Moby Dick-less

So, we went to New Bedford today. Turns out, it’s kind of a shit hole.

I mean, it clearly had its day. Problem is, that day was a couple hundred years ago. Well, more like 150. It was the whaling capital of America, and possibly the world. But now it’s a somewhat grim industrial town that’s trying to cash in on its history and its location near Cape Cod (not actually on the Cape, as I also learned today. Or re-learned – the giant “Welcome To Cape Cod” signs once you cross the Cape Cod Canal had clued me in on the first trip across, but somehow I’d forgotten that by today).

Today was forecast to be rainy, so we had set aside this day for exploration of that particular burg, drawn thither by the possibility of the Whaling Museum. And, strangely, this song popped up on Janneke's ipod:



It refers to "Moby Dick" throughout. And is a delightfully quirky song, which the kids were humming for hours afterward. As was I.

Say what you will about the rest of the town: That is a fine museum.

Actual skeletons of a right whale, a humpback, and a blue whale – as well as another, which I can’t recall – hang from the ceiling.

And a sperm whale skeleton stands in another room. Utterly gorgeous. Scrimshaw out yon wazoo, as it were – they had a rack of whale-ivory-headed canes that ‘bout make your head spin. And a half-scale model of a whaling ship from the turn of the 20^th century that the kids bounced around on for a good long stretch.

I’m going to go on about the museum for a paragraph or so, so if you’re sick of it already, just skip ahead to where it says “So, anyway” in huge letters.

Now, apparently, when the whale is alive, its whole being is kind of suffused with the oil that it produces from its food, and this acts as a nutrient delivery system for the long periods of time when it doesn’t eat. The bones are even filled with it – so much so that the blue whale skeleton, from an animal that was killed when it was struck by a ship in 2004, is still, to this day, oozing the oil. A bg plexiglass triangle hangs below its skull, where most of it appears to be oozing out, and the triangle leads the oil into a plastic tube, which leads to a beaker right at the level of one’s eye (if one is slightly taller than me). It’s black, and smelly – the whole room is rife with the scent of it. "Smelly" is probably the wrong word – It does smell, and somewhat strongly, but the odor isn’t unpleasant. It’s kind of fishy and kind of not, and definitely rich and oily. I found that fascinating. And the sperm whale skeleton was amazing because of the giant dish that its bones form just ahead of its brain case, where its giant, fatty melon sits. The melon, you see, is the organ that they and dolphins and pretty much all toothed whales have, through which they can focus sound in the most interesting ways – dolphins, and probably not only dolphins, echolocate, while sperm whales emit the loudest sound produced by a living creature, and can apparently focus it into a beam that’s essentially a weapon to be used against squid in the deep, dark reaches of the sea. And there’s a whaling captain, named Cuffee, whose mother was an Indian from one of the Cape Islands, and whose father was black, and whose wife was also an Indian, who became one of the richest men in America, met and counseled the President, and was active in the emancipation movement, and who I need to know a hell of a lot more about. And Nantucket was, when Melville wrote Moby-Dick, considered the whaling capital of the US, but he at the time thought the weight had probably shifted to New Bedford – and later historical evidence confirms the switch that he smelled in the air. So I have got to read Moby-Dick, and I have got to get to Nantucket. All in good time, my friend.

SO, ANYWAY...  The morning of the museum visit, Janneke and T were up doing laundry, and I decided to take advantage of the moment to conscript Q into a ride on the bikes. We hit the bike trail to take it to its terminus in Woods Hole, that gorgeous little burg I'd fallen in love with the day before. Since T wouldn't be up for such a long haul. Don't fret, I had prior approval from the missus.

So Q and I blazed (relatively) the 6 miles into Woods Hole. That part of the bike trail, which we'd not been on past the bus stop for the ferry some 2 miles from Sippewisset, is much more scenic than the other part we'd ridden to the beach. A good chunk of it goes right along the beach, and there are a number of tidal ponds along the way. It was a nice bonding experience for the two of us. Once in WOods Hole, we sat in a little bakery and had macaroons and fruit drinks. Then we hit the road and zoomed back to camp, where we all headed out to New Bedford.

Which I already told you about.

So, after the museum, we tried to walk around scenic New Bedford, but there isn't any. I found this out when I stopped in to the Chamber of Commerce in town, having spent a few aimless minutes peering down streets trying to find one that looked scenic, and being unable. And the lady in the chamber of commerce office basically said we'd seen all the nicest parts already. I then asked her to point me to the most authentic Portuguese restaurant in town. She obliged, and we headed for Antonio's.

The waitresses all toggled back and forth effortlessly between English and Portuguese, which was a very good sign, I thought. And I asked ours what was the most authentic Portuguese item on the menu. She suggested a dish of pork served with clams and cubed, baked-then-fried potatoes. It was great. The kids shared a dish of something chickeny - chicken, steeped in tuna juice, I think - with sliced, fried potatoes on top. (They like to pile potatoes on top of their food in Portugal, it seems.) Janneke had a spaghetti and shrimp dish (no potatoes atop it), and we all came away much more than satisfied, and weighed down with doggie bags. It was a grand eating experience.

But New Bedford is still a shithole.

Back to camp. Some sittin' about, chattin'; then we setted in to watch "Dolphin Tale", which was cheesy, but sincere. And to bed.

The next day (today), we broke camp, which took less time than one might have thought, and then, on my suggestion, all four of us rode the six mile trail in to Woods Hole, that blessed burg, and had drinks and snacks at the bakery. It was a great experience. T never once asked to rest. I just wish she'd have found that level of fortitude inside her the day we were on the Vineyard. (Those of us in the know will tell you that this refers to "Martha's Vineyard". You're welcome.) I then zoomed back to the campground, loaded my bike onto the bike rack, and zoomed internal-combustion-engine-style back to town to pick up my dearies.

As I circled the block trying to parallel park, I noticed that they were blocking off the drawbridge! So when I came back up and actually parked, I told the fam to go down and check it out while I loaded the bikes onto the car. They obliged, and reported that it was well worth the walk down the hill. I felt very much the doting provider for those few minutes.

And then we drove home. I tell you, man: The Cape feels like a totally different place than the rest of Massachusetts. Down to the giant bridge you have to cross to get there. I love the history of it - largely, I think, because it's more socio-economic and such than it is political-historical. Soon as I finish up here, I'm going to find out who the hell the Vineyard was named after, and learn more about Nantucket. Then blow the dust of whichever copy of "Moby Dick" pops to hand first and dive in.

Sleep first, though. On a bed. That isn't glorified bubble wrap.

Seafarin'. And Cinemafarin'.

Whoah! Got a few things to update you on, vacation-wise. First:

Y’ever done one of those dinner-and-a-movie places? There’s one in Falmouth, where we’re staying. So we tried it the other night. There are tables of varying sizes, none appearing to seat more than 4, arranged in straight rows going from the full-sized screen toward the back. Everything is black – the soft, office desk-type chairs, the tables – so as not to interfere with the movie’s visibility, I suppose. You pay your theater ticket up front, then walk in and pick your seat. Before long, a waiter or waitress (waiter, in our case, who seemed very earnest and intelligent but somewhat flustered; it turned out to be his third day on the job) comes over to take your order during the previews. And before the movie actually began, out food was served, which seemed remarkably fast to us. (Granted, it was pub fare, which doesn’t require very elaborate preparation.) Then you sit back and watch and eat.

The good bit is that you kill a couple of birds with one stone. And what they did with the serving of the dinner, they did well; there were no glitches or hitches, apart from paying, which happened at the end, when everyone had to pay at once and no one seemed tickled about waiting around for the waiters and waitresses to get to everyone. (It would have been the simplest of matters to just walk out and NOT pay. Pretty much on the honor system, here.)

There are a number of not-so-good bits. One is that the floor in the theater is perfectly flat, unlike the risers in a regular theater. And the screen appears to be no higher than is usual. Combine this with the perfectly straight rows of tables I described earlier, and the odds that you’ll get some Cape Cod yahoo’s fat head right in front of yours are very high. And the table is of course perpendicular to the screen – I had thought they might serve you school-desk style, so as to allow feeding and watching. Nope – it’s tables that are all conventional. Makes it tough to concentrate.

Being a bit of a movie purist, this was very off-putting to me. I am at the movie to watch it, not to eat. I can’t really pay sufficient attention to either. (Luckily, and, perhaps, surprisingly, I had ordered only a salad, which couldn’t get cold or soggy with neglect. (Not more soggy, anyway.)) The other thing was that this place clearly is trying hard, but also just doesn’t put the same level of importance on the movie-watching experience that snoots like myself require. My evidence: The movie, “Brave”, was slightly out of focus throughout. Yes, I did inform them; yes, I did so several times. No, nothing was ever done. And yes, I did sit and fume throughout.

Was the movie good? I honestly couldn’t even tell you. I was so bloody distracted by their inability to either see, or correct, the problem, that I just sat and grumbled the entire time.

What’s that you ask? Did the kids like it? Well of course the !#@@!)(@ kids liked it! They’re kids, for !#@)(@# sake! What )@#($#*(& difference does it make if the @#$(*& kids liked it? “Zookeeper” is T’s favorite !@#@$((# movie of all ^#%$&* time, for !&*@#( !@#$*&!

So that was Saturday night. Sunday, the weather looked good, and since we had decided that if we were to do a whale watch, it would be from Provincetown, and since the two days after were going to be rainy, we headed to Provincetown.

The Cape, I’ll have you know, is friggin’ long. We drove from Falmouth to Provincetown and it took bloody near two hours. Traffic wasn’t terrible, though there was some kind of damned bike ride for charity that was going along the road almost the entire time once we got onto Highway 6. And in case you hadn’t heard, driving along the Cape, at least the way we went, is not at all scenic. The strip of land is so thin that apparently they had to put the highway right in the middle of it. You see the sea pretty much not at all from the time you leave Falmouth until you arrive in Provincetown at the tippety-tip.

Once you do, though, it’s very pretty. Provincetown is one of those old seafaring towns where the streets are narrow, the architecture is fanciful and a bit crooked, and character seeps from every crack in every surface. The harbor is large and whale watching boats depart from it at intervals of a couple of hours. We found parking on the wharf ($15, all day), and before we left the wharf we had purchased tickets for a 12:00 whale watch. It was 11:10. So we got directions to the closest thing they have to a pharmacy, raced there, bought and consumed Dramamine, and raced back.

Can’t say whether the Dramamine was necessary or not, because I can’t say I ever came close to feeling sea sick. The weather was perfect – the sea was glassy calm, it was sunny & hot, and the long and the short of it is that we had a great time. We saw several minke whales, which are very unspectacular, and three humpbacks, one solitary one and a mother & calf. Not breaching, not rolling and fin-slapping, as I have seen on other whale watches. But really cool nonetheless. By 4:00 we were back at the wharf, and took the kids, as we had promised to do, to the beach.

There is a beach that’s commonly used right there off the wharf, and we used it, but it felt kind of sketchy. No trash floating around, nothing like that, but to be beach-going right where they park the boats is odd. It doesn’t feel like one should be doing it, somehow. I never went in, myself, nor did Janneke; both kids did eventually dunk themselves completely, but neither seemed especially to enjoy it. It was a bit of a flop, the beach portion of the day.

From there we walked the main promenade in P-town and searched for a place to eat. And “promenade” is the right word – there were a lot of the folks P-town is famous for, a-promenadin’. Gay culture has really become central to the whole raison-d’être there, and we saw a number of flamboyantly dressed fellows biking in high heels and top hats and such. It seemed every sign advertising any kind of show or revue had a distinct gay theme to it. Including a string quartet that features four beefy guys, all scantily clad. Their name? “Nicely Strung”. It seems sort of strange, that a string quartet of any sort would be anyone’s idea for attracting a particular sort of group. But hey, P-town is the place where such dreams can come true. There’s probably an all-male gay metal band, an all-male gay barbershop quartet, an all-male gay Chinese acrobatic group. God love ‘em.

There’s a food court that’s been placed in some kind of old wharf-type structure, and we went there, since there were good options for everyone. (And I saw a Glen-of-Imaal terrier there, Robin Getzen.)

Ate at a picnic table, walked the promenade again a while, and hit the road. Adiós, Provincetown.

Back to the tent and to bed. Long day.

The following day, we dedicated to Woods Hole, a similarly sea-faring town, but more connected to the rest of the world, not being stuck way out on the tippety-tip of a peninsula, to see the aquarium they have there (the kids were excited, but…meh), and the exhibition center / gift shop for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI, pronounced “hooey”, and also…meh). But the town itself was beautiful, and touristy, but in a distinctly different way. It bustles constantly with all kinds of seagoing tourists - the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard leaves from there (though it seems a hundred years ago and in a totally different town that we took it), and WHOI seems to own every third building, using them all for labs and office space. It’s like a college town where there’s a prestigious college, as opposed to Provincetown, which feels like a college town where there’s a college that attracts a lot of dope-smokers. I got a real kick out of Eel Pond, the little bay area separated from the main bay (the “great harbor”) by an honest-to-goodness drawbridge. We had eaten lunch in Falmouth after doing laundry and playing ping-pong, so there was no consumption in Woods Hole. But we did spend a long moment lingering over and talking about the coolness of the SEA Program, which I’ll explain briefly: A sailing ship that takes a small number of competitively-chosen kids around the world for a semester or longer, taking classes on the ship with their faculty as crewmates, learning about the sea. For some reason both Janneke and I imagine Q as a marine biologist. It probably won’t stick, but we do what we can.

Home, where the rain held off long enough for us to cook out and have s’mores by the fire, and then we piled into the tent to watch “Fantastic Mr Fox”. This made for something of a late night, so we slept in this morning a bit, and now here we are, with breakfast had, chores being performed, and the kids doing some electronica before lunch. Post-lunch, we’ll head for New Bedford, to take in the whaling museum, the seaside-town loveliness, and then some Portuguese food in one of the many restaurants of said ethnicity that dot the burg, or so we’re told. Can’t do much else, what with the forecast again calling for thunderstorms, though at the moment I’m here at a dry picnic table under a gray but non-threatening sky. Still, it’s cool – my fleece was left out in the rain last night by some irresponsible ass, so while it’s off being laundered by the women-folk (not to imply that they should, just to report that they are (laundering it)), I shiver. Fate has been unkind this morning.

Sippewissett and Other Impronounceables

Vacation, vacation, vacation! It thunders along like a drunken brontosaurus, crushing everything in its path toward its own crashing, blood-soaked doom.

The metaphor kind of got away from me there, but I think you basically understand: Vacation is tiring. We’re on Day 3 or so, and have decided to take the day off. We’ve been on the run a bit since we departed, and it’s gotten us pooped.

I was pooped, personally, before it all began. I had just spent a titch over a week in Cincinnati, Bedbug Capital of the Nation (turns out), correcting the AP exam. It’s a good gig that I like a lot, and it pays well, and my school has no problem with me going there, so I do it. The issue is that it usually takes me away  from a few days of class, so the first two nights there I’m up until midnight correcting and commenting on the practice essays that my students have to write in class, then send to me as emails. So that’s stressful. Then there’s the social stuff that kicks in once I have my evenings free – I go to a Cincinnati Reds game, usually by myself, but THIS year, I met a bunch of new friends, and we went together. Those new friends then were inviting me to go out with them all the time, which was a hoot – it turned into a late-night-every-night kind of affair, in addition to the work of grading exams 8 hurs a day, so I got back from that pretty tuckered.

My colleague Camilo had fed-exed me half my final exams, so the last day of Cincinnati and on the plane rides home I corrected those. But when I arrived at Albany, I had to drive straight to Lenox, grab the rest of my own final exams, then boogie over to where some Lenox friends were having an end-of-the-year bash, then back home to greet the fam (with a stop at Caretaker Farm, to pick up some lettuce, chat with Don, and take his bike rack for use on the vacation I’m going to start telling you about soon), then family greetings, supper, and off to the correcting table again, where I read forty-some final exams. Plug the grades into the computer, sleep a bit, pack up the car, zoom to Lenox to turn in and sign my grades, and then hit the road for the Cape.

We’re in Sippewisset, which can be spelled many ways, and which is near Falmouth. There’s a lovely bike path that passes right past the back end of the camp ground, hence our need of a bike rack. It’s ten miles long, and figured to be the focus of a lot of our recreating. It goes 2 miles to the right to a public beach, which is how we spent much of our first official day.

That water off the Cape is pretty goddamned cold, I’ll tell you that right now. We’ve been in the water there and on another couple of beaches (which I’ll get to in a moment), and the game we play has been dubbed “The Ninny Game”. We see which of us is the biggest ninny due to their reluctance to go completely under the water. I generally lose, Tess generally wins, and Quinn comes in second. (Janneke has yet to play.) It’s nice, and clean, and very picturesque, and nobody on any beach so far has been obnoxious or rude in any way. But, jeepers. That is some kind of blue-lip-inducing surf.

The camp ground is plenty good enough. Largely empty, happily, because the next tent lot is separated from us by nothing more than a split-rail fence. Not even a token line of trees to make it seem woodsy. The campground is generally leafy and tree-covered, but they really pack them in here. It’s the only campground on this stretch of road – the rest are all huge lots with million-dollar houses on them that overlook either the saltwater marshes that lead to the ocean, or the ocean itself. I can see a six-or-seven-foot-high fence about 300 feet away that separates the campground from the somewhat-busy street. It’s far from remote. But, hey. We’re car-camping. We didn’t expect to be at base camp on Everest.

Yesterday we got up early, girded ourselves, loaded the backpacks, and rode the bike trail two miles in the opposite direction of the beach, to the shuttle site for the Martha’s Vineyard ferry. They pick you up there in buses that are equipped to carry bikes (a line of hooks all along one side instead of seats, with bikes suspended from the ceiling), and take you the rest of the way to Woods Hole. We took a million pictures of the process of  boarding the ferry, which is an absolute hoot. Apparently you have to sign up months in advance in order to be able to take your car on it – something I can believe, since there were only about 30 or 40 on board, and hundreds of  people. And maybe 6 motorcycles, and 20 bicycles.

The island itself lends itself beautifully to biking. Unless, we found out, you’re 8, and you don’t have a bike with multiple gears. And it’s hot, and sunny, and your name is T. It really turned into a bit of a death march for her; we got about half-way to the halfway point of a trip we wanted to do by bike from Oak Bluffs (I think) to a town at the south-east of the island, and had to turn back. T just wasn’t going to make it. Grubby and sweaty and whiny. Although, to be honest, I was feeling that way on the inside. I have a road bike that I got way back when I thought I couldn’t run anymore, and the truth is that I never enjoyed road biking, and never got the seat the be particularly comfortable. And to go from 0 hours per day to 3 wreaks havoc with one’s nether regions. In addition to which I didn’t want to drag along the toe-clip shoes, so I’m riding toe-clip pedals on regular shoes…It’s just a drag. The theory of bike camping really lost out to the reality. Poor planning, I guess. As soon as I get back to civilization, I’m trading this thing in for a comfortable, hybrid-style bike and never looking back. 

But that’s the future. In the present, I have a sore bee-hind and am enjoying biking less than might have been hoped. The island, though, was beautiful, even though every glance in every direction reminded us that we really couldn’t ever hope to afford to spend any time there. There are a few holdout homes, back away from the water, belonging to people who clearly aren’t Kennedys, but most of the place is exceedingly precious and pricey. We did meet an Ecuadorian Indian from Otavalo, whose store sold all kinds of the usual artesanía you see in any Otavaleño’s store. He was kind of fun to chat with. He’s got residency now on the island, and can bring his car over with less hassle and with up to five free passengers. (I think.)

The beaches we went to were public and also cold, and very pebbly. But we had fun. We had planned to possibly have supper there, but everything we might have wanted to do to keep the kids occupied until then involved the bikes, and they were clearly biked out. So we called it and took the 6:15 ferry back to Woods Hole, and then the bike shuttle, and then the two-mile ride back to camp.

And then to Crabapple’s, a sea food restaurant that had made the grade two nights prior. Showers and to bed.

It’s been great, and relaxing, but hectic. So we’re determined to do nothing hectic today – I’m going to buy some tchochkes for Natalia (I go to Uruguay in less than a month), we’re going to do some laundry, and there’s a place in Falmouth called Cupcapes that T really wants to check out.
 

The other great difference between this and our previous camping trips: Q has a girlfriend. And she sends him text messages, on Janneke’s phone.

All.

The.

Time.

Celebrating The Caregivers

Hey, man. How's them new pants working out?

So, anyway, like I was saying: I am married to a wonderful lady. Some time ago, Janneke got the idea that we should somehow thank the many people who have helped Q along the way over the years - his daycare providers, his teachers, his coaches, his instructors. So she organized herself, and sent out invitations. I'll have to ask her what the precise wording was - something about this being a celebration, not of Q, who has had and will have plenty of that, but of these wonderful people who've helped him out for so long, with such care and affection.

There were some 40 people invited; of those, 28 said they could make it. The whole thing was to hit the fan today at 5:00. We (and when I say "we", I mean Janneke) ordered some "flautas" (crispy chicken tacos) and quesadillas from Coyote Flaco, bought a bunch of hooch and seltzer, cleaned up the entire house, and prepared for an onslaught of Q's mentors.

I contributed the following:

I drove to Coyote Flaco and paid for & picked up the food.

I dropped Q off for his piano lesson with Ed on the way there.

I carried the big table upstairs from the basement.

I put the ice in the coolers.

I vacuumed in the kids' rooms.

The rest was all Janneke. Incredible, the way she makes everything come together in such an elegant and tasteful way. The munchies were all out, the weather was seeming to hold (showers had been predicted; we decided to risk it and set up on the deck), and the doorbell rang.

One by one, major figures from Q's - and T's, in many cases - filed through the door. It was a love fest, let me tell you - three of his daycare teachers from WAY back, his first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth-grade, and kindergarten teachers; the school librarian; his gym teacher; the director and a staff member of the Youth Center; his soccer coach, Blair Dils; the friggin' Williams College soccer coach, Mike Russo, who runs the spring soccer program Q plays in (and this, on the Friday of Alumni Weekend at the college - pressed as he was, he made time for Q); Q's piano teacher, Ed, who drove him home from the lesson...Great, great folks, and I'm sure I'm leaving out many. Not near the number we had expected - and I do mean "expected"; Janneke is a stickler for RSVPs - came, in the end, but that might have been for the best, because we all fit very nicely on the deck. I clanged on a beer bottle (best I could do), and Janneke and I toasted them all.

There were tears, believe it or not. And Dave Rempell, the director of the Youth Center, reciprocated out toast with some wonderful words about how Q and T are such great kids, and how clear it is to all of them that it's to do with how great their family life is. It was a very, very nice moment.

My favorite part of it was watching Q watch me. As I talked about how proud and unconcerned I had become of him, he just grinned, un-self-conscious, open, relaxed, beaming with happiness and confidence. A few other moments like that - Blair, Coach Russo, and Q, all in a triangle, talking soccer - Q told me later that Blair had described his goal from Tuesday's match to Coach Russo and had described it with some very high praise; T pulling Mr Spencer through the house to show her her room and our living room and our cat and on and on and on...And the weather held! It wasn't sunny - again, probably for the best - and not a drop of water fell on us. It has yet to rain, in fact - it's 11:02 PM, and nothing so far. Excellent luck all around.

Once everyone had left, Janneke pulled out a movie for us to watch (it is Friday, after all), and we settled in among the dishes and napkins, and I fell very pleasantly asleep on the couch.

It was a great end to a great day - but I just can't say enough about Janneke's originality and gumption for pulling this thing off. As far as I know, nobody had ever done anything like it - gathering all a boy's teachers and mentors, w/o spouses, w/o other kids, for a couple of hours and celebrating them. It was a huge hit.

OK, man - I've hit the wall. School let out for me today - I go to Cincinnati on Monday, to grade AP tests, and two days of school will happen while I'm there. But I've taught my last class of the year. The summer should see some good bloggin'. Don't fret - I'm going to get better and better about this. Even as I get worse and worse about Facebook.

I hope so, anyway.