“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It’s always our self we find in the sea.” – e.e. Cummings

This is what I learned about the sea...
I added about half a gallon of salt water to her multitude with tears of impending homesickness for her.
Sue says, "The ocean will wait for you."
May the wait be short and joyful in its anticipation for our reunion!

Images of the East Coast

To match the randomness of the Top Ten post...

Original signs at Faneiul Hall trading center...

Gentleman at the park with his dog, playing music for the passersby and the ducks...

I love the Red Sox foam finger, here!

Waiting for the Green Line...

Doesn't she LOOK like a Menace?!?

Narragansett mailboxes...

At the RI School of Fine Arts....dressmakers forms, lined up and waiting to be draped.

This is Boston....the modern reflecting the past.

Japanese school kids, on tour; they were EVERYWHERE!

Boston Marathon Finish Line!  Yeah...I crossed it.  :)  

Between the Lions at the library!  I wished my nieces, Kamryn and Livvie, had been with me!

Carrie and Heath, saying their vows on the beach.  Beautiful wedding...we didn't stay for the reception, though. (I'm sure we COULD have...but we didn't have a present or money to tip the bartender.)

Top Ten (To The Second Power) Amazing Experiences In Boston

In no particular order...

(There will be more detailed posts to follow.  I just had to start SOMEWHERE!)

1. The raw oyster at Legal Sea Foods (tasted like the ocean, loved it!)
2. My office at Brown University...my HALF of the office, for a week, that is.
3. Gus, Sue's Portuguese Water dog!  
4. The Jewish prayer book that we read from at the Yom Kippur service; it reads back to front, just like I always read magazines.
5. JoJo, our Italian waitress at Al Dente Ristorante. You don't mess with JoJo; she knows her chianti!
6. Sourdough toast and Dave's scrambled eggs on Saturday morning.
7. The vendors at Fenway park, pitching peanuts and hollering, "Doh-awgs! Getcher doh-awgs, he-ah!".
8. Sparkling silver fairy-dust sand of Narragansett.
9. The Resnick house...do you remember the house in the Steve Martin "Father of the Bride" movie?...it looks like that on the outside.  
10. TREES....there were trees EVERYWHERE!  I love trees...
11. Jamie, the hippie gardener in Rhode Island that I unintentionally offended by re-arranging his planting order without getting all the information before doing so.  
12. Everyone in New England walks fast.  Seriously.  Even the grandmas.  
13. The firemen at Boston North End station, Engine 8, Ladder 1...especially the lieutenant who insisted on taking our pictures.  
14. The clam fritters at Aunt Carrie's restaurant...as if clams weren't already wonderful enough on their own, they fried them in dough.  Swoon...
15. Monet's waterlilies, in REAL LIFE!
16. Sue's cousin who shows up early to help set up the break fast, can't hold his rum and thinks he should work on a ranch in Montana for a summer....God help us all.  :)
17. Concord grapes, fresh off the vine...wow!
18. "Sweet Car-o-line...bum, bum, bum....good times never seemed so good..." at Fenway.
19. Seeing the park (and street) from one of my favorite children's books, Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McClosky. 
20. The lions at Boston Public Library...there really and truly IS a "Between the Lions" place! 
21. Lobster roll at Durgin Park, with a cold beer and incredible authentic Boston baked beans which are WAY better than all the cheap Bush impostors.
22. Margaret, who ate a tomato sandwich and told us about the Kennedy family and her encounters with them. 
23. Cannoli, with chocolate custard filling.
24. The voices on the street....accents from across the country and around the world; beautiful.
25. The bicyclist riding with a pigeon on his helmet.  Real or stuffed, we don't know, but either way, it was a remarkable sight!
26. Twin lobsters for $15!  (I don't think they were related, but they were a tasty pair, nontheless...)
27. Lighthouses...make my heart happy, just seeing them in the distance.
28. The General Hooker Entrance....complete with working women.
29. A beer at Cheers (The Bull and Finch).  I channeled my inner Norm...
30. Dustin Pedroia at bat! 
31. The wedding at the beach club that we weren't invited to but attended anyway, in our sandy, rumpled clothes, and at which we cried as though we were dear friends.  Carrie and Heath, we wish you all the best!
32. Clam chowder.  BOSTON CLAM CHOWDER!!!  One of the first things I ate when I got there, the last thing I ate before boarding the plane.
33. Learning the difference between Georgian architecture and Federalist design...something to do with a butter knife on the facade.  (Right, Sue?)
34. The old, old songs at the temple that everyone sang together...in Hebrew(?).
35. Seeing a "mermaid's purse".
36. Sushi! No...really!  It's delicate and soft. both in flavor and texture...yum.
37. Explaining team roping to Brown students who looked as though I was speaking Swahili to them.
38. Obama 2012...everywhere I turned.  He's sort of a big deal in Massachusetts.
39. Fat sea gulls. I'm talking Thanksgiving-turkey fat, here.  They almost grunted when they had to take off in flight.
40. Ocean foam around my legs.
41. Oooo! And the hidden cave in the rocks at the end of the "secret" path to Max's diving rock!
42. The Green Monster.
43. Tea with milk and sugar at Tealuxe, eating an almond pastry and watching the traffic.
44. The redneck on his cell phone in the DFW airport who was better than a Jerry Springer show; we, the waiting and weary travelers, learned things about the south that we didn't know we didn't want to know about the south. 
45. Yarmulkes 
46. John Singer Sargent's painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882) took my breath away!
47. Old North Church (where the lamps for Paul Revere were hung for only a few minutes) was worth our time.  Obviously Paul Revere's HOUSE was not...we skipped it!
48. Fried whole belly clams; they sound revolting, but they're rich and addictive.
49. I found live quahogs on the beach!  They ALSO sound revolting, but they're really sorta cute.
50. Parking garages should start at Level 1, for heaven's sake!!! 20 minutes, two floors on BOTH sides and we finally found the car.  Whew!

To be continued...

First Day of School, 2012

For all the grandmas and grandpas and aunties and far away friends and complete strangers who read this blog:

They did not want to mess around with photos.

I insisted.

Very well, then; we won't give you our best smiles...

Fair enough.

When the photo albums come out, in their teenage years, they'll wish they'd cooperated more enthusiastically...

Maggie spots the bus, coming over the hill!

(As excited as she was for school, you'd think she'd spent the summer mining coal or something...)

And Angus wore his tie.

He talked with me, very seriously, in the car about him getting a computer of his own and maybe an office with a phone.  He didn't even have his first desk at school, yet, for pete's sake! 

She'll be coming 'cross the prairie, when she comes...

YES!

I looked in the bus, to see where they were going to sit and say good morning to Rita.  In each of the first three seats were the most intensely serious children I've ever seen.  They weren't scared, they weren't sad, they weren't excited (that I could tell, although they MAY have been just about to explode like little Pillsbury biscuit cans); they were very, very importantly waiting to get this education business going.

I don't think they like or missed their teacher at ALL...

 Smile and wave, crew....smile and wave...

With Mrs. Carroll, who finally stopped talking, but just momentarily so I had to snap photos like a paparazzi pest...

The sunflowers were gorgeous this morning and I'm grateful. They brightened up the pictures and reflected the mood of the morning!  Here's Maggie, watching her brother watch for the bus:

And Angus, my boy-child:

They rode the bus to school, the mom-parazzi had their photos and filled out paperwork, they sat at their desks, then us moms whisked the kindergarteners out of there (because they don't ACTUALLY start until next week, to their GREAT DISMAY) and came to have coffee and cake at my house.

The kids had a playdate and that lessened the disappointment of not starting today.  

And the cake sort of eased us mothers into the school year, too.

There you go!

Happy First Day of School!

(Going to pick Mags up from the bus in a few minutes; I'll get the report and if there's anything noteworthy, I'll add it to the post.)

Family Vacation