Shower Surfing

The Norris clan annual vacation week at Swifts Beach in Wareham, MA is a slow torture for me. Although I enjoy visiting with the many cousins, aunts and uncles we only get to see but once a year, there is so much more to contend with. Excessive drinking in the hot August sun on the beach, children swimming over their heads with little adult supervision, and dirty rental houses that are one step below camping is not my idea of fun. I find myself monitoring the toddlers allowed to wander freely near the ocean's edge and the little ones out in the surf while the parents imbibe, their backs to the ocean, laughing and carousing, not a care or concern about the offspring bobbing in the waves. After the beach fun, we are offered the use of an outdoor shower and a warm can of Bud Light as the kids, run barefoot from rental to rental, screaming and sucking on lollipops given by an overindulgent aunt. I try to calm my nerves and hope that no one falls and chokes until we corral our own and call it a night. My two cherubs cry, "Why do WE have to leave? Why can't WE stay over?" As we load them into the car, I cannot wait to escape to my clean, air conditioned home and relax knowing my kids are asleep in their freshly washed sheets, safe from harm. The problem is, that my husband has enjoyed this vacation since he was a child and my own children can't get enough of it.

Instead of renting a room within my mother in law's place (sharing only 2 bathrooms with 3 families: adults, toddlers, teenagers and everyone in between is awfully close for comfort) we decided to take day trips as Wareham is only a short 30 minute car ride away. I thought I might escape some of the drama and dirt that way. Unfortunately for me, I still had to endure some hardships. After the beach on the first day, I needed to rinse the salt and sunscreen from our bodies before dinner. A quick outdoor shower was all that was required. Simple enough and welcome in the sticky, still heat at the cottage a few blocks away from the breeze at the edge of the ocean. I should have stayed covered with beach sand and salt. I opened the door to the dank, dark roofed shower. I knew there would be mold since the sun could not possibly dry out the smelly interior. I reached in and hung up my beach towel, stiff with salt. There was a lot of undrained water from past showers, murky with shampoo residue and a red Solo cup floating in it from last night's party. At least there was a wooden platform so that my feet could remain clear of the sewage. O.k. there was some shower gel I could use, instead of the slimy bar soap left up on the shelf. "I can do this", I thought to myself, "at least I don't have to endure the windowless indoor bathroom with its perpetual poop smell." I held my breath and stepped in. WHOOSH! The floor moved! I was suddenly surfing through the filthy, soapy water! WTF! Seriously, I expected a rat to swim by. Somehow I found it in me to remain balanced on the floating barge as not to fall in. I reached up to grab the filthy walls for balance, not knowing if I would ever get close to clean again after this horrific experience. How can people who are renting a house for a vacation week put up with this? Do these city people actually think this adds to the "Cape Cod Experience"? (Actually, Wareham isn't technically Cape Cod, but don't tell the Norris family, that.) And I thought the candy cigarettes that Rob's sister bought for the kids last year was bad! This shower surfing through waste water definitely tops the list. I quickly rinsed off. (I was already in there, and was too afraid to "try out" another mildew and mouse dropping infested shower at this point.) I emerged from shower hell to my husband laughing at me. I shot him my "Don't you dare F with me" look. It was only Monday, we still had four more days to go and I was already plotting my own personal scheduling conflicts so that I would only have to endure minimal time in these less than savory conditions. My husband and children can stay here without me and enjoy the charm in roughing it but I know better. From now on after a day at Swifts beach, I'm taking a sponge bath.

The Modern Art of Composting

It seems that now everyone not only knows about compost, they are all doing it, too. In homes, schools, restaurants they are dumping decomposable leftovers into buckets and turning them into nutrients for the earth. But I'm not sure anyone would call it an art form.
The idea began when sister's friend, Mark B. came over our house to rehearse for the Falmouth High play they were both "starring" in. Mark was a jokester and made me, the younger sister laugh. More importantly, he let me in on the joke, which I thought was a pretty big deal at the time- still do. I remember him coming home with Karyn after school, into our kitchen through the back door, both of them starving and looking for something to eat before they went upstairs to practice their lines. Mark hungrily looked into the big silver mixing bowl that sat on the corner of the counter top. He may have even taken a big whiff before he realized...What was it, trash? He looked quizzically at me and Karyn.
"It's compost!" I shrieked and fell into a fit of giggles as only a 13 year old girl can do.
"Compost?" Mark said. Back in the early 1980's, it wasn't very popular to throw your scraps in a bucket to make mulch instead of throwing them along with everything else into the landfill. What a weird thing to do!
Val came in and calmly explained why banana peels, egg shells, and used tea bags were taking up space on our kitchen counter. I'm sure she explained the benefits of the seemingly insane process while we kids made fun. As always,she offered everyone a delicious homemade snack then ferried me away so that my older sister could have some privacy with her friend.
Mark declared the pile of discarded food scraps, "Modern Art" and insisted on inspecting the contents of our compost bowl every time he entered the house. It became our running joke. That somehow what was trash could actually end up in a high end gallery where someone might pay large sums of money to own this work was very funny to us. We thought this idea to be very "punk rock". After all, it was the era of Blondie, the Clash and the Sex Pistols, all anti establishment heroes. Who knows where Johnny Rotten really got his name?
On Sunday mornings, when my father comes over for breakfast, he takes my overflowing hot pink compost pail and dumps the coffee grounds, and vegetable ends into our larger receptacle outside. As he wipes out the pail and lines it with newspaper (his own technique) to be filled again, he asks, "What did Karyn's friend, Mark call the compost?"
I always laugh when I'm reminded and say, "Oh yeah, He called it Modern Art!"