Exploring the Coast with My Sailor

Because when you visit your sailor at the edge of the ocean, of course you have to do ocean things!

Seeing one of my kids after missing them for a month is the best feeling ever, but weirdly, they get creeped out if I just want to sit and stare at them and pet their hair all day. So we had to plan some activities to see if we could space out my creepy mom moments to a sustainable level.

At this point, I just need to go on a tangent about the DIY Iced Coffee Bar at Cape Cod Bagels. We discovered it back in August and managed to visit it every day we were there, and on this trip I also visited it every day! It's essentially just a bank of chilled coffees in different flavors, with a separate area where you can add your cream and sugar. It is the most genius concept I have ever encountered, and I had a marvelous time mixing up different coffee flavors for myself, then perfectly sweetening everything to my exact likeness. 

I miss you, Cape Cod Bagels!

And why yes, I DID bring my kid's national parks passport book on this trip with me, just so she and I could do my favorite things for us to do together--collect passport stamps and visit museums! Because obviously you cannot collect your New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park passport stamp without also visiting the New Bedford Whaling Museum!

Please look at a picture of this animal that definitely really exists:

What, you've never seen a hyena whale before? Guess you're not as much of a sailor as you thought you were!

How about a bearded whale? Look at its little paws!

These are from Historiae Animalium by Conrad Gesner, who's definitely seen a real, live narwhal for his very own self:

I don't remember if this definitely real siren is from the same book, but it's certainly got the same look about it!

Y'all know how excited I get whenever I see a Marshall Islands stick map! It's the first map that ever blew my mind, and now I'm sort of low-key obsessed with the different ways that humans visualize their local geography:

Here's another interesting conflation of two of my Special Interests:

I present to you a map of the United States, embroidered by a young Miss Silvia Grinnell. Her father was a ship captain, and she was named after her mother. The map looks like it was pre-printed with the lines to embroider, although it's also very possible that Silvia drew those lines herself as part of the project. I love how the larger borders are pipe cleaners that she stitched to the fabric:

It wasn't uncommon for children of all sexes to be given this type of academic handwork--I mean, think of the beloved salt dough map of today!--but it IS uncommon for it to have survived, especially in such good condition. Alas that I no longer have any of my children's carefully crafted salt dough maps... much less their cookie cake maps, ahem. 

New Bedford is in a miniscule nook completely covered by two pipe cleaner pieces. I wonder if the conservators peeped between those pieces to see if she'd sneaked a special embroidered marker there for her hometown?

Here's my own hometown, below. I think it's interesting that she embroidered the names of the indigenous nations there, as she knew them:

My love for Moana is a running family joke, as is the fact that whenever we buy a month of Disney+ so we can watch the latest Star Wars or Marvel or Percy Jackson series, I also basically end up watching Moana every single day of that month. And sometimes in conversations or via text, I will randomly exhort my child or partner to "consider the coconut. Consider its tree," then continue to extol how we can "make our nets from the fibers," and "use the leaves to build fires," etc. I promise that I'm very fun to be around!

Anyway, does the below informational signage not sound EXACTLY like that song? I cackled when I saw it, lol:

There actually wasn't a ton about whaling itself at the museum, which I appreciated because whaling is pretty disturbing. Instead, it was information about whales--

--the culture of the appreciation, observation, and study of whales--

--and the culture of the whalers and those who worked on the whaling ships.

Included in this, I was delighted to see museum evidence of one of my Special Interests, historical boyfriends! It's still an open question among scholars how subversive queer expression would have even been on whaling ships during this time and place--perhaps not very!--but some of the very few first-person narratives known today include some intriguing ambiguity.

Just a few days after this, she'd be setting sail on her own tall ship not completely unlike this one!

After seeing the rest of the sites--and getting our passport stamps, of course!--I'd had a couple of other spots in mind to visit--

--but considering that I'd also spent the entire day bragging about how I'd been to the Cape Cod National Seashore twice in a matter of weeks and had seen copious sea lions both times, the kid decided that what she'd really like to do with our evening is go see some sea lions.

So we did!

You can tell I'm with one of my kids when I start taking photos of rocks and shells and weird stuff on the ground. If you're not obsessed with examining things that would be just perfect for your nature table, were you even a homeschooler?

This kid is definitely the beachiest one in the family after me, and she'd probably be even beachier than me if she wasn't so fair-skinned. So it was nice to hang out with someone who accidentally ended up getting just as wet as I accidentally ended up getting!

And this time I didn't have to dread driving back down the peninsula in the dark, because I had a confident and capable fellow adult to do it for me!

Afterwards, we picked up more pizza from the place next door to my hotel, and had settled in for our own little Family Movie Night, when the kid got a text from one of her fellow sea friends that it was going to be a good night for seeing bioluminescence. By this time, she'd seen the phenomenon several times herself, but I had never, so we hopped back in the car and went on another adventure!

The trouble with the bougie little town where the kid's program is located is that it's a bougie little town. Most of the waterfront is private, with little non-resident access or parking. She and her classmates mostly walked or biked to the beaches, and they all have stories to tell about security guards trying to kick them off of beaches they even had the owner's permission to be at. But the kid knew a couple of places where we could more or less park legally for a bit, assuming we could get in and out before the cops arrived. She directed me to one such place, where I parked, we got out of the car, and a male voice from the darkness immediately called out, "Can I help you?"

I cheerfully replied, "Nope!", and then we cheerfully (but quickly, ahem) ignored Random Man/Cat Burglar/Security Guard/Mob Boss/Serial Killer while we poked around the dark harborside, picking up little sticks and rocks and tossing them into the water to annoy the  phytoplankton to make them bioluminesce at us. It was VERY cool, but as soon as I'd watched it for about five seconds I whispered, "Let's go," the kid replied, "Yep," and we were off. 

We'll see each other again in Auckland!

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To the Coast to See My Sailor

My older kid is studying abroad this semester, conducting research on oceans and climate while crewing a tall ship in the South Pacific. Before that, though, she spent several weeks at the program's home base in Cape Cod, learning how to conduct research on oceans and climate and how to crew a tall ship.

I didn't relish going the entire semester without seeing my girl, so the week before she flew to Fiji to begin the sailing component of her experience, I drove back out to the coast for a super quick visit... and to bring home all the little luxuries that she didn't want to lug around and find a place for in her tiny ship bunk!

Bonus: the younger kid's college is on the way home-ish...

It's been a minute since I've taken such a long road trip as the sole driver, so I'd been dreading it, but honestly, other than the chronic backache, it was kind of awesome! I got through the entirety of Prairie Fires on audiobook with nobody trying to talk to me and thereby making me miss any interesting details. I got to decide when I wanted to gas up, which did not include running the car down to Empty while I continued searching for the mythical "low gas prices," ahem... I did not stop for fast food a single time because the boring-ass peanut butter crackers and granola bars and various little snackies I packed were quite interesting enough for me, even though this gas station advertisement did kind of intrigue me:

Is a sweet biscuit not a scone?

The only part it was really worth dreading, it turned out, was finding and checking into my hotel room. Why is every encounter with another human being so awkward?!? When I walked into the Holiday Inn, there was already a guy at the reception desk talking to the clerk, but after I'd been in line behind him for a couple of minutes, he ended whatever conversation he'd been having by announcing that I could just go ahead of him.

Of course I was all, "OMG no, I'm not in a hurry, you're fine, take all the time you need, etc.," but then he was all, "Eh, I'm just gonna make the reservation on my phone."

Cool, I guess? I already had a reservation, so I stepped up to the clerk and she started checking me in. But she kept asking me weird questions like, "Is anyone else joining you?" and "Did you just make this reservation?" and it was generally just weird all around. She seemed a little flustered and was like, "Normally, your receipt would already be printed so it's strange that it's not..." but she kept checking me in.

Then, though, she was literally handing me my keys, when she stopped and said, "You know what? Let me check one more thing." She clicked away at her computer, and then said, "Hmm... do you know [name of random stranger]."

ME: "No?"

HER: "Well, a couple of hours ago they got checked in under your reservation."

So apparently someone had come in, I have no idea if their name was even similar to mine or not, and the clerk on duty then had checked them in under my reservation, including having them sign the receipt with my name and home address on it. They put them in the room that had been reserved for me, and so when I actually came in, this clerk had just duplicated the booking to check me in, including giving me a set of key cards TO THE SAME ROOM THAT THIS OTHER STRANGER WAS ALREADY IN. 

I'm gonna be honest with you--if I'd keycarded my way into a hotel room that another human was already occupying, doing whatever they were happening to be doing at the time that I barged in, I would immediately turn around and just drive the eleven hours back home in the dark. My kid can mail me the stuff she doesn't want to take on the ship.

But crisis averted, so yay! So the clerk had to get her boss to fix the reservation, and by this time the guy had finished doing his phone stuff and was now standing in line behind me. As the boss was telling me about the room I'd now be staying in, confirming the amenities and whatever and assuring me it was a better room than my original one (I mean... I guess that could have been true?), the guy behind me loudly announced, "Hey, I'll share her room if I get to pay half-price!"

The clerk and I completely ignored him, and the boss was all, "Ha, ha," which, fine, but then the boss went to hand me my new key cards and just kept LOUDLY REPEATING MY ROOM NUMBER OUT LOUD. The clerk and I were both like, "OMG shhh!!!!!" 

Ugh. Fortunately, I didn't run into that guy again, but I also shoved the luggage bench against my door. I don't want anybody, on purpose or not, busting in on my hotel room!

But then, y'all. BUT THEN!

I decided to treat myself to take-out in celebration of a successful day driving, so I made a pick-up order at Olive Garden and headed out to grab it. On my way through the parking lot to the car, I passed a guy just hanging out with his six-pack near my car, which... okay, I guess? Drink in the parking lot at 8pm if that's your vibe? But then when I was at my car, he said, "Hey! I can guess what county in Indiana you're from!"

And then, Reader, he told me my county.

I was all, "?!?!?!?" as he happily explained that the number on my car registration sticker on my license plate said what county the registration is for, and he'd just happened to have memorized all the county codes in Indiana... WHICH HE, HIMSELF, WAS FROM.

I was just like, "Cool, cool, that's so cool, have such an awesome night, good to talk to you, bye," then later when Matt called me to see how my day had been, I vented at him about why are all men so weird and terrifying each in their own separate weird and terrifying way? And then I told him I had to go because my eggplant parmesan was getting cold, ahem.

Anyway, I haven't seen that guy around here, so I don't guess he's been driving the streets of the county looking for me, so it's probably fine.

And I'd apparently passed the Biscuits and Gravy Line sometime during the day, so this was my morning treat at the hotel breakfast:

When we'd all gone as a family to drop the big kid off, the rest of us left her settled into her new cabin and then spent the evening exploring a bit on the Cape Cod National Seashore, but the visitor centers had all been closed by then, so I hadn't gotten my National Parks Passport Stamp.

It turns out, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, that I am OBSESSED with collecting these Passport Stamps, so the next day, the whole purpose of my drive was to get to the Salt Pond Visitor Center in time to get my stamp.

I barely made it, but I DID make it!

I even had time for a very quick swing through the museum!

You know how I feel about the prehistoric native peoples and their artifacts!

I also love European artifacts. These pipe stems look exactly like the ones we mudlarked on the Thames! 

When we came to Cape Cod National Seashore when the kids were small, we all watched this super traumatizing documentary about how everyone used to drown right off the shore, and that's how the Coast Guard was invented. We still talk about horrifying that documentary was, but look! Early lifesaving equipment!

When they finally kicked me out of the visitor center, I did a little more exploring along the beach:

While I was walking around here taking photos, I saw someone bringing their Cape Cod Potato Chip bag over to the lighthouse, I guess so it could learn about its culture.

I saw so many sea lions, but I figured that since I was by myself I'd just enjoy them and not try to take photos of them. But here are some nice sea lion-less photos of the beach!

Eventually, I realized that I had just about assigned myself to driving back down the peninsula in full-on dark, sigh, so I reluctantly left the water and got back into my personal backache mobile for another hour, sigh.

My kid wasn't free to hang out until the next day, but happily, there was a pizza place next door to my hotel, and Dr. Strange was on cable, so that was my evening all taken care of!

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I Read Dark Carnivals and I Still Think Jaws is a Family Movie

Halloween 2018

Dark Carnivals: Modern Horrors and the Origins of American Empire by W. Scott Poole
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m not sure how one could rewrite the title of this book to clarify that it’s not really about the history of the horror genre and how it reflects the American empire, but actually about the history of the American empire, explaining and illustrating some of the events via action, sci-fi, horror, and thriller movies that speak to the politics of the day.

But they need to, because I kind of feel snookered.

During some chapters, mind you, we get a little bit more of the former, and Poole’s claims in these chapters are liberally peppered with film mentions and analyses. A discussion of Poltergeist (remember their haunted house is built on a graveyard that was also supposedly built on an “ancient Indian burial ground”?) leads to a discussion of the history of European settlers’ long genocide of the Native American peoples, which leads to mentions of other movies that also use this “ancient Indian burial ground” trope. But even in this chapter, in which there are numerous horror movies that hint at that genocide, these mentions of Pet Sematary, The Amityville Horror, and The Shining really are just mentions, along the lines of “Here are some other movies with the same theme.” I wanted an analysis of each of these movies and how each speaks to this theme separately. What is the significance of the usage of an “ancient Indian burial ground” to now bury only pets? Or the significance of the undead from that burial ground becoming murderous against their guardians? Or in Amityville Horror, the significance of the conflation of demons with the ancient burial ground and the Catholic Church as another force that the horror must stop? Or how about the general opinion that the parents made up the entire original story to get out from under a mortgage they belatedly realized was WAY too big for their finances? Or what is the reasoning for why the Native American genocide had its climax so long ago and we’re only just horroring about it in the 70s and 80s, as well as what it means that these three were all books first?

Dunno, because we don’t get into any extensive semiotic analysis of any cultural artifact within the bounds of this book. The lens through which we’re meant to be studying American imperialism gets forgotten quite a bit in favor of simply laying out and opining on the history of American imperialism.

Throughout his book, Poole implies a dual responsibility that Americans have, in tune with these occasional films that metaphorically present a select atrocity that has been committed by their country. Poole asks, are the movies meant to pacify us Americans, desensitize us to the real horror around us, and we should watch them and be pacified, or are the movies meant to motivate us, to break us out of our shells of ennui, and we should watch them and then revolt?

cupcake sharks circa 2009

Poole illustrates this duality via continued reference to Jaws (which he claims pacifies and desensitizes us) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (which he claims motivates us to revolt). I think it’s interesting that out of the two, Jaws is a “family” movie that I’ve watched with my kids several times since they were small, once even with an entire themed family dinner that included, among other delicacies, blue Jello studded with Swedish fish and cupcakes with half a Twinkie on top, arranged and frosted to look sort of maybe reminiscent of a shark breaking out of the water if you turned your head and squinted juuuust right. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, on the other hand, I watched exactly once, mostly through my fingers, and do not plan to ever so much as be in the same room with again, much less screen for even my now-adult daughters, much less with themed snack foods. Although I have SO many great ideas--meatloaf and smoked sausage-heavy, but still--about Texas Chainsaw Massacre-themed snack foods!

ocean Jello, complete with whipped cream waves and a graham cracker crumb beach!

I thought the strongest parts of Poole’s book were his discussion of wars and conquests that were so overtly American imperialist that even a child could make the connection, and the films that were made by the filmmakers influenced by those wars. A director (George A. Romero) and a special effects artist (Tom Savini) who brought their experiences explicitly into the visuals they created is strong stuff, and one of the few insights that will make me watch some of these films with new eyes. On a similar note, I was stoked when Poole started writing about The Serpent and the Rainbow, a movie that I watched by myself on the floor of my den WAY too many times as an unwholesomely unsupervised child, and which probably now explains a lot about me, ahem, but I didn’t get a ton more from the discussion than I got from watching the movie a dozen times at the age of 13. It’s racist and sexist, and its depictions of Haiti are fucked up. Also, tangent: that’s a good way to describe JD Vance!

One of the more annoying and obvious flaws in the book, at least to me who loves myself a good recommended list, is the absence of an index that lists the movies and where they’re discussed. You would not believe how long it took me to flip through the book--three times!--to find the Poltergeist discussion that I remembered. And if Poole ever got back to that discussion I’ll never know, because I’d have to re-read the book to find it. And God forbid that he at least included a list of all the cultural artifacts discussed in the book so we can watch them for ourselves. It would also let us see the titles like Independence Day and Fight Club that were included in the book even though they’re not horror titles.

On the whole, I did think that Poole’s thesis question of whether we’re meant to be pacified or inspired is significant and relevant, and it’s something that I’ll continue to think about when I watch horror. Instead of this comprehensive-ish history that offers references to films, though, I’d rather have had deeper discussions of fewer, select moments of American imperialism, with more extensive film references and analyses intertwined. Some of these imperialistic moments are clearly more ingrained in our collective consciousness than others, and I think that the movies that speak to those moments are saying much more than Poole was willing to tell us about here.

P.S. View all my reviews

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