All that keeps running through my head are all the lines of dialog and song lyrics from 1776 complaining about the heat. And these were men who wore linen and/or woolen clothing in high summer! But then we're wimps, or the weather was much cooler then. When we were tramping around the Orchard House property yesterday, we went up the hill a dozen steps to the "little red schoolhouse-size" edifice in the rear that Bronson Alcott had built to house his School of Philosophy. It was windowed on all sides, under trees, and still hot and stuffy, and I'm sure Alcott and his transcendental comrades, all in long sleeves and suit jackets, still sat and argued "angel on the head of a pin" questions in the simmering summer.

Anyway, we went by the post awful to check the mail, only to find one piece of junk mail, and the postal clerk put on an attitude and chewed us out for coming again the second day in a row. He says when you have it on hold you're only supposed to call for it once or twice a week. I guess they want us to get a PO box. Yo, idiot. We're not here for that long; when we leave it gets forwarded again. And don't get on your Federal Employee high horse with me. I'm one, too.

How did Cobb County send those certificates, by homing pigeon?

This pissed off James to no end and he was grumpy as we headed for Newport. I wanted one trip while we were here and I sure wasn't going to drive out there on a weekend during tourist season! I chose to go through 114, through Barrington, Warren, and Bristol, like I did back in April when I was here after Mom's surgery. Apparently everyone and his mother drives 114 at lunchtime; the ride was quite aggravating although the main street of all three towns looked lovely: lots of hanging flower baskets scattered around the old-fashioned wooden storefronts, and interspersed between towns were salt-water inlets full of white-sailed boats and the occasional cabin cruiser.

As it was hot—the high around 95°F—the bay was very hazy. It looked as if someone had turned the contrast button down. Still, the bright blue water was picturesque with sailboats and cabin cruisers churning up V-shaped wakes behind them.

The roads seemed full of endless pockets of construction, and we gave up for about an hour and had lunch at Newport Creamery in Middletown, where we didn't get much relief because the air conditioner simply couldn't keep up with all the 98.6 temps inside, before proceeding on to Brenton Point. This was the only place that was actually cool, and you had to either walk on the WPA-era concrete sea wall or the rocks below to get the benefit. Even the graveled parking lot across the narrow two-lane road was hot. We purchased Del's Lemonade from the van in the lot, then walked down a length of sea wall, absorbing the cool sea air (which unfortunately came with the stink of rotting seaweed for a while) and watching the sea birds—seagulls both white and brown, brightly marked black-brown-and-white sandpipers (I guess), and a zooming swallow doing a figure eight slalom parallel to the edge of the sea wall—until we found the last remaining flight of concrete stairs (the rest have rotted away and fallen in bits onto the shingle, and this set is already crumbling on one side) and clambered down on the rocks.

I've been hopping around these rocks since I was "knee high to a grasshopper" in my Hush Puppies that I wore everywhere. They are weathered, scarred black-and-grey outcrops of layered sedimentary (or maybe metamorphic) rock thrust above the surface of the ocean at odd angles, cut with grooves in which tide pools form, splashed with seaweed, guano, and high tide. I walked out, arms spread to greet the sea breeze like an old friend, as close as I could without getting wet, watching the rising tide strike the edge of the rocks and spume upward as white geysers. A small flotilla of sea gulls bobbed nearby, rising and falling with the waves, and out against the haze were schooners and sloops and even a big barque with scarlet sails. It was so hazy that Beavertail, the lighthouse south of Jamestown, blinked from the opposite shore. But despite the haze and the driven salt air that fogged our glasses, it was quite beautiful.

We stopped at the old gatehouse, now restrooms and ranger headquarters, and then tramped out through the remains of the old garden and the grounds choked with wild blackberry, wild roses (or actually the plump red rose hips, the roses having bloomed and died), Queen Anne's lace, and other weeds to see if the old stone stables are still there. Yes, still surrounded, as it has been for several years now, by a chain link fence marked "Danger." (Gang members still climb over and deface the building anyway.) The roof is gone in many places and now the trees are starting to grow through the tiles that are left and poke through the glassless windows. It looks like something under enchantment that has rotted for years.

Drifted home past the mansions and the Newport beaches. Traffic was much better even though it was rush hour, and we went home via Warren to see if we could stop at a hobby shop we had seen on the outbound leg. We made it there 20 minutes before closing time, but there were no places to park around it, and the street, where you were allowed to park, was full. Finally, as we circled back, I had an inspiration: there was a Dunkin Donuts across the street and a couple of storefronts down. We parked there and I went inside and bought something while James strolled to the store.

Got home to find the house expectedly hot and stuffy despite all five fans and ceiling fans operating on high. We tossed up the rest of the shades, threw wide the front door, and called out for pizza. This is a new place called Pier Pizza, and, thinking of the large pizzas we order from places like Pizza Hut or Papa Johns, ordered a large. This wasn't large, this was huge. Even James couldn't finish more than two pieces. My defining praise on pizza is the crust. The crust was great. I could have eaten that alone and been happy. I wished there had been more tomato sauce on it, though.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:55:00 PM

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