pollyblog

 So I’m walking out of the New York Bagel Deli with my warm, fresh bagels. It’s right here in Cary and sells freshly made chopped liver (I’ve been calling it pate’ at our soirees and they lick the plate clean), whitefish spread, bialys. They’re awesome. On the marquis above the door it says NYBD, a little play on initials. So I’m walking out and these two guys are walking in and I hear the one ask, “What does the BD stand for?”

Yep, we’re in the south. It may have the word north in it’s name but this is the south, people.

I’m soliciting names for my new, upcoming video keepsake business —  making photo montages and video keepsakes of special life events.  It can be a tribute to someone (like for a bar mitzvah or retirement) or a video keepsake of a family trip, birth of a baby, wedding, graduation, military. Anything really.

Here are a few ideas:

“Pickle Videos – Preserving Memories One Photo At A Time”
“Montage Mahal – Video Keepsakes”
“Forget Me Not Video Albums”

So, feel free to jump right in. I need something catchy. Something clever. Something people can spell when searching it online. And if you have a set of photos from a recent event or something coming up, let’s talk!
   

We’re back from Maine and Mass. What a fun trip! Both states are jam-packed with great food and wonderful sightseeing. It is definitely a trip for die-hard foodies. Too bad my pants don’t fit anymore. Maybe I need to get back in touch with Rigo at the gym. It’s time to start thinking about my CORE again. But first let me get a canoli and cappuccino and tell you about our trip.

The sign upon entering Maine says, “Maine…the way life should be.” Another one further down the road said something like, “Come to visit, end up staying.” Jay says that the signs suckered Mark and Shelley —who are happily becoming Maineards. (Mark’s favorite saying these days is, “I’ve died and gone to heaven.”) 

 I’m very impressed with the knowledge they already have of off-the-beaten path sights and fab restaurants. They tried to swear us to secrecy about our experiences but I explained that I’m a blogger now and therefore nothing can be sacred. It’s all fodder. They are worried about others wanting to invade their newfound utopia, and understandably so. It’s lovely. Truly. But here’s the thing that really stands out …the people are so incredibly nice. I mean NICE!!  

It’s like this. I’m shopping at LL Bean and the checkout lady starts making conversation. “Are you going to the LL Bean concert in the park tonight?” She asks about our visit, where we are from. This happened over and over. It wasn’t just in LL Bean, where I’m sure they are trained to be so helpful and nice. But the fact is they just are. They don’t have to be that way. But they are. As Shelley said, the people there are unaffected. I think it has something to do with the 25 mile an hour speed limits. You just mosey along at the speed limit and get there when you get there. No one gets up on your tail to try to bully you into going faster. That in and of itself makes people nicer I think. That, and the food. Crikey, you’d be happy, too, if you ate lobster rolls all the time. Just say it…lobsta roll. What can you find wrong with a place that claims lobster, clams and blueberries as some of its best food?  

I signed us up for kayaking at the LL Bean Outdoor Discovery Center. Olivia had flashbacks to her Disney days. “Are the kayaks on tracks? Do they go fast? Will we be in rapids?” No, no, and no, unless you paddle strong and hard enough to make them go fast, like Zach the beast did. I tried to race him but, alas, was no match. Still, what fun. I could get hooked on that. It was so peaceful and beautiful. Definitely a highlight of the trip. Along with the chocolate martinis Mark made later that day.  Oh, and the double rainbow over the Portland lighthouse.

We met up with Veronica, Todd and the kids in Boston. Reunited and it felt so good. Doing Boston with them is like some kind of eating marathon. I thought we were bad. Geez. In the middle of a huge, gluttonous lunch at the historic Oyster House Restaurant, the oldest restaurant in America, Todd asks, “What are we going to do for dinner?” Those Sazeras know good food, and good food we all had. Do make it to the North End, aka the Italian district. Italian restaurants and bakeries abound and let me tell you, they are GOOD. You can tell by the throngs of people filling them. Chinatown rocks, too. We didn’t make it to the Ethiopian restaurant but I’m sure that would have been awesome, too. Oh well, next time.  

After four freakin' back and forth trips to the mountains I will be happy not to make that drive for another year. I'm not too upset that Olivia has decided to stick with day camp, either. That means next year we only have to make 2 trips.

My kids are home, safe and sound from their camp experiences. They both came home with lots of stories, smelly laundry and the camp crafts they made. Olivia made a lovely bowl in pottery. On the loom, she wove a colorful piece of cloth the size of a placemat. She also tie-dyed and batiked and did a number of other richly experiential projects.  The first thing she did when she got home, besides clogging the toilet, was request a tick-check while taking a long, hot bath. That's my girl!

Zach chose woodburning, where he made a gigantic clock necklace reminiscent of Flavor Flav, which earned him the camp name of "Boss Hogg". We're so proud of him. He took up slug-licking, which apparently induces a state of euphoria into the licker. We promptly had a talk with him about "Just say no to slugs" and just because your friend jumps off a bridge does that mean you're going to jump off a bridge, too?, to which he answered, "well, yeah, duh!"

We are hitting the road again. I need to leave my blog in your hands for a while, which scares me considering the dogs seem to have taken control of it. But, I must entrust it to you, my fine family and friends, in my absence.

Think of me up in New England, eating lobster, clams, chowda, wild Maine blueberries, etc. I'll return with stories hopefully. Or at least I'll get to read yours.

I’m just starting to get used to this and now it’s almost over.

Gosh it’s nice not worrying over whether we have enough snack foods in the house. Or having to keep up with everyone’s schedule. Or being the drill sergeant who makes sure everyone is doing something productive, practicing their music, blah, blah, blah.

Jay and I come and go as we please. We take our time working out at the club since no one needs to get to bed at any certain time. We watch R rated movies. We make plans on the fly. “What do you want for dinner?” “I dunno. Let’s just make margueritas and see what we feel like later.” Life is good.

I just watched that damn video montage from Zach’s bar mitzvah and now I’m blubbering my eyes out.

I better call Jay and make sure he’s filled up the tank for our drive back to the mountains. And I’ll go by Trader Joe’s to get Zach all his favorite munchies for the car ride home. And I’ll put clean sheets on the bed for him since he’s probably been sleeping in filth the past couple of weeks.

Time to check the photo pages. TTFN.

I slept in late. I got a little bit of work done. But then I’ve been obsessing over the photo websites where, in theory, you’re supposed to be able to see your campers having a grand time engaging in all kinds of enriching camp activities. I am hitting the refresh button so many times it’s starting to wear thin. I mean, throw me a bone. I’m going to have a talk with these camp photographers. Out of 300 some odd photos there is not a single one of my girl child. I think she’s bolted. She’s probably living off the land somewhere in the mountains.

Zach’s camp apparently takes the weekend off and finally posted a few new photos just moments ago. He can be seen in a watering hole with a bunch of little kids. I’m pretty sure they made him a counselor. He’ll probably come home with a paycheck. In fact, I think I’m right about that because in the last batch of photos from Friday or whenever it was, he was in a ring of kids teaching them how to juggle. At least I know he’s still there.

More later.
 

Sunday, July 1, 2007 – Driving home from the mountains
We dropped Olivia at camp this morning.

We made up her bed, took a couple of photos and said goodbye. Wow, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

But as we were leaving, just a few steps from her cabin – her cabin in the tall, lush rhododendron and shady trees – Jay dons his sunglasses. Call me Sherlock Holmes but I knew something was up. I could hear the counselors now. “Cabin One to base. Cabin One to base. Alert, alert. We’ve got ourselves a crier. Get the tissues ready.”

Zach made it so easy for us so we were caught a tad off guard by the emotions that surfaced when leaving Olivia. Then again, maybe I was ignoring all the signs. Like, when we were playing hangman on the car ride over and her sentence was                I  W I L L  M I S S  Y O U!

Don’t get me wrong. She wasn’t trying to make us feel bad or talk herself out of going. She was just expressing herself, very healthily I might add. She was a trooper, too. She was ready for us to go so she could get on with the business of adjusting and making friends.

The ride home has been a little quiet. “What should we do tonight?” we pondered. “I dunno. What do you want to do for the 4th?” I suppose it’s good practice for when the kids are grown and gone and all we have for regular entertainment is each other. We’ll HAVE to find something else to talk about besides the kids. Now I see why people end up getting so many pets.

I think next year – assuming our kids like this whole camp business and want to attend next year – we should coordinate with our friends. It would be really great to have our friends available to hang out and play with, too, with all the kids gone to camp. I mean, what’s the point of get-togethers with our friends and their kids when we are temporarily child-free.

Jay hasn’t stopped talking about Olivia yet. I might need to set up an appointment for him tomorrow to deal with his separation issues. I think he’s flashing back to when his parents sent him away for 8 weeks each summer. I’ll try to be gentle and empathetic.

  Later that day – still driving home from the mountains

So much for Camp Mansfield in the UK this summer. Now that, as of last count, 3 terrorist attack attempts have taken place, in the name of Allah of course, the UK is at its highest terror alert possible. I’m trying to be tolerant and accepting of this religion but it seems to me there are at least 2 camps – one that doesn’t believe they are to commit suicide and murder of innocent people in the name of Allah and one that does.

Call me dense but I have a really hard time understanding how one can rationalize that it’s the will of their god to, say, drive a vehicle into a marketplace filled with men, women and children and detonate a bomb killing half of them and maiming others. And then the said bomber will be insured a place in heaven for the act. If you can explain it so I can understand, by all means, have at it. Jay says it has something to do with the vestal virgins.

TRIVIA QUIZ: What song mentions the vestal virgins? First one with the correct answer wins.

So, on the lighter side…did you read about the guy in Illinois who was setting off fireworks in his yard and was killed when he picked up an unexploded missile and peered down the tubing to see why it hadn’t gone off yet? You can guess what happened next.

That’s just stupid. Let that be a lesson unto you this 4th of July now, ya hear!