TheCapeBlog

Fresh, grilled bluefish and a caesar salad for lunch. Nothing better. Some might think so, but they’d be wrong.

I’ll be jiggered if I can find it anywhere, but I would have bet that the original version of “Bambi” had a song with the following heroic lyric, so typical of the 1950’s:
Bambi, Bambi, in spite of it all, little Bambi,
If you keep on climbing (5 forgotten syllables here)
You can get to the hilltop some day.

Continue reading Heck with It, Bambi

Youngest grandchild James and his sister are staying over, but James has been driving me nuts with his negativity.
When Emme wanted a drink, James assumed the worst: “Is she taking the last one?!” No, James, there are about a dozen drinks left.
When I offered to track down a stop for the Woods Hole (WHOOSH) trolley, James pitched a fit: “We have to walk a mile all over the place!” No, James, we’re taking the truck.
When I said that I have two tickets to the upcoming county fair, he got all upset, “Only two people can go.” No, James, I have two FREE tickets.
You’d think this child led a horrible, deprived life, the way he anticipated the worst about every situation.

To certain of my friends:
I love you dearly. I love you like sisters. But get off my case about whether or not my next door neighbor should or shouldn’t be home schooling her high school aged son.
About half of the taxes I pay to the town get allocated to the school department, and one of their jobs is to regulate situations like this one.
So, if those-whom-I-pay-to-worry-about-such-things think my neighbor’s son is being properly educated, then more power to his mother for pulling off the care and feeding of the rest of her family plus the running of a full-time business while home-schooling this particular child.
And, with all due respect and affection, why this should be any business of mine or for that matter, yours, is beyond me.

I’ve had a couple of nice outings this week: a cruise to and from the Vineyard with Robert, a hike in the Mashpee Woodlands with the boys and a tour of IFAW’s new green headquarters with Emme and Robert yesterday.
Last evening, I ventured to Osterville for one of the Citizen’s Bank summer concerts, but ended up visiting the shops that were open for Wednesdays in Wianno.
Afterwards, I drove to the end of Seaview Avenue to West Bay, always a pleasure to see how the other 1/10 of 1% live, and then to Dowses Beach, where I watched and listened to the Least terns and plovers wage their age-old war against the gulls that pilfer their nests.

Organized and loaded the trash and recyclables for the transfer station run with Peter and Emme, stopped in for the first time ever to the Pow-Wow, had lunch with a very old friend from out of town whom I haven’t seen for 25+ years, talked with another friend on the phone, then picked up James and Robert and groceries for their overnight.
It’s almost 4:30, with miles to go before we sleep.

Yeah, I’ve actually heard these:
There are two working days between Friday afternoon and Monday.
I don’t have time for a code review (but I’ll have time to refactor your code after you leave).
It’s all about me.
Some other characteristics:
Plays favorites
Fits of rage or belittlement
Micromanagement
Unreasonable expectations
Good questions to ask in the interview:
Ten Warning Signs of a Toxic Boss

Started off with some raking and watering, then cleaned out the frig, paid bills, dropped in on a neighborhood party, watched part of the Twilight Zone marathon.
Crossed the bridge to Wareham, where I picked up a “beauty sheet” at my friend Carolyn’s old cottage, checked out a concert in Onset Village, then spent the rest of the day at the machatonim’s waterfront house in Cromesset.
The kids and I went for a beach walk and their little cousin spotted a horseshoe crab moult. Turns out, he’s very interested in “mawine biology”, wants to be a scuba diver and later on, waved a flashlight in our faces and invited us to hunt for “cwickets”.
There was a long and spectacular fireworks display afterwards, and we must have seen over two dozen similar home-grown spectacles along the beaches.
As one of Bonnie’s aunts said, it’s enough to reassure you that maybe the economy isn’t as bad as all that.

Took a break from the usual last night and visited the Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary in Cummaquid for an evening beach walk to look for horseshoe crabs. The sharp-eyed Audubon naturalist spotted three of them while the rest of us settled for green and hermit crab sightings.
We learned that the Sandy Neck lighthouse wasn’t in fact built inland, but that the spit has grown through the years; must be one of the few places on the Cape that is actually gaining rather than losing land.
For the first time ever, I saw the tide creep in over the north side flats, spreading slowly toward the shore like the runoff from watering your lawn. The south side beaches don’t have the same topography, nor do they have the spectacular sunset views.
It was a perfect night, and I was lucky enough to get back to Mashpee in time to catch most of the fireworks display at New Seabury. I’d been told this is a private event, but the roads weren’t blocked off. Several dozen of us were parked at a meadow with a decent view of the display and an easy in/easy out with no crowds to fight with.
The cicadas are pretty much finished, considerate to the end, having emerged after Memorial Day and ended before Fourth of July, they didn’t interfere with the tourist season.
Everything that marks the passage of time has a particular poignancy these days, the cicadas’ brief little lives being no exception. They were not the marauding monsters we were told to expect but, rather, a unique natural event. In a way, we were fortunate to get to see them.

Not all adoptive parents are self-centered boobs. Here’s a quote from a an extraordinary adoptive mother in Australia who really, really “gets it”:
1. Deal with your infertility….NOW
2. Do not think adopting a child is the answer to your grief due to your infertility.
3. Stop reading happy adoption blogs. Read blogs by adoptees so you can better understand what your son or daughter will be experiencing.
4. Ask yourself…can I really accept that this child has a real live true mother that will always be a part of her whether I ever have the opportunity to know or meet them during our life together.
5. Ask yourself….can I love my child for who SHE or HE is without trying to make them into a mini me.
6. Ask yourself…..do you understand that the adoption of this child is totally based on LOSS for the first mom and the child.
7. Ask yourself…do you have the empathy and the tools to help navigate your child through their loss’s and grief.
8. Read, read, read, and learn, learn, learn. Do you understand the inner life of an adopted child? Probably not unless you were adopted yourself. It doesn’t matter if you have a second cousin or friend of a friend of a friend who was adopted and they ‘turned out just fine’. What matters is that you are prepared to bless YOUR child by being knowledgeable and prepared for the road ahead. Don’t take adoption lightly. Don’t get caught up in thinking ‘ahhh…we’ve reached the solution to making our family and now we can just relax and enjoy.
The same blog which quoted the mother above has information on a film about women who were coerced into giving up their children called “Gone to a Good Home”.
It’s appalling that the abuse of birthmothers happened in places other than the United States. One wonders if this is because of the influence of the Catholic Church or possibly a common academic source of destructive social engineering theories.