Back on the Block

First time I've left the house in a week without having to check the tide.

We rented a somewhat primitive place on Lieutenant Island, Wellfleet, to mark my dad's 85th birthday  - 13 people and one dog sharing a house with balky hot water, funky artwork and bracing views of the sunset.

No Internet connection. No TV. The house was filled instead with books -- guides to the Outer Cape and the Eastern coyote, short stories from the mid 1900s, lots of Nabokov and James (Henry), Tolstoy and Shaw (Irving). Thank God I had my BlackBerry.

The kids cooked, the parents watched, the grandparents put up their feet. The dog had the time of his life, seeing the water for the first time and pawing the shore line at first, then making mad circles in the sand, tongue hanging so low he could lap the salt, come home coated in wood ticks and seaweed.

We couldn't make bread or beer runs unless high tide was at least an hour away, as the water flooded the road and threatened to bury the wooden bridge that connected us to the rest of the Cape. So we spent most of the time happily unplugged, and often on that bench shown in the picture I snapped one night.

I am sure I missed a million passing storms on the Internet. I got home to find a frequent nagger demanding the Inquirer out all of its pinko scribes who belonged to a fascist/socialist/unpatriotic listserv called Journolist. I had to disappoint him; never touch the thing. Read all about it.

Someone forwarded me something called Shakespalin. It didn't move me on my island, but maybe it's better on the mainland.

Tipsters warned of coming cuts to the elderly and disabled. They protested a rash of Philly shootings, pitched products no one will ever need, bands I don't want to hear. They also revealed that Philly was named the fifth most-walkable big city. Jenkintown is 88th overall, according to WalkScore.

I've got some work to do to catch up, but I decided to post something here first, mostly because my brother says he checks this space nearly every day and there never anything new. I pledged to change that.