Cape Cod Journal: June 28

June 28, 2007

Thursday: June 28

The fog wraps itself around the inlet some mornings, like this one, then dissipates as the sun grows stronger. Everything here is forever moist. Leave a towel out to dry and it’s likely to be wetter an hour later. Plants do well, but people develop root rot.

It would be hell here for a philatelist.

We dined last night in the tavern of the Chatham Bars Inn, and arranged for a special chef’s table dining experience (which begins in the wine cellar) when we return to stay there in September. The food was quite good—the lightest fish and chips I’ve ever experienced (a dish which I normally equate with heavy lifting)—but necessitated a stop for a slice of pepperoni pizza on the way home. There were gaping white places on the dish where more fish should have been. (My wife makes a habitual ice cream stop, as if we’re finding her “fix.”)

We intend to return to The Cape next summer but take the best accommodations at the Chatham Bars, either one of the main suites or one of the seaside cottages. I’ve already submitted my blood sample. (Okay, it was really Koufax’s, but his blood lines are better.)

My latest video went up yesterday (Writing on the Wall, http://www.summitconsulting.com) on “persiflage and bloviation.” If you’re wedded to strictly online and/or software research and education, you’ll find that “bloviation” is not present, for example, in Word’s spelling dictionary. You need Webster’s unabridged to be an educated person. (As I write “bloviation” here, Word keeps underlining it as a non-word!)

We are scheduled for afternoon thundershowers, the first poor weather of the week (which locals tell me is the first decent week in quite a while, so we’ve lucked out). None have appeared, but I wouldn’t mind them tonight to thoroughly clean the grit off the car, a fine mixture of salt, sand, and attitude.

This morning, at a local breakfast place, a man well into his 60s parks his pickup truck outside, enters, and sits at a table. “Coffee, Joe?” asks the waitress. “No hurry,” he replies, “Mary is walking over to join me because I have the dog in the truck.” Sure enough, in a couple of minutes a white-haired woman of dignified age slowly walks into the parking lot. As she enters the cafe, the waitress says, “No room in the truck, Mary?” “Oh, anything for that dog!” says Mary. The drawbacks of a two-seater….

Horrible morning here, wind and fog, but by the time we got to Nauset Beach it was great, and the beach was pretty empty. I still get a kick out of seagulls rifling through package contents while the owners are in the water.

Crazy world: I just received an email before we go to dinner from someone who heard me speak a few months ago in Connecticut. He said that he was driving through Orleans today here on the Cape and saw a red Bentley convertible with AJW on the plates. He figured it had to be me (Orleans is on the way to the beach), so he’s offered to buy us dinner. I’m hoping we can at least do drinks tomorrow.