A Saturday Blog Post

There’s no Saturday Surfing this week, because I haven’t done any surfing this week — coincidentally, that’s why there haven’t been any real blog posts since last Monday.  Between us being down to just one computer at the moment (I swear it wasn’t me; just because it stopped functioning while I was using it doesn’t mean it’s my fault!), me crashing out early two nights this week (like at 8:00 when I put Nora to bed), and the fact that I’m finishing up a website (which gets all my attention when I am on the computer), there hasn’t been much time for email, Facebook, online reading, or even my poor, neglected blog.  Sorry!  You know what else is getting dusty on my to-do list?  A guest post for another blog about work-at-home mom balance.  Ha ha.

I know I owe a post on canning tomatoes; I hope to get to it while there are still tomatoes on the vines.  But first, I wanted to share the other reason why last weekend was so lovely.  Aside from little Miss Nora’s tea party, we also had a visit last weekend from some very special friends.I wrote once before about my friend Margarete, whom we love dearly and who is one of the most amazing women I’ve ever met.  We love her so much that we named Nora after her (Margarete is Nora’s middle name), and we also have a very special place in our hearts for Marc, Margarete’s husband.  In the short three years that we lived in New York, they became our family.

Though we’ve skyped and emailed, schedules didn’t work out for Marc and Mararete to come visit until last weekend, so it has been more than a year since we last saw them.  I was super excited about their visit, but I expected Nora to take awhile to warm up as she usually does.Amazingly, that was not the case.  It was as if she knew that she and “Auntie” Margarete had a special connection.  Within an hour or two of seeing her, Nora was running around the playground with Margarete and talking up a storm.She wanted Auntie Margarete to help her climb, not Mama.  She held Auntie Margarete’s hand as we walked down the street, and she just chatted away with her, pointing things out, telling her to “Come on and see the lighthouse” and making sure (over and over) that  “You can’t eat that, Auntie Margarete” about the beach roses.  It was adorable.I swear, if they had wanted to hop on a boat back to New York right at that moment, she would have happily waved goodbye.  That never happens with my little s-h-y girl, but it did last weekend and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

We did, of course, our regular sorts of visitor things.  Lots of walking through town.Visiting Brant Point for a quick and easy lighthouse sighting.(And some fun in the sand.)

Dinner at the Brotherhood with special send outs from Chris.(Yes, it does pay to be the Chef’s wife.)

Sunday, after Nora’s party (which amazing Margarete helped to clean up), we took them out to Cisco for the perfect September afternoon.Nothing beats sunshine, a patio, live music, and beer.  It took me back to college happy hour Fridays with Chris’ fraternity

…except for one significant difference:a munchkin.

We all had fun.  Nora enjoyed a Klean Kanteen full to the brim of orange juice, a real treat since we stopped buying juice months ago.  Marc and Margarete might have softened a little bit to the idea of living here…I wish.  Unfortunately, there’s no way they’ll leave New York, but I can still hope!

And hey, we have beaches…maybe they’ll want to exchange their Florida house for a much colder and windier one on Nantucket.By the way, how cute is this?  They are just so much fun — on top of being incredibly generous and kind and a million other wonderful things I could go on and on about.  Seeing them was such a great reminder of why we love them.  It was also wonderful just to get to talk life over with them: parenting, marriage, career, family.  In so many ways, we view Marc and Margarete as role models.  If our marriage can be half as great as their marriage, if we can be half as amazing parents as they are, I would be happy.The last thing we did (before passing out early for the evening) was drive out to Sankaty Head.I love this lighthouse near sunset.  I didn’t want the day or the weekend to end.  As much as I love Nantucket, there are some things and some people that I miss incredibly from the Hudson Valley.  Marc and Margarete are two of those people.

When Chris and I talk about our future, we imagine it will be here, raising children and maybe growing old on our own little island safe(r) from the corporate craziness that is America.  Other times, we talk about owning a restaurant; moving somewhere where it’s realistic to source all food within a 100 mile radius and where the cost of business and living isn’t astronomical.  Then, I think about New York and what we left behind.  I think about Marc and Margarete, and our other friends that we love dearly.  I wish I could just transport them here whenever I wanted.  Or better yet, start my own little commune and move them all right in.  Short of that we have to settle for short and sweet visits, and promises to return in the form of pennies tossed from the ferry on the way out of the harbor.Which somehow seems incredibly appropriate.