secret beach, redux

Sure, Legoland was part of the draw for my cousin Sheila when she and her family planned a weekend visit to San Diego, but it wasn't the only coveted attraction. A few days before their arrival, Sheila wrote: "just reread the Secret Beach blog to the kids. I had been telling them about that spot. Maybe Sunday/???"

And Sunday it was.

It was a gorgeous day, and we got ourselves out into it in record time, being Kennedys and all. We packed up the westy and headed West(y). I know you don't want to hear it if you're all covered in snow and whatnot, but we hadn't had very many perfect days in the previous month or so, and we San Diegans get righteously indignant when we aren't delivered our regular dose of perfection, at least where the weather is concerned. So we knew it would be crowded at the beach on this long lost beautiful day, and the thing about Westy Day at the beach is that it's not just a journey, it's a destination. If you don't nab a great parking spot, you might as well be driving a Buick. But the gods were smiling upon us that day, because we got a great spot, where we set up home base and were soon joined by our frousins.

We frolicked about for a bit, as we tend to do,

And then we set off on the epic adventure toward The Secret Beach.
It was bonus time!
Low tide= tide pools!

Eventually, we dragged ourselves away from the wee marine creatures to continue our journey along the stunning cliffs of Point Loma:

Until we reached the familiar gateway

to our beautiful secret beach.

No man is an island...

Sometime thereafter, we made our way back to so-called civilization, and dried off just as the day grew long and our time grew short.

After everyone was found to be adequately dry and dressed, we endured the tragedy of a goodbye, with promises to soon cross the molehills that separate us.

And then it was back to just us, with great lighting, and then a sunset for the ages.

weekend photos: wacky weather

Raise your hand if the weather is not wacky where you live.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Everywhere you look, it's a study in contrast. An exploration of opposition. A staggering illustration of the unexpected.

We've had at least 12 seasons in the last week here in San Diego, and back east what they lack in variation they make up for in vehemence. Tenfold.

As for me, I never dressed properly this week, when it was 80 I sported a sweater and when it was 60 I shivered in spaghetti straps. I just couldn't get it right. By Thursday, I refused to comply and when I realized that the day was no match for the knit boots I had thrown into my bag to put on after my morning workout, I called in late to work and stopped to pick up a pair of new kicks.

That's my wacky weather photo. But first, look at what Ellie and Beth did behold:

Snowing and sunny.

Sprinkling and sunny and sideways


 

Sassy and shiny and new

 

And tomorrow? Damned if I know what to wear.

Hint fiction

A few months back, I heard a piece on NPR about "Hint Fiction"--a book that celebrates the really short story. Short as in 25 words or less. Inspired by Ernest Hemingway's "For sale: baby shoes, never worn,"  Robert Swartwood's "Hint Fiction" is an anthology of text message-length fiction.

They read 10 or 12 of the chosen short stories during the radio piece. I found it fascinating. I guess critics worry that this uber short fiction just plays into the public's ever shortening attention span. Is this fiction anything more than a tweet some wonder.

But, c'mon, that Hemingway "story" above? Genius.

And what about this one:

Blind Date
She walks in and heads turn. I'm stunned. This is my setup? She looks sixteen. Course, it's hard to tell, through the scope.

Pretty powerful.

I think Jacquie would be especially good at this. Her Facebook posts are always so clever and pithy.

I find it really hard to do. I'll get an idea about what the story should be about, but to lay it out in 25 words or less. It's hard for me.

There's no place like home
The blood tasted like rust in her mouth. There was no choice about staying this time. Was there?

Okay, this one was a little easier:

Friday
Ice, lime, pure spirits. Where is Ellie with the blender?

Yes, pure horseshit, but fun nonetheless.

How about you give it a try?

Treasures

Mom and Dad kept meticulous, up-to-date and well-labeled photo albums over the years when we were kids. Every graduation, every First Communion, every birthday -- and there were a lot of them -- is carefully documented in volumes and volumes of photos albums, now stored on really high shelves at Mom's house.

The apple, apparently, does not fall far from the tree. And these are only 2001 through 2008, the years Mistah and I were on the road.

Anyway, despite all that scrupulous organization, sometimes one is still lucky enough to come across a shoebox full of loose papers and old letters and odd, un-photo-albumed snapshots -- a shoebox of unfiled Treasures. Which is what happened on Sunday, at Mom's.

A few weeks ago I talked about our family's annual rite of posing for a Christmas card photo, and I bemoaned a missing one:

There's a really great Christmas card photo of all of us in Korea just a few weeks after Jacquie was born. It's the only photo -- out of all the thousands and thousands of them -- where Dad actually looks overwhelmed. It's hanging on the wall in Mom's bedroom and I don't have a copy of it. That, however, will soon change.

Well, here it is:

About this photo, Jacquie commented:

I love that Korea photo that you speak of. I stared at it for so long last month when I stood there making copies of your Westy manuals. Dad looks shellshocked, but mom just takes it in stride.

Let's she if she's right:

Yep, Dad is looking shellshocked, although I just love the four hands, especially Julie's on Dad's knee . . .

. . . and Mom is taking it in stride, and looking awfully glamorous while doing so, even with a squawking Jacquie on her lap.

And the Big Sister Brigade:

Oh, we're doing just fine.

Jacquie also reminded me of another missing Christmas card photo:

There was one year when Julie, Jane and I ALL donned the flight suits with cowl necks. I remember taking the photo in Kev & Cheri's backyard, we were standing on rocks.

I comment-replied:

Dang, where *is* that triple flight suit shot? Why do I not have it? I *love* that year's photo because I'm wearing the most awesome green corduroy jumper *ever*.

Well, here is that one:

Jacquie's right: Julie, Jane and Jacquie were in fact all wearing flight suits. They even might say they were rocking those flight suits, but I'd have to disagree because flight suits are a really really bad fashion choice. I, however, am totally right about my wearing the most awesome green corduroy jumper *ever*.

Ever.

I pulled a few more treasures out of the box:

Julie and Dad, with Dad, as Julie put it, "at his swarthiest." I commented (I do a lot of commenting, a lot) that Julie was just the perfect example of babyhood with that round bald head and big blue eyes and perfect eyebrows.

Julie replied:

I know I wasn't always a joy in dad's life*, but I was at that age. He loved to tell me about our visits out to the garden to look at the flowers, my big eyes taking it all in.

(*don't listen to her: there was just that one decade -- or maybe two -- when she was a rebel)

And this one is brilliant for so many reasons:

I don't know what I like more, the rosary around my neck or Dad drinking creme de menthe. I'm channelling Dad in later years -- and actually not all that many years later -- when I say, "Blech."

And finally, the pièce de résistance:

The red, smiley-face dress with choker attached. Sigh. This, my friends, was the Best. Dress. Ever. There was no debate about what to wear on picture day in 3rd grade.

It was my favorite dress of all time.

It still is.

Frousins

“If she lived here,” my girl speculated, “we’d totally be BFFs.”

They would, I’m certain of it. Those two girls are like peas in a pod. Kindred spirits, her mom and I agreed.  Aside from the nearly identical bodies and sensibility, these girls just clicked the first moment they met almost two years ago in Arizona. 

They’ve only seen each other once since then, a very brief hello after Dad’s funeral just as my girl was being released to go and swim away her tears. That wasn’t a great visit. But last weekend sure was!

There’s something special about cousins, be it first, or once removed or, in this case, second. Her mom and I are two of sixty six first cousins on the Flatley side. My mom and Sheila’s dad are two of the 13 siblings who grew up in the infamous one bathroom house in Brookline, Mass.

When Sheila and I were kids, most of those thirteen still lived in Massachusetts, although a few had strayed to Buffalo, Long Island, New Hampshire, and most notably, CONNECTICUT. We were about 3 hours away from the hub of Brookline when Grammy still lived there; close enough to gather for the big events, but too far for the day to day contact that a BFF would require. 

When the families got together, for Thanksgiving or a reunion or wedding, we cousins automatically broke off into clusters of like-minded cohorts centered loosely around age and gender.   Much like my girl and Sheila’s clicked right into place, so did we cousins. I can’t remember any of that awkward shyness that you’d get on the first day back to school or summer break, we always just picked up right where we had left off. It was like falling into step with a rhythm that had kept its momentum no matter how much time had been spent apart. 

While these girls of ours have email to keep in touch, Sheila and I reminisced this weekend about how we always tried to write each other letters, but neither of us could ever aspire to the greatness of our cousin Kathy’s correspondence skills. She is still the master of the handwritten card, that one. 

There was a long period of time when I fell out of touch with my cousins. I moved south and then west (YES, I am the smart one); I was broke for a long time and thus unable to get back east for any of the weddings where I actually would have been able to (legally) enjoy the open bars.  

Through the magic of Facebook, many of the 66 first cousins are now back in touch, along with some of our spouses, children, and parents.  Although our plans for a reunion were tragically thwarted this past summer, many of the Flatleys turned up for Dad’s wake and/or funeral. It was heartbreaking and surreal to see their faces again in those dark days; everyone had strangely morphed into a resemblance of how our parents used to look, while the next generation ran around with those familiar Flatley freckles and eyes.
 

Getting my family together with Sheila and hers this weekend brought back so many great memories. We fell right into step, just like our girls did, just like we used to do when we ran down to play in the Pomers’ basement after Thanksgiving dinner each year.  

I’ve got a feeling we’ll be pointing our Westy toward Arizona before too long….

  

 

 
ps: don't worry boys, you'll be in the next post when I tell everyone all about the secret beach, revisited

Love is in the air

I know that I just wrote about all the xoxoxoxoxxxoxoxoxoxoxo's I receive when emailing with my eldest. But I'm caught in some kind of sweet spot right now, as Central PA suggests, and I think I better share it while I can.

Because right now, if the sassy is at bay, it's all about loving the mama. My youngest typically grips me fiercely if others extend their hands to hold her. She gives me myriad leg hugs throughout the day. She reaches those pudgy arm up for me to grab. She loves the mama.

But my 6 and 9 year old still seem to love me just as much, although, thankfully, do not ask me to pick them up. My oldest and I did indeed "Google Talk" (as she calls it) this weekend and the xo's continued. And I received a few calls of distress regarding how long it would be until they next saw me. (Although, I admit, nothing as dramatic as this call.)

And when I walked in from my day at work yesterday (yes, no love for MLK Jr at my office) to finally see my girlies, this is what awaited me:

A homemade, iron-on shirt on which my oldest proclaimed her love for me



And which was adorned with paint-smudge smily faces and iron-on slogans that said things like "love," "peace," "powered by sugar," and my favorite, "Army brat."


My 6 year old transfomed a plain journal into a book of love, literally. She slapped that groovy "Hodad's" sticker on the front,

 Then wrote me a message on the first page

Then, and this is the best part by far, wrote "love" an the top of every single sheet of that journal. Well, that's not entirely true. She ran out of time, so the last 15 or so pages are blank, but the others? The other 85 or so?

Yep, they all say "love"

I have a feeling I'm gonna score this Valentine's day.

Bombogenesis

Last week we had a bombogenesis of a storm.

The New London Day reports:

Meteorologists have a word to describe the snow, rain, thunderstorms and wind that hit southeastern Connecticut.

A bomb.

Wednesday's storm, while not technically a blizzard, was instead a "classic scenario" of a weather phenomenon called bombogenesis, said Gil Simmons, meteorologist for Channel 8. A bombogenesis is a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure - 24 millibars or more - in 24 hours.
 

A week later, there's still tons of snow everywhere . . .

. . . and Mistah and I went for a walk in it yesterday morning, hunting for icicles.

Ooh! Look at that one!

"When a storm 'bombs out,' " Simmons said, "the pressure drops dramatically over a short time."

Wednesday's storm was energized, the result of a storm barreling in from the Midwest and merging with one from the South: bitter cold air colliding with warmer air from the Gulf Stream.

"When you get thunderstorms with snow, that's a heck of a process," Simmons said. "It's kind of like saying you need this electric jolt to get this process going. It was pretty maxed out right over us."

Thunderstorms with snow! Imagine that! There was no signs of thunderstorms yesterday morning, though, just bright sun and sparkling, blinding white stuff.

Eugenie's house looks lovely in the snow . . .

. . . and so does the river.

Another icicle!

Nutmeggers took the storm in stride, this time, and got themselves and their cars dug out right away.

Well, except for this guy . . .

. . . and, well, this guy too.

Now that is a self-respecting icicle.

Despite appearing worse than last month's blizzard, Wednesday's storm did not classify as such, Jacquemin said.

For the storm to be a blizzard, three hours' worth of winds of 35 mph is required, with heavy, blowing snow that reduces visibility.

Blizzard? We don't need no stinkin' blizzard.

We've got a bombogenesis.