Saturday, August 23, 2008

Monday Report (it's kind of random and very badly written/in need of editing but I have to post it now or I never will):

Corn-on-the-cob and lobster feast day! I don't have a pot big enough to cook lobster (I think I gave it to Diane because I thought I'd never use it), so Sunday I begged Aunt Mary Ellen to let us borrow theirs. She gladly assented. I also don't have lobster cracking tools, but I brought Dean's large rubber mallet, my grrry kitchen scissors, tongs, and my vegetable steamer. And my sea salt grinder, for the corn. Stopped on the way to the lake and picked up a) seven ears of corn at Suder's (did not shuck them there like I usually do, since a shucking party is a key part of the preparation) and, b) lobsters at The Blue Lobster! When I got to The Blue Lobster, there were only two lobsters left in their tank: a little one (with a missing right claw!) and a giant one. I'd wanted three lobsters, but I figured those two guys were going to have to be the equivalent, so that's what I got. The Blue Lobster guy told me how long to cook them for (9 minutes for the little guy and 14 for the big, although this ended up being way too short... maybe the camp stove was much less hot than a normal one) and gave me ice to keep them cold. He even gave me his card and said I could call at any time with questions. ("Why are they so crunchy? Was I supposed to take off the shell before eating them?)

The feast was great. It was the best steamed lobster I can remember. Hunter hasn't yet developed his taste for lobster, so he didn't eat any (even though I tried to goad him into trying a tiny scrap) but he had fun pretending to bash them with the mallet, then petting them palishly before they went in the pot. The little guy plus the giant guy were the perfect amount for David, Marilou and me. No feeling of having OD'ed on lobster, but not feeling like it wasn't enough, either. Their shells were really soft, so they were super-easy to rip apart and they both tasted extremely delicious. I was afraid the big guy would be tough, but they both tasted the same: GOOD!!! When I started eating mine, I was commenting on how good it tasted, and how it was kind of salty, and David and Marilou started laughing at me because I had sea salt flakes all over my plate from my corn on the cob. Heh. That's why the lobster was salty. Sea salt on lobster is great! :-) Oh yeah, the corn was also The Best Ever--supersweet and tender--and we didn't even put butter on it!

After the feast on the picnic table beside the David family's Winnebago, David was nailing some support boards on the outdoorium because he thinks it looks like it might collapse this winter. Uncle Randy told him he could use this pile of wood that he had, then mentioned that it was left over from the crates when Grandma and Grandpa came back from Africa in the 1960s!!! Meanwhile, I rolled Hunter around on the cottage lawn in a giant tube (not quite as cool as the old airplane innertubes we used to have at the lake, but similar) while Marilou laughed her head off, watching. :-) Then Hunter and I jumped up and down on the tube while holding hands, trying to stay on and avoid falling into the virtual pool of piranhas in the center. (The outside had tilapia, so it was okay to fall off there.) FUN!!!!

We went to the Buell's to pick blueberries and peaches, and got kicked out because we stayed too long! The Buell girl had to come out in the orchard to tell us to LEAVE. (We didn't know it closed at 5:00!) I got a gazillion underripe blueberries (just how I like them), and they were really cheap since I picked them myself. I wish Buell's was closer because I want more!

After Buell's, Hunter and I went snorkeling in the lake. I haven't gone swimming in the lake since who knows when. (Of course, as a kid at the lake in the summer, I went swimming every day.) We swam out to the rocks and I climbed on all of them (it was quite hard to get onto Gibraltar). The visibility was horrible, and we swam holding hands so we wouldn't lose each other. I found two golf balls and dove down to get them. (The cove is very shallow, at least in that part). Later Uncle Randy told me that it's the doctor next door's fault... he hits golf balls out over the lake when it's frozen in the winter time!!

Hunter, Marilou and I made s'mores at the Eternal Flame campfire near the Randal rock, only there weren't any graham crackers, so we used SkyFlakes instead, and they were the best s'mores ever!! It's officially the official new recipe! Less sweet, and a tint of salty. Perfect. No s'more OD feeling! I think we each ate two s'mores (plus some marshmallows), and also made two for David. Hunter's kept catching on fire and I had to help him blow them out, but only one of mine conflagrated (it was when it was puffy and perfectly golden brown on every side and just as I was about to take it off the stick, too, grrrr... ) :-) We offered to make some for Uncle Randy, but he said it was more fun watching us than actually eating them.

Sunday + Monday = easily the most I've talked to Uncle Randy in my whole lifetime put together! I talked to him quite a bit; it was pretty amazing. I mean ten years ago or even five years ago or two years ago, I never never never x 1,000 could've imagined having a solo chat with Uncle Randy (or exchanging more than about two words with him), let alone several extended ones and actually enjoying them! We talked about Tango and the cottage and Grandma's house and party lines and lawnchairs and stuff like that. Classic lawnchairs are so great.

While I was talking to U. Randy, David decided to take a bath in the lake, and Hunter joined him swimming. The two of them together in the lake, wet, looked so much alike, father and son.

Around 8 o'clock David's family and I visited Mom and Dad's old house (which David designed), invited by the new owner, and she gave us a tour. It was beautiful all lit up, glowing like a spaceship, the windows in the cupola open to the night. The house looked wonderful; it suited her and her things, and she truly seemed to completely appreciate it and fit there. It was pretty amazing. She was super nice and even offered the basement room/bathroom if David wanted to come up to work on the outdoorium or something. Walking back through the woods in the dark (I'd brought my tiny backpack flashlight to illuminate the uneven path), the moon was rising bright ORANGE through the trees.

While David did the dishes inside their Winnebago, I watched the dark sky to the north, a distant lightning storm flashing above the trees. So peaceful, quiet, lakeish. Then one more visit around the Eternal Flame for some talking in the dark before I drove home around 11:00 on empty country roads and empty highways, fast fast fast, home at midnight.

Lots of mosquito bites! Mosquito bite constellations.

I love (& it amazes me) how Hunter treats me almost like a fellow kid (jumping on the tube, falling all over), and how he's so physical--climbing all over me, pulling on me, wanting a ride on my back--and so affectionate, randomly holding hands while walking along or sitting somewhere, just so casual and innocent and comfortable. I love that. I'll miss it when he stops doing it. I always miss having someone to play with, after I spend time with Hunter and then leave.

He kept talking about stuff from the movie nonstop on Monday, too, which I got a huge kick out of, since I was obsessed with Star Wars at his age and used to bug David all the time by making him play along with a bunch of stuff he didn't understand. We only saw this movie once and it was at a drive-in so it was really hard for me at least to fully pay attention and take it in, even when it was happening, but he was quoting lines and everything like he had it memorized. That's such a great thing about being that age. I don't know; it's just so cool and fun spending time with him. I don't want him to grow up!

Basically it was perfect weather, perfect everything. Connections, activities, time spent with every single member of David's family. I felt really comfortable hanging out with them--David, Hunter, and Marilou (M & I even had time alone that I enjoyed immensely as well). I just liked being with David and knowing/feeling he's my brother. I wish I could spend more time with them, but the time we had was totally great and it all felt just right and I'm so glad it happened. I really really hope David's family coming to the lake will be a tradition.

Posted at 12:38:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

We hounded the Cheshire bike trail tonight, but I didn't get to pet my pal Maaaa! because the sheep were in the goat section with two fences so I couldn't reach. Alas. Maaaa! has a short haircut now. Cat Stats: Distance - 7.18 miles; Average Speed - 10.7mph; Max Speed - 16.7 mph; Time - 40'04.

Posted at 9:28:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Okay, I added the picture, and here are a few more angles: top view, zipped / side view / and lionfish view. I tried to tweak the colors a little to make them more accurate; the red-looking beet shape is more fuchsia pink than my camera thinks.

Unfortunately, all my red pencil urchins are near the corners, so they don't show up as much as I'd hoped. (They don't show in the pictures at all.) Urchins do like to hide in crevices, so I suppose that's apt.

Posted at 1:43:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

I made another Triangular Prism Zippy Pouch, like the Marimekko one with the formerly-sticky-zipper! I did the whole thing, conception to finish, tonight. It's the same style pouch, but totally different material, and it turned out really good. Dean, examining it: "Wow, it's the best one yet!!" :-)

Boring tips to future self: I sewed the seams of the outer fabric on the first mark on the sewing machine and the ones for the lining on the second mark (starting on the first mark where they come together at the zipper, but angled so it ends up at the second mark), so the lining is 1/8" smaller, and it fits in better than on any of the previous incarnations. The zipper also runs nice and smooth... be really careful about pressing/pulling the lining tight when you sew the topstitching around the zipper!

The outside is leftover scraps from my beet bag (I had exactly the right amount!) and the lining is some cute fish fabric I got in Hawaii a long time ago. It has filefish, lionfish, lavender tang, puffers, coral, and red pencil urchins! Both fabrics have the same spring green and intense fuchsia pink shades and match really well. I'll add a picture tomorrow.

And yes, I am working on my post about Monday; I just haven't finished yet. (Sewing uses a different part of the brain than writing.)

Posted at 2:23:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Sat out on the back step eating peaches, grogurt, and the very last Suder blueberries just now, sun drying my hair, which doesn't smell like the campfire anymore, now that I washed it. I have 19 mosquito bites: 14 on one leg, 5 on the other. Smead is growing 3 new fronds! Soon he'll have six. Why does summer ever have to end??

Posted at 2:24:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Tribute to two wonderful days, and an untold number of wonderful years, at the Lake: the good ol' bluegill. (Not a Fish of the New England Coast.)

Sunday:
1) Big chat with Uncle Randy, all by myself! (!!!!)
2) Paddleboat ride with David, Hunter, and U. Randy's little great-granddaughter Joy (visited the Darn and Turtle Isle.) David tried to remember the names of the rocks that make up Turtle Isle and said he thought they were Gibraltar, Long Island, ???, and Atlantis. He couldn't remember the third-from-the-left one. Robert made them up, so I will have to ask him.
3) Party Boat tour of Lake by given U. Randy, which included me, David's family, U. Randy's three great-grandchildren, and one of my cousins' husbands. David and Marilou brought food including cheese and SkyFlakes, and all the non-Hunter kids wheedled a million of them and started throwing pieces overboard for fish. Uncle Randy saw them and told them if they didn't cut it out he'd toss them overboard. It was a very effective threat. :-)
4) Went on a walk with David's family, in which we ran into the people who are building a house on the lot that the Gingers recently sold. (It looks SO WEIRD with a big HOUSE being built on the upper part of Cove Road!!!) They were really nice and the husband gave me and David a tour of their unfinished house, which they are trying to make very eco-friendly and as off-the-grid as possible. Hunter hates the house and thinks they are evil, however. :-)
5) Went to a drive-in movie at Mansfield Drive-In, in my car! Poor David and Marilou sat in my tiny New Beetle back seat. I felt sorry for them, but it was their idea. (And going in their Winnebago would probably not have been too swift...) Hunter and I had never been to a drive-in before, although D&M had been to the Mansfield Drive-In twice! We saw Star Wars: The Clone Wars because that was the only PG thing playing, and Hunter seemed to like it a lot, but the rest of us could barely made heads or tails of the plot (if there actually was one). Okay, I know I followed it a lot better than David and Marilou, who had never seen a Star Wars movie before (!), but the thing was more like a video game than an actual Star Wars movie if you ask me. It was still fun, though. You tune in the sound on your car radio, and the acoustics in my car were really good! We could feel the whole car rumbling during the space battle scenes. I opened my moon roof and driver's side window, but the back windows still fogged up like they're supposed to. David, to the front seat people: "You know what the people in the back seat are supposed to do at a drive-in, right?" Me: "Smooch." (Tons of exaggerated kissy-sounds followed from the back seat.)

I am craving SkyFlakes right now.

Oh yes, and everything is now demolished at the Brock Brock chicken farm!! Nothing left but big piles of rubble. Weird weird weird.

Will post about Monday tomorrow.

Posted at 3:29:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.

Well, that was pretty much a 100% perfect visit.

Posted at 1:14:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.