My Summer Vacation, Part 2

Day 3:

Since Dan-El wasn't overwhelmed with the beach, the husband and I decide it might make sense for him to stay home with the napping baby, while I take Jak-El to the beach for a morning of sun and fun.

Jak-El, however, had other plans. "Want to go to the beach?" I asked. "No!"" he responded. "I wanna go to a playground!"

Great, except where the hell is a nearby playground?

I pull out a local map and can't find any notation of playground. I do see one elementary school in Kennebunk, and figure they must have a swing set, or a slide, or something he can climb on.

We head out, stopping first for lattes (mine, decaf nonfat iced; his, nocaf, whole fat, straight up) and pastry (chocolate croissant for moi, lobster shaped sugar cookie for him). Sugar and caffeine does a body good!

I pull out of the café's parking lot, drive a block and see a sign for a playground. Yeah! No searching!

We sit and nosh on the slide. No other kids are there, so Jak-El gets bored pretty quickly, declares the playground "stinky" and wants to go home.

After lunch, we drive around in search of fruit, veggies and seafood to prepare dinner for the assorted grandparents set to arrive that day. At a farm stand, I buy rasp, blue and strawberries for shortcake, hoping to pick up whipped cream and little premade cakes as well.

"We can't sell pastry, but we have biscuit mix."

Biscuit mix? Do I look like I want to bake? Please. We move on.

The husband and Jak-El run into a fish market for lobsters and clams, and then we do a drive by the Bush homestead. No presidential sightings, but there are a heck of a lot of black SUVs on the property's perimeter, so someone at least semi-important must be around.

We get home and shortly after my mom arrives, followed soon thereafter by my in-laws. The husband goes off in search of shortcake, and I baby-sit the children of all ages.

That night, we feast on steamers, lobster, corn on the cob (cooked on the grill—best way to cook corn EVER), and wine. Husband and I polish off the bottle we opened Saturday night and then start in on a bottle of Shooting Star chardonnay, a wine I haven't had in years but really, really enjoy.

::after the first glass:: "Hey, this wine is really good."

::after the second glass:: "Hey, did you notice wine is really good?"

::after the third glass:: "Hey, I really like this wine. Did I tell you this wine is good?"

Husband is ignoring me at this point, having moved on to drinking White Russians with his father. No one cares. We're all pretty friendly drunks.

Day 4:

This morning, Jak-El and his grandfather walk across the street to visit the sheep that live on the farm there. The breed is named Jacob sheep. For some reason, that amuses my son.



After Dan-El's nap, we head out in search of entertainment. First up is lunch at McDonald's, where Jak-El gets a "Pirates of the Caribbean" Happy Meal toy, a treasure chest with a key. He's quite pleased. Dan-El people watches, eats his squash and plots how he'll acquire the treasure chest as a teething toy when his brother isn't looking.

Next door to McD's is a miniature gold course. We walk the kids over and ask Jak-El if he wants to play. "Yeah! Golf!" he says. We pay for one child and one adult and hit the links.

I hit a ball to show Jak-El what to do. He follows suit, then runs to the end of the hole, picks his ball up and drops it in the hole. Then, he does the same with my ball.



We move on to the second hole and repeat the process. "All done!" he says, ready to leave.

Not so fast. We just paid $14 to play golf, so someone is going to damn well play golf. We con him into playing most of the rest of the course by convincing him the only way out is to walk by all the holes, and if we're walking this way, why not hit the ball as we go.

On the way back, we do a little bribe shopping for the boy. Every vacation, the grandparents must do one night of babysitting to "pay" for their room and board as our guests. But since Jak-El isn't always an angel, we decide a little bribery is due. We buy him a piece of candy and a new toy.

The toy is a game, "Pop Up Pirate." A plastic pirate figure is stuck inside a plastic keg. Then, players stick little plastic swords in the keg until the pirate randomly pops up. Whoever pops the pirate is the loser.

As you can tell, it's a game of great cunning and skill.

The bribes worked. The little psycho was well behaved, thanks in large part to the fact they left him alone upstairs and let him watch Cartoon Network almost the entire time we were out.

We dined at Arrows in Ogunquit. The meal was amazing, and the most expensive we've ever had ($450+ for two people), but well worth it. We don't get to dine out often as adults, but when we do, we like to make it count.

Much to my delight, we chose the chef's tasting menu, and had oysters, lobster, salad (four types of greens, with four types of oils and vinegars—of course, I messed up the combinations, cause' I'm uncouth), salmon, Kobe beef, and a quartet of desserts. Everything was wonderful.

Dinner started off with the waiter telling us we could either have the "complimentary" butter with our bread OR we could order the "butter flight," a sampling of three different types of butter, each described in loving detail. (I think one was hand churned by New Zealand virgins or something.)

As soon as I heard the words "butter flight" I nearly had a giggle fit. But I noticed the husband nodding appreciatively, so I let him make the call. He was taken with the fact one was described as "sweet," and he likes things sweet. (Why do you think he married me?) So we got the butter flight and they all tasted like, well, butter. But butter is always a good thing. Yea butter.

As I signed the credit card receipt, I decided that what I had just paid for a meal more than entitled me to steal the pen with the restaurant's name on it. I also wanted to steal a "complimentary" head of lettuce from their garden, but the husband and lack of proper light to see what I was doing stopped me. Drat.

Next: It's f*!king hot, the creatures are after us, and Lois has a meltdown.

Random quote of the day:

"Do you know his shoes are on the wrong feet?"