A Meeting place, with good food

I think this house has gone through several incarnations but I love its current life as the Chat House in Dennis, Massachusetts. A thoughtful young couple have turned it into a restaurant and kind of community center.  First came the restaurant idea (I think) -- a smallish menu of unexpected variety, pastries for the coffee and breakfast eaters, and a variety of intersting foods for the lunch and dinner group -- not a sit down and be served place but an order and settle in one of the variety of rooms, or the patio (in good weather) and enjoy.  Lately wine and beer have been added, definitely a plus!

Art shows by local artists -- good ones, often youngish, cover the walls and tend to sell (as the prices are usually reasonable).  Groups are encouraged to come, meet and talk. Many nights there is music  by local artists. They  have a story slam once a month and have instituted a poetry open mike night.  I, and various members of my family, have been going to the story slam and telling our stories. A new group, as of today named Creative Chatters, has met four times (every two weeks).  A very eclectic group of women brought together by a cheerful "communicator" as she defines herself, to come up with something creative inspired by a random word, drawn from a group of words brainstormed a couple of meetings ago. There are painters, writers, teachers, jewelry makers, crafts makers -- eight people today with two absentees. 

Today's prompt was "sky", in the past it has been sunset, maintenance, and yellow, for the next meeting it will be farm. What can will people come up with? There's no telling, being a born and bred farm girl, I'll think of something. The others are not farmers' daughters, I'll be curious what they do. We were mostly strangers to one another two months ago. As women do, we erupt into personal stories every so often, we are becoming friends as we become acquainted. I think this is always true of groups of women and it probably begins way back in grade school.

Women "of a certain age" have an advantage over men in this respect.  Men seem to have learned to bond only over sports, and later career/work or, still, sports watching. But women usually trust other women, rarely are competitive in the physical way men are and rarely have a single interest.  Especially after the age of 55 or 60 we have weathered many similar storms, most of us have been divorced, most have children, most have had one or sometimes many careers. 

We find it wonderful that we can spent two hours sitting in one of the rooms of the Chat House chatting and "showing and telling" having coffee and/or something for lunch depending on the time we arrive. This is better than a coffee shop, it's a living room away from home. Such a good idea. I hope the couple feel their hard work is paying off.  I am happy to have extended my acquaintances to women I would not have met otherwise and I am inspired by the unexpected prompts.

Tranquility

Some people spend large amounts of money looking for uncrowded expanses of beach. L. and I found this beautiful spot yesterday with only a 40 minute drive and one wrong road [that took us to the town dump instead of the beach]. This is Great Island off of Wellfleet, Mass. The two photos below were taken from the same place, the first looking eastward, the second looking westward. Could anything be more serene and tranquil?

The path to get there from the parking lot was fairly long, at least a quarter of a mile, perhaps a little more, and much of it was in deep soft sand, which is extremely hard to walk in, the feeling is like swimming against a rip tide [not that I've ever done that, but that's how I felt]. It is far harder than walking on any other surface I know except for climbing upward in the Himalayas. It's very good for the thighs and butt.

The surface near the shore is reasonably easy walking so we set off and figured we walked about two and a half miles before I pooped out and said it was time to turn back. This was partly the result of having left the granola bars on the kitchen counter so that hunger was a factor. Yesterday, as on other occasions when I've been quite hungry, once I finally sit down to a meal, the food is fantastic. e

Unique Place to Life

Many things about this little arm of land sticking out into the Atlantic like an arm reaching up toward Boston are unique. Right now I'm looking at a feature I've found unique -- the light in the sky in the late afternoon; it has a watery softness.

But that's chocolate in the photo. There's chocolate most places and this may be cornucopia shaped with various chocolate goodies spilling out but even that is not very remarkable. No, what's remarkable is that people like my daughter who has no political involvements and no "social" standing in what is probably the old establishment of the town of Hyannis, can carry to her grandson's graduation luncheon a chocolate centerpiece courtesy of "the Senator". Well, sort of. She did enjoy saying that and in a way it's true. A friend of hers works at the Kennedy compound and occasionally, after various social events, has to dispose of overages such as too many chocolate cornucopias. So, in this case the friend asked Rachel if she could find a use for it. We indulged in the only okay chocolate [standards get higher in such circumstances] and muttered "Our tax dollars at work." Which may not have been fair, it may have been paid for out of Kennedy deep pockets.

When I walked to the post office yesterday morning, this still being pre-vacation time, the only place in the center of town that showed a bustle of people and activity was the small museum to JFK. Ourside is a nice bronze statue that is a bit smaller than life size. I don't understand why it wasn't made life size. It wouldn't have required much more bronze. Certainly he was a bit taller than approximately five foot. tall.]