Author: joannemann

Edwin’s favorite cafe in Georgetown – and maybe anywhere – is Yellow. I have walked by several times and passed it up because there has always been a line out the door, and I hate waiting in lines.

He was looking for someone to go to Georgetown with him this morning to get coffee and check out the flea market. I decided to join him and was a little skeptical when he suggested Yellow. A line stretched down the block, but he assured me it would move fast.

I willed myself not to tap my foot and check my watch during the 15-minute wait in the hot sun. When we finally squeezed inside, the line had grown even longer outside.

Ten minutes later, I had a damask rose milk tea with cardamom and soft serve labneh. Edwin had a coconut cardamom iced coffee and a Palestinian bagel.

I would SO go back and stand in line again.

What’s a more masculine way to explain the way Edwin is when he has his mind set on something? Dog with a bone? That’s not very flattering. I’ll have to think on it.

Edwin has been hell bent on furnishing his Richmond apartment. The lease started June 1st, and Chris and I were down there with him on June 19th moving in a TV stand and dresser he found on Facebook Marketplace, paintings and knickknacks from my mom, our old TV, and some household items we got from IKEA on the way down. He’s been coordinating with his two roommates, and it’s been a joint effort, but I have a feeling he is pursuing the effort a little more aggressively than them.

He’s been negotiating prices with people online for additional pieces and just came home with four dining room chairs he found on the curb while he was out getting ice cream with a friend. I’m not sure how he fit those four chairs in his little Beetle. Where there’s a will or a bee or a bone, I guess there’s a way.

Maxine will mark another birthday on Chincoteague Island. We’ll drive home tomorrow, leaving my sister with a few hours of quiet before her husband’s side of the family arrives for their week with them.

Her actual birthday is tomorrow, so we’ll celebrate this evening with a triple berry pie from Church Street Produce and ice cream from Island Creamery. She has left behind past birthday amusements here like bumper boats and the rock wall in favor of a good pie and a new t-shirt.

She’s arranged to have a handful of friends over tomorrow night at home, so we’ll order pizza and make ourselves relatively scarce so as not to disturb the teens. She’s clamoring for my strawberry rhubarb pie, but I think it may be too late to find rhubarb. She may have to settle for a peach pie (I know I can get some ripe peaches on the way home).

Goodbye for now, Chincoteague. We’ll see you again when Maxine turns 18.

My sister found a giant karaoke speaker and microphone in the closet here at the vacation rental house last year, so she came prepared with a karaoke sing-along version of the movie, Mama Mia!. The microphone was nowhere to be found this year, so she ordered one off Amazon, and it arrived yesterday afternoon.

After dinner, we settled in for a musical evening. We all had our favorites and did a good job taking turns. There were a few songs that nobody could resist so we had to pass the mic around.

Maxine and I know the words to the entire movie, so we pretty much did a talk-along as well as a song-along. Maybe it was a little annoying; it’s a good thing family is stuck with you no matter what.

Chris and I rode bikes to the beach this morning for a couple quiet hours at the bike/hike beach. I love this beach because it never gets too crowded; most people drive to the main beach about a half mile south.

The wind had died down, which was a blessing, because when the wind is blowing from the west, as it was yesterday, the flies are blown to the beach from the marshes and are a terrible nuisance. Not today. The sun glinted off the gentle waves, and a stray fly appeared here and there. The water was refreshing after a warm five-mile bike ride but cold enough to force me out after a quick dip.

As I settled into my chair and my eyes adjusted, I started seeing sand crabs everywhere, some a centimeter long and others as long as three inches. They were scuttling about, looking for food, I suppose. Eventually, they all got to work digging out sand from their holes. If something spooked them, like me or a gull, they would either disappear back into their holes or get halfway in, ready to dive if necessary.

As I peered carefully around the area, I noticed many pairs of stalks with eyes atop. Chris tossed a piece of dried sea grass in the middle of them, and four of them ran for it. The boldest picked it up and quickly abandoned it. I took up the game and liked to think we were forming a connection, the crabs and I. I delighted in the stalks peering from the holes, waiting for me to toss the next piece of shell or dried grass.

Our game was interrupted when a family walked by. The eyes quickly descended underground. It was fun while it lasted.

Chincoteague Island is such a comfort to me. With time rushing by at warp speed, I immediately feel it slow down when we approach the marshes just past Wallops. Per tradition, we stop the music and roll down all the windows as soon as we hit this final approach to the island. Billboards advertise mini golf, Mr. Whippy’s, Island Creamery, Cap’n Zach’s, Pony Tails, and numerous other business, some that have been around since I was a kid, others much newer.

After stopping at Pico Taqueria, one of the best additions to Chincoteague in the last 10 years, we drove the final mile to “the brown house.” We started renting this aging gem on Little Oyster Bay about 10 years ago. We used to cram in our family, my sister’s family of four, my niece and her husband, and my parents. Now it’s just my sister and me and our families.

Since we arrived yesterday, I’ve boogie boarded, speed walked three miles, won at poker, and rode my bike to the beach and back. Right now I’m streaming fresh clams from the seafood shack a quarter mile down the road.

It’s good to be back.

Nothing says summer like a stand up paddle board. Chris strapped our boards to the top of the truck this morning, and we drove down to Lake Ridge Marina for a paddle on the Occoquan Reservoir. Ah, the beauty of being a teacher on a summer weekday; I think I saw more great blue herons than people.

The water was sparkling, the sky was blue with wispy clouds, and a gentle breeze blew across the water. After paddling past the point with the big brick house I like to gawk at, we sat on our boards for a snack of oranges, salt and vinegar potato chips, and the last of the cookies I made last week.

I am so thankful for sun, water, my paddle board, and, of course, Chris, who does the heavy lifting when we take the truck.

I know you can’t stop time – obviously – but is it possible to slow it just a bit? How can it be that Maxine is old enough to drive herself and her friend to camp? She left yesterday morning for the 1:45 hour drive to Madison County. She’s there for a three-day counselor training and will return for the full three weeks later this summer. I knew cell service would drop as she neared the camp, so I made sure she downloaded the map before she left. I didn’t plan to follow her little face as it moved west on 66, but… (the photo of her is from when she was about six, which probably doesn’t help put me at ease). Once I saw her baby face move onto Route 29, I was a little more comfortable.

I went on a bike ride with a friend while she was still on the road. We decided to ride to Baked and Wired in Georgetown. When we stopped for a water break at Teddy Roosevelt Island, I couldn’t help but text Maxine’s friend, “Please remind Maxine not to speed on Route 29; cops like to hang out along it.” I didn’t want them to think I was worried so I took the approach of sounding practical: what a hassle a speeding ticket would be, right?

My friend and I joked about how much eye-rolling was happening in the car, but then I got a text back from her friend: “She asked how much over she can go. Drive is going good!” Okay, so I guess my message was fairly well-received. I responded, “I would say no more than 5 to be safe. Glad it’s going well!” which was met with a heart.

Not long after, Maxine called from the camp office to tell us she had arrived safely.

Next on the day’s agenda was a quick visit to Richmond to help Edwin move a bunch of stuff into the apartment in Richmond. For this trip, I didn’t have to peek at Edwin’s eight-year-old face moving down I-95 on his own, since we were driving him.

I suppose I should update their photos, but it seems I just selected them a couple years ago. Can someone please slow this train?

One of the best things about summer when you’re a teacher is being able to spend more time on things that get short shrift during the school year. For example, the garden. It had become a full-on jungle over the past month. Rogue vines had grown up the honeysuckle and chokeberry (more like choked berry – hah), grass had sprung up between the patio rocks, and other plants had well overstepped their boundaries.

After my rowing and strength workouts (educating myself on menopause has lit a fire to battle a possible onset of osteoporosis in the next ten years or so – more on that another time), I stepped out into the backyard after dousing myself in mosquito repellant. After watering every inch of the garden, pulling Creeping Jenny out of the pond (she crept right on over the rocks and and into the water), sweeping up dead leaves and branches, and filling the green compost can to overflowing, I stepped back and breathed a sigh of relief. My beautiful garden: you were there the whole time. You just needed a little love and sweat.

After a weekend of festivities, I attacked my “to do” list with gusto. I woke up early, read the news while drinking my coveted two mugs of coffee, and made a smoothie. In a still-silent house, I hit the rowing machine for my 30-minute workout with my favorite Apple Fitness trainer, Anja. She guided us through 18 imagination-fueled all-out pushes involving escaping piranha, crocodiles, and strong currents. When I emerged from the basement, the house was still quiet. Chris is in Asheville visiting his parents, and the young adults were still asleep.

I went outside to empty the pond skimmer basket and tilted my face toward the sun. A warm, balmy breeze blew across my skin as a I daydreamed of lounging on a beach. Focus. I had a list. It was off to DMV to transfer the VW Beetle into my name from my dad’s, the car my mom insisted on giving to Edwin. It bugs him a tiny bit that it had to go to me in name, but we all know it’s really his. I came very prepared; I had the title filled out correctly, as well as the title transfer application. Both clerks I interacted with remarked that I really knew what I was doing. I couldn’t help but feel pleased with myself.

Still on the list: retrieve daughter and take her shopping for all the stuff she needs for summer camp, find shoes to wear to a wedding, and go grocery shopping.

This first official day of summer break was very productive, but not very summery. In good time.