The Twelve Days of Vacation
In the last twelve days I’ve eaten Italian food in the North End of Boston, walked the alphabet streets of South Boston where my grandparents met and my father was born, and toured the forts on Castle Island with a tour guide who flirted with me.
I took a five hour boat ride, saw seven lighthouses up close, got my tarot cards read at Regina’s Tea Room, stocked some of my books, The Jim and Dan Stories, at the old Coast Guard Station that’s now a Lifesaving Museum, and ate a lobster roll and fried clams on the beach, compliments of my niece Heather.
I had my first cappuccino, told the romantic story of how Joe and I met to my nieces Molly and Samantha, and walked miles of beach at sunset and moonrise and with fireworks in the sky.
I got a pedicure from my sister Tricia, watched her sons do skateboarding tricks, reunited with a girlfriend who I’ve known since the second grade, and played Scrabble on my mother’s porch with her neighbor’s son (who was in town from Florida and who regularly reads my blog) and his wife.
I had a beer in Joe’s Nautical Bar across the street from the Pemberton dustbowl where I sometimes had CYO drill team practice when I was a girl, swam in my brother Joey’s pool and drove his Porche to the Hull Village Cemetery where I spent some time by myself at my brothers Jimmy and Danny’s and my father’s graves.
I made my mother’s bed for her while she was at church, had a pink balloon flower made for me by a clown, climbed the Blue Hill observatory tower at my brother Jim’s sixth annual memorial cook-out, read up to page 197 in The Secret Life of Bees, and took a picture of the house on Allerton Hill in Hull that once belonged to President Kennedy’s grandfather.
I got stuck in beach traffic with my sister Tricia, drove in the back of a cop car after my sister Sherry’s keys got lost and we couldn’t get into her car, ate clams dipped in butter that my brother Johnny dug at low tide, slept over my sister Kathy’s house, and blogged from a Starbucks in the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, during a two hour layover on way home (but did not have time to proof read this or load twelve pictures).
On the thirteenth day she rested.
Photos: 1. Boston skyline. 2. Boston Light. 3. “A” Street Pier sunset on the bayside of Hull. 4. Scrabble game with Stuart and Carol. 5. Colleen in Joey’s porche with the license plate that says “WRKHRD.” 6. Great niece Samantha climbing the Blue Hill Observatory tower. 7. My brother Johnny in town from Minnesota on the lighthouse tour.
July 9th, 2007 3:54 pm
You do make me tired, girl. I don’t think I will ever visit your neck of the woods unless I am in pristine, tip-top shape.
July 9th, 2007 8:44 pm
What a full time you have had Colleen…So many wonderful happenings and people…Iy sounds like you really enjoy your family and that’s wonderful! I bet you are tired in a way, Colleen, I know I would be, but a GOOD kind of tired…So, rest well, dear Colleen. You deserve it!
July 9th, 2007 8:55 pm
Wow, Colleen, you really packed a lot into 12 days but it all sounds fabulous.
Are there any places where you can go for a Boston Tea Party?!! I always wanted to open up a tea room there called The Boston Tea Party!
I love the sunset pic!
Welcome home.
July 9th, 2007 9:00 pm
Sounds like a wonderful vacation!
July 9th, 2007 9:17 pm
The club where I first heard the likes of Led Zepplin before they were famous was called The Boston Tea Party.
Right now I’m crashed out flatter than a frog that’s been run over in the road. It will take me a few days to recover. And I still have a few more stories to tell.
I’m looking forward to a warm bath and page 198 of The Secret Life of Bees.
July 9th, 2007 9:42 pm
what a full 12 days…… in so many ways!
July 10th, 2007 5:55 am
Reading the wrap up makes me want you here again :>)
Next time 2 weeks would be better :>)
July 10th, 2007 6:02 am
Colleen, A very different Scrabble game it was!!! I’m glad we played without points which gave us all a time to talk.
The word “deats” that I played was kind of an Acronym for “Department of Environmental Affairs Tourism”, but if spelled “deets” is a liquid insect repellent. I should of lost my turn! And by the way, does your husband Joe play Scrabble?
July 10th, 2007 8:31 am
Sounds like a busy vacation! I’ve been enjoying your posts and your beach photos. I’ve been having regular dreams about the beach lately… maybe I am reading your blog in my sleep! 🙂
July 10th, 2007 9:00 am
I enjoyed playing Scrabble with you and Carol, Stu_art, just to get ONE game in for the trip. But I more enjoyed meeting you both, especially knowing that you had such a meaningful connection to Jim. I forgot to take a photo of your dad’s traffic stopping dad’s yard!
Joe doesn’t play Scrabble. You can read more about that here:
http://looseleafnotes.com/notes/2005/05/a_winning_streak.html
Once when I read that poem in public he asked me (jokingly) to follow it with one more complimentary of him.
He doesn’t like Scrabble because he thinks it’s too slow. He’d rather be playing golf, something I have no interest in. He will play Boggle (another word game) with me on occasion.
July 10th, 2007 10:10 am
Great trip. So much times with so many people.
Someone who doesn’t like scrabble? huh.
July 10th, 2007 12:40 pm
Beautiful photos. Suppose you having a great vacation.
Here from the pride…:D
July 10th, 2007 1:32 pm
Jo’s Nautical Bar is still open?!?! wow, i haven’t been there since we lived in hull 13 years ago! does it have the same owners? that cute little old couple who would serve fuzzy navels in juice glasses?
July 10th, 2007 1:47 pm
Monique- Believe it or not, it was my first time being inside (and I lived in Hull for 15 years but not in the past 30). I don’t think it’s owned by the longtime previous owners who my mother told me the name of and which I recognized at the time but don’t remember now. We had bought fish and chips at the pier. With no place to sit, the woman working at the pier-stand sent us down to Jo’s (which I think I grew up calling Darcey’s) to eat out on their deck. It turned out to be a wonderful setting on the deck and we shared a beer. I still remember the red boat on the sand that I meant to photograph, the view of the Coast guard station and the church I grew up going to, which is now a residence. I heard that one of the Antoine triplets works at the bar, but she wasn’t there at the time.
Fuzzy navels in juice glasses?
July 10th, 2007 4:25 pm
Hey, that’s MY neck of the woods (I am in Boston)! You make me want to go in vacation. In Boston. Weird.
July 10th, 2007 8:28 pm
Oh wow. We shared very similar pleasures but on opposite coasts. Beaches, lighthouses, tea rooms. One day I will get to Boston or so my husband promises me.
July 10th, 2007 9:25 pm
I’m glad you enjoyed your time in Boston. I live just outside of the city and have taken friends and relatives from out of town to most of the places you reference.
(Found my way here from the Shameless Lion Circle)
best,
LJ and Lucidus Keen (my lion)
July 10th, 2007 10:02 pm
You have had a very full vacation…and you look right at home in that Porshe!
July 10th, 2007 11:19 pm
OH! Wait! I had to take notes it was so great, and went so fast!
I LOVE Boston, especially the northern Italian end… ohhhh for the mama’s ristorante’s on Hanover… AND Mikes pastry shop… SIIIIGH.
The bay, the lighthouses… another BIG SIIIIGH.
How lovely.
The Secret Life of Bees… divine (you must read The Mermaid Chair then, her second book) and Scrabble! AH! How fun! and a porsche, and balloons… and cappucino… wow. best ever, it sounds like, best best best ever.
Thank you for sharing it just the way you did.
Excellent. I quite enjoyed reading this!
Scarlett & Viaggiatore
July 10th, 2007 11:29 pm
We went to Mike’s Pastry! I had my first pistachio cookie. I think that’s what it was. It was delish and tasted like Marzipan.
July 12th, 2007 12:28 am
-Sounds like an amazing vacation. The photos and commentary are lovely, as always.
July 12th, 2007 9:02 am
It sounds like you had a great vacation, seeing all your family, visiting all your old haunts, getting flirted with(?), I know you are probably glad to be home. Just reading all about it makes me tired.