There is too much to say for so calm an hour. I hear murmurs from other houses, and, from behind me, one of Brahms’sstring quartets — also a murmur. The surf pounds out its dull, arrhythmic roar. The occasional light plane — the occasional helicopter in the evening — and, every once in a great while, an airliner coming in from Europe. It is so quiet that the sunlight on the pines seems to hum.

I’d have to be Oblomov himself to claim that I have a busy day ahead of me. But that I have anything at all to do seems a bit taxatious. What it comes down to is devising a supper that will be more or less ready to eat when we all get back from the ferry. I wouldn’t miss greeting the family for the world; plus, I have a stroller for Will. The stroller proved itself to be fairly useless on the sandy stretch between Ocean Beach and Robbins Rest; carrying a bag containing little more than a feather pillow, it bogged down several times and finally had to be carried. But for the much longer walk from the edge of Ocean Beach to the ferry, it will come in handy, especially as Will will have had a very long day by the time he sets foot on Fire Island for the first time. (It will also be a first time for everyone else in the party except for Megan and Kathleen.)

Meeting the ferry means that I won’t be cooking while everyone else is approaching the house. I’ll have to have gotten most things to an advanced point, and experienced cooks will know that there are few problems as intractable as bringing a menu close to the point of completion in such a way that, an hour or so later, five minutes of last-minute stirrings and whatever kitchen voodoo is working that day are all that it takes to produce a delicious, fresh-tasting meal. The dishes that work best under such constraints — stews, for the most part — are not what one wants to be eating in August.

Although it is deliciously cool and breezy right now. I ought to go the store and do my shopping now, but I’d much rather read The Power Broker. Let me sound really dumb and say, “It’s really good!” Duh. It was really good thirty-odd years ago, when Kathleen started out in municipal bonds at Hawkins, and it was more or less assumed that everyone read Robert Caro’s study of the grand vizier of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, for which the firm wrote bond indentures. (She has yet to read it.) I’m finding it the perfect beach book, as endless as the long, monotonous days but every bit as sparkly with glittering detail.

And there’s my new phone to play with. I’ve been putting off upgrading to a smartphone for ages. I hated my last phone, which was only semi-smart; I never liked the way it worked and in fact I thought that it didn’t work. (A lot of the “not working” was AT & T’s fault, not the phone’s.) When, on Tuesday morning, the old phone’s screen flickered and went dark, it never occurred to me that a simple reboot would restore it; for one thing, I had no idea where the battery was. I was embarrassed when the salesman at the phone store told me that he’d got it working, and was therefore able to transfer all my contacts to the new Inspire phone that I had by that time purchased. Well, as I say, I’d been putting it off. Learning how to use a new phone is another activity that’s perfectly suited to oceanside living. Already I’ve sent the phone askew several times, by accidently pressing buttons or flipping switches (or whatever), and setting things to rights has required crash courses in the utter basics. 

But — how sweet it is — I have nothing better to do.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Friday, August 5th, 2011 at 8:48 am.