August 20th, 2008

...now browsing by day

 

i can’t hide and i just can’t fake it

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

I just drove off the ferry from Edgartown to Chappy, my sister in the passenger seat and my husband in back with the boys. It’s our first trip since last summer.

My younger son, blessed with a steel trap memory, says “Mommy.” I know what’s coming before it gets out of his mouth. He points. “That’s the place last year where you had to throw up while we were waiting for the ferry.” Yes, I reply, you’re right. “Why did you have to throw up?” I pause for a moment. Casting a sidelong glance at my sister, I say I got some startling news last summer. “Oh yeah. Isn’t that when you found out Aunt C. was sick again?” Yes, honey. That’s it exactly.

It felt like a full body blow when I got the call. C’s cancer was back, nine years later.

It was around her vena cava this time, she was in the hospital, and the prognosis was not good. Waiting in line at the Chappy ferry, the retching began when I got the call and heard it was also near her clavicle. It would still be a few months before we all learned the worst news possible: it was also in her brain.

Click to continue »

Posted in the hard stuff | 4 Responses »

the view

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

Here are two more shots from the ride over. The second one below was taken at the beginning of the ferry ride, and the first about 30 minutes later.

Thank ye gods for the iPhone. My husband is on his mac doing a bit of work while my older son is playing WOW on the Alien. Personally, I’m sporting a state of the art IBM laptop, diminished to doorstop status by the wireless connection. We may have the older mac with us too, bringing the total number of laptops vacationing with us to four. Seven if you count iPhones and crackberries.

This post sponsored by Steve Jobs.

photo

photo

Posted in vacation | Comments Off

an exercise in futility

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

I have some beautiful photos to post. Sure, they are outnumbered 20:1 by horrible photos that I should delete immediately to save myself the trouble / puzzlement in a year (“Say, what’s with this picture of an eye white?  Who does it belong to and WHO TOOK THIS PICTURE?”).  But I am genuinely excited about a few.

The internet connection at the house we’re renting is what I would call finicky. No hotmail. No facebook. No loading pictures in Wordpress. Posting just that picture of the ferry was one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever attempted on a computer, and that’s saying something because my first job out of grad school required coding and debugging in COBOL.

Sure, looking out the bedroom windows and seeing the horses just 50 yards away is okay. I guess it’s neat to stumble upon the local defunct vineyard while taking the doodle for her morning constitutional. Oh, and watching a storm roll over the island from the wide-open vantage of Wasque, well I guess that’ll do. But how am I supposed to survive with no facebook?

What’s that you say? I’m being ridiculous? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

I’m itching to post my Still Life of Cherrystones in an Orange Plastic Pail, but unless I can figure out what gives with this connection (or commandeer my husband’s mac), I’m going to have to cool my jets.

Posted in vacation, whining | 5 Responses »