The House that got away

Happy Summer!! It's been exactly 25 years since I started my first summer on Cape Cod. Boy that makes me feel old. Spending the whole summer (not a week or a month, or just weekends) in a place like this is a whole other life. The Cape is probably more my style, even though my best sister moving to NYC meant I became a Hamptons summer person a decade ago. Ah our first vacation in a year and a half is coming!

I lived in Hyannis Port for three summers in the mid-/late 90s. If I do say so, it was their heyday (post 60s, of course) when JFK Jr. and Senator Kennedy were still alive and out and about. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Andrew Cuomo were still Kennedy adjacent then too. The original Kennedy house in the compound (just west of the pier) is now part of the EMK Institute. Taylor Swift has come and gone. Ethel is still hanging on. Now 02647 is left with the likes of RFK Jr. Sad...

I met my first ex at the West Beach Club while working for a family who was friends with him and lives up Wachusett (they recently traded "school year living" in Wellesley for Jupiter, of course). And with their encouragement, we courted there and at the Hyannisport Club (where Jack and Jackie had their engagement party) and the HP Yacht Club ("the pier", where he was a patron and held court, is infamous for being a weekend paparazzi hangout) and Oyster Harbors with his parents. We dated into the fall, I spent weekends here even after going back to college. September here is the best. He wanted to buy a house in Wellesley and give me his family ring kept at Harry Winston, but I just couldn't. Even when his "friends" tried to talk me into doing it for the hundreds of millions. We decided, begrudgingly on his part, to be friends instead. So I kept visiting for years after. I remember the morning after JFK Jr.'s secret wedding in Georgia, because they never could have pulled it off here, when he told me about his friend finally getting hitched (they were the same age and grew up here together).

The ill fated Kennedys w/Friday at the pier in the mid-90s, 

they would die just off the Vineyard in 1999 after less than three years of marriage.

My ex-boyfriend passed away last August, after his mother in 2011, and his only brother in 2010. His father is in his mid-90s and lives in Miami. Not surprisingly, he's just put the family summer home (since the 60s) on the market. It's been mostly untouched for decades (that's how the old money rolls), save the new kitchen, this is just how I remember it. (and of course it closed on my birthday...)

The house is named "El Bajareque" (the shack, ironically, sort of) overlooks Nantucket Sound with a big yard sloping down to the Rose Kennedy memorial, Fortes Beach, and the Yacht Club. I would have married his parents if I could have. Though they probably wouldn't have wanted us to buy our own house here, it would have made them "look bad," as this was meant to be passed down. Loved them even if they were a bit too conservative for me. Very Cuban and Catholic (the latter of which HP became a haven for when the Kennedys moved here in the 20s, because the HP club was one of few that admitted Catholics at the time), so I stayed over in the guest room when they were there. A few of his cousins still have houses there. His father's great-grandfather founded Bacardi and the family still owns and runs it out of Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico (since their exile from Cuba the year my ex was born.). He and his brother were adopted, because that's what even wealthy infertile couples did in the 1950s. I never met his brother, he was by then a persona non grata to all but his mother, another HP raised addict, a victim of Fessenden abuse, like so many others. My ex was the "good son" even after getting tossed from Exeter. He redeemed himself at Georgetown and beyond. May he rest in peace.

I spent so many hours on that porch... Ah the memories...

Another hot property on Oyster Harbors (formerly Bunny Mellon's) that has recently hit the market... (and also sold end of summer)

Studying my own family's history, they owned large swaths of the Cape (from Yarmouth to Falmouth), as they (the Hatches) were the first white settlers to buy land from the Indians in the 1600s, so I'll be back...

Down to one!

We finally sold our old house! Wahoo! We started getting offers when we listed last fall, but they were low and we decided to hold out. We accepted a decent offer in January, but that progressively fell apart due to the buyers in late winter so we relisted it even though we were still officially under contract. The market had totally turned in those couple months and we started getting multiple offers (over asking!) with no contingencies. We finally closed and I’m still kind of in shock. Two houses (even in the same neighborhood) is a huge PITA. So why do I want to look for another farther away? Glutton for punishment.

We spent 15 years in that house. We got engaged in the living room our first week (we had plans to go downtown on our anniversary, but I wasn’t feeling well). Six years later we brought home babies. They are now almost five feet tall. 

It made me start thinking about all the places I’ve lived in my life. I only spent ten years in my main childhood home (which was my sixth overall). I’ve lived in over 20 homes/apartments across four states.  I spent a third of my life in that house. It was the end of my nomadic life. So many memories from the best to the worst.

It's debatable whether I'm more excited about this or being fully vaccinated as of the this week.

End of 2020 (the ultimate annus horribilis)

It's hard to believe it's been ten long years since I last wrote about a annus horribilis (a horrible year). This time of year always has crazy mixed feelings for me because of how 2010 and 2011 ended in such different ways (nevermind what we had to go through to make that happen). 

We recently celebrated the twins turning nine. They are huge (I'm buying them 12/14 clothes...) and dealing pretty well with this nutty year. They are doing well with remote school (halfway through 3rd grade!), but unfortunately given the pandemic their activities have been scaled back considerably and/or moved online. We finally got a pet bunny just before Thanksgiving after months (years?) of begging and a PowerPoint research presentation. His name is Cookie. We are getting more settled in our new house, but still annoyingly trying to sell our old one. After six months on unemployment, I did all my regular annual work in Oct-Nov this year, which was a bit much, but we are obviously thankful to come out of this historic year better than we came in. It's a strange feeling, similar to one we had in the long 2008 recession, when the world is falling apart around you, but things are going well for you (except for when they aren't, see infertility).

Even though this is really an introvert's time to shine (though not so much if you are also a wanderlust), Covid also brings up so many feelings given all the loss we've experienced. It makes you grateful that all the people we've lost in recent years weren't lost to a pandemic that precluded us being together. It makes you worry about your remaining two grandparents (step-grandmas) in the rural Midwest in their fragile mid-90s and your three remaining parents in their 70s, especially a mother with preexisting conditions like asthma and RA, and siblings who are cancer survivors and those who work in health care. It's made me think about how I've spent the second half of my life as a post-viral long hauler. It's been 22 long years since I came down with a relatively mild case of mono early in my senior year of college, which single handedly changed the trajectory of every single aspect my life since then. My education, professional and personal lives, relationships, everything is different than it would have been had I not gotten sick and am now still plagued by CFS. I also had to reconfigure my life ten years ago because of infertility and parenthood that meant I already had a pandemic friendly WFH job and life before this year. How's that for foresight (aka trauma)...

The only lingering issue with the kids was getting them to gain a bit of weight. Enter quarantine and the Covid 15 and that problem is now officially solved for Alistair, though it means I have to actually have to make an effort to lose weight for the first time in my life. Our basement gym is now set up and I have a driveway a mile long to shovel. Watch out pool season, we are coming for you!

Wear a mask, stay home, and get your jab. Happy New Year!

How it started...how it's going...

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Happy Holidays!!

So it's September...

Which is my favorite month by far, but it's been a crazy year for us all. I started a post back in the winter about the seemingly pressing issue (at the time) of the kids trying to qualify for gifted and magnet programming (she did, he missed it by a hair, oh well, it's almost time to test again). Little did we know school as we knew it would be ending soon.

I took the kids on a great trip to Boston for President's Day weekend when things with Covid were starting to look hairy and then the shit really hit the fan. We stayed at the Seaport and the Boston outbreak really took off the week after we were there. Our planned trips to NYC for Spring Break and Nantucket this summer unfortunately couldn't happen safely.

The kids have been home for six months (now two weeks into 3rd grade) and for the foreseeable future, ditto the working husband, and my work project got put off in early April (and just got green lit again today for next month!), so I've been experiencing my very first taste of compensated unemployment, yet not at a lack for seemingly endless things to do. 

We found a new (to us) house in April near our old one and then moved in in June. We bought it from a lovely old lady whose late master carpenter husband built it with his friends 50 years ago and they raised their six kids here and (bless her busy perfectionist heart) she had the whole house completely redone to sell it (so I didn't have to!). We were thinking of building new, out of desperation, but I didn't think I (or our marriage) would survive that many decisions. I couldn't talk the kids into changing schools where we are all happy and the hubs didn't want to relocate either. It's rooms and closets are bigger and it has an amazingly huge yard, which is hard to find in our built up suburban area, and it's been a wonderful change, especially given all the time we've been spending at home. Now we just have to sell our old one of 15 years... 

Where the hell does the time go? A decade ago I was still trying desperately to get pregnant. 25 years ago I graduated from high school and moved to Boston and left Wisconsin forever. My first boyfriend from my new life in Boston just died a few weeks ago. My college bio classmate Maeve died in April, along with her 8yo son. Yeah these are crazy times. We are all still healthy, thank goodness, and my family is going crazy not being able to come see our new place.

The kids have done great with their upper expanders (now out after a long delay, they were due to get them out the day everything shut down), now a retainer, and lower braces. And the lowers come off in a just a few short weeks. We thankfully didn't lose any treatment time even with three plus months of no adjustments.

It has just started thankfully cooling down after yet another record setting hottest summer ever. It felt like a very long sweaty hotflash. Next big project is putting in an inground pool (next spring hopefully).

He's not even taller than her, they are both 4'9" and climbing, it's just hair...

Watch out THIRD GRADE!

To my babies on their eighth birthday

We wondered for years whether you would ever be at all, but still we dreamed of you. And then we lost your big sister. And then they told us we would probably lose you both too. But I said no, no, not this time...

Every day since then has been a gift. The last eight years we’ve been lucky enough to watch you grow on your own terms and we couldn’t be more proud of the happy, healthy, HUGE, sweet, funny, and wicked smaht kids you have become. Eight is going to be GREAT!

Braces: the 30 year rewind

I first got braces some 30 years ago (when I was 12) and had them for 2 1/2 years. The old school metal kind with the headgear (aka the devil), the whole deal. It was painful and generally bad, particularly because junior high/middle school (we had a conversion at 8th, so I got out after serving two, thank goodness) sucked, but I'm thankful my parents (who didn't have money to throw around) got them for all four of us because they thought it was important (thanks mom and dad!). I wore my retainers for a long time, but they would break (I apparently clench/grind my teeth when I sleep) and since I no longer live in the town where I grew up (hallejuah!), I stopped getting them replaced at some point, I don't even remember when.

So I had noticed that my teeth, mostly my front lowers, had shifted a bit over time, as happens. I had thought about getting them fixed, but it wasn't a high priority in the whole scheme of things. As I noticed one tooth was wearing because of misalignment, I figured that was my sign to do something. I've had this ridiculous desire to die with all my teeth (hopefully in old age) and so far I'm cavity free (it's the little things).

I had gotten a quote for Invisalign from my dentist a couple of years ago, but then didn't do anything. I decided early this year to go to Smile Direct Club and check it out and when they came back with a quote that was the same, but with no dentist visits, I decided to go for it. When I got my plan it was longer than I'd hoped, eight months, but the time goes by.

My only complaint is with invisible aligners, you have to wear them 24/7, except when you are eating/drinking something other than water. As someone who likes to eat small meals and nurse an iced coffee or latte for hours, it's been a big adjustment. You have to brush every single time you put anything in your mouth. Don't be like the guy my dentist told me about who drank black coffee with them IN for months, making his teeth black. They were able to clean them, but that's nasty.

Of course since I got mine, they came out with a night only program (same price, longer treatment), which I would have done instead in a heartbeat. I'm officially done this weekend, but have to wear them at night forever now, or revisit my crooked fate once again.

Just in time for the kids to get their braces next week!