Long weekend

I'm back today after three days "on the Cape" with family and friends. We planned a work weekend to transition a grandparental cottage into a more family friendly abode. Other plans snuck their way in of course, as should happen when it comes to a long weekend near water.

We painted the living room. Fresh white walls make you realize it's time to wash the windows. We unearthed 50 or more bars of soap (hidden in the bathroom for some anticipated post-depression soap shortage) and many other hoarded treasures, we dusted, we dust-binned things, we stood back and surveyed our work.

I played on the beach, I collected too many rocks. I stared at water a lot. I lay belly down with my nose at the bow of the boat the whole way out to open ocean and back, absorbing as much salty wind and sunshine as I could. We made a sand castle and caught fish for the moat, just to watch it all disappear under water. Yesterday, I was able to lie on my back in the bay, and rock in the swells as the tide came in. Lovely. I've decided to be a sea otter when I grow up.

Wildlife abounded - a flicker yelled from the old TV antenna on the cottage, we freed a fat and greedy chipmunk from the bird feeder, and saw a huge pod of seals from the boat. Horseshoe crabs suffered the indignity of being picked up and ogled, hermit crabs tickled their way across our palms.

A home cooked lobster dinner was the capstone to our work and play, followed by a walk down to the bay to see a gold and pink streaked sunset at low tide.

After two days of beach time and an entire afternoon on a boat, I still haven't adjusted to solid ground. I almost hope I don't. Three days seemed like more after being cradled by water with the wind in my face. Much like I remember my childhood summers, with days that stretched out long enough to fit everything, and being deliciously tired when I hit the pillow.

P.S. Disaster averted by Alex who caught me fishing my bagel out of the toaster with a butter knife over the weekend. He asked me if I remembered the game "Operation". I did, and I also remembered being quite bad at it. I let him wrangle my bagel. Alex will make a good Dad - he was very calm, so as not to startle me and initiate electrical mayhem. We unearthed wooden toast tongs in the sugar jar (part of the secret code storage system devised by grandparents), and those sit quietly next to the toaster now - a reminder that I might not be as coordinated (or as lucky) as I hope I am when I pull something like that.