Not to overdue the golf theme of late, but the whole town is buzzing over Dewitt’s Dan McCarthy qualifying for the US Open Golf Tournament at Pebble Beach next week.   My Charlie is thrilled for the accomplishments of his friend who caddied for Charlie two years ago in the Post Standard Amateur.  ”Danny” finished in second place in the regional qualifier after 36 holes played in New Jersey yesterday.   Charlie tried too but never got past the local game played at Bellevue a few weeks ago.

Best of luck to Dan as he begins a dream week by signing 150 flags representing the 150 players who will compete in California; players like Michelson, Woods and a few others with whom even non-golfers like myself are familiar.

Charlie and his caddie, US Open Player Dan McCarthy, 2008

And now the answer to the quiz about the location of the magnificent climbing rose bush photographed in the previous post.  It is on South Colvin Street, near South Avenue, a brilliant display of color and life in a block many people do not notice when they drive by.

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No, this is not in Fayetteville, or the beautiful village of Skaneateles.  It is not on Oneida Lake or in Cazenovia.  This lush and lovely nine foot tall rose is in the city of Syracuse.  Can you guess where?

a.  Lancaster Avenue near Syracuse University

b.  East Colvin Street near South Avenue

c. Dewitt Street near Sedgwick

e. Glenwood Avenue near Bellevue Country Club

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Once again, my number three child is competing in the Post-Standard Amateur Golf Tournament.  He survived the first two rounds of play to proceed to his home course of Bellevue Country Club tomorrow.

I’ve been following Charlie while he competes, walking 18 holes at Kanon Valley Country Club in Oneida and another 18 at Drumlins East in Dewitt.  I’m exhausted.  I’ve got blisters on my right toe and when I saw the 8:27 am tee time at Bellevue in the morning, I made a pre-emptive request to join in on the back nine.

Charlie and I have a running joke.  I tell him how fortunate he is to have inherited his good looks from the McCann side of the family even though he could pass for a twin for his dad.  Once, when I went to Steve’s house to pick up Charlie I saw Steve approaching the car and wondered what he wanted, only to see it was Charlie who was walking down the path.  That’s how much they look alike.

I also tell Charlie how proud I am that he’s such a disciplined player.  He works harder at the game than anyone I know.  I pat myself on the back for introducing Charlie to the sport and Charlie goes along with the ruse thanking me for all the equipment I bought and the lessons I arranged and the golf academy I discovered because I actually had nothing to do with it.  Steve is 100 percent responsible for Charlie and golf.  I thought it was a dull sport and kids should be waterskiing or something, and now look at him.

As usual,  my child is teaching me more than I am teaching him.  For years I watched Charlie suffer terribly during competitive play.   I wanted to take the pain away and bring him to something that feels good like a water slide at Disney because that’s what mommies do, but he would have none of it.  He was miserable on the course but elated in the car and it was that elation that brought him back for another day of suffering.

I wondered why the heck he plays a sport that does that to him.  He swears under his breath and sometimes above it for most of the course.  Sometimes I see him hit a shot into the woods and I wonder how on earth he’ll get out of this one.  Mostly I wonder why he would even want to.  I would crumble into a ball on the ground and cry.

Today Charlie hit one of those shots.  On the 12th tee at Drumlins East, he drove the ball into a forest and took a provisional “just in case” shot if the five of us; the three players, Charlie’s dad who was caddying, and I, could not locate the ball in the woods.  Well Charlie found it and it sat where no golf ball ever should sit unless you’re a person who combines golf and deer hunting in the same outing.

He stood at an awkward angle on the hill, squished between trees like he was identifying wild mushrooms and he looked up at the flag which sat at an impossible angle from his spot and swung.  ”Pop”.  ”Crunch!”. The ball made it as far as two feet before hitting a bush.  If he wasn’t going to throw himself onto the ground after that I thought I’d better.

Charlie hit it again and got onto the fairway,  the commuter highway for golf balls.  Charlie was back in the game, albeit at a terrible deficit.  With nerves of titanium I think he eventually sunk the ball into the hole at two strokes over par.  His final score for the day was 76, enough to propel him into a third round at Bellevue tomorrow.

As the mother who instinctively wanted to protect her son from failure and disappointment, I have come a long way.  I now know why Charlie loves this game  so much. It’s the satisfaction that comes from getting oneself out of trouble.

That’s what we all do, don’t we?  In the game of life we find ourselves in awful predicaments and wonder what do we do now?  Charlie, and all competitive golfers do this every time they step onto the first tee.  They get themselves in trouble and they work themselves out.  There is no honor in walking out of the woods and into the parking lot, or in crumbling into a ball and crying at the hopelessness of the work ahead.  They call up the grit and they push through the anger, disappointment, shame and fear to get the ball into that dumb hole.  We should all perform as well as a golfer stuck in the woods.

I’ll be rooting for baby Charlie at Bellevue tomorrow.  If you want to join us, just look for the middle aged woman with a camera in her hand and tired legs and a handsome young man who gets himself out of trouble again and again.

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Admit it.  While you waited to see if the Clinton marriage would finally crumble under infidelity, competition and ambition, you never saw the end coming for Al and Tipper Gore.  Why would you?  They were just like us; normal and sincere to point of embarrassment.

The Gores did not have his and hers Ivy League educations, his and hers law degrees, his and hers sinks at the White House and his and hers global causes.  They did not rescue a Continent from a tsunami or warn North Korea about its aggressions against the South; they didn’t battle jet lag to give eloquent speeches all over the world while their contemporaries focused on weddings for their children and the weekly contest of golf or bridge at the Club.   We knew no marriage could possibly survive the Clinton brand of ambition, so it was only a matter of time before one of them said “enough”.

The Gores on the other hand seemed grounded with favorable odds for their marriage outlasting many of the political marriages in Washington.

Unlike the Clintons, the Gore marriage wasn’t controversial or polarizing.  It wasn’t cool or sizzling hot like the Obamas.  Who can look at that icky kiss Al Gore gave Tipper on the stage of the 2000 Democratic National Convention and not feel like teenagers compelled to tell their parents they’re really gross?  We gave the Gores a pass on that one because while they weren’t the least bit sexy, they at least seemed genuine.

No one knows a marriage except the two people in it and as one who divorced under public scrutiny I can say it is a waste of time to speculate what went wrong with those two after 47 years.  They might not yet know it themselves and if they do, it’s their business only.

Tonight on Hardball on MSNBC, Chris Matthews said it best.  ”It is not sad.  They are entitled to their decision”.  I agree.  Divorce is usually a little more sad for one party than it is for the other but the couple arrived at that point together.

Still, the prospect of a Gore split rattles the earth a little.  While the world waited with a collective yawn for the seemingly inevitable separation of Bill and Hillary, another ship was quietly hitting the shoals.  Not even close friends apprently saw it coming.

This was the tortoise and the hare race to divorce court and once again, with all eyes on the hare, the tortoise got there first.

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Offering up the “best” lobster roll recipe is asking for trouble.  There are strong opinions about this.  In fact, for awhile, I argued with myself.  I used to insist on some celery in the mix as a way of adding a little “crunch”, but now believe the best lobster roll must not include any vegetable.  Some New England restaurants experiment with herbs and the addition of fruit or nuts.  It’s all delicious, but for an authentic lobster roll, I think it’s all about the meat, the mayo, and the toasted buttered New England hot dog bun and nothing else but a fresh air appetite.

Boil one 3 pound lobster or two 1.5 lobsters, whichever you can find; 20 minutes for the 3 lb., 15 minutes for the two smaller ones.

When cooled, twist off the tail and slice it down the middle with a sharp knife.  Peel back the shell and release the tail meat.  Cut into 1 in. chunks and place in small bowl.  Tear off the two front claws and crack open with lobster crackers.  Dig out the meat from the claws and “arms”, cut into chunks and add to the bowl.

In a hot skillet, brown two lightly buttered New England-style hot dog rolls, the kind with cut bread on the sides.

In a medium sized bowl, combine the cooked lobster meat with a very scant amount of mayonnaise; just enough to help it all stick together a little, about two tablespoons.

Add the juice of one-third of a lemon.

Scoop a generous amount into the buns and serve.

French fries and cold slaw are traditional side dishes but I enjoy some fruit like grapes instead.  The lobster, butter and mayo are rich and the fruit is a nice accompaniment.

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I know I promised you a trip to Provincetown today.  Would you settle for some time around the house instead?

In order to get a decent price on the rentals for my Cape Cod house I thought it time to retire the 27″ old tube TV and finally get a flat screen since they cost one-third what they did just five years ago.  I ordered one on Monday for delivery to the Cape house while we were here, and it was scheduled to arrive today. In fact, an early morning voice mail from UPS said they were on their way!  They couldn’t provide an estimated time of delivery but they did say the TV would arrive sometime between 8:00 am and 7:00 pm.  A thirteen hour window!  How helpful!

They can scan the shoulder of a dog and find the owner and address.  They can’t use GPS to track a delivery truck?  Because a signature was required for the TV we were under house arrest waiting for the familiar brown and gold so it’s a good thing I like the house.  I did escape for an hour to buy my flowers while Christian and Matt kept watch, but the day trip to P’ Town was off.

One of my two favorite nurseries, Hart Farm in Dennis

When a good family friend joined us on our Cape vacations he used to call “Hart Farm” Nursery, “Fart Harm” which my four little children thought was about the funniest thing coming from a grownup.  The name stuck. Now I go to Fart Harm all the time.

Check out all the hydrangeas!  You see them everywhere on the Cape for their love of the sandy soil, gentle temperatures and fog.  They’ll sprout giant blue flowers the size of a person’s head by late June.

Once again I’ve chosen a green and white theme for my patio urns this year which allows the royal blue outdoor furniture to pop.  The tender ivy left in the pots from last year survived the winter so they’ve got a head start on this year’s growth but at the rate plants grow around here, the ivy will be snaking into the neighbor’s window by October.  What do you think of my selection?

At last the new TV arrived at 4:00.  I told Christian that if he and Matt set it up with cables I don’t understand I would treat them to their favorite pizza in Chatham.  Deal. While I chomped on a lobster roll featuring my time-tested authentic New England lobster salad recipe, the boys performed their electronic magic and we were off to Chatham.

A 4 pounder, called a "cull" because of a missing claw. Cheaper that way

Poor guy is unrecognizable.

Before you accuse me of being selfish for eating lobster while the children get pizza, you should know both boys coincidentally have a shellfish allergy.   Good.  More for me.

Christian chomps into a "white" pizza from Carmine's

The village of Chatham was quiet and beautiful tonight, wiped clean and warm with the golden hour of sunset that professional photographers use to give every subject a suntan.  Chatham sits at the “elbow” of the Cape.  Surrounded by sea and sandbars; there’s nothing but ocean between us and Portugal.

Only Puerto Rico may be further east in the U.S. than we are.  It’s enough to notice the sun coming up earlier here than in Syracuse, 400 miles to the west.

With our tummies filled with dinner and sweets from the penny candy store, we were drenched in the last rays of the day.  I hope you like the photos.

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Main Street, Chatham

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Matt and Christian in front of the Chatham Lighthouse

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Everyone thinks the lobsters must be cheap so close to the source, but they’re not.  Lobster on the Cape costs more than in Syracuse, although it’s my experience that the lobsters here are much less “sleepy”, one sign of freshness.  I save money by asking for “culls”, freaks of nature where one of the two large claws is undersized or missing.  These are usually reserved for wholesalers like restaurants, but my fish store, George’s of Harwich sells them to the public for a few dollars less per pound.  I got my 4 pound cull for $25.00 and it made three lobster rolls.  No bargain, but delicious.

I’ll post my lobster roll recipe next.

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What could be better than watching the Red Sox on TV with my second glass of wine?  The Red Sox winning, that’s what.  They are currently trailing the Kansas City Royals but I’m doing OK. The wine helps, and the fact the season is young.  I’ll be back in a month when I can start swearing in a Boston accent when they lose.  Along with my parents, the availability of Red Sox games on TV and radio are what I missed most when I moved from Worcester to Syracuse in 1980.

Christian, his friend Matt Shappert and I arrived at our house on Cape Cod late last night.  We left Syracuse at 90 degrees and found the Cape at 65.  It’s always cooler by the ocean at this time of year, but with brilliant sunshine all day today, it felt warmer than it sounds.

With the forecast calling for sunny skies and warming temperatures this holiday weekend, there’s sure to be a run on Cape beaches so I intend to complete my errands tomorrow and then hunker down around Harwich for Saturday and Sunday while the roads get clogged with New England traffic.

Today we went to Hyannis, the commercial center of the Cape, so the boys could get their fill of the Cape Cod Mall and I could stock up on supplies at my new favorite store Ocean State Job Lot and a giant Homegoods.  But as soon as I got out of the car at Job Lot, I thought a plane would crash on my head.  The flight path brought all planes right over the parking lot to the Hyannis airport right across the street. It’s the same airport where the Kennedy’s arrive and depart.  Every four minutes or so another plane would fly right over us on its approach to the landing strip.  It was like we were under attack.

Pretty close. There's the control tower, right across busy route 28

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Here it comes

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Duck!

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There it goes, ready to touch down

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One of my rewards for getting the house ready for a summer of families who rent this place is my outdoor shower.  I designed it myself when I bought the house ten years ago.   Outdoor showers are ubiquitous on the Cape.  They began as a way to wash off sand after a day at the beach, and grew to include hot water and a stall for privacy.  Now nearly every home on the Cape has an outdoor shower, a perfect fit for a region built on a giant sandbar stretching into the Atlantic Ocean.  Every house has a septic tank too, so showering outdoors means fewer calls to get the tank emptied out.

Most outdoor showers are 4 ft. by 4 ft, but four children taught me that 8 ft by 8 ft. is even better.  After a day at the beach my children used to complain that the person who just completed their shower was taking too much time to towel off and dress, so I designed an interior T-shaped “wall” with the shower on one side and a dressing room on the other.  Best yet, you can enter in the shower area, and exit at the dressing area, a one-way traffic pattern that gets the “customer”s in and out quickly.

My outdoor shower has a light for nighttime showers beneath the stars, but mostly we shower under the sun here.  I’ve showered outdoors as late as November before the threat of frost challenges the plumbing.  Carrie Lazarus who has joined us nearly every year since the late 1990s says the outdoor shower alone is worth the 6 hour drive.  I couldn’t agree more.

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It doesn't get any better than this. The shower outside my house

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Carrie is an annual visitor. We found these mermaid hooks one day

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There's nothing like showering under the sun

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Tomorrow Christian requested a trip to Provincetown so we’ll get on the road before noon before all the visitors arriving for the weekend threaten to clog the roads.  I’ll have my camera so you can be part of the adventure!

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In Syracuse we seem to go from 55 degrees to 85 degrees virtually overnight.  That is our spring.  Few days settle in the 60s or 70s.  No sooner do we turn off the heat when we reach for the fans and AC.

The Old Erie Canal through Clinton Square

With temperatures spiking the past few days, I was delighted to drive through downtown and see the reflecting pool at Clinton Square filled with happy youngsters wading and splashing.  I knew the water wasn’t chlorinated for swimming and certainly not for drinking, and no one was doing either in water 6 inches deep.  They were just splashing around and enjoying the expanse of water as the playful fountains rose and retreated like choreographed silver dancers in the background.

I wondered how long it would be before the city of Syracuse cracked down on this happy scene and I got my answer tonight.  With record-breaking heat expected tomorrow comes word that patrols will be stepped up to prevent children from wading into that water.

Our city grew up on the water of the Erie Canal, water that flowed right where the reflecting pool sits today.  People boated and swam and some even drowned, and in the winter they skated at the foot of the most beautiful buildings we have in Syracuse; the old Syracuse Savings Bank and the Gridley Building among them, and the people glided and laughed and they hurt themselves and through it all the city and its people prospered.

Even though our city leaders filled in the canal to create a paved road nearly a century ago, there’s something about that location that begs for more water.  It still draws our citizens on the coldest of days to skate upon the frozen ice rink and to splash around the fountain in the summer heat.  The spring heat even.

By the time the Canal was filled in near the turn of the last century it had become an open sewer, a public health nuisance.  Penicillin had not yet been invented down the road at Bristol Myers and so avoiding sources of infection was critical to survival.  No one wants a return to the rat-infested muddy waters of what the Erie Canal had become in downtown Syracuse.

Syracuse in 1906

But can’t we add just enough chlorine to allow for splashing around in the reflecting pool?  Can’t we post signs absolving the city of liability in the unlikely event someone gets badly hurt or drowns in 6 inches of water?  When I drove past the other day, mothers sat catching ten minutes of rest while they supervised their little ones at play.  Must we proudly declare we will beef up patrols at the reflecting pool on the eve of record heat and do nothing more with the water than just watch it?  That’s about as satisfying as not touching the presents under the Christmas tree.

Or can’t we just look the other way?  Better yet, why not watch?  You can’t see these kids kicking water as if it’s the first time they’ve seen it, without a smile spreading on your face.  What do you think?

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We’re trying something new with the boat this year.  After a year on Oneida Lake and five in the Thousand Islands, we’re keeping it in dry storage at the northern end of Canandaigua Lake southeast of Rochester.

Canandaigua Lake, looking south, as the glaciers advanced and pushed material southward to form hills

Canandaigua reminds me a lot of Skaneateles, with a little more variety and a little less charm.  The New York Culinary and Wine Center is within walking distance of the marina.  Good thing because it’s a terrific asset that I wish we had in Syracuse.

It’s a combination restaurant, wine tasting center, kitchen auditorium for cooking demonstrations and cooking school for hands on lessons using the best appliances and prep tools.

There is also the Inn on the Lake, a hotel and event center with an outdoor restaurant and bar right on the water and the longest line of adirondack chairs on the sea wall that I’ve ever seen; perhaps 30 or more.  That’s at hand too.

And some restaurants and a park and a beach.  There are wineries nearby, and the city of Rochester for evening entertainment.

Tom, Natalie, Parker and I spent the afternoon cruising down the west side of the lake, then cutting over to the east side and cruising on back, but by then we were getting hungry so our tour of the east side was spent windswept at about 25 miles per hour.

I took some photos of beautiful properties for you, wondering which one might be the Wegman’s summer estate.  Each one was more lovely than the next so it was difficult to tell, but by far the grandest site of all was a gigantic and tasteful wooden lodge, large enough that we wondered at first if it was a hotel.  There’s a covered boat dock with six slips, a cluster of adirondack chairs encircling a copper fire pit at the water’s edge, and hidden amongst a grove of trees, the coolest tree house you could ever dream of. The “house” itself was worthy of Architectural Digest, of course.  But darn, I didn’t take a photo!  And as we traversed the lake, Natalie took out her iphone, googled “Wegman house on Canandaigua Lake”, and the lodge popped right up.  We had found it!  Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, right from our boat.

The funniest part of our inaugural adventure on Canandaigua was the system to remove the boat from the water.  A regular old John Deere tractor waited at the launch.  Before we could even get out, we were told to just drive right onto the trailor while he pulled us out and drove us around the parking lot to our permanent space.

Tractor meets boat

Something about the whole thing seemed unsafe and really illegal in Big Brother New York State, but I knew these people had a lot more experience riding people around in boats on a parking lot than we had in the riding.   It was the most daring part of the day.

Our sketchy ride around the parking lot

We’re just getting started with the summer.  I’ll take you along, including the rides around the parking lot.

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