Coping with the awfulness of it all

These hollyhocks remind me of being a very little girl with very few toys I plucked the hollyhocks at the edge of the garden, somehow wrapped them around a clothes pin and pretended I had a doll dressed in a beautiful full skirt for a ball like Cinderella's. I must have been four, perhaps five. I've been interested in fashion ever since though I can't say I've ever been much of a fashion plate. That's today's memory anyway.

In this depressing summer when most morning begin very gray and the day may or may not become sunny, but always gets humid, I am sometimes content to sit with my laptop literally on my lap and write [quite a lot of things]. But Rachel has broken the monotony with outings that introduce me to my new home area. We went one day to Mashpee Commons, a moderately chi-chi kind of shopping area which seems to be a village of Cape Cod Cottages. We had a very satisfying lunch of clam chowder and lobster roll and did what so many women do -- shopped, mostly looked although I bought a couple of pairs of shorts at bargain prices.

Today we went to a pick-it-yourself farm but found it did not operate the way we assumed but was more of a cooperative with membership. Ah, well... we then stopped at one of the Cape's many kettle ponds. This one, called Eagle Pond, like another we visit much more often, was set in a wooded area and had a pine needle strewn path all the way around it among the trees. At a couple of places were minute beaches where a few people were swimming. At one a rope was attached to a tree where kids could swing out and drop ito the water. From across the late we watched a few enjoying it. When we reached that side the people we had seen were gone but we soon met a young mom with a couple of boys who wanted to know where the rope swing was and ran eagerly down the trail when R. told them it was near by. True summer fun for the kids. We enjoyed the walk which was mostly quiet nd peaceful, but quite humid. Still a peaceful way to enjoy a day that has been all too typical this summer.