Please God, let school open.....

Dear Diary, There were so many things I had planned for us to do as a family this summer and we didn’t do any of them. The kids are 9, 11 and 13, and finally old enough that we don’t have to pack juice boxes and diapers to go anywhere. But, it seemed like we had the money but not the time, or the time but not the money. George and I wanted to take the kids to Disney World, but we didn’t have enough money, so we ended up going to Tanger Mall and Dairy Queen. The kids got to buy video, clothes, and hideous posters for their rooms. I think we spent almost as much money, but saved on gas to Florida. We loaded them up on high fructose junk foods and ice cream for the ride home to put them in a sugar coma so at least we’d have peace on the ride home. We hoped to enjoy several boat outings with Uncle Mike this summer, but Mike’s engine never got repaired. So, we busted our shocks driving them out to Shell Beach. We tried to get them to try to cross the channel on their air mattresses, we figured the current would take them toward Riverhead till they hit land and that would give me uninterrupted time to clean and purge their rooms. But they were wise to us and wouldn’t take the bait. They made some threats about calling CPS and requesting that they be put in a foster home instead of living with us. George and I got all excited about them leaving, but then those rotten kids reneged and they’re still here. We thought we might take them for an educational trip, to see West Point, or something like that. We ended up taking them to Mashomack Preserve for one of their tours. George and I managed to lose them in the woods and slip away for a box lunch from the IGA. But then we got a call from the Preserve, some rule about you have to leave with as many kids as you brought, so we picked them up. They were full of ticks, so we made them sleep on the porch until they were sure they got all the ticks off. Then George put lysol in his garden sprayer and hosed them down. Then we thought, let’s try to eat healthier and make a veggie garden. They were trying to text their friends while planting seedlings. This only would have taken half a day, you’d think they could put down the phones for four hours - oh - God forbid! They might miss something! They never got serious and ended up throwing dirt at each other and then I got a big clump in the face and if George hadn’t been there to get the ax from me, I don’t know what would have happened. He thought I was going to attack the kids with the ax. But I was going to use the ax to destroy their phones, I was going to use the hammer to hit them. George thought, if they’re like this when they’re eighteen, we could invent our own Witness Protection program. We could change our names and sneak away in the night. And in two or three weeks when they notice no laundry is done and there’s no food in the house, they’ll realize we’re gone, but by then, it will be too late. I love my Georgie, I can always count on him to see the silver lining.....

School Opens Sep 5th...thank you God

Dear Diary, School opens in less than a month. I hope my Xanex can hold out. I’ve been to confession three times in two weeks to have a nice man behind a screen remind me that my children are a blessing from God, no returns, no refunds. I used to resent the fact that a man with no children was telling me that these spawn of Satan were actually a blessing. But now I’m glad he doesn’t have any children because I need someone to lie to me with a straight face. I can confess my homicidal fantasies and be assured that all my sacrifices can be offered up to reduce my time in limbo. Then he tells me I’m actually quite normal and gives me a shield of absolution and back into the fray I go. The dog days of August are here and I have one, very thin, very raw, nerve left. I’ve decided to post my list of what needs to change on my front door so the monsters will see it. I will sit in my chair facing the door with my BB gun across my lap, and if any of them come through the door making demands, I can’t miss. Dear Precious Children, these are the rules for August. Please comply and all will be well. 1] I can’t afford to take you to the water park again this summer. Don’t ask, don’t beg, don’t cry. 2] Do not jump off the roof into piles of improvised cushioning. If you do these stupid things and injure your foot, I will find something to break the other foot to serve as a deterrent from any further incursions into StupidLand. 3] I don’t care what it is, or how safely you think you can do it, do not set anything afire. 4] Do not hide in the dark by the door and jump out with bloody vampire fangs when Grandma comes over. She nearly beat Georgie to death with her cane when he did that the last time. Old people have been around long enough that they don’t scare as easily as you think. If they have a cane or walker, consider them armed and dangerous. 5] Tying younger siblings to trees does not count as babysitting. 6] I’m still waiting to hear what happened to the 13 pound ham that was in my refrigerator two days ago. 7] Daddy is still fuming over the two missing six packs that disappeared with the ham. 8] Will the son who souped up Daddy’s ride-on mower without telling him please come forward. He torn across the lawn and through my roses. He was only able to stop the mower with the assistance of the maple tree next door. This event, plus putting a stronger spring in Daddy’s Lazy Boy recliner so that when he sat up the chair shot him across the room, have led us to offer a new solution to your propensity for testing the performance limits of all things mechanical. We realize you must need better parents than us. We have burned your birth certificate and any official records of your existence. We are prepared to drop you off at the Social Services office so you can claim to be a homeless youth in need of a foster home. We wish your new parents all the best and we would love to hear from you in ten years or so. Other than these rules, we hope you children enjoy that remainder of your summer vacation. If you need us, we’ll be at The Dory with all the other parents.

The Old Bamboo

Last week’s Shelter Island Reporter did an article on the invasive nature of bamboo and how we can control it’s spread since there is a considerable amount of it here on the Island. I never thought of it as a problem, I think it’s rather pretty, but I certainly wouldn’t want it to choke out native flora. Apparently to stop it’s spread you have to push a thick metal plate at least three feet deep to stop it’s roots from spreading. It’s either that or a back hoe.... yikes! Thomas Edison said a problem is just an opportunity in work clothes. Maybe there’s a business here for the Island. Bamboo fishing rods - one nice, long fishing rod instead of one that has two or three sections. You never have to worry about losing any pieces of your rod and your kids can’t play swords with it. Spare the rod, spoil the child. That adage can still be applied if the rod is used right by parents. Use a bamboo rod to help get the kids up for school. You can poke them with the rod while they’re in bed until they wake up. You can tickle their faces. As a last resort, you can whip the quilt wherever there’s movement. It won’t hurt them, and will provide you with stress relief. Or you can stand at the bottom of the stairs and whip the bamboo through the air so they hear the whipping sound while you threaten them with beatings. A bamboo rod in the car with kids would be really helpful. You can reach any seat with any kid and hit them in the legs while you scream, “That’s it! Nobody touch anybody!” A short bamboo rod with a wad of tape, sticky side out, will retrieve old french fries and other dreck from under car seats. You could find that earring you lost... you never know. Short bamboo rods could be given to people waiting on the ferry. Nerves are frayed, the wait is hot, tempers flare, just give those drivers a weapon and viola! A new reality series, “Escape From Bamboo Island” is born! Winners get to get on the ferry first. Short bamboo rods could be issued to wait staff on the Island who put up with some horrible behaviors from tourists. This way, if they don’t behave, the waiter could give the patron a quick flick on the back of the neck as he or she went by and blame it on the aggressive African mosquitoes that got loose here. It might not change the customer’s behavior, but it should will be satisfying for the staff. A bamboo rod would be a fantastic mother’s helper when Mom is exhausted. You can sit in your chair and pick and flick. Pick up socks on the rug, flick them towards the hallway where they can be later kicked to the washer. You can pick up garbage and flick it towards the kitchen. If your spouse is napping on the couch and children are jumping off furniture all around him and you want him to take them somewhere - anywhere - you can flick his head ever so gently until he wakes up and asks you what’s going on. And if one of your kids rats you out to Dad, you can whip their rump as they flee. Yup, bamboo can be a friend.

Shelter Island Olympics, a.k.a., The Shelympics

We’re all looking forward to the Summer Olympics here since we have our very own Olympian, sailor Amanda Clark. Take that Southampton... Of course, we could actually have our own little Olympics here. We could call it the Shelympics. The Shelympics would showcase local events. The No Spillage Race: When the bar at the Chequit closes at 2AM, everyone has adjourns down the hill to The Dory which is open till 4AM, still carrying their drinks. This could easily be converted into a timed event where drink spillage disqualifies the racer. There are many Islanders who have already trained for this for years. Barbershop Quartet Races: It’s a given if you are here in the summer that the North Ferry lines to get on or off the Island are epic in physical length and time duration. There is easily enough time for drivers to get out and organize themselves into quartets. They can practice right there on line, and provide entertainment for everyone. At the end of the season, we can have a competition, the winning quartet to receive free ferry tickets for next summer. Power Mower Racing Teams: Nearly every man on this Island owns a ride on power mower. We have a long straight stretch of road from the IGA to the school, perfect for racing! Plus, at the half way mark - the Post Office - each team could have their pit crew ready to check the machine while the driver runs in to get his mail, I mean, why waste a trip? The MD to Pharmacy race. We all see who else is sick when we go to the doctor here. From the MD office, we all see each other again in the Pharmacy, and often a third time in the Post Office, because we all seem to fall in sync with each other here. With a small adjustment, that is all the patients leave the MD office at the same time, we could create a three event race of MD’s to Pharm. to Post Office, first one to pick up their mail wins! The police have recently had to cite some people for “intoxicated boating”. But I think this has potential. First we set out buoys with small bottles of whisky at , say, seven points around a portion of the Island. Next, we put the participants in row boats, not motor boats. They row to the first buoy, drink one of the little bottles and row to the next buoy. I’m figuring that after the fourth buoy, it won’t be a question of who wins, but who finishes at all.... Child Drop Off. For years, Shelter Island mothers have perfected the art of dropping off kids at school by getting in the right line to swing over and barely skim the curb, while simultaneously ordering the child to open the door and get ready to jump on command. They child jumps out and a second later their packback lands on them and the car is gone..... This is a perfect Shelympic event; it combines skill, timing, and teamwork. The faster a child learns how to fling his body from a moving vehicle, the quicker and tougher his body will be for sports.

Beating the Heat

It’s funny how we change our attitudes towards summer heat throughout our lives. I remember as kids summer heat never bothered us at all. Even as teenagers, the girls would lie in the sun on the beach all day, our bodies slathered with baby oil - this was before sun damage existed - and still be full of energy to go out that night. In our twenties, beach parties were still a blast. And the worst day boating beat the best day working. There is no feeling like cutting through the waves with the spray in your face on a beautiful day. Experimenting with what fish will accept as bait was always fun. I remember catching blowfish with minimarshmellows. Rotten raw chicken was the best crab bait. I always thought that was odd because under what circumstances does a crab meet and eat a chicken to knows it tastes good? And the best feeling was after you showered at home and put on your clothes and they felt so incredibly soft and cozy on slightly burned skin. I don’t know whether it was the event of entering my thirties or the additiion of children that began to sour my love of summer. I started out with great plans of all the water parks we could take the kids to, and all the idealic family fun we’d have, just like in the commercials. Maybe it was waiting in long lines that I began to really feel the heat. Maybe it was chasing cranky and unruly kids who didn’t act at all like the happy children in the commercials that did it to me. But somewhere in that decade, the heat became my nemesis. My concept of a water park became letting the kids jump off of lawn chairs into a kiddie pool in the backyard. I just kept the ice pops and Kool Aid flowing until it was dark and I had to let them in. Quantum physics postulates that there are more than the four dimensions we know. I propose that the fifth dimension is humidity. Humidity slows down time and uses more energy. For example, taking groceries out of the car. On a cool, dry day, the task is fast and easy. On a hot, humid day, it takes longer to unload the groceries because you have to stop and stand near an air conditioning vent for five minutes between each trip to the car, and when you’re through, you only have enough energy left to grab a cold soda, make it to your chair, and yell at the kids to come put these groceries away. On a cool, dry day, most women are agreeable to sex. But on a hot, humid day, she will look at you with laser beams in her eyes that sear the message, “If you touch me, I will kill you,” into your frontal lobe. In our forties and beyond, anything that requires going out in the heat has to be accomplished by 11AM. After that, we go into our air conditioned homes and bolt the door. We know that humidity sucks the life out of us, our only hope is air conditioning. People wonder, how did we cope before air conditioners? I say, look at the homicide rates before and after the invention of air conditioning. In Greek mythology, Prometheus took pity on man and gave him fire, for which we have been ever grateful. I think we should give equal statue and thanks to Carrier (Willliam Carrier) the one who gave us air conditioning.....

Bless All Creatures, Great and Small

Last Saturday morning on July 7th, Our Lady of the Isle held it’s annual Blessing of the Pets event. There was a very healthy turnout, all pets were welcome from all walks of faith, being a Catholic pet was not a prerequisite. There was even a Sugar Dog, a new kind of service dog for diabetics. Pets have the same status as people on Shelter Island. There’s no such thing as a stray dog here, because they can’t cross over on the ferries alone, so every dog belongs to somebody. My mother had to put down her 19 year old tuxedo cat a few days ago. I am convinced that one of the reasons for her longevity was years of eating fresh fish scraps, creamy clam chowder, sardines on cheese crackers, and other tasty bits from kitchen. It good to be a cat on Shelter Island. But I have to say, I think it’s even better to be a dog. Dogs have car privileges. Just take a tour through the IGA parking lot any morning and there’s dogs in cars all over. Over the years I have learned a lot about dog personalities just from their car behavior. Terriers are the best a guarding the car. They have an early warning system in the car. First they run to the window to watch you. If they decide you’re getting too close to the car, they make a low growl, and if you get any closer, they go berserk and bark at you, running the whole length of the car if they can. The fancy breeds, like maltese and shihtzu, yip and yelp as you go by the car. But they’re not guarding the car, they’re just irritated that you had the nerve to walk past THEIR car. I saw a beautiful pair of Corgies in a car once at the IGA. One barked a warning at me, and the other was guarding the other side of the car. I thought that was really smart, they had divided up their car guarding duties. Labradors are commonly found in the drivers seat, trying to work out a way to start the car. They never bark as you go by. They just look up at you with a look that says, “Yo, how you doin’ today?” They never bark. They are just too cool to get their tail in a knot over anything. Huskies and Samoyeds are the worst at guarding your car. They love everybody and anyone can walk by the car or talk to them. They are just lovers, not a mean bone in them. Saint Bernard's and Newfoundland dogs make terrific guards without trying. They take up the whole back seat and if you are stupid enough to try to steal the car they are in, they’ll just raise their big head and look at you as if if to say, “Don’t even THINK about it because if I have to get up off this comfortable seat, I’m eating you.” The dogs who I feel for most in the cars are the tiny ones, the Chihuahua’s, they just shake and try to hide under a sweater or tote bag. I feel guilty for upsetting them. To the tourists who visit in summer, I’d ask all of you to remember that, like I said, there are no stray dogs on the Island because every dog belongs to somebody. If you want to know who owns a particular dog, ask the kids in the area. Kids always know who owns which cats and dogs.

Wine and Clam Delivery Service

Okay, now I’m really getting worried. First, we’ve got a cricket tournament on August 18th (sicricket.com), then a petanquing tournament on July 11th (reservations@maisonblanchehotel) and now this, the Island’s first wine tasting room. According to the Shelter Island Reporter, Keith Bavaro, co-owner of a new restaurant named Salt and and Jamesport Vineyards have opened The Tasting Room, a wine tasting room directly accessible by boat. Oh yeah, it’s gonna be a great summer... “I think this is the best idea you ever had, George. We’ll pull the whaler right up, get the wine and go sell it to the anchor-outs on the bay. The Shelter Island Wine and Clam Delivery Service. Hey, you got a clean tee shirt I can borrow, George?” “Here Ronny. We want to look serious when we taste this wine. I got a black marker here somewhere. I can draw you a tie. Now, remember, you just swish it around in your mouth, make a face like you’re thinking about how it tastes, then you’re supposed to spit it out in some kind of spittoon they provide.” “What’s the purpose of spitting out perfectly good wine, George? That doesn’t make any sense. We’re sampling it for our customers.” “I don’t know why Ronny, just swish and spit. Just do it. It’s the way it’s done. I guess that’s why it’s called wine tasting and not wine drinking. They don’t want people boating in, getting wasted, then boating out.” “Right, that never happens on the Island.....” “Okay, Ronny, let me do the talking to the owner and make the deal. How many clams we got?” “About two and a half bushels. Let’s save one bushel for the anchor-outs and trade the rest, George.” “Okay, so we’re trading six pecks. I’m thinking we should get at least twelve bottles of something.” one hour later... “Fifteen bottles, that’s good, Georgie, me boy-o. The owner’s a nice guy too. “Yea, he was happy to get fresh clams for his restaurant. It was a good trade.” “George, you remember how to pronounce any of the names of these wines?” “Not really, but probably neither can the people we’re selling it too. Let’s open the most unpronounceable one and have it for breakfast.” “It’s only 10 A.M., George, you really think we should have wine now?” “Yea, you’re right, too early for wine. Pass me a beer. Lets go over to that nice boat over there, looks like she sleeps six. I see people moving around.” twenty minutes later... “Okay sir, that’s one fourth bushel of clams and two Pinot’s and a Merlot. Eighty ought to cover it. I’m throwing you the rope to the bucket. There’s a wallet in the bottom for the money. .... yea, sure, we can come by tomorrow. No, don’t give us your cell phone number, we don’t carry phones in the boat, they don’t like salt air and we always seem to lose them overboard or hit them with bait or something. We’ll just pull up sometime between ten and noon. If you don’t want us to come, hang a bra over the side, that works good as a Do Not Disturb sign.” Yup, it’s looking to be a great summer for the whole Island. Now, could somebody PLEASE open a theater here?

A Game By Any Other Name... Petanque

On July 11th La Maison Blanche (The White House), will host their second annual Petanque Tournament. All proceeds will be donated to the Lions Club which benefits everybody. Call 749-1633 or email reservations@maisonblanchehotel for more information. I had to look up Petanque since I have never heard of it. It seems to be akin to the popular Italian game bocce ball, but with a French accent. First we have the British people here hosting a cricket match on August 18th ( see sicricket.com) and now this foreign import, Petanque. What is going on here? And if we have these two foreign games, since we have plenty of Italian Americans here - why don’t we have bocce ball? We have a lot of Irish Americans too, but it’s no longer politically correct to view drinking and story telling as legitimate sports. One nice thing about Petanque is that, like bocce ball, it seems to require more skill than strength, so women can easily participate also. But there is a very big hidden danger to this game. La Maison Blanche (which was voted Best East End Hotel and Best French Cuisine in Dan’s Papers), is serving a variety of french delicacies, like charcuterie and cheese plates, croque monsieur sandwiches and moules marinieres. I don’t know what any of those things are, but I gained five pounds just trying to spell them. La Maison is calling it their Bastille Day menu. Bastille Day is the French independence day on July 15th. I think they are calling it that as a reminder to the participants to not go anywhere near a scale for three days after the feast or you’ll want to chop off your own head! Of course, you could argue the opposite, that playing petanque allows you to burn off the calories, but whose going to exercise after eating all those delicious things? I don’t know what kind of equipment is needed to play petanque since you’re just tossing hollow metal balls, what danger could there be in that? I don’t think a helmet or shin guards would be needed, but is it a french game....I suggest a beret, a mustache and a cigarette. If you can cop an attitude, that would be helpful too. Since this is a french game, no doubt it has bonus points for looking cool while you’re petanqing. I have to say that I’m glad this game isn’t known to the Irish. You can’t trust us with anything we can throw. If we had access to metal balls, a head injury would be a right of passage. There is a game in Ireland called Gaelic Football, it’s a unique Irish version of soccer. I don’t know what makes it unique, probably no penalty for fighting. One suggestion I would make to La Maison is to award a trophy. Maybe a gold painted petanque ball with a croissant sitting on top. Who wouldn’t want to put that on their mantle? And they could “islandize” it further by having a crab holding the petanque ball. Or maybe a little Statue of Liberty with her arm around the Eiffel Tower, and a holding a petanque ball in her other hand. Oh, the possibilities are endless....

TAXI!

Taxi ! The Peconic Bay Water Jitney starts service on June 30th for a 100 day trial. It will carry 53 passengers (no cars) to and from Greenport and Sag Harbor. It will be very interesting to see how this works into East End life. On the good side, it will be incredibly convenient for a lot of people, not just shoppers, but residents too. It will be a blessing to many Islanders who have relatives - and I speak here from years of personal experience - on both forks who call you for a ride across the Island from one ferry to the other. It will be a nice 40 minute ride, and a peaceful one for those who can turn off their cell phones and iPads. Actually, I’d recommend that because salt spray can do terrible damage to electronics. It will be great for people who are really late with an assignment. You can say you left your iPad on the ferry, or dropped it in the water when somebody shoved you. It sure beats the heck out of “the dog ate my homework”, it’s a excellent low tech excuse for a high tech problem. The water taxi will also reduce schleppage. Schleppage is the amount of bags and bundles you have to schlep with you when going from one fork to another. With the water taxi, you schlep everything once when you get on the boat and once more when you get off the boat. No more dragging stuff on and off one ferry, finding a cross Island ride, and then schlepping everything on and off another ferry. One nice thing about it being an all passenger ferry is that if something happens to the motor, they can put 26 people on each side of the ferry with long oars to row her the rest of the way. And what about the extra person you ask? That’s the one who beats a barrel with his hands to pace the rowers, just like in Ben-Hur. I’m not sure about the name, Peconic Bay Water Jitney, it’s too long. It could be called the Sag Port Jitney. How about the East Ender Tender? Personally, I like the Saggy Green Express. On the bad side of this new taxi, it will cut into the ferries revenues and I hate for that to happen. But there might be a silver lining there for the crews. They work so hard in the hot summer sun and constantly have to remind tourists who stand in front of the big red lines near the gates that read “DO NOT STAND IN FRONT OF THIS LINE”, to not stand in front of that line. It’s also not okay to let the the kids stand by the gates so they can see the churning water. We lose five or six tourists kids a year that way and it’s such a nuisance when they go overboard. The ferry has to turn around and get them and that makes everybody else on the ferry late. I also feel bad for the shop owners who will lose some of that cross Island business. On the other hand, if the Saggy Green Express is a hit, maybe we could work a deal where they make one port of call somewhere on the Island so people could get off and shop or have lunch. After which, they might get back on the water taxi, or take one of the Island ferries. Our ferries could offer incentives, like letting people ride in tubes off the back of the boat - I always thought that would be fun.

Why did the turtle cross the road?

There was a nice letter in last week’s Shelter Island Reporter, reminding people to be on the lookout for turtles crossing the roads. I know to some people that seems like a silly thing to remind people of, but I love turtles and I too, want people to watch out for them. Spring is the time of year when animals get together and make more animals. If you pause to think about it, this must be much harder for turtles than other animals. First of all, they have to find another turtle. They don’t live in herds like deer, so I have no idea how they find each other. Do they cross the roads because they’re looking for love in all the wrong places? Why is it that turtles even bother to cross the roads? The grass isn’t greener on the other side, so why take the risk? I have a theory that since it’s usually the male of the species that try to attract the female, that it’s only male turtles that try to cross the roads. I think it’s their way of being macho and showing off their ability to cause gigantic metal machines to screech to a halt and cause giants to get out of the machines and carry them to the other side of the road. They probably carve a notch in their shell for each giant machine they stop. And if they get hit by one of the big machines, and have the luck not to die, they usually have a nice big scrape on them to show off to the females, a war wound they can get “street cred” for. When my son, Jacob, was younger, he would scan the road for turtles as I drove. If he spotted one, we would pull over and get the turtle. I carried red nail enamel in my van and Jacob would give the turtle a name and I’d paint it on his shell. This way, we were able to track turtle movements all over the Island and uncover who was crossing the road too much. His policy was, if we caught the same turtle crossing a road three times, he was eligible for Jacob’s relocation program to Mashomack Preserve. We actually caught two turtles twice who were crossing the road, but on the second offense, Jacob would relocate them further into the woods from the side of the road and let them off with a warning. That seemed to work since we never had to take anyone to the Preserve. Of course the most annoying thing is when you stop to help a turtle across the road, and as soon as you put them down, they head back into the road in the direction they just came from. Why do they do that? Is it that these are the criminal turtles who have been sentenced to cross a road, allowing the gods of Chevy and Ford to decide their fate? Are these the daredevil turtles who are addicted to the adrenaline rush of hearing tires roar past them? Have they had enough of turtle life and they’re just trying to end it all? Are they trying to run a turtle 20 foot across the road race to benefit a turtle charity? And because of the intrinsic danger, they only have one racer at a time? The turtle - a conundrum in a hard shell, but still an Island pal.