Just a weekend...

I think my weekends as a 10, 11, 12 year old kid growing up in New York were pretty laid back and casual. My favorite Saturday morning activity was curling up in one of our large green leather armchairs in Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility to listen to my favorite radio program which had the Teddy Bears Picnic as a theme song that went something like " if all the bears that ever there were....I was quite confident that I was alone on my chair and no one could penetrate this safe space. Then my father and I would go out for our Saturday date which meant lunch at Longchamps Restaurant and a movie. Or an exploring adventure in the City. That seemed to be about all we did.

But of course memory consistently fails you. By Friday, the three of us are pretty tired from work and school, and Miss Murray is also pretty tired from nothing but sleeping through the week. So as we are thinking about kicking back, she is looking forward to playing with us and going to Central Park. And on Saturday as the weatherpeople were beating the toms toms about yet another storm and endless rain, we set off for the Park. We have a ritual now where Arnie goes out in the street to hail a cab, Kate plays on her Rocket Stick which is a skate board with only two wheels, and I try to pretend that I am unconnected to these people and just happen to be walking by with the dog. So that when Arnie opens the cab door, I am in a good position to leap into the taxi almost before the cabbie can object.

The Park was heavy with rain from the previous 24 hours so that while the ground was muddy, all the trees all looked misty green/grey and there was a slight fog that made me think about Paris. All very romantic. Miss Murray knows where we're going now and positively bounds into the Park which represents amazing progress. Miss Murray arrived at LaGuardia from Oaklohoma via Houston just a year go and three trainers later she is really very well socialized now. Well she is well socialized at home with us. I actually thought this morning that a diagnosis of ADD would be right for her because at 5:30 am she is distracted from doing what dogs traditionally could and should do by the sound of a car door slamming, the whosh of bus brakes or the sight of someone walking along in the early morning gloom. But we love her and give her unlimited hugs. And she gives limitless love.

Accelerated Growing Up

I think that Kate has changed very little physically during the past couple of years with one exception and that is her newly developed love for wearing Black clothes. This is just the end result of living in New York with a mother who wears black more than any other color.

However in the space of about two weeks it seems to me that Kate has CHANGED. Big Time. A late birthday present allowed her to have her ears pierced at Spa De Da which made her look older and she was interested in watching herself in any and all mirrors. Then she cut her hair from a straggily down her back do to a short shoulder length bob which gave her a decided air of sophistication. Follow that with a trip to the Dentist for braces which I gather are something of a status symbol. A nusinace but statusy all the same. And since Kate has finally taken responsibility for her second pair of glasses, she wears them all the time. The first pair remained in her possession for two weeks and bit the dust somewhere in Maine.

Last night she and Arnie went out for one of their Japanese Daddy Daughter dinners and Kate looked sensational. She also spent a great deal of time preparing for this evening out. She wore a gorgeous black dress, hand me down from Maggie Gibson, put on pearl earrings, ditched her glasses, applied lip gloss and eye make up judiciously and then tried to slip into her party shoes. No dice. Her feet have grown so after a whole sale search in all of our closets, I sent her off wearing a pair of my black not so high slingbacks which were too big but not so big that she couldn't shuffle for 3 blocks to the restaurant. I also wrapped her in a shawl so that she would remaine elegant and not freeze in the September air.

So, she's changed physically and emotionally. The other day she couldn't even figure out why she was such a wretch which made me smile because I was a truly hideous teenager and never understood why I could never do anything right. But now the eye rolling and slightly rude confrontations are beginning in earnest. I understand that it's part of the process but I hate it in the morning when I don't want ajida (sp) and incessant criticisms about how I do everything wrong. But when I talked about this with our house keeper Alice, she said that she always describes me as a West Indian mother who gives her child love but also sets limits and disciplines bad behavior. Made my day.

From 1.6 billion people to 100

I'll have to check the actual statistics because while I am sure about the population of China with its small towns like Xian, population 8 million, I'm not as sure about the real stats for the island of chebeague, right off the coast of maine withs lobster fisherman. There is a number for winter and summer.

I'm sorry that I didn't have my brand new computer with me on this trip and every day I've been thinking about posting about the simple and delicious pleasures of our life on Chebeague where Kate and I have been spending one or more weeks every year since she was 3 years old. Grandma Dot has rented a wonderful-awful house on Aarons Wharf Road with a great view of an madly untrimmed meadow and the red/white/ and blue Casco Bay Line boat that plies the Bay. Kate has always called it "My Boat" because she knew that that was the way she could go home.

The rental house is ramshackle and tilted with doors that don't close properly and windows that sag. But it also has a claw foot tub on the second floor that looks out over this meadow of wild flowers with the bay in the distance.Iit's been my morning ritual to sit in the tub with the windows opening on chilly Maine mornings and watch the vapor rising from the rapidly cooling bath water and just feel enormously contented. Usually Kate is downstairs with Dorothy and I am happy to hear the hum of their voices in animated conversation.

This summer Nick Wessel, the owner of the property, announced that he had finally sold the house to a Harvard type. Good luck to her because I think there are all manner of problems just lurking in the house. No, not sour grapes because we have so enjoyed the house and being in Maine. I can't say that I am a Maine fanatic because I'm far too fond of my creature comforts and actually like to swim when it's hot, but increasinly I am a big fan of Chebeague. So much so that when I heard that the house had been sold, I got busy researching a house for us to rent next year and have Grandma Dot as our guest! I have to make that decision by January.

When we first came up to Maine, there was a swing hanging from a tree in the backyard and when we could get Kate to go outside -- too many bugs, Mommy -- by herself, then she would install herself in the swing and be amused for hours. Painting with Dorothy was another happy pastime and the summer that Arnie came up with us, they painted together. We told Arnie that there was Nothing to do. No bars, no restaurants, no stores. Nothing to do. So Arnie did the intelligent thing which was to transport books, cigars and good scotch along with a very warm sweater. He had a good time. I think that was the summer that the Inn didn't want locals to patronize the restaurant at the Inn. I remember that we tried to make a reservation for dinner and they wouldn't let us do it. We walked up there and actually saw the empty restautant which the staff was totally booked. They went BK. This summer he was too busy with the AM C to take off for a week but next summer looks to be better in terms of scheduling a vacation there.

Every year Kate has had her birthday in Maine and it's always been deliciously low key. Anna Hamilton has been the constant Birthday guest and participated in Pin the Tail on the donkey, Statues and other real kid birthday activities. A cake with candles to blow out has been essential along with some presents. This year one of Kate's best presents, although not exactly labeled a birthday present, was the freedom to take off on her bike in the morning and came and go around the island as she chose. This is the freedom that people write books about and kids who live in New York City rarely experience. It was great for her. And it was great for me. I could clean up after breakfast and then tuck myself into an Adirondack chair with a book resting on my lap and consider the cloud formations until it was time to busy myself with preparing lunch.

Really heaven.

Catch up

My posts from our annual visit to Grandma Dot on Chebeague don't exist because I didn't take my new computer which wasn't up and rolling. Silly of me. The week that Kate and I spent in Maine were glorious. We

had sensational weather, freedom to bike up and down hills, and enough leisure time to just sit in an Adirondack chair and consider the cloud formations and carelessly turn pages in a book restig in my lap.

We spent the night in Portland at the worst hotel, the Eastland Park, imaginable which was in a very convenient part of town which is really any part of Portland which is very tightly organized like any good old fashioned port.