Sittin’ here watching the Home Run Derby, which puts me just enough back into a vacation state of mind, thinking about my time away with my wife last week. There’s something magical about her family’s second house in East Hampton, NY. It’s not the la dee da Hamptons—instead it’s a small house whose basement once flooded within two feet of the ground floor, in the kind of neighborhood where all the year-rounders have a little bit of yard and aren’t embarrassed to change their own oil in their own driveways.
It’s my wife’s favorite place in the world. And I love it more every time I go. I love that her folks get out there before we do and set up cheezy 4th of July decorations. I love taking the Cross Sound Ferry between Connecticut and the North Fork…
…and then driving onto two little barges to get the South Fork. I love getting there and immediately grilling something. I love the beach (though not so much the cold water)…
…And I love waking up and having no clue what I’ll do that day, and then doing something and having a great time.
Oh, AND I LOVE TO EAT. On the 4th of July, my mother-in-law, father-in-law, my wife’s cousin and his girlfriend and his mom and dad, they all came over and BBQ’d. And I ate the following:
3 ribs
1 cheeseburger
1 hot dog
3 ears, corn on the cob
1 tomato, sliced
Bread, various
1 slice, blueberry pie with ice cream
It was gooood.
We also had the pleasure, towards the end of the week, of having our friends Katie and Joe join us, along with their six-month-old son Nico.
I took lots of pictures and videos, and now I can say that the “sounds of vacation” officially include—all in 8 seconds—the voice of my father-in-law, Gatsby shaking her collar, my wife’s laughter, and the distinct sound of my wife grunting as Gatsby jumps into her:
I also captured what I call “vacation par excellence”: Gatsby passed out in the sun and my father-in-law passed out in a hammock:
And lastly, there’s my pup’s pawprints from her first ever trip to the beach. It’s worth clicking on it and viewing the large size—the beach is there. Here’s to summer vacationers everywhere. See you out East next year.
This past week was a complete wash at work, what with one supervisor away, the other supervisor just having left MIT, and everyone else still recovering from the Future of News and Civic Media conference that we hosted the week before. But a week like that was needed, desperately. And it leads, after a few more days, into my first real vacation since my trip to Ireland in the spring of 2007.
With Lindsay and me trying to save for a house, vacations for the foreseeable future will always be to Easthampton, NY, where her family has a lovingly unpretentious second home. We’ve been looking forward to it for months. We’ll take Gatsby, we’ll see Lindsay’s parents, and we’ll even get to see a couple of friends on the last weekend there (starting their own well-deserved vacation as we end ours). We’ll sleep a lot. We’ll walk Gatsby a lot. We’ll barbecue. It’ll be great.
Meanwhile, mostly Gatsby-centric, the latest photos to share…
Gatsby’s was in her shedding season a couple weeks ago. This was the result, after having swept the week before:
Around the same time, my mom was in town, meeting Gatsby for the first time:
Lindsay’s friend/coworker Courtney just got a Boston Terrier/Pug mix named Cagney, who visited us today and was tough keep still:
Not that Gatsby is any better:
And mysteriously, despite loving to chase squirrels, we bought Gats a stuffed squirrel at Petsmart this afternoon, and this is how we found them soon after:
Lastly, completely unrelated but just because I’m proud of it, a Photoshop/Illustrator job I did showing MIT’s most famous building partially underwater:
It’s spring break at MIT, so my bosses suggested this would be a good time to take a few days off. I’m making the most of this “staycation” so far—getting up with Lindsay at our regular time, and after driving her to work, heading back to Simon’s Coffeehouse for a couple hours of reading (finally) The Good Soldier Švejk.
Yesterday, following Simon’s, I headed downtown for lunch with my friend/fmr Houghton Mifflin coworker Walter at an old favorite haunt, Flash’s. After getting all the necessary dirt on my old industry, I then went to catch up with friends at Emerson College. All-in-all, a great time—except for when my old writing center boss at Emerson, who happens to be my Orthodox godfather, asked in front of strangers “How ya feeling? In remission?” First, he and others need to understand that with Hodgkin’s, you actually get to use the word “cured,” which I am. Second, why ask that in front of the Emerson undergrad you’re in the middle of counseling? Meh, anyway…
Today I followed up reading at Simon’s by taking Gatsby to Fresh Pond. Lately she had been a little aggressive with other dogs, and we’re not sure why. I think it has to do with the confines of sidewalks, because at obedience class and in houses/apartments, she’s fine. And Fresh Pond today was no different. She sniffed butts or ignored dogs altogether—not an ounce of aggression or nerves to be found. She also walked 99% with a loose leash, while in our neighborhood—especially on Mass. Ave.—it’s 50/50 that she’ll start pulling ahead, particularly when other dogs are approaching.
Happy to say that the walk around Fresh Pond left her exhausted, which is good prep for obedience class tonight: she’ll be focused on treats and not excited enough to care about the other dogs.
And lord, has there ever been a dog with whom it’s so easy to illustrate exhaustion?
Tomorrow, day three of days off, Lindsay is taking a well-deserved day off too. We’re planning on lunch at a small, amazing Polish restaurant in South Boston—I took Lindsay there years ago after her GRE and we never forgot how great it was. And after that we’ll head over to check out the Boston Art Deco Show at the Cyclorama.
Special extra super happy thanks to the Erbs for putting together a weekend trip to Cape Cod. This month marks six years in Boston for me, but this was my first time to the Cape. We had lots of fun.
Friday night we took in a Cape League game, where you bring your own chairs (and dogs) and cheer on college players trying to make a name for themselves… Continue reading
I think today is Friday. I’m going to need to ask someone soon. It was a long but very comfortable couple of flights from Boston to Milan to Florence. I only got a few hours’ sleep, but it’s bright here in Florence—even despite the clouds—so the circadian rhythms seem to be doing okay.
As I sat in the taxi that took me from the airport to my friend’s apartment near Piazza Puccini, it hit me that I forgot my journal. So while I may not be able to blog much while I’m here, I certainly want to get down somewhere my notes from today. And that somewhere is obviously here.
Boston to Milan: never heard anyone speaking Italian but the flight attendants and pilot. Counted half a dozen Sox caps. Had a nice conversation with the lady next to me. She has two adult sons—one is published in the Best American Sports Writing (of 2003, she thought), and the other who is a department head at Georgetown. She herself is an artist and instructor, and she was to lead a small group through an art tour of Tuscany.
In the Milanese airport, I discovered for myself what everyone says about Italians anyway—they really like to people-watch. There were a couple of moments when I thought I was being given the stink-eye for being anti-social, that is, for reading a magazine instead of looking around.
The Florentine airport has just reopened. It felt about the size of the airport at White Plains, New York, and one could understand why most visitors to Florence actually fly in to nearby Pisa. But the renovations—if that’s why it was closed until last two weeks ago—look excellent. Lots of stainless steel facade-ing, presumably to cover up walls they didn’t feel like touching up, and some pleasant but rather corporatey wall art. The ceilings were low and the layout straightforward, as if it were from the classic era of airports, when they were still known as airfields.
My friend, I still haven’t seen her. She’s at work for a few more hours. But her roommate was incredibly dear. He doesn’t speak excellent English, but he was excellent company. He cooked pasta with pancetta for me, and we shared some wine. He pointed out essentials on the map my friend has left me. And we managed to like each other enough that neither of us is worried that I will be here eight nights.
Now it’s time to shower and head out to get my friend some sort of house-gift. I’ve already started a photoset on the Fungible Convictions Flickr account, so check it for updates throughout the weekend and week.
I have no idea if that’s correct Italian, but what’s it matter? I’m not much in the mood for correctness now that my vacation is less than 24 hours away. Tomorrow evening I’m off to Florence for my first real vacation in two years—and my first trip to Europe since my four months abroad in the spring of 2001.
This vacation has been evolving for over a year. First it was to be the Croatian coast (too many moving parts), then Istanbul for Pascha (no more decent churches), then Belgrade (host’s plans fell through). One day I’ll get to all those places, but the next ten days are all about Italy.
So I’ll assume I won’t have the ability to post until I’m back in Boston on May 7. But if I am, expect links to new photographs and perhaps some more grainy videos. The friend with whom I’m staying knows some pretty interesting folks, so my hope is that one or more of them have some idea of what young Italians write about nowadays.
