The Edge

When I lived in Tennessee I missed being near the edge of the country. Tennessee boasts some fine geography including the Smoky Mountains, Reelfoot Lake, and several rivers, but eight hours to the nearest beach is just too far for me. 

Living in New England, my friends and I could make a quick decision and in an hour or so be at either the ocean or the mountains. With proximity like that, it is possible to wake up, look outside at the weather, and depart on an adventure.

That’s what happened today. Gal pal Nancy and I had soft plans for her next to last day in town -- we planned to do something, but hadn’t determined what. A few days earlier, we considered shopping, but I lucked out and she went on Sunday while I was deep in the excitement of getting new tires, which left Monday wide open for entertainment.

In the morning we confirmed we were still both available and interested in doing something. We just needed to figure out what. The potential ideas included shopping, a museum, tattoos or psychic readings (for which we lacked appointments). Or the beach.

Yes, the beach. In December. In New England.

It was sunny and 60 degrees out (just a few days after six inches of snow), and dammit, it was possible. We drove to Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, even though there are many other options. Hampton is the default when we say “the beach.” Any other beaches are specified by name.

We took the longer, back roads route through some quaint New England towns and landed at the beach on a blue sky day. In December, there is plenty of parking at the beach and the pay stations were wrapped and covered for the off-season.

We drove down some of the side streets packed side by side with rental beach houses, trying to remember which rentals we and our friends stayed in during a very eventful beach week many moons ago, right after we’d graduated from high school. Then we parked the car in one of the gazillion empty parking places and walked on the beach. It was low tide and there were lots of shells.There were a few people on the beach with metal detectors and a few dogs and mostly it was beautifully deserted and quiet.

While we were walking, I said, “I want to find a sand dollar.” As a kid, I had a sea shell collection including many sand dollars found at York Beach, Maine in high school and my 20s. Unfortunately, it was a casualty of a divorce in my 30s when I moved and forgot the jar full of shells on a shelf. In decades of going to Hampton, I’d never found a sand dollar there. And wouldn’t you know it, not two minutes after my declaration, there was a sand dollar laying in the sand. Talk about asking and receiving.

We took pictures of us in the wind. There is a photo from thirty-odd years ago on the same beach, on what we had desperately wanted to be a “lay on the beach” day. That day was cold and windy and in the photo we’re bundled up in sweat shirts and beach towels with no hope of gaining any sort of tan.

And after an hour at Hampton Beach, we left. We had visited, seen, reminisced, and taken photos.

Our next quest was lunch. That proved tricky. The only open place at Hampton was an independent  take-out pizza place with no seating. We agreed on no chain restaurants, and a preference for burgers, pizza, seafood, or Korean food. Nancy knew of a Korean restaurant in Ayer, and as we approached the parking lot I kidded, “Watch it be closed on Mondays.” Sure enough, it was. I was starting to feel a little bit psychic. But there is a pizza and greek food restaurant up the street from the Korean place, where we had gyros and Tri Sum chips.

It was a great day to be at the edge of the country -- weird warm New England weather, the beach, a sand dollar, a locally-owned lunch spot with local chips, and a longtime friend.

Adventureland

Today was an adventure. Actually, every day is some sort of adventure, but today involved a tiny road trip and driving is not one of my favorite things to do, so the element of adventure was ripe from the start. The element of danger was introduced when I got sidetracked in the morning (on the computer, of course) and consumed a mere one-third of my usual coffee intake and no breakfast. Oops.

The key components to the day were my favorite thrift store in Cambridge, Massachusetts (where you can buy stuff by the pound), my friend Nancy (who is in town for the week), and Rte 2. If you are familiar with central Massachusetts, you may recognize Rte 2 as the pathetic excuse for a primary road running east/west from western Massachusetts to Boston, and which still boasts some of the original curves, ruts, and potholes from the Colonial days.

I tend to swear a lot on this road. At least today's company was an adult who served in the military and probably has heard worse than what may come out of my own mouth. When I am with my young nieces it is a challenge of monumental proportion minding my language.

The drive into Cambridge wasn't too bad. There was construction, but it was outside rush hour, so the traffic volume wasn't too horrible. The Garmin navigator was programmed, and we made good time arriving at a spot that seemed close to our destination flag on the tiny map, so we parked in the first  spot we saw, loaded the meter for the maximum one hour capacity and began to walk to the store. It was a lovely day for a walk -- not too cold, not too humid. We were excited about the possibility we might be the first people in the door when they opened for business.

That's when things went a bit wonky.

We walked on what we thought was Broadway, and when we determined it wasn't, consulted my cell phone mapping, and took a side street. At an intersection, we saw a Korean restaurant, which we thought would be a great spot for lunch. Once on the correct street, we walked in the direction of the store.

Cambridge does not seem to be very concerned with visible numbers on buildings for emergency services purposes, and it took a while to see any street numbers displayed. When we finally found building numbers to check, we were in the low 300s. Our destination was number 200.

After 15 minutes of walking since leaving the car, we were still not at the building we needed, or even on the correct block, and concern over the time on the parking meter set in. Calculating that we'd have roughly thirty seconds to shop before we had to return to the car to feed the meter more quarters, we headed back to the car to drive to the shop. We congratulated ourselves on our bonus fitness activity. There are bright sides to nearly everything.

We drove to the shop which turned out to be about a mile from where we had first parked. Luckily, there was a parking spot across the street from the store with a two hour meter. We had enough quarters left for 1.5 hours. And we headed in.

The "By the Pound" room was heaped knee high with clothes, with a small footpath around the perimeter. It reminded me of the fitting rooms at work, but better, because here I don't have to rehang any of it. 

 A sliver of the treasure pile.

A woman sat in a corner of the clothing sorting through items, and her friend sat at the opposite side of the room, doing the same. We weren't the first ones there, but we had still beat whatever crowd might arrive on a Tuesday morning. And we started picking through the stuff.

Jeans. Sweaters. Coats. Weird bits of fabric. Shirts. The odd sock. Sheets and comforters with way too many shadowy stains of questionable nature. Name brands (7 for All Mankind, Ann Taylor, H&M) and no-name stuff. Sizes from toddlers to plus-sized adult. All in one heap. It's a treasure hunt and a test of patience and endurance. I wished I'd had breakfast and my usual caffeine dosage.

I was hoping for something like the beautiful white Irish knit sweater some girl snatched from my sight the last time I was there, but no luck. I scored a vintage navy blue long coat, a long gray skirt, and a summer floral wrap beach skirt, weighing in at 4 pounds for a total of $6. Nancy got more pieces than I did -- shirts and jeans -- weighing 3.2 pounds. She was the winner of the "more for less" portion of the shopping. But really, we both won.

Our next quest was the Korean restaurant we had seen earlier. It seemed pretty straightforward, a couple turns, and boom, there it was. The tricky part was a total absence of parking. None. No parking allowed on the street, no parking lot. We did three loops looking for parking on nearby side streets, and gave up. We decided to eat at a Chinese and sushi place back in Leominster. And it was good.

It was a fun day. We got cool new old stuff we like. We ate. Win-win-win. Time to start some laundry and freshen up the duds.

Spontaneity

Sometimes the best things are unplanned. Like tonight.

I knew my friend Nancy and her daughter were in town from Michigan. I knew they had a family event in the afternoon, (to which I was invited, but scheduled to work). I knew I had no plans for the evening.

When I got home from work after 8 pm, I dove into the leftover pizza from last night. It was Nancy’s fault we even had pizza last night. She had posted a picture earlier in the day of a slab of pizza from Espresso, the pizza joint we grew up with. And once I saw it, it was all I could think about.

When I got home from work and Mom commented that she didn’t know what we’d do for supper, I said, “Nancy posted a picture of Espresso pizza today, and it’s all I have been able to think about.” The next thing I knew, I was across town picking up my niece to stay overnight and swinging by Espresso to pick up a pizza order that Mom called in. Espresso for the win! And thank you Nancy.

Because there only three of us for the pizza supper, there were a couple slices left over. And because I love pizza, and especially pizza from Espresso, there was nothing else on my mind all day today at work. When I got home, I took off my coat and headed straight for the fridge and the pizza.

As I dove into my microwave reheated pizza slabs, I received a text from the pizza inspiration herself, asking if I was free to meet up. As a matter of fact, hell yes! Within 30 minutes we were convened at the Boulder Cafe, a classic local watering hole since my grandmother’s days. And it was good. Unplanned. Fun. And good. Sometimes things just work out perfectly, even without the benefit of plans.