We all get up in no hurry – no
alarms on vacation – just get up when you get up.. and I’m slower moving, but Patti, Dana and Amy
head over to Dunkin Donuts for us and grab coffee for me and Sandy and
breakfast for all of us. Patti gets a
lemon filled donut – she has a thing for lemon stuff, and she got me a glazed
donut, but is careful to warn me not to get the donuts mixed up, the lemon one
is all hers. Whatever. like I would eat
her lemon donut. I totally wouldn’t –
but it’s fun to make her think that I would.
I’m checking out my Instagram in the
morning, and Alan Cumming is greeting me with a song while he’s standing by a
creek bank. It’s quite hypnotic, if you
don’t follow him on Instagram, I would check it out. From there Amy asks about the name of the
movie that he was in where they adopted a gay teen… I’m thinking…. I know it… and I look it up as the conversation
continues, Amy is telling a story, and I blurt out the answer, “Any Day
Now”! … Patti is like.. RUDE! Oh… that’s the name of the movie. Hehehe.. so now randomly we just say, “Any
day now!” as other people are talking. We
sometimes think that we’re funny when we do silly stuff like that.
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| Hanging out before we leave.. |
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| Goodbye Boston! (Our front door) |
We’ve actually developed a few other
things that we say now – Amy and Sandy are speech pathologists, so they have a
thing with the proper pronunciation and enunciation of words, and they discuss
a few interesting mispronunciations that have stuck with them. Secretary pronounced as Sec-cut-tary. And “obviously” as “OB-bus-ly” – that’s a fun
one… OBbusly!
We’ve been lucky with the weather so
far, these two days have been beautiful – but today it’s raining. The girls braved the rain to go get our
donuts, and we’re happy with our decision to Uber over to the rental car so
we’re not trekking through the rain with our bags. We clean up the apartment, strip the beds
and request our Uber ride – it says that he’s 8 minutes away for like 10
minutes straight, so I’m not sure if it’s a glitch in service or if he’s just
stuck in traffic or something, but we decide to go ahead and wait outside just
in case. Except that, oh yah, it’s
raining… well, we manage, we step back
into the foyer, or if you’re smart like Patti and Amy you packed
umbrellas.
 |
| Waiting for Uber in the rain |
Once again I try to chat up our
driver – it’s going to work one of these days.
I ask him if he likes being an Uber driver, if he knows other Uber
drivers and if they have like an Uber driver support group or something.. then
I have to explain, like not like a “support group” like therapy, but like you
know.. just to exchange tips or something. Sandy just laughs at my efforts –
she’s like, none of these people understand enough English to understand what
you’re talking about. He’s not very responsive at all – but then I notice that
he has the Uber app as gps, but also has a back up GPS, like a Garmen. He understands THAT question and says that
yah, sometimes the service drops for the Uber app so he keep the Garmin as a
back up just in case. Yes! Success, a real conversation for like 30
seconds.
He drops us off at the rental car
place and he does the same thing as the other driver – he doesn’t send the
transaction to my phone. It’s like when you check out of a store and you do all
your stuff on the keypad, but you get that message “waiting on cashier” and
they just have to hit a button so you can approve it? That.
So he gets out to help with the bags and I lean over and hit the end
transaction on his phone.. OBbussly.
When Amy and Sandy get out of the
Uber car, there is a penny on the ground, one each under each of their doors
where they got out. It was so freakily and perfectly placed under
each door, as if it was meant to be under their first step out of the car. Maika is talking to us again and letting us
know she’s watching out.
I had booked the rental car
originally, but I ask Patti if she would drive so that I could get some blog
done. We did so much in our two days in
Boston that it was CRAZY (as you may have read), and then with dial up speed of
the internet service, it would have been so frustrating to try and post
anything. So she’s going to be the
primary driver down to the ferry, and handle the rental car stuff. While she’s doing that, I gather up our 7-day
metro passes (that we used for 2 days) and go looking for people who might use
them. We all thought it was such a waste
to leave those 5 days un-used, so I was really looking for homeless people, but
really, anyone that would use them would be great. Amy grabs someone as they walk past us and
asks if they use the metro and would like a card.. one down. I take the other 4 up the street and see a
guy working at Hertz who seems to be on his smoke break. I ask if he uses the metro and would want a 5
day unlimited pass – he doesn’t use it but someone who works there does and
he’ll give it to them, they’ll really appreciate it. He shakes my hand and thanks me like I gave
him $100 – the power of random acts of kindness – I ask if he knows of where I
can find other people that would use them, and he suggests the Starbucks just
across the street, a lot of people go in there and might be some homeless
people hanging out. I get over there and
I see a younger girl that seems to be homeless, or at least in need, and I ask
her if she uses the metro and would like a 5 day pass – she’s so appreciative,
I’m just glad I found someone who would actually use it, and I ask her if she
has 3 other people who would use them.
She does, and I give her all 4 passes.
By this time Patti is done with the car business and I see that they’ve
moved closer toward me – toward the garage to pick up the car.
Because there are 5 of us, plus bags
– we upgraded the size of the car, and we have a brand new Dodge Charger – like
brand new, it has about 300 miles on it and it has new car smell. Patti drives, I ride shot gun and navigate
and blog a little .. Amy, Dana and Sandy squeeze into the back. We have about a 90 minute ride down to the
ferry, and we actually arranged to pick up the rental car 2 hours earlier than
we had originally planned (because of the 11:00 check out time at the apt) – so
we’re going to be really early to the 3:45 ferry. Just means that we have plenty of time to
stop and eat lunch on the way, and we have some time built in just in case
something happens.
With about 15 minutes left before we
get to the ferry… something happens. Amy
from the back asks us to turn the music down, her voice is urgent, but when I
turn it “down” she says, “off! Off! Turn it off!” – and we know something is
wrong. She’s having Dana count her pulse
– she’s not feeling right… and she’s starting to go into a full panic. Amy has a medical history of heart attack and
stroke – what first happened on what we lovingly call “Stroke Tour” .. we were
on a ya-ya trip to Key West and on day 2 Amy had a heart attack and stroke and
spent the rest of the trip in the Miami hospital, only to meet up with us again
at the airport. That was not the way you
want to spend your vacation. So just
yesterday Amy was joking that she had made it through day 2 of the vacation and
wasn’t in a hospital yet. Never do
that. Because now she’s having sharp
pains and her blood pressure feels high, and just something is wrong. I ask Siri where the nearest hospital is (8
minutes away) and we head in that direction.
As soon as we do, Amy starts rationalizing and reasoning, she feels fine
now, she doesn’t have to go to a hospital, it’s probably just gas. She doesn’t want to “ruin” another vacation
by spending it in the hospital. Patti and I jokingly remind her that it wasn’t
our vacation that was ruined, we had a great time.. SHE was the one in the
hospital. And we are GOING to the
hospital to get it checked out! We have
plenty of time before the ferry and even if we miss the ferry, we’ll figure
something out and we’ll even go tomorow if we have to.
We drop Amy and Sandy off at the
Emergency Room door and we go to park the car.
By the time we get in, Amy is already being seen! That’s fast service. But I think when you present with a history
of stroke and say that you’re worried about your blood pressure, they listen to
you. And it’s a tiny hospital – Falmouth
Hospital. I get a pic of the ER Entrance
– not the first time we’ve had a hospital as part of our vacation.
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| It's always somethin... |
We stop by the bathroom, and when we
come out – she’s being released! They
checked her BP and they were ok with it, a little high, but not enough to keep
her. And with the location of the pains
they think it could be a gall bladder attack.
So don’t eat at restaurants and stay away from greasy food… hard to do
on vacation. Amy tells us that there was
some drama when she came in. She had
just asked for them to check her BP, and they didn’t even ask for her insurance
card to do it. Then she overhears an
office manager type put up a little bit of a fuss about how they were supposed
to get paid for services rendered when the staff doesn’t ask for their
insurance information. The doctor
visibly calms herself before entering the room to talk to Amy – and she tells
her that she should go to the Fire Department to get her BP checked next time,
or any time. They’ll do it for free and
she won’t have to show any insurance.
Learned something new.
I see on the gps map that right
around the corner, and on the way to the ferry is a Seafood Sam’s – and you
know I’m always on the look out for some seafood places. We see as we enter they’ve won a Tripadvisor award
– and that really catches Sandy’s eye because she’s big with Tripadvisor, she
reviews every place she visits and checks reviews before she goes some
place. They have a pretty big menu, and
fairly cheap lobster rolls, so most of us get those. Sandy has to avoid that of course with her
allergy and order the Haddock sandwich… but they give her the salmon
instead. It’s like a huge portion of
salmon and it’s really well cooked, and also more expensive than the haddock,
so she doesn’t mind so much that they got her order wrong. I get the oysters.. but didn’t realize they
were fried. I’ll eat a fried one –
they’re still good, but not exactly what I was expecting, and I get the lobster
roll and try the “stuffed quohog” .. now I’m expecting this thing to BE
stuffed. Like a stuffed chicken breast
or a stuffed filet.. but it comes out
and it IS stuffing – it’s like bad, dry bread stuffing that I guess has some
quohog in there. Amy, having JUST come
from the hospital is trying to eat a little better and she has the steamed
veggies with her meal… she’s not happy about this. They have buzzers shaped like lobster that light up and vibrate when your food is ready... Dana gets a little giddy when hers lights up - she gets this pic..
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| Dana waited for it to light up.... |
We are just about 10 minutes away
from the ferry – our reservations are for 3:45 – and it’s now like 1:30. We’re way early, but we head down anyway to
see if we can get on an earlier ferry.
The direct us to a row that is the “just in case we have room” row – and
we wait. The next ferry is at 2:45, so
we hang out in the waiting area with the other people lining up for the
ferry. Some people head in to shop or
use the restroom, but we decide to stick with the car just in case. Meanwhile, lots of people watching, and we
have some NASTY kids with attitudes right behind us. Kids that are just screaming at each other,
kind of like the “she’s touching me” game, but very loud and 10 times worse
because the entire parking area can hear it and there is no parental
intervention. In stark contrast there
is another family of very well behaved children in the car next to them, and
even they seem to be thinking, man chill out!
The line starts moving to load up
the people have tickets for the 2:45 ferry, and we have hope.. our line is also
moving – but the car right in front of us has no driver, they’ve gone
shopping! So we have to sit for bit,
until the line next to us has gone down enough for us to be able to get over
and around that car. And we DO get on,
we’re the second to the last car on – and we’re excited that we won’t have to
wait. But the last car to get on was the
one with the ill behaved children. And
right in front of us, the well behaved children. A study in contrasts. I love a ferry ride, and we get out and
wander around – Amy is always making new friends, and she befriends the family
with the well behaved children and compliments them on their maturity. We dock by 3:30 and head to the house!
The house that we stay at is Amy’s
cousin’s house – Amy comes to the island frequently and has all her life. On occasion we’re lucky enough to get a week
there with her and her cousin gives us a MUCH reduced price for the week. We come in and start getting settled, and
it’s becoming obvious that the house hasn’t been cleaned by the cleaning
service yet. The house gets rented out
on a weekly basis to renters and Amy’s cousin lives in Jersey, so she hires a
cleaning service to get the house ready for the nxt set of renters every
week. But the sofa bed is still pulled
out, the beds upstairs don’t have clean linens – the kitchen and the
refrigerator are dirty.. Amy calls her
cousin and learns that she’s already paid the service, and the house has been
empty for a week, so they’ve had plenty of time to get in there and get it
ready. Both Amy and her cousin are very upset, and the cleaning service gets an
earful, I’m sure. We’re told that
they’ll be there in 15 minutes.. and after 20 they still aren’t there. Amy wanted to wait for them to come to be
sure they heard how upset she was that they’ve had a week to clean and haven’t
been to the house yet. It makes everyone
wonder what kind of job they’ve been doing to this point. What if we were regular renters, how would
this reflect on the landlord?
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| The front of the house - more house pics to come... |
They still haven’t come, despite assurances that they’ll be right there - we go ahead and leave and give them time to clean. We suspect that they’re giving us plenty of time to get out before they come over so they can avoid us. We were going to head to the grocery store once we got in, but we want to be gone for at least a couple of hours to give them a chance to clean, so we go shopping at the local Vineyard Haven shops instead. Main street is just a couple of blocks away - it’s a Sunday, so not all of them are open – but we still find plenty to look at.
We head into The Green Room – a
place that has shoes and surf equipment and other types of apparel and
equipment. Last time we were here we all
bought shoes there. We always seem to
buy something together on these trips.
Martha’s Vineyard was shoes and ankle bracelets, Key West was toe
rings.. Amy find some shoes she likes
right away (and gets them), Patti plays with the hats, Dana is looking at a
lime green leather bag that I feel will be leaving with her before the week is
out, and I find a water bottle. It’s not
just any water bottle – it’s metal and insulated like their metal water bottles
(Patti, Dana and Amy all have matching metal water bottles that have the straws
in them – they keep the water so insulated that the ice they put in at the
beginning of the day is still ice at the end of the day); but I prefer a wide
mouth because I like to drink my water, not suck it through a straw, and this
is also my favorite color, tangerine – plus it’s a 32 oz bottle, I like the
larger bottles because I drink a lot of water.
So it’s love, and I must have it. I now understand that love between a girl and her water bottle.
We head into this store across the
street with tons of cute stuff to look at, we all split up and look at
different things, and I run into Amy in a little nook of the store and she’s
beside herself. She’s found containers
that have Maika’s name on them – the designer is “Maika” – then we realize that
there are purses and handbags with that designer too! She’s excited about being able to have a bag
that she can have with her with a Maika label on it. The hardest decision is
about which bag to get.. and how many.
While we’re looking, “Amy” comes on the sound system..(“Amy what you
gonna do… “) and then Amy looks up and sees a plaque that says, “You are my
Sunshine”, a song that she sang to Maika all the time growing up.. it’s a
definite chills moment we’re having. The sales lady comes over to assist and
Amy asks her how they pronounce the name of the designer… “My-kah”.. just like
Maika’s name. It’s just so rare to find
anyone that spells it like that or uses that pronunciation with this
spelling. Amy ends up with a yellow coin
purse and a large tote sized bag – but I have a feeling we may be back for
more. You can check them out at http://www.maikagoods.com
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| Decisions, decisions... |
We’re getting hungry, and we decide
to walk down to the Net Result – it’s a fresh fish market that also cooks it
for you. Nothing fancy, you order it
from the fish counter and then eat it outside on picnic benches, it’s perfect
and the no frills means that it’s much cheaper.
The special of the day is $10 lobster ($13 if you want it cooked with
butter) – everything we found in Boston was at least $25 for the same sized
lobster. Peel and eat shrimp are only $6
for a whole mess of shrimp, and the oysters are just $1.75 each (market price
in Boston was $16 for 6) – so we’re going to town on this stuff! Sandy, of course still has her allergy, and
she order the swordfish – which is the only thing that wasn’t great. It was overcooked and dry, and we got there
about 6:55, when they close at 7 – so returning it for something else wasn’t an
option, but they were pretty rude about how they dealt with it unfortunately.
 |
| Oysters to go... |
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| Permission to wear bibs?? yes please. |
We finally walk back up to the house
and it’s much better – you can smell the clean (and I suspect that was
intentional). BUT, we eventually
discover the power is off in half of the house!
(It actually took us a little too long to figure out that’s why the
lights in the kitchen weren’t working… after we flipped every switch we could
find multiple times). We figure we must
have thrown a breaker, or that the cleaning service did with their vacuums or
something – Amy calls her cousin. Amy
and Sandy head down to the basement and try to throw all of the breakers, one
by one – but nothing works. Amy calls
her cousin back and then decides to call Al – I think he’s also a cousin, and
he’s really familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the house.
While Amy is dealing with that, we
decide to take the car down to the grocery store that is open until 11. It’s smaller than the one we usually go to,
but that one closes at 7 and we’ve missed that boat. We just want to get a few things for
breakfast, some essentials to tide us over until we can get to the other
store. It turns out that it’s a cute
little store with tons of organic stuff at a good prices – Sandy is reading
labels and getting things that Amy can eat, low sodium, low fat, low flavor…
but we’re glad that Sandy knows enough about what she can and can’t eat to help
us all.
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| This tiny store even has brown tomatoes |
When we get back Amy has the house
lights on! Turns out that she flipped
each breaker 3 times – up and down the basement stairs to see if it was on, and
then finally he told her to “wiggle” some things, and it worked. That doesn’t give me faith in this electrical
system. But for now we have electricity.
The internet is a little slow – looks like we’re just going to be stuck
with bad service for the week.
We have another Maika moment – Dana goes
up to look for something in Amy’s room and she sees a penny on the
dresser. She asks Sandy if she put that
there… nope. So they send Amy up to look
at what is on the dresser, and she freaks – not just because there is a penny
there, but because it wasn’t there earlier.
Amy has already been in the room after the cleaning service came to
check on the linens, etc – and there was no penny there. Now? Shiny new penny sitting there waiting
for her. Pennies from heaven.
I brought our Netflix movies with us
in case we wanted to watch something – three movies, all with one word
titles: Wild, Pride, and Selma. We watch “Pride” and it actually takes a few
times to start it because the power KEEPS going out and they don’t have the
breakers labeled well, so they have to flip each one of them every time to find
the one that is out. Half the house is
on this one breaker, so if you do anything at all, it can trigger it – but the
tv and dvd player aren’t on that breaker.
So that makes it even more frustrating that we have to power that off
and restart everything (the TV even has to go through the channel search
process) each time the other half of the house loses power. The movie gets done about midnight - most of
them get to bed about 12 – I’m a bit of a night owl as usual. I play
with the internet and finally get it going – we have full service (!) – and work
on getting the blog from day 1 loaded up.
The next week on the island will be
a lot of the same… this is what we do here, shop, eat, sit on a beach, sit at
the house.. so I plan to combine the
next 3 days into one blog and get us all caught up!
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