Odds and Ends

I really dropped the blogging ball this month.  There has been plenty to talk about, but I have found myself too busy to write about my new car (!), plumbing emergencies (in my home, not a euphemism), and assorted other bits of news.  Just to get the ball rolling again, here are a brief but amusing story and an awesome link that Ryan shared with me this morning.

While my mum was in town this past weekend delivering my new wheels (!), we visited her parents.  Near the end of the visit, this exchange occurred:

Grampa:  I am concerned that I am forgetting things.
Mum: What sort of things are you forgetting, Dad?
Grampa (looking at Nana): Mother, what am I forgetting?
Nana (emphatically): EVERYTHING!

For anyone who grew up watching "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town," this page of sound clips from the Burgermeister Meisterburger is super fun.  Thanks for finding it, Bro.

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

This past Saturday was the birthday of two very special people:  Nana Donovan and Uncle Steve.  

Ryan and I visited Grampa and Nana at their apartment to celebrate Nana's 92nd birthday.  Nana's usual sass was on display when she said she hoped her daughters would "lay out in lavender" one of her new enemies.  After we left, Ryan wondered if "lay out in lavender" was an idiom for killing someone.  Nana's tone suggested she might be plotting murder, but according to an online idiom dictionary, the phrase means to scold someone severely.  Mystery solved.  The birthday girl and her sweetheart are a wonder to behold, as Nana gets all fired up and Grampa not so subtly attempts to change the subject.  I am grateful to still have the opportunity to listen to Nana and Grampa's stories and banter.  Best wishes for a happy and healthy year for Nana Donovan!

After visiting with our grandparents, we drove to Provincetown for a spontaneous beach celebration of USteve's birthday.  Ryan and I had gotten together for brunch with USteve and Jeff earlier in the day and Jeff suggested that we all head to Provincetown to celebrate, as his friend's beach home was available for the weekend.  Surprisingly, all four of us agreed to take an unplanned road trip.  We left brunch to go home and pack for the Cape.  At 6pm, we pulled into the driveway of a gorgeous home with an ocean view.  After having a celebratory drink together on the porch, we put on our swimsuits and drove to Herring Cove.  The beach was picturesque, with the sun setting and a super moon rising.  We enjoyed an evening swim and then packed up our picnic dinner and headed home when Ryan started getting attacked by mosquitoes and broke out in a rash.  We had a lovely dinner and a nice visit with friends of Jeff's and Ryan's who who were in town.  I am a party pooper and did not hit the town that night, so Ryan will have to post about the P-town night life.  Many thanks to Jeff for making such a fun trip happen.  As we drove home the next morning, Ryan commented, "I think money can buy a person happiness."  Access to a fabulous beach house certainly lifts one's spirits.  Best wishes for a happy and healthy year for USteve!

Selections from the Reading List

I read four books while on vacation last week.  Two were outstanding, one was very good, and one was okay.  Here they are, in reverse order:

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh was recommended to me by a friend.  Unfortunately it was not my cup of tea.  Victoria, the main character, seems to suffer from Antisocial Personality Disorder.  The reviews of the book tended to mention sympathizing with the flawed main character, but while I felt pity for Victoria's difficult childhood, I still could not stand her.  Quick summary:  Victoria Jones had a very rocky childhood in the foster care system.  The book begins with her turning 18 and aging out of the system.  She is able to utilize her passion for flowers and her knowledge of the Victorian "language of flowers" to work with a florist.  Every time someone shows her kindness, she blows up the relationship.  Fun times.  

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes was a birthday gift from a friend. Quick summary:  Louisa Clark is a British woman in her 20s who begins working as a care aid for a man in his 30s who is paralyzed.  Before his accident, Will Traynor was an extremely successful businessman.  He and Louisa would not have traveled in the same circles, as she and her extended family struggle to make ends meet in their shared home.  Will is understandably moody and difficult, but Louisa becomes very invested in helping him see the value in his life as it is now.  I really liked this book.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion was one of the two books I loved reading last week.  It was extremely funny and very sweet.  I laughed out loud many times while reading The Rosie Project.  Quick summary:  Don is an Australian geneticist with Asperger's Syndrome who embarks on a project to find himself a wife by distributing a detailed survey to potential candidates for the position.  Don quickly eliminates Rosie, a colorful bartender, from The Wife Project, but together they embark on a project to identify Rosie's biological father.  I was really entertained by Don's thought process, his unique voice, and his efforts to evolve.  I highly recommend this book.

Wonder by R.J. Placio is another strongly recommended book.  It is a children's book, and I know I would have loved Wonder if I had read it as as a kid, just as I loved it as an adult.  Quick summary:  August was born with a number of conditions that make his face look very different from other people's.  After years of being home schooled, he enrolls in fifth grade at a New York City school.  The narration of this book jumps from August's point of view to his classmates' and sister's.  Although there are heartbreaking moments (Ryan watched me cry my eyes out at the breakfast table while reading last week), the courage, humor, and resilience of August and his loved ones are touching.  This is such a good story and contains lessons that benefit both children and adults.

I am currently reading girlchild by Tupalo Hassman and I kind of hate it.  I almost returned it to the library without finishing it, but I think I am going to plow through.  I can read dark material and not want to toss the book, but the child abuse featured in this story makes it something I would neither revisit nor recommend to others.  Up next is Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, which Ryan has been trying to get me to read for years.  I promise to be well acquainted with Louis Zamperini's life in the next month.

The Second Biggest Vacation Shock

Nothing can top the surprise of learning that an aquatic python was sharing our rental property last week, but the runner up for shocking vacation revelation was discovering that my dad believed Damon Wayans of "In Living Color" and his son Damon Wayans, Jr. of "Happy Endings" and "New Girl" were THE SAME PERSON.

Granted, they have the same name and look remarkably similar, but there is a 22-year age difference between father and son.  When I asked Dad if he thought Damon Wayans had Benjamin Button Syndrome, he explained that he had recently seen Keenan Ivory Wayans on TV and he had aged really well, so Dad assumed Keenan's brother Damon had as well.  My father watched the past season of "New Girl" believing Homey the Clown had joined the cast.  Hilarious. 

Six degrees of separation alert:  My brother and sometimes co-blogger's friend is engaged to the cousin of a "Happy Endings" cast member.  So, me--> Ryan--> Ryan's friend--> friend's fiancee--> fiancee's cousin--> Damon Wayans, Jr.  Boom! 

And because there is no other way to conclude a post that mentions Damon Wayans, here are a few of his greatest "Men on Film" costumes for you to enjoy.

Northern Water Basilisk

I spent last week at a lake in Maine with my family.  This was our fourth summer vacationing at this particular lake and our ninth summer spending a week on a Central-Maine lake.  After decades of experience in and around Maine lakes, we had our first (and, please God, our last) encounter with a water snake. 

On Sunday, our first day at the lake, Uncle Steve joked that a water snake had brushed against his leg while we were swimming.  His joke was my nightmare.  Monday while my dad was on the lawn with my parents' dog Sophie, she started lunging and Dad announced that Sophie had found a large snake.  I was in the water and did not fully process the "large" part until I later got out and saw the snake from a distance.  I have only ever seen garter snakes in Maine.  Garter snakes are small and, as I have watched people pick them up and handle them, they do not seem very scary.  The Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife website explains that garter snakes' first reaction to a disturbance is to escape, but if they are threatened and do attack, their bite "may be alarming, but will rarely break the skin."  The snake on the lawn was no garter snake.  Its body was thick and although it was coiled, it was clearly quite long.  This was the biggest snake I have seen outside a zoo and it was genuinely scary.  

On Wednesday night, we came across the lake house guest book and discovered that the guests from the previous week had seen a large snake swim by the dock.  Holy ****.  We couldn’t believe that the python we had seen on the lawn was a swimmer.  Terrifying.  As I walked down to the water on Thursday morning with my cousin Molly, I mentioned that I was completely freaked out about the snake.  As we approached the water, I screamed, realizing that the snake was on the lawn on the other side of the dock from us.  It took Molly a minute to see the snake and then she joined me in panicking.  USteve heard the commotion from up on the porch.  When I told him the snake was back, he could see it from the porch, which is a decent distance from the water.  This snake is big, guys.  USteve joined us at the water’s edge.  Thank goodness this lake house is private, because there was a ton of screaming and swearing going on.  The pitch of our terror increased when the snake slipped into the water and swam with speed and agility.  Once we saw the snake uncoiled in the water, we could see that it was three to four feet long.  Holy ****.  USteve was standing on the water’s edge, closer to the snake than me and Molly, who had retreated to the end of the dock.  While the snake was in the water, Molly yelled, “It’s turning back around!” and USteve let out a booming “F” and raced onto the dock with us.  At this point, the chaos on the dock woke Ryan up and his face appeared at his second-floor bedroom window.  We explained/screeched that the snake was back and was in the water.  Not long after, Ryan came walking down the lawn with a police baton in one hand and a butterfly net in the other.  Needless to say, he did not capture the snake.  After a while, it finally retreated up some rocks and into a patch of overgrown plants on the lawn.  I am pretty sure the fear I experienced that morning shaved a few years off my life.

That afternoon, USteve started Googling “northern water snake,” as the guests from the previous week had identified the hell serpent thusly.  The previously mentioned Maine snake site calls the northern water snake a “very robust snake.”  (What a neutral way of saying that it is big and scary.)  The site also states, “It is known to defend itself aggressively and can deliver a painful but non-venomous bite.”  Holy ****.  I wasn’t sure I would ever dare to swim in this lake again.  The weather last week was very rainy and I spent most of that precious sunny day anxiously scanning the water line and rocks for the snake.  But I am a hero:  I got back in the water that evening and swam again the next two days.  (I am a third-rate hero:  Usteve, Ryan, and my mum beat me into the water and I was on the verge of whizzing myself for a good portion of my water time.)  I now suffer from snake PTSD.  I saw a garter snake on the lawn on Friday—a small, non-threatening garter snake—and I screamed, swore, and clutched my dad as if we were under attack by a rattler.  He helpfully recommended I "get a grip."

Below is a photo my mum took of the snake the first time we saw it on the lawn.  You cannot begin to grasp the terror it inspires until you see it:

1)      In real life

2)      Swimming

It seemed much more basilisk-like in person.  (Full disclosure, I just got the heebie-jeebies looking at photos of northern water snakes.  Holy ****.)