At the Cabin

Friday, 17 August 2012

Today we arrived at the cabin for a vacation. You may recall that we stayed at the cabin earlier this summer, thought I arrived late and only stayed two nights back then.

I decided to leave my computer and phone at home. Jennifer initially balked at the idea of not bringing my phone, suggesting that there might be an emergency in which she’ll need to call my parents. I’m not sure what, exactly, my Dad (living in Florida) is supposed to do via phone if I suddenly have a heart attack and wind up in the hospital, but I wrote down my parents’ phone numbers and told Jennifer to put them in her phone just in case.

One thing we did bring with us is our DVD player. We arrived at the cabin with two disks from Netflix and two newly purchased movies to watch with Owen late at night after Isla falls asleep.

We tried bringing our DVD player last time, but failed. First, Jennifer forgot to bring the DVD player. Since I drove up separetely three days later, she called and reminded me to bring the player. I did, but I did not bring the correct cord, so we couldn’t attach it to the 1970s TV that resides at the cabin.

This time, we remembered the DVD player, but it looked like it was unnecessary: my brother-in-law donated a newer TV to the cabin. This newer model had a built-in DVD player. So, we popped in one Netflix, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. After about twenty minutes, my wife complained that the movie didn’t have enough sex in it (or maybe she just said it didn’t make any sense, I don’t remember), so I ejected the disk and inserted Mad Men: Season 1 Disk 1. Once we got past the FBI warning telling us we will be shot on sight if we copy the disk, and forwarded past the trailers, we selected the first episode and began watching.

The subtitles appeared. So we had to go back to the menu and unselect them. They were already unselected, so we weren’t sure what was wrong. We tried accessing the TV’s menu, but no luck. So then we plugged in our DVD player (the one we brought from home), but Jennifer forgot the remote, and our stupid, shitty DVD player doesn’t have full usability without the remote. So we shut the thing off.

Saturday, 18 August 2012

So I brought with me, cracked open, and began reading the novel Where Things Come Back. This is one of those Catcher in the Rye copycat books (yeah, really, the characters even reference Catcher in the Rye) with an interesting twist: there’s a secondary story happening unrelated to the main story.

While the main tale takes place in Lily, Arkansas and concerns a teenaged boy who’s grappling with all sorts of stuff, the subplot tells of a missionary in Ethiopia who grows disillusioned, moves back home, then tries out college life, where he prfoundly influences his roommate.

This tight but sprawling narrative is, actually, more interesting than the main story. I wish I would have began making a list, years back, of books and movies in which the subplot is more interesting than the main plot. It wouldn’t be a very long list, percentage-wise, but it would fascinating to look back on.

The book also talks about the possible reappearance of a (thought to be) extinct woodpecker. As soon as I came across this in the text, I knew they were talking about the Lord God Bird – because I had once read the book The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, which is an enormously captivating read, and I suggest you go get yourself a copy right now. Anyway, I just go to the point in the Where Things Come Back where one character casually mentions to another that  the woodpecker everyone is excited about used to be called the My God Bird. The book is a work of fiction, but this character’s claim is entirely true. In fact, according to the other book – the one called The Race to Save the Lord God Bird – the bird had several names, including both Lord God and My God. What a great name for a bird. Too bad it’s extinct.

Sunday, 19 August 2012

Today is my second full day in a row without using a phone, a computer, or a car. And, for the second day in a row, I had no interaction with anyone at all except my wife and kids. How great is that? It’s awesome.

We sat out on the beach a lot. Jennifer keeps pulling weeds and sifting out rocks and carrying dried seaweed to the fir pit. I help sometimes, but mostly I’m just relaxing. I did move the fire pit, however.

I think, at some point in the last 30 years, a member of Jennifer’s family set up a fire ring in the backyard. At the time, its location made sense, but in the ensuing years a nearby tree has grown directly overhead. Over the last several years, whenever there’s been a fire in the fire pit, I’ve watched as smoke and ashes have risen up into that tree. Big chunks of foliage are dead on the tree as a result, and I kept thinking that, any day now, the things is going to burst into flames.

Anyway, I moved the pit about ten feet closer to the shore, just away from the tree’s reach. My wife wondered if some people in the family might not like the idea that I ever so slightly altered their world, so my plan for tomorrow is to work more on the fire pit by burying bricks and enclosing the perimeter in heavy stones that are partially buried. That way, if anyone doesn’t like it, they’ll have to really be commited to their disdain if they want to move it.

I’m thinking of mixing some cement and pouring it around the firepit, too. But that might be going too far.

Monday, 20 August 2012

…And today is my third day in a row without phone, car, or computer. In fact, today I didn’t even use the TV. We turned on the TV yesterday to watch Men In Black with Owen. There were subtitles. Again. We couldn’t get rid of them. But we decided to go ahead and watch the movie anyway, primarily because Owen would have been too upset if we shut it off, and also because – come on – it’s just Men In Black.

Anyway, this evening we went out on the rowboat again. Owen tried his hand at rowing, which was good because up until that moment he was quite the harsh critic of my rowing. Also, Isla gets enveloped in this Zen-like calm when we’re out on the boat. She just sits or stands there looking overboard with a peaceful look on her face.

Also this evening, we started a fire in the pit. This should, along with the bricks and rocks, help to make the pit’s location more permanent-looking. We roasted some marshmallows and made some ‘smores. I had a couple, not because I think marshmallows taste great, but because that’s what you’re supposed to do when your standing around a bonfire. I left all the ashes and embers in the pit to help it seem more legitimate.

Owen row, row, rows the boat

Isla relaxes in the sink