunity, and the promise of transformation from the provincial to the worldly, all under the safe guidance of my mother's steady hand.

The Shape of Summer

Today was yet another perfect summer day here in Buffalo. The weather has been spectacular since we arrived on Monday: low 80s, breezy, puffy white clouds in a deep blue sky, some rain at night, but not much humidity in the day. 

The weather may be ideal, but the trip has been a little tough. Heidi’s parents are growing older; they tire easily and are a bit testy at times. It’s hard to know how to be supportive, not so much in the short term, while we are here, but the rest of the time, when we are 400 miles away. It takes a toll on Heidi and clouds the otherwise beautiful days.

As we near the halfway point of summer, I am trying to live in the moment and love each day for what it has to offer, because like every season or time, this one is beginning to take shape in my consciousness. So far, in addition to this trip to Buffalo, there has been the wonderful trip to Maine with all its challenges, my birthday, the days at home between traveling, the garden, my thoughts on teaching and retirement.

As a benchmark, I find myself thinking back on so many summers past and considering the weather, the travel, the activities, and what feeling those elements have formed as a whole. 

Regular readers know how fond I am of lists and serials, and in the coming days? I will present to you ten memorable summers. 

Late to the Funeral

All my life I have considered Elvis Presley as some old guy who died young. I was only 15 when he died at the age of 42 in the summer of '77.  He was literally my father's age, born 2 days later, and his music? Old, even when I was a kid. Then there were all those capes and sequins and the sweat and the sneer; I just did not get it.

But today we went to Baz Luhrmann's biopic of the king, mostly because it was a movie that me and Heidi and her parents could all agree on. It was a long show, and I have mixed feelings about Tom Hanks as Colonel Parker, but I sure did not expect to find myself quite so emotional at the end. 

Maybe it was spending time and going to the movies with Heidi's older parents, or my own senior discount at the ticket booth, or the fact that the character of Tom Parker was much closer in age to me now than Elvis ever would be. I just know that right before the end credits, when they rolled the footage of the real Elvis in Vegas in one of the last performances of his life, the weird old caricature of the guy I remembered was replaced by a young man a quick smile, and I was really sad that his life was cut short.

Fun Police

I was playing a friendly game of tuggy with Heidi’s parents’ dog, Briggs. “Gimme that, you bad boy,” I scolded him playfully. From out of nowhere, Lucy dashed over and grabbed the toy from his mouth and then brought it over to me. She pranced proudly away, satisfied that the fun was over. 

They Have Those?

We were watching an episode of the most recent season of Shetland the other night. I've written before about the crime procedural drama and how it always inspires us to start planning our trip to those islands in the middle of the North Sea, somewhere between Scotland and Norway. "Your dad is on the road to Aith," one character reported to another, "where the Cake Fridge is."

"Did she just say 'Cake Fridge?'" I asked Heidi incredulously.

The answer was yes. When the main character came to collect his aging father, the old man was eating cupcakes out of a reach-in refrigerator on the side of the road, surrounded by rolling heaths with a spit of the North Sea behind him. "Look at all these free cakes," he told his son.

"You have to pay for them," he was informed. "There's an honesty box."

A quick web search confirmed the existence of cake fridges and honesty boxes for not only cakes, but all sorts of local products on the Island. There are egg stands, seasonal fruit and vegetables, sauces, pickles, and woolen textiles.

As if we needed more reason to book our travel!

Respite

The drive to Buffalo today was long, but nothing  compared to the trip to and from Maine. Traffic was light, and the weather was good. 

There was a scary moment when the winding mountain road we were on opened to a passing lane and as I accelerated to go around the driver in front of me, he slowed to a stop. A mother deer and her fawn were crossing just ahead, and we stopped too. No traffic could pass as they made their way tenuously to the other side, though my heart thumped as I measured the progress of the tanker truck barreling toward us in the other lane. And when the deer paused on the shoulder and seemed to consider retracing their steps back into the road, I almost cried, but they finally leapt lightly into the trees and disappeared. 

After that, I confess to being a little spooked: everything in my peripheral sight seemed like  a deer ready to jump in front of me. But the rest of the drive was uneventful, and we made it here just at 5. Heidi's brother helped carry our stuff in; her dad greeted us from the recliner in front of the TV; her mom waived off any offers of help as she put the finishing touches on dinner, so we took the dogs for a walk and then relaxed on the back patio under the awning until supper was served. 

It was a throwback to earlier days when we were all younger, but there was definitely something kind of nice about not being in charge of anything. I could just be still for a little while. 

Prophylaxis

"I might get some walking sticks," I told my brother when we were in Maine. "Not to walk with!" I added quickly.

"Why would you get them then?" he asked.

"To have in my pack in case someone needed them," I explained. 

I was trying to be proactive, but there were so many walking sticks to choose from in the shops, that I decided it would be best to do some research before I bought anything. "Look on Wirecutter," my sister suggested when I mentioned it to her, and that seemed like very good advice.

"Do you ever use walking sticks?" my friend Ruth asked me at the end of that week.

"That's so funny you should ask," I said, and recounted my earlier conversations. "Do you ever use them?"

"No," she laughed, "I'm too clumsy. I'm afraid if I had anything in my hands to think about I might kill myself! But my sister uses them all the time because she has bad knees."

I nodded and tried to picture myself hiking with one or more of the sticks, but I just couldn't see it. 

Even so, I did look on Wirecutter when I got home, and I found a pair that were not only well-rated, they could also be used as poles for the expensive lightweight tent the company also sells. 

I am now the proud owner of a couple of high-end walking sticks, and who knows? 

I might even use them for something!

Isn't it Entertainment *and* Sports?

I was at the gym trying to jog away my rainy day blues when I saw the dogs on TV. Some ESPN station was airing all sorts of competitions, and although I completed my workout with my own playlist, I did tell Heidi all about it when I came home. Turns out, watching dogs dock dive and run agility is another good way to spend a rainy day. 

The commercials, though? Not so much! It was all auto parts, dudes who need extra testosterone, and bros with portable smoothie blenders at the gym. Not even Petco or Chewy could crack that members only line-up. 

I wonder who ESPN thought was watching?

Cat Walk

"I guess the whole stroller thing didn't work out?" our friend Sarah asked yesterday when we were talking about whether or not to travel with our cats.

"I'm still trying to teach Lucy to push it without tipping it over," Heidi shook her head. "It isn't easy."

"I meant with Tracey," Sarah corrected her. "I thought that was the idea when she got it-- walking the cats in it."

She was right. I had asked for and received the stroller 4 years ago for my birthday, and after an initial flurry of cat walking, the stroller became nothing more than an elevated cat bed. The cats loved sleeping in it, but rolling around outside? They weren't so sure. Even so, I felt a tinge of regret for not doing more to make cat walking a thing.

That's why I proposed taking the cats along on Lucy's evening walk yesterday. I dug the stroller out of the upstairs closet, and once I placed it next to the dining room bench, bot Tibby and Milo eagerly jumped in. They stiffened a bit when I zipped the mesh closed, and their pupils widened. There was a bit of pathetic mewing as we bumped them out the front door and down the stoop, but they both sat up tall and craned their necks around like periscopes. 

"Let's just walk around the complex," Heidi suggested, and at first I agreed. Then I remembered that it was the boring process of walking the little loop around our neighborhood to acclimate the cats to their stroller that contributed to my loss of interest in cat-walking. 

"I want to take them out of here!" I said, after we had visited with several neighbors who were enjoying the mild summer evening. "We are going down the driveway, past 7-11, and up the big 28th Street hill!" And I don't think it was my imagination that the yowling died down and the cats kind of perked up as we ventured into new territory.

They may become traveling kitties yet!

High Alert

Heidi knew right away. "It smells funny in here," she said the minute we walked in the door from Maine.

My nose is la little less sensitive, and my temperament is a little less dire. "Maybe it's just a little stuffy since we've been gone so long," I suggested, dropping my load and returning to the van for another.

"I don't think it's up here," Heidi reported from the landing, "but I did scoop the litter box."

"That should take care of it," I nodded as we both headed out the door.

"I think it's down here," Heidi said when we re-entered the house. After a cursory inspection, she shook her head and went upstairs to unpack, while I stayed downstairs to put away all the things that belonged and to start dinner.

In the kitchen, I thought I'd found the culprit when I opened the recycling and found an un-rinsed cat food container. "That was me," Josh confessed when I pointed it out. "It's only been in there a couple hours."

As I continued to unpack and cook, I noticed a fair swarm of fruit flies over by the potato bin. The unmistakable stench of rotten potatoes rose to my nose as I approached, and upon further inspection I discovered several blackened potatoes collapsed into their own disgusting goo. "I found it!" I called up to Heidi and then dumped the lot of them into the trash, tied off the bag, and handed it to Josh to take up to the trash enclosure. 

"She knew there was something wrong," he said.

"Yep," I shook my head, "she sure did."

Too Many Choices

"What do you want to watch tonight?" Heidi asked me a little while ago.

I considered her question and thought about how times have changed since I was a kid. Back then, we had three channels and I pretty much memorized the TV Guide once I read it on Sunday with the comics. In early July, the choices were always between reruns or summer replacement shows, the latter of which were usually variety hours starring some newly popular musician. Although there had to be a consensus among all five of us in the family, we usually chose the new over the known. I can remember sitting on the living room floor in my summer pajamas, box fans in the window, and the TV tuned and turned up to the Carpenters, Mac Davis, Tony Orlando and Dawn, or the Hudson Brothers. 

Today, as I sat in my comfortably air-conditioned house with access to hundreds, if not thousands, of shows and movies, I sighed. "I don't know," I answered Heidi. "There's nothing good on."

Doctor's Orders

"My doctor always says vacation calories don't count," Emily told me as we discussed whether or not to stop for ice cream the other day. 

"That seems like healthy advice," I nodded. 

Even so, I decided against the ice cream right then, especially knowing we were going to feast on seafood and blueberry pie later. I did get a cone of Moose Tracks a couple days later, though.

And when I stepped on the scale this morning, I found that even though I had pretty much eaten whatever I wanted, with all that hiking we did, I had actually dropped a couple of pounds over vacation.

Yet another reason to love Maine!

Fireworks

Thanks to some skillful driving by Bill and Emily, we made excellent time on our trip home from Maine: we left Bar Harbor at 8:30 a.m. and for most of the day our ETA was 8:30-something p.m. We originally chose to travel today because it was both a Monday and a holiday, factors we were hoping would keep traffic manageable on the notoriously congested northeast corridor. 

And as road trips go, it was a fun one: replete with the Sunday NY Times crossword and an assortment of 70s singer-song writers, the Beatles, and several Song Exploder episodes. We made a few stops along the way for snacks and relief, and as we approached Baltimore, the map app was predicting a 9:15 arrival. I was at the wheel, and it was only then that I considered that our route would take us right by the 4th of July fireworks display on the National Mall. 

And indeed, the nearer we got to the city, the more unofficial fireworks we saw in the darkening summer sky. Emily suggested detouring to the Beltway, but based on his regular commute back and forth from Baltimore, Bill thought that our route would be okay. As the driver, it was my decision, and personally? I just kind of wanted to see what was going on down there, so I passed the exit to 495 and kept on going into the city. 

The fireworks all around us were very distracting, but it was kind of cool driving through them. In the distance, we could see the National 4th celebration getting started, and the traffic slowed as the fireworks intensified. We were a bit dismayed to find our exit closed, and we crawled on to the next one until we realized that the right lane was blocked by cars that had intentionally stopped to watch the show and changed lanes. 

The finale lit up the sky ahead of us as we rolled down next exit ramp, and the streets were nearly deserted. We easily made our way past the stadium and on to 395, also very empty. It was then that we realized that we were among the first cars to be allowed on the freeway after the police opened it following the fireworks. From there we zipped home, noting all the boats and barges dotting the Potomac and all decked out in their red, white, and blue. 

We pulled into Bill and Emily's house just 10 minutes behind our scheduled time, and although we were all tired and even a little cranky about the inconvenience, I couldn't help feeling a little thrilled about being witness to such pageantry and its inevitable effects.

Thanks, Ruthie!

My friend Ruth is the person who first brought me to Maine. I met her in 1991 when we were both starting a masters program to get our teaching degrees. When she was growing up, her family had a small summer place on Mount Desert Island where they spent most of every summer, and she and her husband were building their own place on 7 acres they had recently purchased on the island. Ruth invited me to come up any time, and I finally did in the summer of 1995. After teaching summer school and shoveling several tons of lathe and plaster out the window and into a dumpster as part of a home renovation project, a road trip to Maine seemed like a good break. 

And it was. I clearly remembering rolling along in Ruth's minivan, windows down, past coves and inlets and through balsam-scented woods, and skirting pink granite mountains. "I hate it here!" I said, "because it's perfect, and I have to leave."

But I've come back many times in the last 27 years. In the early days, we used to stay with Ruth and her two young sons in the ever-evolving cabin. First it had cardboard walls and plywood floors, and we slept on a futon in the nook outside the bedroom. Mornings were spent watching VHS recordings of kids television shows, because there was no TV reception, and afternoons we packed lunches and carried the boys up and down mountain trails, picking wild blueberries along the trail. I usually bought the NY Times on the way back and did the crossword puzzle while the kids napped. Then we would have a lobster picnic down at the beach and play games until an early bedtime, so that we could get up and do it all over again.

But I couldn't keep Maine to myself, so soon I started renting places where we could bring family, which was awesome, but we didn't spend as much time with Ruth. Circumstances and COVID had kept us away six years, and a couple of weeks before we headed up here for my birthday week, Ruth let me know that she had room for us if we wanted to extend our vacation for a couple of days. When we pulled down the unimproved  gravelly road last night, it had been many years since I had been to Ruth's place, and many more since I had spent the night here. 

It is still a pretty rustic place, although the cardboard has been replaced with knotty pine and the floors with carpeting, tile, and hardwood. There are also a couple of bedrooms downstairs and extra bathroom, but the kitchen is still small, although extremely functional. It was almost like muscle memory as I made pancakes this morning on the American Serviceware griddle while Heidi and Ruth sat at the linoleum topped table. Then  had to sit in my favorite chair for a minute and play the theme song from Katie and Orbie before we packed lunches and headed out for a beautiful hike on a nearly deserted trail (despite it being Independence Day weekend). The land was managed by a group other than the park service, so the dogs could run off leash along the stream and up through the woods to the granite ledge where we ate our lunch, and Lucy was one happy pup.

After the hike we returned to the house to shower and chat until it was time to order lobster rolls and drive over to Pretty Marsh for a picnic dinner. As the sun set over the western islands, we saw a seal and a dolphin fishing herring in the cove, and an osprey chased a bald eagle along the shore. Returning home once again, we sat outside in the fading day as the stars came out and coyotes howled not too far away.

And even though I have to leave tomorrow, I can't ever say I hate it here again.

It's Complicated

It was pouring rain as we packed up the three cars this morning. Each of them had a different destination: Treat and Josh were off to camp and hike Katahdin tomorrow; Victor, Emily, Nadika, and Rosie were driving Emily Primes RAV 4 first to Mahwah, NJ and then home to Arlington. Bill and Emily were riding in the mini-van to a hotel in Bar Harbor for a couple days; Courtney and Annabelle were mini-van passengers as well, bound for Bangor to stay over for an early flight tomorrow, and Heidi and I were taking the mini-van to our friend Ruth's, once everyone else was in place. 

So many moving pieces made organizing and packing even more complicated than the regular whirlwind of vacating a week-long rental. In addition to cleaning and stripping and packing and pitching, we also divided our things into what we needed over the next two days and what we could do without, and then found room for them in the car we were in or a car that had extra space, trusting that we would be reunited with all of our possessions at the end of the trip.

It was a fitting way to end a vacation with so many hiccups, and when Treat texted this evening that he was pretty sure he had left his guitar by the door in the rental house, I couldn't be surprised. I dialed the after-hours number of the agency, expecting to get the same recording I got last Saturday when we were locked out on our arrival, but a pleasant voice answered the call. When I explained the situation, she paused. 

"Um, the tenants have had a rather rough check in," she reported. "I don't think it's a good idea to bother them tonight to pick up a forgotten item. They have had a really long day."

I thought back over the last 12 hours, and then the last seven days. "I can certainly understand that," I told her, and we agreed to touch base again tomorrow.

60-30-15

Mine is not the only big birthday in our family this year. Victor is turning thirty in 2 weeks, and to complete the series, Annabelle will be 15 in December. 

Since he is heading back to Iceland before his birthday, today we celebrated Victor with a seafood feast down in Southwest Harbor, and some blueberry pie and flourless chocolate cake for dessert with candles and presents. A few logs in the fire pit and some sparklers completed the festivities. 

It was a perfect end to an incredible week.