home again home again jiggety jig

i'll sprinkle this one with lyrics. except i don't know if that one counts. is it a song? i'm back after four days and nights of fun in the sun at basin harbor (link in the entry below), vergennes, vermont. back with a new t-shirt (a reunion tradition, this time green on white with an innovative grandparent-centric geneogram on the back), some serious color (stark contrast between white on my upper thigh and red on my lower, plus face, arms, etc. - warm but not really painful), a stiff neck (result of tubing accident this morning??), a phone number (keep reading), and all the stuff i've been carting around with me all summer.

i'll cover this topically, rather than chronologically, and see how much writing my current energy level will allow for. these were full days:

plenty of water activity - swimming in the luxuriously temperate lake Champlain; partaking of the relatively new floating inflatable trampoline, which is almost as much fun to make jokes about (i.e. "jumping on the tramp" - of relevance later) as it is to jump or hang out on; a kayak down the shore with carla, josh, and daniela; canoeing across the lake with zoe and then martha to access a short but fulfilling hike through the woods on the ny side; and this morning an early ride on an inflated banana-thingy which ended abruptly and decisively when it flipped over going near 30 mph and plopped michelle, lawrence and me into the water.

plenty of games - i didn't participate in either of those hallmarks of white/collar sport (tennis and golf, respectively) despite a mild hankering, but there were handsful of cards, including several rounds of oh hell, two of russian banks (i triumphed against the formidable carla and betsy), and of course the family staple pounce.

for those who've never been to a cantor-naumburg-heming family gathering, pounce is perhaps the most intense card game in existence; each player has a deck and simultaneously strives to rifle through his cards and play up as much as possible in order to be the first to eliminate his 13-card talon ("pounce pile," whose russian banks analogue is the "misery pile") and yell "Pounce!", bringing the round to a close. Martha emerged, even more prominently than before, as a sick master of the game (in a five-player game i wasn't in, but taking place at the same time as was, she racked up more than 250 points with her nearest competitor eons behind with 120-something; meanwhile across the room i finished two points behind the eventual winner.)

the back-to-back games nights, which took place in my parents' cottage, also featured, on successive nights, scrabble (a 3-way game that lasted until I bingoed out to win with sANDIEr, after a frustratingly closed board threatened to render my two blanks worthless) and charades (the other family staple; memorable moments include Mike's rendition of "In the Ghetto," miming bearded, big-nosed jew; Martha's brilliant take on Tuck Everlasting, of which her team had inexcusably never heard; my three-minutes-plus Ward Ethics ["eh?," "thick, thick, thick"] which was a book on the shelf nobody knew; to contrast with my fifteen seconds to get the Ani song "pick-see," and Josh spinning around in crab-walk for Cancer, Schmancer.)

reading, in places - i finished the scrabble book on the drive up, and spotted my way through some Pullum and Barthes.

i went running twice - once with dad, and this cooler morning on the same route (3.5 miles or so), but markedly faster (we sprinted the last segment) with Alex - which felt terrific. as did jumping in the lake afterward. good to have my shoe back.

a tremendous evening Sunday night when over twenty of us invaded the bar/tavern which is oddly miscalled "Red Barn" as often as it is correctly called "Red Mill," pushed the furniture aside, I took over the CD player, and we had ourselves a little dance party into the wee hours. a similar family solidarity moment - at least demonstrative of what can happen when you get 38-ish of us together - a half-hour post-family-photos yoga session led by my pops. (3-year old Lily led some yoga classes of her own immediately following, demonstrating godlike flexibility and innovative technique involving prancing around with silly arm positions.)

meals are always a major part of the basin harbor experience, and dressing for those in the main dining room (jacket and tie required) is one of my favorite parts. unfortunately, only two of my four nights there were MDR nights (that TLA thanks to a girl i'll get to later), the other two we had worse food and nicer views at cookout/picnics on the waterfront. I didn't remember to get dessert on every lunchtime visit to the Ranger Room, but I tried to make up for it the other times.

so that should give you a sense of the carefree family reunion days. the gentrified country-club atmosphere can get a bit much (a particularly discordant moment one night when two of the Jamaican staff members stood needlessly holding screen door open for us) - it's no surprise my folks always leave several days earlier than the crowd in general - but it really is a beautiful place, and it's awfully nice to have no decisions more difficult than whether to swim, boat, hike, play a game, or do nothing, and what to select from the appetizer menu.

plus it's always nice to see family. they don't get on my nerves as much as they seem to on each others, sometimes. no major disputes (at least not until this afternoon, where there was some drama about whether Martha would be able to ride home on Peter's bus in order to stay on a few days.) i spent time most with carla and josh, martha and mom, brenda and her sons; less than i'd like with bob, alex, dan, and some others, but ok.

however. i've left out, so far, the most blogworthy portion of the whole experience. as alluded to above. i'll get to that in a little bit, but i have to go look at something first.

looking for someone to save you
looking for someone to rave about you
to rave about you