Meme-while, back at the ranch

Mrs Peel arrived home from her vacation travels to Italy and found she'd been memed.  Memed with the same meme that I got memed with a couple weeks ago, the Eight Random Facts Meme.  Being a good sport, Mrs Peel followed the instructions and did her meme and then memed eight more people.  But because she'd been away, she didn't know that I had already been hit by Susie and Catherine and so she memed me again.

Sigh.

I guess I could beg off, but I'm not going to.  Instead I'm going to change the rules a bit.  The meme is now the Eight Random Facts About What I Like to Do Besides the Obvious on Cape Cod Meme.

One.  I like to send post cards.  I sent a batch out today, as a matter of fact.  I have another batch ready to go out tomorrow.  If you'd like a post card to go out to you in the next batch, email me your snail mail address.

I also like to get post cards.  In fact, my wish is that when I get home from vacation 10 days from now I'll find my mailbox stuffed full of post cards from all around the country and the world.  My snail mail address is PO Box 263, New Paltz, NY 12561.

Two.  I like to get stuck in the house for a whole day by rain, but there are conditions.  This can only happen once per vacation.  It can only happen during a vacation when the weather has been almost perfect except for this one rainy day.  The rainy day has to occur in the middle of the either week we're here.  The almost perfect weather is very important.  The rainy day is only fun if it's giving us time to rest up from too much sun and surf and vacation fun and gather strength for the more fun to follow.

Three.  I like to win at mini-golf.  This has never happened.

Four.  I like to go out for coffee at about 10 at night and then drink it while walking around town and spying on the shops as they close up and thinking about past vacations.

Five.  I like to read at least one book by a writer who's spent more time here and thought more about life here than I have and that can teach me something I didn't know about Cape Cod.  That something can be a fact, but I like it better when it's a new way of looking at a place or a thing I'd looked at a dozen times before without really noticing it.

This year's book is a book of poems.  Habitat by Brendan Galvin.

Six.  This one starts before I get here.  I like to go online the week before our vacation and put a bunch of books on reserve at the Eldredge Public Library in time to have at least a few of them waiting for me the first day we're here.  I don't like it when the librarians make fun of me for doing this, which for some reason they always feel a need to do.

Seven.  I like to wander down to a beach very early in a morning with my cell phone, pick a friend at random (say, Shakespeare's Sister, who should set her alarm clock now), call them up, and describe the scenery and the weather in detail.  Amazingly, every year I have one fewer friend.

Eight.  I like to go to Cape Cod League Baseball games at night and watch the Chatham A's win or lose, doesn't matter to me, and stay after the games and watch the stands empty and the players hanging out afterwards on the field talking with friends on the opposing team and the locals whose summers revolve around the games because they volunteer for the club or have given a room to one of the players and the players' girlfriends and the girls who hope to be a player's girlfriend standing patiently on the other side of the fence, waiting for the guys.

One night a few years ago I watched a coach drive a pitcher who had been shellacked in the late innings and lost the game for the A's around and around and around the field in a golf cart while the kid cried his eyes out.

I don't remember the name of that pitcher, but I hope he's in the big leagues now.

Mood on the field after tonight's game was celebratory, at least for the A's.  The Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox had been leading, 11-1, going into the bottom of the seventh.  The A's picked up two and then scored seven more in the bottom of the eighth.  Score was now 11-10 going into the last of the ninth.  A's lead off man got a single.  Next batter lay down a perfect bunt that he almost beat out.  Man on second now.  Next batter singled.  Game tied.  Next player lined out to short.  But the batter after him drove one deep into the gap in left center where it fell between the left fielder and the center fielder and skittered to the wall.  Runner on first flew home and the A's had won it, 12-11.

Ok, since under my new rules you'd have to be me to do this meme I'm not going to pass it along.  Instead I'm throwing open the comments.  Your turn:  What do you like to do besides the obvious when you're on vacation or have some free time to yourself?

Comments

[Linkmeister]

Rent a car somewhere and drive around the state and region. Last time I did this was in Phoenix, and I drove all over New Mexico, up to Santa Fe, down to Lincoln (the Billy the Kid museum was closed that day, unfortunately), and back into Arizona in the SE corner of the state to see Chiracahua Nat'l Monument.

Find a book about the area and read it in the evenings when I've found a motel. I've read about Sternwheels on the Yukon, the California Gold Rush, and a few other fascinating things doing this.

[Anonymous]

On my last vacation, I spent a great deal of time thinking about an old friend. I miss that friend more and more every day.

[Ken Muldrew]

I like to work on vacation. Mostly at building things, whether furniture or houses or anything in between. As long as I can sit back at the end of a long day with a cold beverage and see something that wasn't there when I started. Something tangible, that you can point to if someone should inquire as to whether your place on this earth was wasted that day. Sometimes it's nice to get back to work and have a rest. ;-)

[Patrick Hogan]

I just got back from Cape Cod on June 30th. Spent a week there. Saw 3 CCBL league games in Chatham, Dennisport & Harwich. Going to CCBL games is a high point, going running through new neighborhoods on the Cape. Roaming through bookstores looking for Nautical/maritime historical themed books, this years purchase "Leviathan" The History of Whaling in America by Eric Jay Dolin. Last but not least ordering New England Clam Chowdah with every meal (sans breakfast) PJH Troy, NY

[M.A. Peel]

Lance, multiple-tagging, who knew. I think the puns on meme alone validate the phenomenon.