I love this photo for many reasons. It’s Martha’s Vineyard, one of my all time favorite places. I have so many wonderful memories rooted in M.V., as a kid on my parents boat, as a young adult on my own boat, as an adult renting homes with family, friends and my kids. This public fishing pier juts out over Inkwell Beach in Oak Bluffs near the ferry dock, you can see the ferry dock in the background.
This photo prompts memories from many M.V. experiences. Early ones such as falling off the back of my parent’s boat, Bridget, named after my Grandmother, while docked in the harbor (I was about 5). Trying to grab the brass ring while astride the backs of the Flying Horses’ carousel’s ponies. So many ice creams at Mad Martha’s and Ben and Bill’s Chocolate Emporium; fudge and saltwater taffy at Murdick’s Fudge Shop. Later memories of getting engaged in Oak Bluffs, on the beach at sunset. My niece was conceived in one of the rental homes (not that I witnessed this, it’s family folklore). Midnight doughnut runs to Back Door Donuts. Taking long walks along the beach, checking out the Gingerbread Houses or to the East Chop Lighthouse, and even longer bike rides. Jumping off the “Jaws” bridge, watching my kids jump off the “Jaws Bridge”.
There are some music related memories as well. Beach Road Weekend Concert in 2022 featuring Wilco, Jason Isbell, Mt. Joy, Lord Huron, The Avett Brothers, Emmylou Harris and many more. A young woman shimmying herself up and down on me at a Toots and Maytals show at the now shuttered Atlantic. This was while I was standing next to and obviously with my then fiancé Colleen, we still laugh about that. Drinks and local musicians playing at The Ritz and at the also now shuttered Rare Duck.
I took this photo in July, 2024, when we rented, for the third time, the perfectly located home between Circuit Ave and Inkwell Beach, which was great for everyone, an easy walk to either downtown with it’s restaurants, cafes and shops or to the sand and sunshine of the beach.
Here’s a few more recent M.V. photos that are not on the walls of Za.
The top of the pier
We rented this house three times
My kids sailing in Vineyard Sound on our friends boat
Colleen and I at the East Chop Lighthouse
Nellie, Dan, Colleen and I having dinner at Jimmy Seas
Colleen and Nellie in East Chop
Statue in Menemsha
Sailing out of Menemsha
Oaks Bluff Harbor
My family with my dad in Gay Head
The cliffs, Gay Head
An ignored sign
Shane mid-air from the “Jaws Bridge”
My son and nephew getting ready to jump from the “Jaws” bridge
This photo is of Buttercup, AKA Butter, Butters, Buddy, Mr. Buttercup, Bubs, Cutterbut and probably a lot more than a handful of other names. He is our dog, we got him, or rather he got us, in 2015 from the North Shore Animal Shelter in Salem, MA. Colleen and the kids wanted a dog, I did not. Poop, fur, stink was my mantra. Colleen and I had a beautiful Golden Retriever, Ginger, for 12 years, so I knew what it took to take care of a dog and I didn’t want to take on that responsibility again, especially because at that point I was sill working a ton of hours. However, after much badgering and reassurances from the kids of how they would help in caring for a dog, I gave in; after all I was out voted 3 to 1.
It was decided that we would get a dog from a shelter. The other prerequisite that I had was that we would name the dog Butter. Why? I’m not really sure, except that I wanted his name to be food related and who doesn’t like butter?
Off we went to the shelter to see what they had. There were several dogs looking for the right family, one of them was this happy, energetic, cute, slanty-eyed mutt, he already had the name Buttercup. We were all, including me, immediately smitten. We walked him around the grounds of the shelter and decided he was the dog for us. Shelters don’t just let you come in and grab a dog and go, there is a vetting process that you have to go through, which took 3 days. When we went to pick him up, the staff had us wait in a room away from where the dogs were kept and they brought him to us. When he came into the room he made a bee-line to me, jumping and wiggling right onto my lap, keep in mind he is not a lap dog. So much for the “poop, fur, stink” mantra, I was done, he was ours.
As for this photo, which I took in October of 2020, my brother-in-law and great friend Dan and I went for a moderate hike near Squam Lake in Holderness, NH. A good excuse for getting us and Buttercup out for a while before watching football, drinking beer and grilling some meat. As part of this particular trail there are some elevated platforms to get you over the wet and muddy areas. Butter, with his dog common sense, decided he wanted to jump in, so he did, no hesitation, just jumped right into the muck. This photo as well as the few others below are from that day and show the dirty dog results.
After he jumped in, in an effort to clean off some of the muck, Dan and I spent the next hour or so trying to get him to jump into the lake. It was a futile effort, he dove for the mud, but had no interest in the lake. We where traveling in Dan’s almost new, very clean truck, so as much of the muck that we could clean off beforehand the better. We ended up having to hose him and Dan’s truck’s floor mats down when we got back to our shared vacation home in Moultonborough, NH.
Muddy Buddy
The above photo of Buttercup was enlarged and hung at Za soon after I took it. He enjoyed his mud bath a lot more than Dan and I enjoyed cleaning up after it. Whenever I look at this photo it brings a smile to my face, so the clean up was worth it.
Buttercup is a bit older now, he still sometimes shows his puppy spunkiness, but for the most part he’s chill. Most days he gets out for a couple of miles walk, he is a great companion.
He loves the kids and I, but he is in love with Colleen, he follows her around the house, lies down in the office when she working. He gets up when she does, I could be up for hours and he won’t show his face until Colleen does. I get it, she is quite lovable.
This probably doesn’t need to be said, but the kids never did live up to their promises of taking care of the dog, no surprises there. They do give him lots of love, however rarely do they walk him and have never cleaned the yard of poop.
Dennis and I are on the second leg of our trip from Madrid to Lanzarote, it’s a very full flight.
What a cluster fuck getting out of Boston was. Both Dennis and I arrived at Logan Airport early; Dennis via a bus out of Portland, Maine. I was lucky enough to have my wife Colleen and our son Shane drop me off. It was really special, Shane was obviously anxious about my leaving on this adventure. He followed me into the Airport, waited with me for a while until it was time for him and Colleen to leave, they had to pick our daughter Cate up at dance and bring her to gymnastics. I really appreciated the extra time with him, he may actually end up okay.
Shane and Cate on our friends boat Glory.
Back to the cluster fuck, Dennis showed up right after Shane and Colleen left. We went up to the Iberia departures counter and presented our passports to the attendant, who was going through the process of checking us and our bags in when she asked us “When are you returning to the United States?” Our response was truthful- we didn’t exactly know. We explained that we were sailing from Lanzarote to Guadeloupe and our exact day was not known, we knew approximately when we would return, just not the exact day. This put a stop to our check in process. The first attendant handed our information off to her, unbeknownst to us at the time, supervisor. A short-round-bitchy faced-beastly wench, I am not going to be nice when describing her, she seemed to not be paying attention to anything else but her cell phone.
She asked us if we had any proof of our planned return to the United States. I produced our Capitan’s Letter, a letter written by the captain of a yacht describing the planned itinerary of a vessel for this exact reason. I have used such letters in the past, specifically in Bermuda, twice, where the customs officials knew exactly what the letter was, and it quickly fulfilled their requirements. Well, the beast, an airline employee, not a customs official, said that she couldn’t accept the letter as proof of departure and that we had to buy return tickets if we were going to be allowed to get on our planned flight to Spain. Just like that, no help or understanding in trying to help us out. She just went back to banging her Knockwurst fingers on her cell phone.
Mary’s fingers
She was just ignoring us, that was not going to work. After a bit more ka-bitching, Dennis reminded her of what he thought her role as a customer service professional was. While I was just fuming, I don’t think I could have said much at the time, though I did ask her if she was doing something to help us on her phone or if she was purposely ignoring us; she grunted. Dennis told her that we were trying to figure it out calmly and that she should be helping us. After asking to talk to her supervisor, with no luck, she said she was the supervisor, which she may have been. But what she really was, was a stubby, overzealous queen wannabe with a Napoleon complex, on a power trip. Dennis asked for and got her name. She told us, spelling it out: “Mary Pama”. Yes, she pronounced it Mary Palmer, I hope her 4 sisters were more palm worthy than she was. (I said that I wasn’t going to be nice, she really infuriated us). We also asked for the phone number for customer service, and we were dismissively told to “look on the website”.
We stood in front of the check-in kiosk. Dennis phoned the customer service number, went through the prompts and eventually got through to a representative who only spoke broken English, tried to explain the situation. He was asked for our confirmation code, after about 6 attempts in English and Spanish he put Dennis on hold, and subsequently hung up on him.
Meanwhile, Mary-the-Beast-Pama, asked if we had a Sea Log or a Crew Identification Card. So her chunky little digits were, in her own special way, looking into how to help us out. However, Sea Logs and Crew Identification Cards are for paid crews on ships, not things that an unpaid crew member on a private yacht would have. I explained this to her while Dennis tried to get through to the customer service number without being hung up on again. It didn’t work, he was hung up on again, even quicker this time.
In a moment of desperation I asked Mary-the-Beast-Pama if we bought return tickets from Guadeloupe would she let us board, and surprisingly, she said yes. While Dennis started making his third try at customer service, I used my handy Expedia app and bought 2 tickets from Guadeloupe to Boston on February 26, a somewhat arbitrary day, we will probably be in Guadeloupe by then, but, you never know. I bought tickets that I can cancel within 24 hours or we can change fights if we decide to. I figured- get through customs in Spain and just cancel the tickets, no one would be the wiser. Mary-the-Beast-Pama can go fuck herself.
Once I showed Mary-the-Beast-Pama the proof of purchase for the tickets on my phone she let us check-in. All this because the dimwitted 5X5 didn’t have any common sense. What is the point of having someone buy a ticket from a different country than the one that you are entering, the proof should have been for as she originally asked- when are you leaving Spain, not when are we leaving Guadalupe. Her lack of real logic was dumbfounding. The Captain’s Letter was our proof, she claimed that she wouldn’t allow it, however in a way, I guess she did.
~
So we got through, and had a few Maine Beer Co. Lunch IPA’s at the airport lounge before boarding. Dennis had the pleasure of handing his ticket to Mary-the-Beast-Pama his boarding pass. It was an uneventful flight to Madrid, when we went through Customs, where there are real customs agents, we explained to the agent what we were doing, within a minute he was waving us though, welcoming us to Spain.
It was too much unnecessary stress caused by someone who’s only responsibility should have only been to very nicely direct us to the proper official for any clarification on our planned trip. Even better would have been, to address any customs issues when we purchased one-way tickets.
Our brother Steve met us at the Madrid Airport for coffee during our layover. During which time I went back on the Expedia app and canceled our return flights.
Often times the best solutions are the easiest ones.
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