Lost Day

Message in a bottle. Image from paolo pellegrini in North Italy.

Went to boot camp, worked hard there and enjoyed seeing my friends. But I was tired after and indulged myself/gave into it. Had been up till nearly 1 A.M. on and off b/c Figgy was up late, then alarm went off 7 A.M.

Then, emotional baggage [mine and someone's else's] to lug around....and a long rest.....then waking up overhungry and almost shaking, so overeating big time.

What a wash. I feel like a mess. It's a bad spot to be in. And with everyone out of the house, I could wallow in my worthlessness and find comfort only with my fluffball.

H. and Figgy in NYC now so I think I will rent Oscar Best Picture  nominee "Beasts of the Southern Wild" On Demand.

Signing off. Good night. Sure hope I can unfurl my sails and slice through the waves. As our friend Michael says, Onward.

TCOY  

1. Boot camp.
2. Walked Puff around block.
3. Watched "The Brady Bunch," like comfort food for me. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, Thursday spaghetti night, homemade chocolate pudding. Problem is, four episodes are on every night from 6 to 8 P.M. on the Hallmark Channel [#137 for us].
4. I am hoping to make a list now of work and home tasks to accomplish over the next three days. Perhaps this Lost Day can propel me into a string of Found Days.

The Crowd I Run With--Valentine Torture

Vintage valentine from singingthroughtherain.net.

Well, I don't run much these days, except in boot camp classes--but I will be running soon, because I'm doing the Spring Lake Five [mile] over Memorial Day Weekend again with Patsy, Andy and my fit friends.

Today, the crowd I run with--Nicky in particular--organized an outing to InnerStrength ["The Original Barre Class"] in Livingston, NJ. Jamie Greer, incredibly shapely and trained as a dancer, taught the 9:45 class. It was a hard hour.....involving balls, bars, straps, mats, blocks and a big mirrored wall. Lots of little moves, and they burned. I do feel that the emphasis on core and posture would be very good in the long run for how I carry myself, and my self-confidence. According to the website: The focus, intensity and challenge produce long lean muscles and a strong, youthful body.

The Valentine Special [valid through today] meant we could try the $25 class free. Then we went to Nicky's house. She served us big white bowls of homemade vegetable soup, quinoa chips from Trader Joe's and salad with citrus grilled chicken. She is so healthy! I felt so healthy! You should see Nicky, Heidi and Patsy. Just eating lunch with them should rub off on me. It might. It just might.

Good night.

TCOY

1. Healthy breakfast--an egg with leftover steamed asparagus, mushrooms, tomato, a little feta.
2. The barre class.
3. The healthy lunch.
4. Talked calmly to Figgy about hot topic.
5. Really luxurious half-hour nap with Sug--wind howling outside, heat warming our house, couch comfy and roomy.
6. Late in day but good tooth care, skin care and hot bubble bath.
7. Going to sleep now and getting up early. Just reviewed work notes so will have fresh eye in A.M.

How Things Change & Stay the Same

Left Sunday 5:30ish P.M. for the Cape, back today 4:30ish P.M.  That's about 72 hours, and about 11 hours of it was drive time. But you can fit so much in that window!

Back home, things have changed a little. My orchid plant is blooming. I've never had that luck with an orchid before; once it dies, it dies. But my friend Patsy's mom told her to give an orchid three ice cubes a week and Patsy told me. It really does work. My other orchid plant is ready to burst forth, too.

And my red geranium, bought on Cape Cod a couple summers ago and biked to Wonderstrand Way in my basket, is also budding. It usually just produces leaves indoors for me. I gave it a little magic blue Miracle-Gro, and that helped.

Good night.

TCOY

1. Breathed in that Cape Cod air. On our way home, we popped into St. Joan of Arc thrift shop in Orleans and Sug and I waited outside for Anne and Nikki. The air felt so clean and pure. I noticed something mysterious about a lone gravestone out front--a pastor [I think?] who was there through 1965....I don't know why, it somehow caught my eye and I'm still thinking about it.
2. The ride home took us over the Cape Cod Canal, which looked so pretty as we crossed the Bourne Bridge.
3. Got to talk and laugh a lot with Anne and Nikki.
4. H. made a healthy supper, with a huge salad and baked sweet potatoes.
5. I'm going to bed now. I slept terribly last night, with a long, ongoing dream about a very complicated standardized test I was taking with hundreds of other people. I was late, failing miserably, totally confused. It was all about categorizing and organizing things: things in a circus [clowns, etc.]; things in a dining room buffet [forks, knives, spoons]; drills and tiny drill bits in varying sizes. What a nightmare. Need to sleep peacefully tonight.

Why I Love Cape Cod--Again

Anne let me use her car to drive from Wonderstrand Way to the Hot Chocolate Sparrow in Orleans, where I can get WiFi and a small mint chocolate chip ice cream from Richardson's Family Farm with the Sparrow's own hot fudge sauce. It's raining outside, and the Sparrow closes @ 9 tonight. I'm happy about that, b/c I know I can get home early, put on my PJs and curl up in bed with Sug, reading till lights out. I love Cape Cod in the sun, the snow, the haze--and the rain, especially when I'm resting.

My Cape Cod Love List 

1. Our family house in North Eastham. Same old, same old, unchanged. The dishes, the sheets, the towels, the furniture, the trees, the white lace curtains, the cheery red kitchen wallpaper.
2. The neighborhood. This morning, Nikki and I took Sug for a walk and dropped in on Peg & John, across the street. Peg joined us for a stroll down Aquinnah Road. Then we walked past old Wonderstrand Farm.
3. Chatham. We drove there today! The Lilly Pulitzer store is closed till spring [as I knew]. But there was a really great antique store right next to the old Mayflower Shop [which is also closed for the season]. I saw a beautiful pink porcelain lidded jar that said COTTON on it--$18, but I was down to the end of my dough, so, no. We dipped into the Candy Manor, where all valentine candy was 50 percent off. I bought some milk and dark nonpareils, the finest anywhere, with red and pink decor. We also went to the overlook by the beach in Chatham, where Nikki fed quarters into the old optical machine to zoom in on the scenery. The sturdy little lighthouse behind us was cheerful and can-do.
4. Great Pond! We went there, too. The part near the sandy beach was pretty frozen.
5. The Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. Oh, back home again. We love that place. A lot of the land parcel was originally an asparagus farm long, long ago. We saw the ancient whale bones outside, the Silver Spring area where turtles swim, the blue chair from the Outermost House suspended from the ceiling in the visitors' center. The Mernins and Hurleys each have family memberships. Such fun to flash our cards to get in, and to also get 10 percent off in the gift shop. [I bought something small for H. and for Figgy.] Knitters & Twitters is a free sanctuary activity @ 10 A.M. many winter Thursday mornings, including day after tomorrow. You sit inside and watch the birds while you knit and have coffee. This is killin' me. But we will be gone, back in boring, oceanless Montclair.
6. The windmills.
7. The salt marsh.
8. The chance to read and nap.
9. Being here reconnects me deeply to my mother and father. So grateful that they built a house on the Cape. It was far from where they lived in New Jersey. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the wonderful gift, the seaside legacy.
10. The Mac's Seafood Market in Eastham. The shirts were 25% off and Anne and I got a few. We love Cape Cod shirts--but only really good ones, like the "Turnip Nation" ones sold at the Eastham Public Library. [Earnest H. discovered those last summer.]
11. Anne and Nikki's company. They love the Cape as much as I do. [Our teen girls opted out this trip, which disappointed us, but.....] Anne is so funny. She drives around saying, "Why hasn't anyone bought me a house on the Cape yet?" And now she changed it to "Why doesn't anyone give me a house on the Cape? I like that one. But I don't see a bow on it." She cracks me up.

Good night. We leave tomorrow morning. Back to school for our kids the day after. Signing off from the Sparrow @ 9:07 P.M. while the tables are wiped around me. About to zip back through the rain to our cozy house. 

TCOY

1. Good tooth and hair care.
2. Walk in neighborhood with Nik and Sug. Walk at Audubon with Nik and Anne.
3. Breathed in ocean air and beauty in Chatham.
4. We had steamed asparagus with dinner.

  

Cape Cod & Old Man Winter

Anne and her daughter Nikki on Uncle Tim's Bridge in Wellfleet.

Nikki, me and Sug @ Coast Guard Beach.

Hello from the Hearth 'n Kettle restaurant in Orleans.....fireplaces, cozy booths, Cape Cod cocktails and comfort foods like meatloaf and chicken potpie.

I couldn't blog last night, and I very rarely in three years have missed a daily post! But we didn't leave Montclair until about 5:45 P.M.--Anne and I both had work meetings. And then the roads were snowy/icy, especially once we got onto the Cape, where Route 6 East narrows. So it was close to midnight when we arrived at Wonderstrand Way. Then: The driveway was plowed in with a hard foot of snow we couldn't drive through. I walked over and through it, opened the garage by the light of Anne's car and then we started an assembly line of unloading. Anne handed me the bags and I brought them in, while Nikki waited in the car.

I long to write a nice Cape Cod post and I will, tomorrow. But last night I was tired, did not want to drive in the dark, snowy night to the lonely [in winter] parking lot where I can get WiFi. Our house was frigid, though. It took a while for the heat to warm it.

Today: breakfast @ Wicked Oyster in Wellfleet; walk over Uncle Tim's Bridge; Nauset Light Beach [just the pathway above it, beach closed due to storm damage] and Coast Guard Beach with Sug in her little plaid fleece coat.

We all took afternoon naps. We're all wearing gloves and hats and warm jackets. We saw animal footprints in the pristine snow in the backyard. Signing off now. We are going to dip into the Hot Chocolate Sparrow now before it closes @ 9 and then get groceries and then sleep!

TCOY

1. Fresh air on bridge and two beaches!!! So lovely, if brisk and bone-chilling.
2. Nap.....best winter tonic.
3. Reading.
4. As always on the Cape, as Thoreau said, "A man may stand there and put all America behind him." Edge of earth...contemplate....get new perspective. Get refreshed and recharged.

A Bar with a View

Our wedding anniversary. We went to the bar area @ the Highlawn Pavilion at 9:15 and perched on comfy stools with a glittery diamond view of the New York skyline, complete with red, white and blue-lit Empire State Building.

H. ordered a frisee salad, a bar pizza with mushrooms and a martini with three olives; I, who had an early dinner and glass of Pinot with Sis and Don in Greenwich, went for glasses of ice water and, to toast, a decaf Viennese coffee with Frangelico and brandy. I won't lie, my coffee was only okay. But the service and the view? Millionaire-perfect. [If you know where I can get an excellent Irish, Viennese or Mexican coffee, preferably with a cap of whipped cream, please clue me in.]

I'm doing a sweet day per week but this week it will be 1 1/2, b/c we shared a divine chocolate fudge sundae tonight at the Highlawn [the women on both sides of us were pretty excited about the sight of it, and said so] and am heading to Cape Cod with Anne Mernin & Co. tomorrow for a few days and have planned one sweet day there, to sample at the Hot Chocolate Sparrow in Orleans and the Candy Manor in Chatham.

But martini and skyline aside, our life is not without its wrinkles--or deep creases. What can I say. Good night.

TCOY

1. Support group. Felt good to be in its embrace.
2. Sug and I drove to Greenwich to see Sis and Don. I took a nap on the couch and then Sug, Sis and I walked @ Greenwich Point--saw shells, lobster trap washed ashore, bridges in stages of rebuilding after Sandy damage. Dogs allowed until end of March I think.
3. We then went to tony Greenwich Avenue for dinner--while Don held a table at The Ginger Man, Sis and I took a quick swoop into the Tory Burch store......it was after 5:30 and it was closing at 6. No budget to buy now, but loved drinking in the colors, textures, designs....saw some really cute sandals, belts and dresses. I can't believe all of the great stores on Greenwich Avenue: J. Crew, Lacoste, Tiffany & Co., Saks Fifth Avenue, Lilly Pulitzer, Vineyard Vines, Anne Fontaine and more.