Michael on Wheels, Abby's birthday

Everyone is really upset about the beached whales down on the Cape. Yesterday, about 50 pilot whales beached themselves in Dennis, MA. Volunteers from experts to vacationers came to help keep the whales moist and comfortable until the tide came up enough that they could be pulled back out to sea. Experts were keeping an eye on them, expecting that they may try it again.

Well, they did. And they succeeded.

This time 40 more whales, give or take, managed to beach. Some died on their own, others had to be euthanized. Regardless, a lot of people are incredibly devastated that this happened.

To me, I have mixed feelings.

I think whenever anything happens like this en masse that it is sad to see, but part of me believes they had their reasons. I kind of liken it to cult suicides. No, don't laugh. Seriously. I think that sometimes groups of people, or groups of ... whatever, get the notion that something is so wrong with their world that they commit suicide in bulk.

Or perhaps someone in the group perhaps was sick, the leader or patriarch/matriarch, and they followed to death. Or, perhaps all of them were sick... the first day they all wanted to die but they were stopped by humans who wanted to prevent it. But they were serious, hell bent for sand, so they went to another part of the Cape and succeeded.

Is the notion of suicide alien to species aside from humans and lemmings? I don't think so.

My buddy Chad (the one expecting the twins whom shall be nicknamed "The Bus" and "Slash" during football season much to our glee) is a marine biology guy. I should pose these questions to him.

I guess they've got expert scientists coming from all over to study this one. In December of last year a large group of whales beached down the Cape, but the efforts to rescue were minimal.

Not enough tourists from Ohio who wanted to help, and the water was too damn cold in December.

But it all got me to wondering... if I knew someone or a bunch of someones contemplating suicide would I talk them out of it or try and help, or would I say "Knock yourself out, pun intended," and wish them a speedy and non-messy demise? That's all something to chew on, isn't it?

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Next topic. But sort of related.

A few years back, a friend of mine from college was in an horrific car accident. He's now in a wheelchair, for good. I honestly haven't seen him in 10 years, and of the last decade about 7 of those he's been on wheels.

He came to visit on Sunday, and I was so glad to see him, and to be honest, so blown away by how able and adept he is with that chair. He said that a few years ago he was bedridden almost all day, and now he is up 8-12 hours a day. He drives that chair around with such precision, he's still got his wicked sense of humor.

He seems to have it all together and he's such an amazing person to me. I'm happy he is here.

I'm more than impressed by him, I'm humbled by his abilities. I'm happy to see him around.

Part of me says, if that were me, I'd have wished that I could die. And I probably would try. But he makes me rethink those thoughts... and I see new life and hope where "beaching" would have been the first and only option I would consider. Michael teaches me life lessons just by being, and I give thanks and am joyful just to know him.

One of the professors I'm working with this summer gave me a copy of "Tuesdays With Morrie," the book of Morrie Schwartz' battle with ALS, written by his former student Mitch Albom. I read it in one day and I was devastated and joyful all in the same breath by the time I finished. Lessons in living -- Morrie had time to think, consider, build, work on teaching, and in his life and his death makes "beaching" seem so not the thing to do. What an amazing man.

So, in short -- I think if I were down the Cape yesterday I'd have made an attempt with those midwestern tourists and those New England Aquarium workers. And I'd be sad to see the next day that they managed to accomplish what they set out to do.

But I'd accept.

Lessons in living, after all, sometimes carry lessons in dying, too. Alright, enough sad stuff.

On Saturday we went to Abby's birthday party. Here are a couple pictures.

Jessie and Ian, peas in a pod. Friends since before birth... They are two wackos.	Geoff made friends with some of the kids, here he and Philip share a moment of calm, quiet reflection.
This picture cracks me up. Abby, the birthday princess, looks like she's going to cry, but really I just called her name and she looked up at me... then right after I snapped this she burst into a huge grin. I didn't get that shot.	The neighbor dog, not the family dog, Pilot. He followed us over when we came up the driveway, and just stayed at the party. He was so sweet and well behaved. And you know I'm such the other people's pet whore.
The piñata awaits it's destiny... It was awesome. What a cool dragon.	Karry orchestrates the whacking line. Birthday girl first, then up through the age ranks to Jessie and Ian!
Whacking complete, the kids rush in to pick up their loot	"Look at what I got in my goodie bag, mom!"
Jessie and Brittany bonded pretty tightly (her dad's a big Steelers fan too! WOOOO!) Brittany is SO cute, it's hysterical. I got a really cute picture of her and Abby, cousins in crime, on Karry's camera.	Ian trying to convince us that we didn't have to leave yet, that there were all sorts of good reasons for us to stay, and Jessie can continue to hang out and walk the neighbor's dog with him... he was very sad when we drove away. It broke my heart to see him in my mirror behind us, standing there. Notice Geoff on the rock in the background. He was stuck there for a while. heh heh heh.
And this is Ian with said neighbor dog, Meco (he spelled it for us a bazillion times, saying it was "Me Company, Me Co., Meco. Get it?" He is getting paid to take the dog out, walk her and spend time with her. They seem to be getting along like a house afire. He's doing a super job with her. I wish he lived near us because I'd pay him to take care of Kinger and Jack when we go to Chicago!

Today I had meetings with both professors at the College, had lunch with the boys, stopped in to see my Rupa but she was not at her desk (sorry I missed you my Rupa!) and I got home in time to do dishes and make dinner. My mom is visiting, so I should go be sociable.

On Friday Doug pulled all the muscles in his back and he's almost back to normal. He looked pretty miserable halfway through the party on Saturday and spent most of the day in bed Sunday and yesterday. Today he's walking straight and not crying out loud every time he moves around. So I'm hoping he'll be sound as a pound and we can go do something fun. I have a ton of professor work to do, and a new site to design (woooo! But again, it's for free for someone I love, but it means a lot to build my portfolio and do something good for someone). So there's a lot to do in the next two weeks. Did I mention I'm TEACHING all week next week 8:30am to 4pm at the college! I'm going to be one worn out girl. Today was the closest day to a full work day I've put in since January! Criminy! So wish me luck and strength. I'll need it.

Okay. Off to be sociable.

Review of Jay and Silent Bob...

My in-laws have left... visit is over. Now our house is quiet, Doug is resting, the kids are watching "Hey Arnold," and I've finished working on what I can for one of the summer professors without obtaining more material from him. Doug wanted to geocache today, but it looks like at any second the sky will just open up and torrents of rain will fall, so I think we're home based for the day. Good thing. I could use some quiet time.

Anyway, the visit this time was actually lovely. We got to cook for them twice instead of eating out all the time the way we usually end up doing, and Geoff bonded heavily with Grampa, which he hasn't had much of a chance to do. Doug's dad was commenting that it is a treat for them to watch their niece (Doug's sister's baby) on a weekly basis because they can really see how she changes and all, and he was apologetic that he didn't get the same chance with our kids. There was no need for him to be apologetic. We live here, they live there. But I could see that it bothers him because Jessica's his girl, and he loves her deeply, and I think it bums him out. Apologetic isn't the same as regretful. Even though he apologized... there is nothing to apologize for.

I adore my father in law. He likes to talk to me and tell stories. He's got a good heart. He did the dishes here. And I know for a fact he doesn't ever do the dishes at his own house. Not sure what that is saying -- that he wanted to give me a break because for two straight days I cleaned and did dishes and ran around trying to organize life, or if he thinks I'm shit for a housekeeper... hee hee. Regardless, it didn't go unthanked on my part. I kept telling him to stop it. Doug should do the dishes... not you. And he'd wave me off and tell me to go play with the kids. He's a gem, and I enjoy getting to see him greatly.

So they're homeward bound. We may see them again in August at their place as a stop over to Chicago if we are still going to go. I believe we are.

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Not much else to report. I did mention yesterday that I would review "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," so here goes.

We rented "JASBSB" a few weeks ago, before going camping. I'm a fan of Kevin Smith's work, my favorite of his movies being "Clerks." I like his sense of humor, and his storylines for the most part.

[Sidebar note: I say that I like the storylines, but man! I hated the crisis apex in "Chasing Amy" when Holden says that he needs to have sex with Banky to get him to stop feeling upset that his lifelong friendship with Holden has been usurped by a lesbian (temporarily changing teams to be with Holden). I thought that was awful. It was unnecessary. It made no sense. I hated it. It ruined the movie End Sidebar note].

Anyway. He's funny. He's irreverent. I love that HE himself is Silent Bob (the dude in the white cap with the beard, who never, uh, rarely talks). His characters are people that seem familiar to me, almost I know their trash talking foul-mouthed selves. Except of course in "Dogma" because I'm not friends with any archangels or anyone directly related to Jesus.

JASBSB takes all of Smith's previous movies, brings all the characters back, makes fun of them, wraps his career all up. Hollywood pulled out all the stops to be in this movie, as irreverent as it was. There were very few Smith previous characters missing, such as Alan Rickman and Salma Hayek...But Ben Affleck played himself and Holden, and Jason Lee played two of his prior characters from Smith movies, so there were plenty of characters to choose from here. There were dozens of great cameos, from E news daily stars to Dawson who took time away from the Creek... It was fun to play spot the celebrity here.

The premise is that Jay and Silent Bob get wind of the fact a movie is being made based on the comic book about them which Banky and Holden created ("Bluntman and Chronic"). They get in an internet chat room and find out that tons and tons of people are insulting them, ragging on them, and ripping them to shreds and they take it personally instead of just recognizing that these are punkass kids and they're ragging on the comic book. They are especially angry when they read a rumor that they'll be portrayed by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (not so, they come to find out).

So they decide they need to stop the movie from being made. And the adventures begin.

For the most part, this movie was campy, retarded, ridiculous, filled with profanity and more instances of the F word than I've heard in one sitting in YEARS.

But I liked it. It made me laugh, because I have seen all the other Smith movies, and I caught all the nods to the prior works, and I thought Ben Affleck was fabulous at making fun of himself, and Jay and Silent Bob are just so stupid they are amusing.

And that, my friends, is all that matters. You don't have to be an art film. You have to get into stupid situations and make me laugh. End. And they sure as hell did. Right from the opening minutes which set up the existance of Jay and Silent Bob and the genesis of their friendship. Will Farrell stole the show as the nature cop, Chris Rock is hysterical as the director of the movie within the movie (he's all bent out of shape because there are no black actors or black employees on the set and he lets everyone know how he's being abused by the Man). Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher do special cameos, which must have been a thrill for Kevin Smith because he's allegedly a HUGE star wars fan. All his movies have references to Star Wars in them.

All told -- I liked it, and if I were to have a Kevin Smith marathon one day, I'd of course save this one for last. I'd probably show "Dogma" first, because the other three films (Amy, Mallrats, Clerks) all lead up to Jay and Silent Bob... and it's a totally different movie than the others, doesn't fit in the general flow of the illustrious Smith career. And I wonder what he's going to do next... hmmmmmm.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back the kind of movie I could never watch with my inlaws... like I'd never watch "South Park" or "The Man Show" with them. You just don't do that. But I'd watch it with you my friend.

And on that note, I need to get some dishes washed. My father in law isn't here to wash them for me... so I've got to return to my domestic duties.

Where is the summer going???

I have a million and a half pictures from our day yesterday. We left early. We stayed out late. It was fun. We went to Rockport, quite unexpectedly so apologies E.M. that I didn't give you a call or anything. We started the day out down in Beverly at Long Hill, a property belonging to the trustees of reservations. They have nice gardens. And my mother in law LOVES gardens. We didn't intend to go to Rockport... or Gloucester. But we did.

We have a tendency to like to go over to Newburyport or Portsmouth NH more when we have guests. I swear I haven't been to downtown Rockport in 10 years aside from a brief interview to do some bitchy art woman's webpage four years ago. It was winter. No one was there. I didn't even get a ticket when I parked in an expired meter and didn't have a coin to feed it with. I hate going to Rockport or Gloucester in the summer.

As much as I like the actual towns and what they have to offer, I hate the...

a) traffic
b) tourists
c) obscene prices for things I'd like to buy
d) parking situation
e) all of the above

They are nice places, honestly. I love to go to them and see them I just wish I wasn't one of 1,900,000,000 people there at that given second. The more time I spend not living on the north shore, the more I appreciate NOT being on the north shore. While it is nice to visit, I think my blood pressure would be astronomical if I actually had to deal with living in either of those two towns.

But I digress. Totally.

Here are some pictures from yesterday.

Long Hill, Trustees of the Reservations (follow the links to learn more about the beautiful places in this state you can visit...)

The garden gate - made of twisted branches. I loved this!	Geoff in front of the garden gate, with his far lookers and a map. He's gung ho!
They had three beautiful lotus ponds, four feet deep and still as glass. I love the way the clouds are reflected here, and the flowers were blooming so sweetly	The house has a huge wisteria growing up the back side, and it was just lovely. It is modeles after homes in Charleston SC., from the entries to the porches to the terraced gardens.
lace cap hydrangias. I hate hydrangias, but these were so beautiful. and while I admit to hating hydrangias, yes... i have a ton of them in my garden... don't ask me why.	Interesting bird hanging out in the garden...
Jessica takes advantage of meditation time by the lotus pool	Geoff on the "wobblyboard" bench. The kids could have stayed here all damn day if we didn't drag them off.
Geoff met one of the staff members, John, who is studying botany in college. John was very intriguing to Geoff, and Geoff followed him around asking him questions.	John asked Geoff to help him use a tool to pull up saplings growing up in the garden. Geoff was more than happy to oblige...

Essex, Rockport, Gloucester

The Salt Marsh from Farnham's parkinglot while we discussed where we were going.	Motif 1 in Rockport, with "The Formidable" very small tall ship by its side.
Door florals... very lovely. There was a lot of lovely gardening happening on the Streets of Rockport...	View from the Backside of the Teddy Bear Inn
Too damn cute. I vomited. Thanks. Kidding.	Dude was WAY too into lighthouses, I could tell. He was enthralled by the fishermen pulling the catch of the day up onto trucks...
Beautiful view of the little harbor of Rockport.	This dog cracked my shit right up. He hopped right up on that post and sat there like that while his owners went in and bought fudge. Holy crap I laughed.
	"Once had a love, but it was a gas. Then turned out, had a house of glass..." "Uh, no Blondie, try the lyric HEART of glass there, see if it works better... take nine hundred, thirty two..."
Sunset at St. Peter's Square in Gloucester... and Jessica at the St. Peter's Square Buoy.

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Today we spent a lot of time hanging out here, and then had to go up to get Geoff's glasses reshaped and relensed, he wrenched them and a lens popped out. While we were at it, we did a geocache in Windham, NH called "Deer Leap."

I'm pictured here with a giant crow's feather in my ponytail. It was in our backyard... and we brought it for the cache, only it was too big to fit in the box, so I carried it with me the rest of the day.

It was fun taking my inlaws, much more fun than I thought it would be ... it was an easy hike, and they love the outdoors but I don't think they get out into it too deeply often enough. It was a very easy geocache, and my mother in law impressed me with her sense of humor, one of the biggest things I love about her. Geoff was in awesome form today, behaved pretty damn well, and showed them the way on the hike... he is such the trooper.

We had a lovely barbecue dinner with fresh corn from a farmstand in New Hampshire. I'm ready for bed, and should go be more sociable. They're watching the Black Adder movie that Doug got me for my birthday. It's the one where he travels through time. My favorite part is when he beats up Shakespeare and yells at him "this is for every high school student ever who had to study your horrible plays," and kicks him saying "this is for Kenneth Brannagh's version of Hamlet." Hugh Laurie is in it of course, and he's genius. I love him.

Rupa got after me the other day saying I should write more about stuff that I think, rather than the day to day activities. She has a point. It being summer, and me being willing to act crazy and run around with feathers sticking out of my head, I have kept things rather light. I'll think of something weighty to write about opinion wise, and post something eventually. I could do a whole tirade on dog crap, hence the picture at the very top of the page today, because I have serious issues about people leaving dogshit on sidewalks... I've talked about it before in the Marblehead memories of my crazy psychologically imbalanced former neighbor. So I'll come up with something Rupa, I promise!

Drywallfest 2002

Haven't had the opportunity to write in the past few days. Sunday was Drywallfest 2002, a holiday that you can mark on your calendars and celebrate each year from henceforth.

I slept in (much to the consternation of my husband, and suffered the resulting taunts of his opinion on the fact...) and we started around noon. Doug had decided that he and Jessica would hold up the drywall to the ceiling, and I would run around and screw in the screws. Sounds easy, eh? No fucking way. The plan was not quite perfect, and I suggested he cut the panels in half, which he did after long and careful consideration. Jessica, while completely willing, was totally unable to hold up her end of the deal. I have to give her mad props and heavy thanks for her willingness, but I concede that she just doesn't have the upper arm strength to hold up a ceiling. Not that I totally expected she would... but she tried

Once he measured and cut, we got the first part of the livingroom done in about 2 hours, with very little swearing on his part. I was very proud of him.

We trucked along until close to 5:30pm when I decided to run to the beer store before they closed (Sundays in Massachusetts mean you go get beer before 6pm).

We stuck one more panel up and called it a day. We're two thirds done with the livingroom/diningroom area, and just have the kitchen to focus on now.

Huzzah! We have a ceiling!!!!!

Monday I worked down at the college with the media group... it was a long full day. I spent a little time with Ben, sorted out some info on FTP account information for both the faculty members I'm working for this summer, and spent about a half hour with my Rupa.

A productive day all told, but I still had a lot of work to do. I took a trip to Wal*Mart on my way home to get new shower curtains and bathmats for both bathrooms in anticipation of my in-law's arrival.

We were anticipating them around 8pm. They got here at 6... I had just mopped, did the floors, the dishes, and put up the shower curtains and other little doo dads. I was in the process of starting to sort through the crap on top of the dining table so we all had a place to sit and feast while they were here... and boom. There they are. Aw crap!!!

So I hurriedly cleared off the dining table, throwing everything in boxes, trash or keeps, it's all in my bedroom waiting for me to sort through it now. And Doug was marinating lamb and starting the grill. They hadn't stopped to eat dinner, the way we thought they were going to, so they were hungry... good thing we had a huge lamb leg and lots of kebab sticks! Doug grilled up a wicked excellent dinner, with zucchini and summer squash from our garden (the cherry tomatoes aren't ready yet, bummer!) and we sat down to a huge candlelight dinner with the kids and grandparents. It was really nice!

Last night I took Kinger out and went to the basement to move laundry around. Kinger got fixated on something up by the road so I went up to see what was there.

There was a little owl sitting IN the road, right in the middle of the lane. It was late, around 11pm almost, so not a soul was driving past... I ran in the house to get Doug and put Kinger back inside. I didn't want him going after the owl if it was sick or injured. Kinger's not that way though. He's usually curious and scared, not a natural hunter or anything. Doug and his parents and Jessica came out to check it out, and I grabbed a flashlight. It sat there staring at us, and when Doug started to approach it, it took off into the trees across the street and I immediately kicked myself for not having the camera. Finally, something wicked cool and interesting happening right in front of my house and all I have are pictures of friggin' drywall to show you. And this picture of Jess and Megan with their puppies. Megan's mom is a golden retriever breeder and shower. So Megan just got a new puppy and will be showing her when she's older and trained. Her name is Star and she's 10 weeks old. Jack sure liked her... they had a great time together, and now both girls can play and walk their puppies together!

Alright. I've got to get back to being social. Entries will be few and far between these next few days as we go out and play and see the region with our visitors. But I'll do my best to say hello once in a while, because Linda is bored at work and needs something to read.