The “I Want a New Look for My Bedroom” Saga

I sure hope this saga has finally ended.

I have wanted a new look for my bedroom for a while now. What better time to finally do it than the onset of Spring?

Anne & Hope stores usually have a large array of spreads/quilts with shams. I found a set that was an 8-piece bed in a bag. Liked the color…sage. But the bag was open on the shelf. I brought it up to the desk and had the clerk take it apart to be sure all the pieces were there. Would you believe the shams were missing?!

Special order and they would call me next week if it came in.

I went to Bed Bath & Beyond and saw thermal drapes in sage. Just the direction I was going in. My bedroom gets very hot in summer with the sun beating in all afternoon.

A pair of drapes for $39. That’s a deal. Only to find that there is only one drape per package. I went back for the other one.

Got a call from Anne & Hope that my bed in a bag was in and all the pieces were there. The shams were in with the bed skirt. They probably were in the first set all along…we just didn’t see them.

Another trip. My friend, Pat, was with me both times so it’s a lot of fun plus we usually have lunch. I pick up the special order and take it home…after Pat and I stopped for lunch.

We took everything out and opened everything up. I put the comforter on top of my bed and wanted to hurl. First the color wasn’t at all what I originally thought it was. My bed looked like a big blob of pea soup…which I hate. And, I suppose it is no surprise, the drapes didn’t even come close to matching the color of the BIAB. The comforter was not big enough to cover the bed to the extent I require and now that I had it all spread out…it was really cheesy. The directions said to wash before using. I was afraid that would totally ruin it. I could see the stuffing getting lumpy and bumpy and looking worse than it did now.

Pack it up. Call Pat…wanna to with me when I return this disaster? We are both had a good laugh.

This time I thought to bring one of the drapes with me. This time I will be able to match the color. We will look around A&H first then go to as many stores as I have to until I find what I want!!!

Almost found what I wanted in Anne & Hope, but, even though the picture showed a quilt and two shams, the label said 1 PIECE. No shams. I know better than to have A&H special order shams. I’ve done that before and didn’t want to do that again. Nope. Put it back.

Well, the closest “other” store was Big K-Mart. First lunch. The cheeseburger wasn’t bad. On to the bedding department.

Oooo! Look at this one. Yup, I do believe this might work.

Brought it home and spread it out on the bed…along with the one of the drapes. Yup. I do believe this is the one.

This morning I took the old look off the windows and bed. Up went the new look. Yup. I do believe this is the one…FINALLY. 

The Vacuum Cleaner Saga

My life is one laughable saga after another.

I had an Oreck upright vacuum cleaner for 20 years or more as well as a hand-held Oreck. It’s about time for new technology. My plan was to get rid of the upright and save the hand-held for doing the car. So far so good.

I Googled Oreck to see if they had a store nearby. Sure did. Considering where it is I should have known that…right between two stores I have visited recently.

I wanted a canister vac because I wanted the hoses as well as the floor attachment…one machine to all the work. Oreck has two canister models, but only one in the showroom.

I tried the showroom model and decided it would be more than adequate for my needs. My upstairs is all wall-to-wall Berber carpet and the upstairs bath is vinyl with scatter rugs.

The downstairs is a combo of area rugs and Pergo flooring including the kitchen and half bath. The family room downstairs has carpet tiles and vinyl.

The salesman told me he thought the larger of the two vacuums (which I was buying) might be too much machine for me. It was heavier than what I had been using and the motorized cleaning head was very powerful. Did I listen? No. I even traded in my upright.

So I took it home, put it together and started cleaning. The motorized beater bar (for lack of a better name) had a mind of its own and was indeed very powerful. But I know I’m stronger! Cleaned all three floors. It was like hauling a Mack truck around my condo.

Next morning, man oh man was I hurting!

Packed the thing up and took it back to the store acknowledging the salesman’s wisdom.

(Note: when I unplugged the vac from the upstairs bath receptacle, the plug was hot. Hmmm. The next morning the GFI had been tripped and I could not reset it. Checked the downstairs bath GFI, and after I tripped it on purpose, it would not reset. Cost me $25 for two new GFIs. Thank goodness my son, Paul, knows how to replace these things.)

Now I have no vacuum cleaner at all…but my house is clean so I have some wiggle room. The Oreck store is waiting for their smaller model to come in. I know that Target has that smaller Oreck model on sale.

I go to Target and never see the smaller Oreck. What to my wondering eyes should appear but a Dyson DC26. It’s a little thing. Canister. Bagless. Hoses. Floor beater bar. I originally wanted a Dyson, but didn’t want to pay upwards to six hundred dollars. This little guy was on sale and less than three hundred. SOLD!

I brought it home, put it together and cleaned my condo. Like it needed it again. I cleaned the entire upstairs before I realized the wand is extendable. I thought this model was for people 4’8” in height. What a relief to know I didn’t have to be bent over in order to clean.

Love this little machine! I have read many reviews on the Dyson vacuum cleaners and all of them said it didn’t have sufficient suction. I don’t know what they were talking about. My little Dyson DC26 has more than enough.

End of the Vacuum Cleaner Saga (I hope).

Farm Stands, Goldfinches, and Thoughts of Spring

Farm Stands

Recently, my errands took me past two of my favorite farm stands.

One is right around the corner from me…a walk of about a mile and a quarter if I choose to do that. However, since I will be carrying produce back home, it is easier if I ride my bike. This farmer’s asparagus is the best for my needs. He sells it for $2/pound, but it is all random sizes. The good part is I get to pick the sizes I want so I get the best of what is there. I go for all the skinny, tender stalks.

The tomatoes are just okay. I have to be desperate to buy them. And his corn is best left right there on the wagon. The corn has been left in the field too long or it is of a not-so-tender variety. It is what we called “horse corn” when I was a kid. Butter and Sugar corn is what makes my taste buds happy.

What I have figured out is he must take the best of the best to the farmers’ market in Hartford, or he has special customers such as grocery stores. What is left over he puts out on the stand. Now that I know (or suspect) this, it’s okay.

Another farm stand is two towns over…closer to where I used to live before I moved into the condo. Even though the prices at this stand are a little high, the produce is excellent. Corn, tomatoes, cukes, squashes…all perfect.

The stand across town, about 6 or so miles, is the best of the three. Their produce is excellent. They also sell apples and a variety of berries in season. Momma makes fresh breads to sell at the stand, too. It smells so good whenever I go there. But the best part is that it gives me a destination for a bike ride. I get the exercise and by leaving the car at home and I cut down on pollution. Everybody wins.

I just wish they would stay open past Labor Day.

Goldfinches

 I have been feeding the birds this winter much to my delight (and theirs, too, I’m sure). Now that spring is almost upon us, calendar-wise) I see the male goldfinches are starting to get their brilliant yellow back. In the winter months the males look much like the females and immatures as far as color goes. Now I can tell the difference.

I have put out a lot of thistle for these little guys. I know it is a high energy food for them, but it makes such a mess. The snow on the ground below the thistle feeder was black all winter with the thistle shells (and some seeds, too, I’m sure). I don’t know for sure how many pounds of thistle I went through, but I’m going to guess it was somewhere around 10 pounds, and I don’t think I’m finished yet. Maybe another pound or so?

Of course I had other seeds, too, for the goldfinches and other birds. I bought seed mixes (shell-less whenever I could) and even though the birds came in droves (or should that be flocks), I think next year I will stick to shell-less sunflower seed hearts. That’s what I always fed the birds before I moved. Maybe a mix thrown in…I’m not sure yet about the mix.

AND, not to forget the suet cakes! I have gone through 6 suet cakes, and that is because of the wide variety of woodpeckers I have attracted…everything from a flicker to the smallest of woodpeckers. I’ll probably buy one more to finish the feeding season.

I live close to the woods down behind the condos where all these birds must be coming from. Where I lived before, woods surrounded the house, and I had nowhere near the numbers that I have here…especially woodpeckers.

Thoughts of Spring

So, all in all, I am really feeling spring is about to pop. Just as soon as we get through tonight’s/tomorrow morning’s storm. Predicting 2-5 inches of slushy stuff plus some icing. 

I’ve had enough!

Losing More of Cape Cod

In January of 2011, there was a story in the Cape Cod Times about a cottage in Wellfleet that had partially fallen onto the beach far below after a bad storm. It was at the end of Nellie Road…a place I’m familiar with. The story inspired me to write a poem, “Cottage at the End of the Road.”

This past week there was another story, same scenario, only this was just a bit north of Nellie Rd., on Cliff Rd. The owner of the Cliff Rd. home was never told the cottage had already been moved back twice before she bought it 15 years ago. She moved it back once, herself, thinking that would be enough. It had to be enough, she had no more room to move it again. And now, another storm has taken another cottage.

Every year, for the last 20 or more years, I have vacationed for a week in mid-September in this area. Every year I have driven past these cottages and wondered how much longer could they hang on. I wonder no more.

My heart goes out to these cottage owners. I can feel the emotions they must feel when a place they loved so much, a place that has been so healing, is now gone. The void in the heart is vast. And the cottage is no longer there to heal the pain.

Yes, it’s a material thing. No, it’s more than that. There is a magic that is Cape Cod and being on the edge of the dunes, watching the storms come in and weathering them for years, it is unthinkable that one day it will not be there any more. It’s unthinkable that Mother Nature, whose strength and beauty I have admired and loved for so long, would do this to me.

I have personalized someone else’s pain.

What of all the other owners whose cottages are facing the same fate…sooner rather than later. I feel their emotions in my gut…first the denial, then the anger for having been betrayed. Then sad realization that the end is inevitable.

Cottage at the End of the Road

The last cottage on Nellie Road

was built within half a mile of the dune’s edge

and steep descent to the beach.

It was part of a summer community

where children ran free.

They came to the cottage as babies

and would never sever their ties—

returning year after year,

bringing their babies to grow strong

and berry-brown.

Spring 1938 was the beginning of its first year.

In September, it was on the outer fringe

of the Long Island Express

that battered its way north into New England.

When the sun came out, those who came to look

were amazed at the sight of trees stripped of leaves

roads washed out and dunes undercut by the vicious

onslaught of an angry ocean.

The cottage withstood many storms,

standing strong in the teeth of every storm—

hurricanes Carol, Diane, Bob,

Blizzard of ’78,

Halloween storm of ’96.

and countless storms inbetween.

Every one of them insidiously

ate away at the dunes.

Homeowners along the dune line

knew for years their summer places were doomed,

especially when Nauset Light was moved back

before it could tumble onto the beach below.

It wouldn’t have been the first time.

As 2010 came to a close,

the dunes were assaulted by another winter storm.

The old cottage couldn’t hang on any longer.

The porch hung over the abyss

created by mammoth waves slamming into the dune 

causing deep undercutting and collapse.

The beach below was strewn with porch furniture

and splinters that used to be the porch floor.

The cottage hung there, defying gravity, clinging to life.

Seagulls cried in despair

as the landscape of their sand cliffs

was rendered unrecognizable.

So many lost so much that day.

The demolition order was issued.

Yellow tape went up on the beach

to keep human scavengers at a distance.

It was a crime scene.

A construction crane lumbered down Nellie Road

to finish the job the ocean started.

Dump trucks lined up to receive the wreckage

from the clamshell’s maw

as the family and the seagulls looked on.

Beverly R. Titus

01/07/11

Cape Cod Becoming Four Islands

 Over the past 35 years I have been watching Cape Cod erode at a frightening rate.

It started in 1978 with the February blizzard. That storm took out a lot of ocean facing beaches and property. It took out Coast Guard Beach’s parking lot and bathhouses. Just south of Coast Guard Beach, it took out the dunes and washed away a handful of cottages, as well as Henry Beston’s Outermost House. I was able to visit the small, unassuming cottage twice in 1977…as if I were being given the opportunity to say goodbye to that which was the focus of one of my favorite books. If you have never read The Outermost House by Henry Beston, consider reading it. It's a classic.

After a storm in November of 1990, Dan Carnes and his kids were walking along part of Coast Guard Beach and discovered the uncovered remains of a series of Indian villages that dated back 11,000 years and most recently, 800 years. Thank goodness Dan was an amateur archeologist. He spotted a rock outcropping uncovered by the storm and to him it looked like the type of oven ancient Indians would use. This was a monumental find. The site was estimated to have been five miles from the ocean at the time of its use. FIVE MILES.

The shape of Cape Cod as we know it is nowhere near what it used to look like. But, that’s to be expected. We are aware of erosion and what it does to alter the landscape. But five miles of erosion in 800 years?

Since the storm of 1978, erosion has been taking chunks of Cape Cod at a greater rate. The lighthouse at Nauset Beach in Eastham had to be moved way back from its original location because the dunes were giving way at a rate of 2-3 feet every week. The same with Truro light.

Now, the Marconi site is in grave danger of being dropped into the ocean…as is Cahoon Hollow parking lot and the Beachcomber restaurant and bar. The breach of the dunes at Balston Beach that flooded the Pamet river valley is devastating. This has happened before, but I think this time it is the worst. The cut goes right through from ocean to bay. This winter the Cape has been battered by storm after storm.

You might say that it has always been battered by storms. Yes it has. The question now arises: are the storms more violent; have they just uncovered the Cape’s interior soft spots; is it rising sea levels? It could be all of that. I really don't know.

I have said for many years now that one day the Cape would be four islands.

The Cape Cod Canal, man made, cuts the Cape off from the mainland. From here to the area around Orleans Circle will be the first island. The bay and the ocean are not that far apart at that point.

From here to the Marconi site will become the second island. The area of the Marconi site is less than a mile across to the bay. The current storms are battering the dunes at this site and they could go any time…inching closer to toward the bay.

From the Marconi site to the Pamet River will be island number three. Once the Pamet is cut through permanently, the bridge that's there now will certainly be needed. Let's hope it doesn't get washed away.

Island number four will be what is left…namely the Province Lands. And, as nature would have it, Provincetown is growing northward because of littoral drift (the process whereby beach material is gradually shifted laterally as a result of waves meeting the shore at an oblique angle).

Hundreds of years from now, all that will be left of Cape Cod will be the Province Lands with Provincetown the first town on a growing, sandy island. Everything else will be gone.

I suggest you make reservations now, while you can.