For Christmas I got two items that were exactly the same thing, from Sabra and Laura.  They were a pair of socks that have different faces on them with the word asshole near by - men, women even a cat and a dog, all with the word asshole written by then, except for the cat which said not an asshole.

This was an appropriate gift because one of my favorite words is asshole.  You can use it with so many different adjectives....dumb asshole, stupid asshole, perfect asshole, wise asshole.  You don't even need an adjective, the word itself is so good.  In Planes Trains and Airplanes I laughed out loud when John Candy said "You inconsiderate asshole".  I'm still waiting to use that one.

Bucky liked the word asshole.  I remember fondly being in Beacon and workers were putting a roof on their house. My brother was complaining about them - "they take too many breaks, they disappear for hours at lunch, etc, etc".  My mother just looked at him and said disgustedly, "You're the asshole that hired them."  Bucky knew when to use the word.  If she were alive, I would give one of my pair of socks to her.  Merry Christmas to all.   

I have in my pocket two horse chestnuts from Provincetown.  We were walking on Commercial Street when I noticed piles of horse chestnuts just under a fence.  I asked Timmy to get me some and he did.  We used to have horse chestnut trees all over the place.  The last one I knew of in Tivoli was blighted and torn down.  I remember Bucky always picking up horse chestnuts and keeping them in her pocket.  Then I read Anne Morrow Lindberg and she did the same thing.  On her walks,she would stoop and pick up a chestnut and drop it in her pocket.

These chestnuts are poisonous, not like the ones for sale near the holidays.  They look alike, except the edible ones have a point.  Horse chestnuts do not.  The ones from Cape Cod are small, not big and healthy like the ones that I remembered.  They are suppose to be good for circulation and also an aid to arthritis as they are anti inflammatory.  I just like reaching into my pocket and feeling them, warm to the touch and smooth.  Like a worry stone and also a reminder of last week and 60 some years ago.  And just maybe they will help my knees.

Home from Wellfleet since last Sunday.  I love Wellfleet, especially the cabins in the Sea Shells.  Each day brings a completely different view, the changing tides, the changing sky and clouds, the sunsets and the sunrises.  I told Timmy it's like being in an art museum.  You are in one room and you think" this is beautiful".  Then you go into the next, and you say "Wow, this is really something".
And when you are heading toward Provincetown on Route 6, you go over a hill and there are the dunes to one side, the rows of identical cottages on the other side - it's like another world entirely.

We did our usual, one day a trip to Orleans for the Bird Store ( Timmy won a pencil for his riddle:  What month has 28 days in it?  There were all old people waiting in line, and one old man couldn't help himself and blurted out THEY ALL DO.  An old lady said she heard that joke back in second grade and we all had a good laugh.  Every year if you give them a joke, they give you a free pencil.  No different this year).  Then on to the Christmas Shop, Fish Market and back on the beach for the afternoon.

The next day is Provincetown, my favorite card store, a new age type store and the red Lobster for my usual lunch, crab filled avocado.  On the way back, we stop at the graveyard and plant the bulbs on Mr. Brown and give him a pumpkin, that you can see from the road.  A stop at the Preservation Hall showed us that Maria's name was no longer on the top of the bench, just on the arm.  Timmy picked the bench right up to see if it had fallen off, but no piece of slate with her words and name "my heart belongs in Wellfleet". We spoke to someone who took down the information and promised it would be fixed.

We did go to the realty that had rented us a house this summer.  The owner had found Jer's keys, lost in July and found in October.  A miracle if you ask me.  And Uncle Phil's wedding ring was still attached.  Honest people still exist in this world.

But the big surprise was the Department of Health closed the Wellfleet bay for all shellfish. So the Oysterfest was an oysterfreefest. Still a big crowd, even bigger than last year.  The music was good and the cam chowder and lobster roll hit the spot.  Coming home, we stopped at Catherine's in Great Barrington for Halloween candy.  Same as ever.  Just like seeing the geese flying south, this past week is a symbol of the summer gone and winter ahead.

The hot August nights are full of the sound of crickets.  I found one today on the porch, pretty big, but I have seen bigger.  We used to go to Wellfleet in August. I would get a small cottage "The Owl's Nest" and Maria would get an identical one right next to me.  They were really nice, on a quiet road, overlooking Black Creek.  Getting to town was easy.  A quick walk across Cannon Hill (really fun at low tide when the fiddler crabs were running around) and the walk across Uncle Tim's Bridge got you there is minutes.

But one thing, it was August and the crickets were amazing.  Rachael came over one morning, I think she was about ten.  She complained that a cricket had kept her up all night with his racket and now was behind the refrigerator, still at it.  I teased her and said, "well he is now your pet, you have to give him a name."  She looked at me disgusted and said, "I already did.  His name is ass hole".

So that it what I remember these nights when the sound of hundreds of crickets are at it.  I smile and think of a famous cricket that spent time with us on our vacation in Wellfleet.

I felt badly the way I skipped over a life that meant so much to me, so I will try to make it up to him.  Joel was a very complex person, his brother said his first love was Gloria L, because of her fur coat.  When I started going out with him in our Junior year, she told me that Joel was the only boy she knew that if a girl hit him, he hit her back.  That was Joel, but he gave me great kids and a home that I love dearly.

We moved here in the fall of '67.  We had looked at the house in spring, with four apple trees surrounding it in bloom.  But it wasn't until the fall that we decided to buy it.  Maria was in Kindergarten in South Avenue in a trailer, the school was so full.  Red Hook was the best school in the area, and that made the difference.  The first bank denied our loan, "structurally unsafe" and the price started to fall.  Uncle Phil came to Tivoli, put a line on the west wall and said the same thing.  The price dropped to $8500 and we found a bank that could loan us the money.  We had the whole family here for Christmas, and Joel went into the cellar and jacked up the floor with beams, so we wouldn't have a family falling through the floor.  That was his first house project.  He put a marble on the kitchen floor and we watched it roll across the room.  And so, with metal beams, new wood, he made the floor safe and even.  Then he took a little room that Paul was using and started on our bedroom.  He parked his truck outside the window, and with a chute in place, and a diaper over my face, I threw the old horse hair lathe down the chute.  With bare walls, he started, adding a new window, and making closets out of the little room.  Wait, I think he might have done the kitchen before that.  I was pregnant with Sabra and he put shelves on the open porch for the pots and pans.  The saw was kept in the kitchen and Paul would play with his cars in the saw dust.  He was speed racer and I was Trixie.  Joel found wainscoating in an old barn somehow, and that is what he used to make the cabinets.  He had me stand where the sink was to see how high to make the counters to match my size.  Then he enclosed the porch.  I think in 1970 or '71, because Sabra was in a playpen outside watching him while he hammered to Johnny Cash music.  Then with the porch done, the next May he tore the kids bedroom apart, and the three older ones had to sleep on the porch.  It only fit two beds, not Maria's so she had to beg every night to sleep with someone. CPS would be after us today if that was going on.

And then it was the kids room, followed by the addition when they no longer could all fit four to one room.  So you see, he worked hard and long for this house, for my home and I told him that in the last letter I wrote to him.  I had typed it out, thinking it would be easier for him to read than my handwriting, and then before putting it in the envelope, I wrote "thank you for all the work you did on this house.  I love my home." I hope he understood.

It's been a whole summer without doing a "post", so I will try to get updated in one swoop.  The big news happened at the end of June, my ex husband and father of our children died.  He had been doing better, was home and Sabra had even spoken with him on the phone, when the call came.  It was a difficult time, the communication between the two families had been tense and unfriendly (on their side) and his death came as much of a surprise.  Sabra researched the correct German words to send with the flowers and on the 4th of July he was buried.  We had a memorial get together at Sabra's, it was quite pleasant.  She made Mass cards, I made an album of a collection of family pictures, Helene brought the picture of Zach and her visit with him last year, but it was not like a real funeral.  An obituary in the Poughkeepsie paper brought some condolences, but on the whole it was like it never happened.  Then to top it off, the funeral director emailed pictures of the flowers and the funeral home and each of her kids had ribbons with their names, and the big ribbon in front, and in English, read "Good-bye my love" and his wife's name, who rarely spoke English.  We wanted ribbons but that's another story. 

Then on July 9th it was off the to Cape for two weeks, the first week with Sabra, Tony, Solomon and Henry and woowoo and Paul's boys Zach and Ian.  First day and a half were rainy, cold, then the heat kicked in.  This was the first house we ever rented with central air, and believe me, we needed it.  Days passed quickly and the second week brought Shane and Ava out, then Jer and Gabi.  We came home on the hottest day of the year (that's what they said then)  but since then it seems each day is hotter than the one before.

So now the garden is doing good, lots of beans in the beginning, now the tomatoes and zucchinis are coming on strong.  The zinnias attract lots of butterflies and hummingbirds, and just to prove Bucky right (after the fourth of July the summer is over) the farmer's almanac has August 24 - hummingbirds head south.  Most of the time the yard looks like Mrs. Murphy's Turkey farm, I counted 14, all sizes there today.  The turkeys are a big hit with the B&B guests, so I feel they earn the corn I throw to them everyday.  Timmy is looking to buy a car, he wants a yellow Fit, with manual steering, and apparently, manuals are almost impossible to find, and now they are not making any more for this year.  But the quest for a car gives us a lot of phone calls and emails, so far only a purple fit has been offered and Timmy said, "I can't drive a purple car".  So I guess that gets us caught up to the middle of August.  And boy is it hot and humid.  This too shall pass.

Lately, either on Tuesday or Thursday, I get a chance to watch my great grandson, Cove, who just turned one. His mom goes to exercise and it is only about an hour and a half.   He comes with a variety of toys, books and we play with them for a while.  He's also a good eater and comes with rice cakes or blueberries.  He ate so many blueberries one day, I was afraid to give him anymore.  We go outside where he likes to watch the birds or tear up dandelions.  It's all good and I love it.  Last week I told Timmy, "You know, yesterday, watching Cove, my knees didn't hurt once".  He's like a tonic.  And the books are a part of it.

I read in the NY Times about a pediatrician who gives each child that comes to the office a book.  And the parent is given the prescription - "Read to the child everyday." Studies have shown that this results in brighter, happier kids.  I also read in the paper that volunteers are reading to abused dogs.  They pick a book, any book, and sit by the caged dog and read to him.  It said at first the dog cowers in the corner, and then lulled and eased by the steady reading, comes closer and closer to the reader, eventually, out of the cage, and even leaning on the person. 

I don't read to Cove yet, we just look at the books.  He had one with fuzzy animals that he could pull the fuzz.  He liked to chew on one of the books "Not in the mouth, not in the mouth" I would say.  I think his mother found a book that was child safe for eating.  Timmy and I used to read to each other, all the Harry Potter books.  Now we listen to tapes before I go to sleep.  No matter what age, or even if you are a dog, there is something to it.