Sand where there shouldn't be sand
Jul. 5th, 2004 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
squeequeg(I'm not really feeling recumbent; it just amused me that "recumbent" is given as one of the options for one's mood. Maybe if I were typing on the floor...)
Back from NH with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thomascantor after a very good weekend. We headed up to the Cabin in the Woods, an old family house that I've been going to for twenty-odd years now. (Can't count the years that sal_sal was too young to travel up there from Indiana. I seem to remember we stuck her in a laundry basket that first year and drove up to Michigan.) It's a good place -- every item there has a story. Lumpy bit of wood above the porch? That's the yoke they used to use to carry buckets of water from the spring. Scrawls on the wood of the desk? That's because it used to be a door in the Girl Scout camp that used to be on the hill. Other lumpy bit of wood? One of my uncles' fruitless attempt to carve a rattle for me or sigerson.
It's a place I'll always come back to, I hope. Generations of my family have been there, and each one has changed the cabin a little more.
This was my first time coming up by myself, without someone of another generation present. Also my first time using my key to the cabin, which meant a moment's panic when we arrived late Friday to find no one there and I couldn't get the door to open. I spazzed, as I am wont to do, but thomascantor kept his head and got the lock open. We had a new water heater (better than last week's arrival, when we found we had no water whatsoever) but no idea how to make it work, if the tank was full, or if it was even hooked up yet. Showers tend to be optional at the cabin, though.
Aunt B arrived the next day with her two-year-old daughter M, after I'd taken a dip in the lake and cleaned up a bit. We left them to figure out the water heater (which she did with a call to the plumber) and drove up toltlbird's family's house . . . no, the house of the family that she works for . . . er . . . there's no quick way to put that. Anyway, the house is gorgeous. Gave me a new kitchen to covet. I played with the family's black Lab for a while, tossing a stick into the lake. He was an enthusiastic sweetie of a dog, perhaps a little too friendly at times. I miss Labs.
Sunday we spent on the beach. Yeah, that about sums it up. I swam out to the rock twice, built a sandcastle and a fish . . . yeah, it's a fish . . . no, you just have to look at it the right way . . . and dozed off in the sun. I haven't done that in ages. I did remember sunscreen, but I apparently forgot that I have tops to my legs. So I have patches of burn and a decent tan otherwise. Unfortunately, one drawback to making sandcastles is that you have to sit and kneel in the sand to get it right, with the result of sandburn. Owie.
Watched Pirates of the Caribbean with Aunt B, who hadn't seen it and loved it. She hasn't seen many movies in the last few years, mostly because of M. She's raising M mostly on her own, and just watching her makes me tired.
How do parents stand it? I found myself wanting to let go and outscream M, and twenty minutes later she was the sweetest kid ever. There's this tiny creature, irrational and rational randomly, and you can't leave them alone without something horrible happening (don't play with the bug spray! oh, dear) and you can't reason with them or outlast them or just up and leave. M's a wonder, and from time to time she makes me think I might want to have kids, but my God, there would be no time or brainpower left to think of anything at all!
Maternal instinct must be really damn strong. Aunt B handled it all without breaking a sweat.
Monday morning was cloudy and overcast, so not really a beach day. Nothing unusual for up there; I'm just glad we got so much time on the beach the day before. Still a great day. We frittered and lazed away the morning, then came back here.
In any case, we're back (after a stop by the Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough. Such a happy place.) And now for a tasty meal that includes gyoza.
Gyoza are tasty. The word, though, has a number of not-so-good associations for me, deriving from sigerson's game. See, our party needed to buy horses for quick travel. sen_no_ongaku got a proud mare named Blanche, nadyezhda got Prince, laobscuridad rode double on anacrucis' warhorse, and my character . . .
I rolled a 1 on my 'bargain.' So I got a horse name of Meatball.
In an attempt to salvage his (nonexistent) dignity, my character changed the horse's name to something worthy of a mighty (and nigh-spherical) steed.
However, because I can't give up a laugh, the name was, of course, Gyoza.
This follows in my grand tradition of naming pets and other animals after food. I want a cat named Mulligatawny and a corgi named Hamantaschen.
Back from NH with
thomascantor after a very good weekend. We headed up to the Cabin in the Woods, an old family house that I've been going to for twenty-odd years now. (Can't count the years that sal_sal was too young to travel up there from Indiana. I seem to remember we stuck her in a laundry basket that first year and drove up to Michigan.) It's a good place -- every item there has a story. Lumpy bit of wood above the porch? That's the yoke they used to use to carry buckets of water from the spring. Scrawls on the wood of the desk? That's because it used to be a door in the Girl Scout camp that used to be on the hill. Other lumpy bit of wood? One of my uncles' fruitless attempt to carve a rattle for me or sigerson. It's a place I'll always come back to, I hope. Generations of my family have been there, and each one has changed the cabin a little more.
This was my first time coming up by myself, without someone of another generation present. Also my first time using my key to the cabin, which meant a moment's panic when we arrived late Friday to find no one there and I couldn't get the door to open. I spazzed, as I am wont to do, but thomascantor kept his head and got the lock open. We had a new water heater (better than last week's arrival, when we found we had no water whatsoever) but no idea how to make it work, if the tank was full, or if it was even hooked up yet. Showers tend to be optional at the cabin, though.
Aunt B arrived the next day with her two-year-old daughter M, after I'd taken a dip in the lake and cleaned up a bit. We left them to figure out the water heater (which she did with a call to the plumber) and drove up to
ltlbird's family's house . . . no, the house of the family that she works for . . . er . . . there's no quick way to put that. Anyway, the house is gorgeous. Gave me a new kitchen to covet. I played with the family's black Lab for a while, tossing a stick into the lake. He was an enthusiastic sweetie of a dog, perhaps a little too friendly at times. I miss Labs. Sunday we spent on the beach. Yeah, that about sums it up. I swam out to the rock twice, built a sandcastle and a fish . . . yeah, it's a fish . . . no, you just have to look at it the right way . . . and dozed off in the sun. I haven't done that in ages. I did remember sunscreen, but I apparently forgot that I have tops to my legs. So I have patches of burn and a decent tan otherwise. Unfortunately, one drawback to making sandcastles is that you have to sit and kneel in the sand to get it right, with the result of sandburn. Owie.
Watched Pirates of the Caribbean with Aunt B, who hadn't seen it and loved it. She hasn't seen many movies in the last few years, mostly because of M. She's raising M mostly on her own, and just watching her makes me tired.
How do parents stand it? I found myself wanting to let go and outscream M, and twenty minutes later she was the sweetest kid ever. There's this tiny creature, irrational and rational randomly, and you can't leave them alone without something horrible happening (don't play with the bug spray! oh, dear) and you can't reason with them or outlast them or just up and leave. M's a wonder, and from time to time she makes me think I might want to have kids, but my God, there would be no time or brainpower left to think of anything at all!
Maternal instinct must be really damn strong. Aunt B handled it all without breaking a sweat.
Monday morning was cloudy and overcast, so not really a beach day. Nothing unusual for up there; I'm just glad we got so much time on the beach the day before. Still a great day. We frittered and lazed away the morning, then came back here.
In any case, we're back (after a stop by the Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough. Such a happy place.) And now for a tasty meal that includes gyoza.
Gyoza are tasty. The word, though, has a number of not-so-good associations for me, deriving from sigerson's game. See, our party needed to buy horses for quick travel. sen_no_ongaku got a proud mare named Blanche, nadyezhda got Prince, laobscuridad rode double on anacrucis' warhorse, and my character . . .
I rolled a 1 on my 'bargain.' So I got a horse name of Meatball.
In an attempt to salvage his (nonexistent) dignity, my character changed the horse's name to something worthy of a mighty (and nigh-spherical) steed.
However, because I can't give up a laugh, the name was, of course, Gyoza.
This follows in my grand tradition of naming pets and other animals after food. I want a cat named Mulligatawny and a corgi named Hamantaschen.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-07-06 03:14 pm (UTC)Indeed you are! :-)
Hungry now. *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-07-06 04:54 pm (UTC)115 2nd Ave. (between E6th and E7th)
Manhattan
They also make fantastic ruggelach.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-06 05:01 pm (UTC)And kassrachel, I've now written the first third of a story about Mulligatawny and Hamantaschen. I'd say this was all your fault, but my easily-distracted imagination really deserves most of the blame.