favorite cape activities (lyn)

There are certain things I enjoy doing on the Cape.  Here are the two obvious ones.

Veg on the beach

I always go before everyone else.  I pack up lunch, bring a book, slather on suntan lotion, get in the golf cart and go. I like to arrive by noon.  I enjoy the first two hours alone.  No one is there to look at me and say, “You should put on a hat.”  Or, “You are getting all burnt on your chest.  Cover up.”  Or, “I don’t like where you are sitting.”  Or, “Your knees are red.  You should put a towel over them.”  It’s just me, enjoying the salty air and beautiful vista. 

But after two hours, I’m ready for others to join me.  Usually, it’s my sister or my mother.  Alexander and his cousins don’t like the beach because, “There’s nothing to do there.”  It takes a lot of cajoling to get them to come down, and soon after they arrive, they want to leave.

If my mom doesn’t come down, she always calls and asks, “Who’s at the beach?”  Not that the answer will sway her in any way at all.  She just likes to know.

Dine with my family

Alexander and I usually eat while watching TV.  So it’s a nice change to sit at a table with others. Dinner at my mother’s is never a quick event.  There’s the prep, the setting of the table, and the cleanup.  Each segment is a major production.  My mom likes to get everything ready in the morning so she doesn’t have to think about it again during the day.  And if at five someone observes, “We don’t have tomatoes for the salad,” my mother will take this casual comment as a personal affront and forbid anyone from making the five-minute drive to the grocers.  Or, she might provide a reason for the absence of tomatoes.  "They'll be on sale all next week at Roche Brothers.  I'll get them then."  As for dessert, if someone asks what we are having, the answer could be, "Corn."   My mother is the only person I know who considers corn a dessert.  She cannot be convinced otherwise.  But dinners are always colorful and conversation never wanes.

There are other things I like to do whenever I visit the Cape that are less obvious:

• Drive my mom’s car around.
• Do laundry and not worry about the cost.
• Stop by Maxwell’s and hope for a big discount on Transit Par-Such clothing.
• Visit Mashpee Commons and stop in K. M. Hudson's, the perfect lingerie place.
• Put real life on hold.

Visiting the Cape is relaxing.  Everything here closes earlier, moves slower, and costs less.  I couldn’t live here 12-months a year, but there is no place I’d rather be in summer.