Ortiz, Teleni, and Frothingham....

A couple of weeks ago we went down to see my dad, who is recovering wonderfully from his hip replacement surgery! It has been a VERY long road for him (dating back to my first year playing rugby in college actually, when HE sustained an injury...haha) and we are all proud of him (this is an extreme understatement). We spent a few hours hanging out with Papa and Grammy Goldsmith, talking, looking for Kody and Jesse, playing with Papa, and, of course, looking at fish.....

Callum was marvelling at all of Papa's cool "medical gear" like his stretchy thing to help pick his leg up onto stools, his cool red walker, and, of course, Papa's "grabnabber" which allows Papa to pick up the bits of lobster that fall onto the floor while he is eating them...haha. Callum loved this, and, of course, wanted his picture....

Maira, of course, is at home wherever there are both FOOD and CATS. And Papa's house held both of these treasures. Here she is, relaxing, eating some potato chips, and calling for KITTY Jesse and/or Kody--these are Papa's 120 pound Maine Coon Cats....

Again, a great visit. It is great to hear about all the progress he is making each day--even today, in fact, when I talked to him I heard great news that he got out with Babs, went over to pick up some stuff from Bob (his reading/surgery/oldguy buddy), and grabbed an ice cream and some native corn at the farm stand in town.....small victories and baby steps (no pun intended!)

We stayed with Tim and Eleni, and this was also a blast--great friends. While we waited for Eleni to come home from work, Tim and Star (his dog) took us to a VERY special place from my childhood: Frothingham Park in Easton (my hometown). This place has HUGE historical ramifications in the life of yours truly, most notably, perhaps, for the famous "Ultimat Wednesdays" that took place here:

Ultimate Wednesdays were the best days of the week--BY FAR. During summers in college, after a long day at work at PRAC in Boston, I would meander over to Frothingham on Wednesdays at 6 for the craziest and most intense and most well attended pickup Ultimate Frisbee games of all time. Sounds silly, right? SHUT UP. It was awesome. And you know it. We would play in the outfield of the baseball field above....we would have 20 kids on some Wednesdays. Amazing time in our lives. And those times were sacrosanct. And they could be. We had no responsibilities. Life was grand. (Oh...and then, after frisbee, some of the lesser educated individuals would go bowling....I, however, went hom to go to bed....haha)


As you can see, Callum, Maira, and Starduog had a blast at the park--even though we danced around some pending thunderstorms.....

Another important and formative time in my life was, when in elementary and middle schools, my mom sent me to the Park Program in the summer--it was basically like a rec. day camp for kids in town....I LOVED it (and so did my sister!!) We would go every day and play games, run around, and look for excuses to get drinks from the most lavish bubbler (what people from Mass call 'water fountains'....in Maine, a 'bubbler' refers to a bong.....)

 I took this picture below of Callum playing in the sandbox because, for one, it is cute. But, also, I want to call your attention to the rock in the background. I didnt get a good picture of it...but this is a legendary rock....when we were younger, this huge, misplaced boulder seemed like the BIGGEST rock in the world, and we used to marvel at the 'older kids' climb it. Callum, for one, was astounded by it. But, to me, I laugh at how small the rock looks now. Things change. As writer Thomas WOlfe noted, "you cant go home again....."