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Surfing Second Beach in Middletown, RI

That's me out in the 'washing machine' waves that were last weekend.

Not the most impressive wave, but at least I'm out there, I caught it and I'm standing.

I want to be a surfer. I know the sport seems much cooler than I am. Plus, I’m a woman, and a mom, and not terribly athletic. Still, I want to be a surfer.

Once the waves from Hurricane Bill subsided last weekend, I finally decided to paddle out on the 8’2″ epoxy surfboard I bought last year. To my frustration, I spent most of the time getting knocked around in the water. It’s funny how the waves always seem so small from the shore and so huge from my surfboard. So I decided to come back the next day and take a lesson with one of the instructors from Island Surf whose fully-stocked truck parks all summer at Second Beach in Middletown, RI.

My friend Tarek (who surfed once before last year) and I had both signed up for a joint lesson. When we pulled in and saw the wild, high waves (instead of the clean, calm 1-2 foot crests more typical of Second Beach), I hesitated. But not Tarek. “Confidence,” he advised. Joe, another 40-something surfer, taking his board off the car next to us agreed.

“How long have you been surfing?” I asked Joe.

“A year,” he said. How is it that a 40-something-year-old guy who’s been surfing a year has more confidence than I do? My first surf lesson was in 2005 — does that mean I’ve been surfing four years? If so, I think I’ll keep that to myself.

“Just go out there and laugh a lot,” said Joe.

Before we headed out, I got a quick lesson on ‘turtling’ which is how you handle a longboard in larger waves like these. As the wave comes toward you, you grip your board on its sides and roll sideways underwater so the board is on top of you. Then when the wave passes, you roll back, supposedly no harm done. It sounds simple, but terrifying. I’m not sure I can do it.

I’ve been swimming in the ocean all my life. I never hesitate to go for a swim even in ‘overhead’ waves. But with a surfboard, everything changes. Utter panic rushes through me as I see a 6-foot wave heading to break on me. Our instructor kept us in the whitewater (the foamy water rushing in after the wave breaks). Here, you are pretty much guaranteed to catch a wave, which we both did. And as I slide along that wave, I tingle with an electric exhilaration that keeps me coming back.

Still every time I faced the ocean to head back out, I felt terror. My instructor had called the conditions a “washing machine” and I certainly agreed as I felt myself drawn in, tossed about and spitted out by a wave.

“Hey great turtle!” my instructor beamed at Tarek. I looked over and spotted him taking his second perfect turtle and thought, what is wrong with me? This is his second day surfing, and here I am hogging the instructor, letting my board fly all over the waves and panicking instead of turtling. Confidence. So I turtle. It works, so I turtle again. The only problem is that I seem to be swallowing a lot of water in each turtle — I’m thinking so hard that I keep forgetting to hold my breath. After a few more minutes battling with the water, I surrender, exhausted, and head back to shore.

The next day, I go back out and play in the whitewater without an instructor but I feel like I’m cheating — I should be surfing real waves.

The next day I went out was the Saturday on Labor Day weekend. I thought I’d beat the crowds to the water, but by 9 am I found at least a dozen surfers out in 3-4 feet waves — both which intimidated me. I worked up my courage and went back later, simply trying to avoid injuring myself and anyone else. At one point, I started to catch a wave and my board nosedived and spiraled so that I got crushed under the water for a seeming eternity. Winded and frightened, I called it a day.

Sunday, I arrived even earlier at 8 am. What I’m lacking in confidence, I’m sure I can make up in determination. A group of people performed tai chi on the sand, and another small group socialized in the parking lot. But not a soul in the water: perfect. The waves were smaller about 1-2 foot: even more perfect. So I gathered my board, and set it on the sand as I started to put on my wetsuit. That’s when fellow surfer Ron approached and asked me if I was heading out.

“Yeah they look about small enough for me today,” I answered.

He laughed and said everyone’s been hanging around trying to decide if it’s worth going out and then they saw me suiting up. So apparently here I am, leading the way. Ron says he’ll get his board and come out too. He’s been surfing six years, so I ask him if he knows why my board nosedived the day before. He says you need to find that groove where the nose of your board is a few inches out of the water as you’re paddling out. You’ll notice it, he says, because you’ll be able to paddle faster.

I catch my very first wave but I lose my balance as soon as I pop up, and fall off. Ron meets me out in the water and congratulates me for catching a wave. While we’re out there, a third surfer comes out: Bill. When I ask Bill how long he’s been surfing, he says “Since 1963.” Not surprisingly, he masters the water brilliantly, catching small shallow waves and larger waves with ease. He seems to know instinctively where to line up to catch the. He makes it look easy. I take some comfort in knowing that in another 40 years I might be able to do that too. And actually we do have a few laughs. I miss a lot of waves, but no tossing about — the waves come easy today even if the rides don’t. Still, I make a deal with myself to stay out until I catch one good ride. And I do.

Related Resources:

Island Surf & Sports
86 Aquidneck Avenue
Middletown, RI 02842
401-846-4421
www.islandsports.com

Second Beach Surf Report
www.surfline.com

Wax Buddy
Invented by surfer Ron, the Wax Buddy helps you remove old wax from your board.
www.endlesswave.net

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Where Am I From? It’s Complicated…

The stairs in our new house.

The stairs in our new house.

The other day an older couple stopped to smile at Madeline’s bouncy curls.  The man asked me casually, “Where are you from?”  This simple question always leaves me tongue-tied.

How do I quickly explain that we’ve spent many summers here in Newport, RI, even lived here year-round at one point, that we own a house here, currently rent another house here, but don’t really live here?  And if not here, where are we from?  Boston?  New York?

Since I don’t know where we’re from, I told him where we’re going instead:  “We’re moving to Providence.”  This, of course, prompted the whole Why Providence question, which I answered masterfully.  Not satisfied, he still wanted to know where we were from. So I told him.  Poor guy, but he asked for it.

I realize it’s odd when you can’t answer basic questions like “Where do you live?” “Where did you grow up?” “What do you do?” It’s like when someone asks, “How are you?”  They don’t want to hear your life story, they just want to hear “Fine.”  So over the years, I’ve learned to simplify.  If people ask me what I do, I pick something — usually writer, filmmaker, or publisher.  If they ask where I grew up, I say Riverdale (or the Bronx to sound edgier) since I did at least go to first through fifth grade there.  In Paris, I told people we were from New York because it was a place foreigners knew (and we did still own an apartment there).

If I do delve into the details of how we’ve spent the past decade, people assume there must be a good reason (“Military?” the old man asked us).  No, we’re not in the military or the CIA or the witness protection program.  I’m convinced we’ve been on the run from only one thing: ourselves.  In my defense, I will say that I was trained to move as often and as cavalierly as one might change their favorite purse.  By the time I was 11 years old, I had lived in nearly as many number of places.  At one point, I went to five different schools in five years.  And despite the fact that I vowed never to do this as an adult when I had the power to choose such things, I found it actually became part of my nature.  For Geoff, I think it was the opposite.  He spent his whole childhood in one Midwestern town where most of his former schoolmates now raise their families.  His grandparents literally went on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls 60-something years ago and haven’t taken a trip since.  But despite our different backgrounds, we’ve both tacitly agreed: If you keep moving, you can’t be stuck.  Which also might be seen as: something better might come along.

And that’s exactly how it hit me.  Because the first time I saw our new house, I didn’t want anything better.  I’ve never fallen in love with a house before, and it seems quite silly since it’s just a house, but I do love this house.  Geoff hesitated, but I knew that if we didn’t want this house then we must not even want a house.

So here we are, 10 days away from our closing date.  I am still careful how I phrase things to Geoff, and even myself.  I deny that we will acquire any clutter despite the fact that we’ll have more rooms than we can fill.  I convince myself that a house is not that much work after all.  And I most certainly, under all circumstances, refuse to call it settling down.

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Pick Your Own Fruit at Sweet Berry Farm

Picking Berries at Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown, RI.

Picking Berries at Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown, RI.

There are so many reasons to love Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown, RI.  In the fall they have pick-your-own apples and pumpkins (they make the best pumpkin muffins on the planet — perhaps, the universe).  Also, their farm stand stays open from mid-April through the end of December, which extends the ‘market’ season by several months.  Even better, their farm stand doubles as a quaint grocery store that carries mostly local products — you can buy the Sweet Berry Farm jams, honeys and pastries, but you can also buy milk, eggs, cheese, and pasta.  They even make their own frozen gourmet dinners.  The farm also has a little café (indoors and outdoors) where you can sit and enjoy some of their  muffins, soups, sandwiches and salads.

On their 100 acre farm, they grow vegetables (beets, carrots, corn, salad greens, squash, etc.), fruits (apples, peaches, blueberries, raspberries, etc.), flowers, and trees.  Their extensive pick-your-own schedule  begins with strawberries in early June and ends in December with Christmas trees.  (They allow you to tag your tree months in advance, but if you’re like us, it also works to pick one of the unclaimed orphan trees around December 20).

Today, Madeline and I went to pick our own — peaches (firm but tasty), blackberries (beautiful but tart) and the last of the raspberries (perfectly sweet).

Pick-your-own peaches at Sweet Berry Farm

Pick-your-own peaches at Sweet Berry Farm

Here’s the picking schedule, in case you want to try for yourself…

Strawberries: Early June through early July
Summer Raspberries: July through mid-August
Fall Raspberries: Late August through September
Blueberries: Mid-July through August
Peaches: Late July through early October
Blackberries: Early August through September
Apples: September through early October
Pumpkins: Late September through October
Christmas Trees: Tagging starts in October

Sweet Berry Farm
915 Mitchell’s Lane
Middletown, Rhode Island
www.sweetberryfarmri.com

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Newport, RI Rainy Day: Save the Bay

Save The Bay Exploration Center

Madeline touches a sea urchin at the Save the Bay Exploration Center.

What do you do on a rainy day in a place like Newport, RI where the summer activities include swimming, surfing and sailing?  Well if you’re among the super-cool, you’re surfing.  I know, because today we drove in the rain over to Easton’s Beach (“First Beach” to the locals) in Newport, RI where a half dozen surfers paddled out.

But if you’re looking for a more low-key adventure, then you’ll enjoy the Save The Bay Exploration Center tucked inside the beach’s rotunda.  This teeny, friendly aquarium features 14 tanks full of about 150 species that live in the Narragansett Bay.  One ‘touch tank’ allows you to reach in and hold the starfish, hermit crabs, sea urchins, and other sea critters.  The staff has abundant patience and knowledge to share with visitors. The center also has tanks with horshoe crabs, sea horses, and lobsters, as well as tables where kids can color, read or play games — all marine-themed, of course.

On rainy days, there’s no beach parking attendant which means you’ll save the $10-20 parking fee.  And your $5 admission (free for kids under 3) supports Save the Bay, an organization dedicated towards protecting, restoring and exploring Narragansett Bay.

Save The Bay Exploration Center
175 Memorial Blvd.
Newport, RI 02840
www.savebay.org

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Why Providence, Rhode Island?

Why Providence, Rhode Island?  This is a question I find myself answering daily as I inform friends and colleagues that after a decade of nomadic wanderings, my husband Geoff and I are buying a house and moving our family and our stuff (currently spread across three states) to Providence, Rhode Island.

Moving our stuff into storage (again).

Moving our stuff into storage (again).

The root of this question can be traced to our original question — where should we live?  — which we have spent a decade pondering and avoiding.  In the past 10 years, we have lived in three countries and four states.  We’ve moved eight times since our daughter Madeline was born two and a half years ago.  It’s no wonder that every time we get in the car, she looks at us and demands, “What’s going on?”  A month after one of our several moves, I posted on Facebook that I wanted to move (again), to which one of my friends mused, “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.”

As we have wrestled with the question of where to live, we forced ourselves to look closely at our priorities and narrow down the three things we felt we couldn’t compromise.  Here were mine: 1) enough room to have a home office and guests; 2) a walkable city that has some international culture; 3) more local donations to the Democratic party than the Republican.

We considered New York City since until a few weeks ago, we owned a one-bedroom apartment there.  But neither of us have careers there and it’s an expensive, intense city.  To live in New York, we’d sacrifice my number one requirement, foregoing amenities like outdoor space, parking, and guest bedrooms.  But we’d also lose something much more fundamental: freedom.  New Yorkers walk fast — they have to.  They need to get whatever they’re doing done so they can get back to the real task of making more money.  Don’t get me wrong — I adore New York.  It’s like a charming lover that spends all your dough — you kind of resent it but you also kind of believe it’s worth it.  When you live in New York, you scoff at the world wondering why anyone would live anywhere else but the greatest city on the planet.  When you don’t live there, you wonder why anyone would.

View from our window in Boston, Massachusetts.

View from our window in Boston, Massachusetts.

Another contender was Boston, Massachusetts where many of our friends live.  Geoff and I both went to college and grad school there, and Madeline was born there.   We lived in Back Bay for three years, the Fenway for one, and even Cambridge, Massachusetts for a year.  And after all that, I can honestly say I don’t like Boston.  I feel bad saying that because I think Boston likes me, but it’s nothing personal.  It’s just not my type.  I recognize Boston’s redeeming qualities and ‘on paper’ it looks like the best option for us.  It’s liberal (gay people marry), intellectual (27 colleges), and pretty (swan boats).  What’s more, it’s near Geoff’s work, and most of my contacts in film and education are there.  But I’m just not in love with it.  To me, Boston has all the disadvantages of city life, with too few of the advantages.  If I’m going to live somewhere where I need to sign my kid up for preschool a year in advance, it should be New York.  Because in New York, you have a city that satisfies every niche all night long.  There’s Times Square for pulse, Central Park for nature, and a taxi when you need one.  In Boston, you have the T which will probably take longer to get somewhere than walking, and lots of luck hailing a taxi.  In Boston, there’s not even a Pinkberry, but it still costs you several hundred dollars a month for parking.

Around New York City and Boston, there are dozens (hundreds?) of affordable, lovely suburbs which we know we don’t want to live.  In fact, we spent four years living in one of them — Winchester, Massachusetts — a town with good schools and historic houses.

The yard in the Providence, Rhode Island house we are buying.

The yard in the Providence, Rhode Island house we are buying.

So that has left us with Providence, an actual city close enough to Boston to work there a few days per week and one where we can afford a whole house with a driveway and a yard.  No doubt, I’m put off by one of my friend’s remarks, “If there is one place I’d like to burn to the ground, it’s Providence.”  And a doctor I met in Providence recently told me no one’s moving to Providence, only out of it.  To make matters worse, the Rhode Island government announced yesterday that they’d be shutting down for 12 days, forcing over 80 percent of the government workforce to take unpaid days.  The state’s unemployment rate has reached 12.7%, second only to Michigan.

So why indeed Providence, Rhode Island?  I can’t say it’s because I love Providence.  Even though it’s where I was born, I don’t know it very well, which is part of what makes it scary, and so alluring — it’s another adventure.  And whether we live there for a few years or a lifetime is yet to be determined and the start of the next question we will ask ourselves.

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Simmons Farm’s Petting Zoo

Simmons Farm Petting Zoo

Simmons Farm Petting Zoo

Simmons Farm — what a sweet little stop along the side of Route 114 in Middletown, RI.   Not only do they have a farm stand with the best corn on Aquidneck Island (which we refer to as ‘crack corn’ for its addictive properties), but they also have a petting zoo. For 25 cents, you can purchase some grains to hand-feed the goats, llama, lambs, and horses. Forget feeding the pig, who will inevitably be too fatigued to bother with you.

Simmons Farm
1942 West Main Road
Middletown, RI
www.simmonsorganicfarmri.com/petting-zoo/

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Hurricane Bill: Epic Waves in Newport, RI

Surfer Rides Wave Brought by Hurricane Bill

Hurricane Bill blew 10-20 foot swells into Newport, RI, but politely spared us the actual hurricane.  Last night, we read the surf report, which anticipated today would bring “epic” waves.  Although both First Beach in Newport, RI and Second Beach in Middletown, RI had large swells, the majority of the area’s bravest surfers headed out to the rocky coast of Newport’s Cliff Walk where they found the largest and certainly ‘epic’ (at least for Newport) swells — double overhead.  No, I was not among them.  In fact, I didn’t see one female surfer climbing in or out of the water.  So my surfboard remained safely in the basement, and I remained enviously on the shore.

Another video of RI surfing…

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Olga’s Cup + Saucer

Homemade pizza with dough from Olga's Cup + Saucer.

Homemade pizza with dough from Olga's Cup + Saucer.

Olga’s Cup + Saucer began in 1988 as a seasonal bakery on a farm in Little Compton.  Over 20 years later, their popular Providence bakery makes delicious homemade breads,  scones, bagels, and other pastries using ‘traditional Artisinal techniques’.  Open for breakfast and lunch, their dishes like french toast, pulled pork sandwiches, and black forest ham pizzas all feature their homemade breads and doughs.   With their seeded bagels (more of a bready texture and covered with sunflower and other seeds) and their blueberry muffins (one covered with almond slices), you really can’t go wrong.

You can also find a selection of Olga’s pastries, breads and pizzas (as well as the ready-made dough) at a variety of farmers markets throughout the summer — Coastal Growers Farmers Market in Saunderstown, RI on Saturdays; East Greenwich Farmers Market on Mondays; and Aquidneck Growers’ Market in Newport, RI on Wednesdays and Portmouth, RI on Saturdays.  Yesterday we made a few pizzas with Olga’s thin pre-rolled dough — Geoff took the dough out of the freezer; added market tomatoes, local basil, fresh mozzarella from Narragansett Creamery, and some grilled mushrooms; and set them directly on the grill for a quick, smoky, and delicious pizza.

Olga’s Cup & Saucer
103 Point Street
Providence, RI
www.olgascupandsaucer.com

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Washington County Fair

Richmond Sandwich Barn at the Washington County Fair.

We were alerted to the annual Washington County Fair about a month before the event by the sign on Route 138 and immediately put it in our calendars.  The first day of the Fair (Wednesday, August 12) turned out to be a humid and overcast day, and we arrived at the Fair for the first evening.  Now in its 43rd year, the Fair features everything from a dairy clipping show to a tractor pull to country music performances to amusement park rides.

Fair food ranged from the insipid to the superb — a lousy, skinny corndog from some volunteer station versus a flavor-packed steak sandwich from Richmond Sandwich Barn.  Perhaps the greatest surprise came from the Volunteer Carolina Fire Association who made the tastiest, doughiest homemade clamcakes I’ve ever had.

My 2-year-old daughter Madeline had a blast yelling ‘baa’ at the sheep with their never-fail response, and she spent about an hour dancing in circles in front of the antique Wurlitzer band organ formerly used in carousels.

What’s not to love about a fair?

Washington County Fair
Route 112
Richmond, RI
www.washingtoncountyfair-ri.com

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The Dawg House

Note: We recently drove past here in summer 2010, and it appears that the Dawg House is no more.  If anyone knows anything, please post a comment!

I have driven past The Dawg House in Middletown hundreds of times without seeing it. It’s at the end of a small plaza just before Rt. 138 on Aquidneck Ave. (It is only 2 blocks from Frosty Freez). Hot dogs are not hard to make well, and here they follow all of the standard rules: there is a large cabinet outside for daily roll deliveries; the rolls are steamed, soft and fresh; and the hot dogs are high-quality New York style hot dogs — long and thin with a juicy snap when you bite into them.  So far so good.

Where's the Hot Dog?

Where's the Hot Dog?

What makes The Dawg House special is that Roger, an amicable co-owner thinks long and hard about the flavors to add to his already tasty hot dogs. On one visit, he was in a heated discussion about Peanut Butter — not for the hot dogs — just for the academic exercise (he’s a die-hard fan of the pristine peanut butter from Peanut Butter & Co.)  He’s just as passionate about hot dog condiments, as he makes all of them in-house. (He will happily experiment on you with some of his combinations).

His New York red sauce with onions is the best I’ve had, much thicker and with larger, sweet onions. His baked beans are delicious, but would be better as a side dish, since they mask the flavor of the hot dog.  Sauerkraut is fresh and crisp, and his mustard has finely ground seeds in it.  My only complaint is that the condiments overpower, so take advantage of the “buy four get one free” and get a couple without too much on them.

Possibly the best thing about The Dawg House is the prospect of a perfect summer lunch. A dozen hot dogs from here (eaten at tables outside beside the shop) followed by soft serve from Frosty Freez a few hundred feet away!

The Dawg House
1132 Aquidneck Ave. (Gambrell Plaza)
Middletown, RI
(401) 324-4089
www.dawghouseonline.com