Traveling to Ptown

Sat. July 21st, after a long and very peaceful plane trip, we arrived in Boston with dogs in cases, took the airport shuttle to the airport pier and took a water taxi to the ferry. As we discovered on our last visit to Ptown, Dylan loves boats! Marley watched and learned.

We had hours to wait until it was time for the ferry, so we walked around Boston, dogs did so well on crowded streets like Faneuil Hall, and on quiet ones downtown like Oliver Street.

Back at the ferry, got a good spot on line as people anxiously awaited the beginnings of vacations. Dylan was a social guy on line, so when the ramp was put out, no one minded when he pulled to be first to step on board! Bye, Boston.

And hello Provincetown, so glad to be back.

Peace in Provincetown

After a long day's journey to the tip of the Cape (car, plane, bus, water taxi, ferry) during which our perfect little poos uttered nary a complaint (aren't drugs grand) even during the two hours we wandered downtown Boston between taxi and ferry, we arrived at the place we have fallen in love with again and again. This time we are staying on the quaint and quiet west end of town, a few blocks from the main drag, in an amazingly dog friendly compound of cottages, houses, apartments, called Four Gables. Our cottage is Daisy Mae, an homage I chose to the big dog left behind.




It has a front porch looking out on a small shaded yard with a
pond where dogs can congregate; our dogs also visit
our neighbors on their porches. The porch is also
a great place to read and Mark's been making his way through
Harry Potter while I have been continuing my study of 16th century English history after the first season of The Tudors by reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. Our place is also well equipped with a flat screen hdtv and a nice stereo system we have used for our yoga and meditation dvd/cds.

The cottage also has a private little side patio where we can have some breakfast or whatever and there is all kinds of interesting artsy stuff scattered throughout the property and in our cottage. It's the best place we have found to stay here in Ptown and I can definitely see coming back to this one. The guys next door are here for the summer and when we are retired I'd like to do the same, a month at least. Everyone has dogs and everyone is friendly (even though we are the only "mixed sex couple" here). We even stopped in to a wedding party for a couple of guys who had recently gotten married.



It's just a short walk into town for a cup of Joe, though we have
stocked our tiny kitchen with stuff for breakfast and snacks.
Dogs are welcome almost everywhere in town and ours get lots of
attention; they are incredibly cute after all. There is good shopping (Marc by Marc Jacobs has opened since our last visit!) and lots of galleries to oogle art. And is this the only place in
the country that has no sign of HP7 in the bookstores or the
library? (At least Mark is not the only one; one of the guys next
door is reading it too.)




Today is Val's birthday and so we will go over to their place this afternoon to hang out on the beach near them, have a birthday party, and, well, relax some more. Tonight we are going to the theater to see a short and little performed Tennessee Williams play that he wrote here in Ptown about Ptown, Parade. Then to a nice dinner at one of the many fabulous restaurants here.
That's what Ptown is all about, beach, reading, relaxing, shopping, eating. That's what I call a good vacation.

Even librarians are cool in NYC!

The new generation of librarians are socially active and know how to find each other. They are Hipper Shushers.

What I did Memorial Day Weekend

Read The New York Times where I keep finding more and more feature articles on Web 2.0. Friday, May 25th, for example, Facebook Goes Off Campus and Sunday, May 27th, The Many Tribes of YouTube.

Went to The Subdudes concert (tickets were a thank you gift from the last WMNF fundraiser) at the State Theater in St. Pete, great band, lousy acoustics. The vintage furniture dealers on Central Avenue stayed open late due to the unusually old age of the crowd at the State Theater and yes, we managed to find some comfy rattan chairs that once lived in the Polynesian resort at Disneyworld while we waited on line; now they live by our pool.

Read Black & White by Dani Shapiro, unique characters and thought provoking story about complex family relationships.

Watched Volver; don't get what all the great reviews were about.

Bought new Jimmy Lafave album, Cimarron Manifesto. There's a wonderful new song, This Land, that brings tears to my eyes every time I listen, and I can't stop listening.

Bought new Lucy Kaplansky album, Over the Hills, typical good Lucy, I like the covers better than the original songs this time around. You can listen to her somewhat lusty cover of the June Carter song Johnny Cash made famous, Ring of Fire.

Bought The Invention of Hugo Cabret because I want to read a graphic novel and this seems like one I might actually be able to make it through; love Brian Selznick's illustrations.

Watched A Good Year, light and enjoyable, nothing special, but Russell Crowe is very good to look at.
Read the new Jonathan Kellerman, Obsession, a good, quick, poolside read.

Finished up the long weekend with a great grilled veggies dinner and one final movie, An Unfinished Life, a good, if predictable, story and Morgan Freeman stands out as always.

Three days off is just so much better than two....

Typical lazy Sunday

This is absolutely my favorite thing about living in Florida. A gorgeous sunny clear day, perfect for eating a relaxing breakfast, reading a couple newspapers by the pool (one takes an hour, the other takes the rest of the day), migrating out to the yard after a while with the magazine section or a book, Mark coming home from the farm with enough food for our dinners this week, the last pickup of the season. Then, we are on our own veggie-wise until late fall.

Just came across an interesting local show, Flashpoint, with Brendan McLaughlin. There was an intelligent interview with people involved with the making of a Norwegian documentary on the trial of Sami al Arian and a thoughtful political commentary. I'm happy to have found this show (and hope I remember it exists by next week), and welcome the unusually progressive attitude for a public figure in Tampa. It's not totally surprising since Brendan McLaughlin sometimes can be heard hosting a music program on WMNF, my other favorite thing about living in Tampa.