Martha and Jessica’s house

Brookline, MA  USA

Hi All,

   We arrived at Martha and Jessica’s yesterday.  Martha (and I helped!) made a really good noodle and veggie dinner.  It required about all of her pots and bowls, but what the heck.  Tonight we’re having left overs from the Lebanese lunch at Al Waddi and takeout from a Mexican place.  Interesting combination  but everyone will be happy.  Then we’ll watch the Presidential Debate and hope everyone will be happy.  Jessica, who is in the 7^th grade,  has to watch it for Social Studies extra credit.  And today I bought a new camera; a Nikon Coolpix 510.  It’s still in the box until I get the oomph to get it out and actually use it.  But it’s pretty straight forward and the camera shop guy was really helpful.  Amazingly it was less money here than in Best Buy in Roanoke.  Randal is excited that it gives the GPS with each photo but the camera guy says that uses lots of battery so we’ll just use it occasionally. 

So that’s it.

Ru

We’ve had a wonderful visit with our friend Julia here on Cape Cod.  We cooked wonderful food, met up with Roanoke pal Kathy and met new Cape Cod folks MJ and Vinney.  We walked on the beach, visited some craft venues, ate more good food. 

The best food is what you eat at someone’s house!

I’ve said that for years and it still holds true.  Great grilled salmon/trout* and roasted veggie leftovers sitting on the top shelf and grilled chicken leftovers on bottom shelf.  Our cheapo boxed wine there too. 

*It looked like salmon and tasted like salmon but the fish guy at the Star Market said it was farm raised trout.  Stah and Fahm is how they say it here in Massachusetts.

Cultural Center of Cape Cod is housed in a former bank. 

We went to see the Cape Cod Potters “seconds sale.”  Randal and this other fellow were way more interested in the vault doors.   We also visited the Shearts 4th Annual Fall for the Arts where I bought a few lovely pot holders and Julia treated me to a lovely, soft neck warmer made from recycled water bottles!  http://thesheartnetwork.org/

Even though the Red Sox have been truly terrible these past few years…….

We did see a car with a decal of a small boy peeing on a B

This car was parked at Jack’s Outback II where we went for lunch…..again so that makes us regulars!

Then it was off to Sandy Neck Beach to walk off lunch and to collect rocks. http://www.town.barnstable.ma.us/sandyneckpark/default.aspx

“Pandal” and Julia

Julia’s landlady in Virginia, who was a bit deaf, would call out to Julia, “Pandal’s on the phone.”

Randal and me….

I’m slightly tilting just to be cozy and not because the left side pocket of my backpack is filled with lots of small white rocks.  Randal’s sister had a jar of them and I liked the way it looked so I decided to collect some which gets addictive so you keep collecting.

Of course after our walk on the beach we were hungry so if was off to Momo’s for coffee and a snack.

http://www.momosfoodemporium.com/

One piece of pecan pie split three ways was just enough.   There were lots of tempting things but we were good and only had one piece of pie.

MJ, Vinney and Julia

MJ and Vinney are Julia’s pals and they came to dinner Saturday night at Julia’s when we had the salmon/trout and roasted veggies. 

Sunday lunch in Chatham.

We drove to Chatham and had lunch and then walked to the Yellow Umbrella book store. http://yellowumbrellabooks.net/     While Randal was waiting for Julia and me in the fancy schmancy clothes store (just looking) he started chatting with a man waiting for his wife.  Turns out the couple was on vacation from Dubuque, Iowa and had done Ragbrai.  The husband had been involved in the development of the John Deere marine engine which we have in DoraMac.  Small world!

Halloween is big in New England…..lots of pumpkin people.

So that was fun and then it was time to return to Julia’s to go for a walk (me) swim (Julia) nap (Randal)  and then get ready to meet up with our friend Kathy for dinner at the Kettle Ho.

Kathy at the Cotuit Public Library

This is our other Roanoke friend Kathy whom we met Sunday night for dinner at the Kettle Ho in Cotuit.  Kathy and Julia were both bike buddies but at different times.  Now they are Cape Cod friends.  We’d all had dinner at the Kettle Ho last year so had a Kettle Ho reunion this year.  (But I was too busy chatting and eating so forgot to take a photo so this is one from our visit last year.)

   Our friend Julia is a physical therapist by training.  Every time we come to visit Randal leaves with more suggestions as to how he can “help his back, strengthen his core, work on eliminating the pain in his heel….etc.”  All great advice but you know what often happens with great advice…..not always so much.

Randal is supposed to roll the golf ball with his foot. 

Monday morning Julia went off to work and Randal and I packed up the car and headed off to Martha’s in Brookline.  We stopped off for lunch in Fairhaven and a quick walk to Fort Phoenix. 

But that will have to wait for another email.