Salt and Pepper

Today I went to camp with my kids. It was a field trip day. And the field trip was a whale watch.

I was on the fence about going, right up until bedtime last night where I casually mentioned to Emma that I was possibly thinking about coming along on the field trip and would she want me there. She really, really, really did and I know she really, really, really won't for much longer so I went. And who doesn't love whales?

The day started out quite foggy, and when we got to Stellwagen, visibility wasn't more than 500 yards. There was a naturalist/interpreter on board, a miserable old grump who hated children, and he droned on about whales, an uninteresting person ruining perfectly interesting information. Since we couldn't look for waterspouts, we spent the next 20 minutes or so crawling along, "listening" for whales. If you've ever wondered how long it takes the typical 4-year old to get tired of listening for whales, the answer is 14.2 seconds. The listening quickly devolves into talking, then running around, then screeching & chasing their friends, and before you know it they are sneaking into roped-off areas and throwing goldfish crackers at the seagulls. The old guy kept interrupting his memorized whale fact sheet to scold the kids, and the parents.


But the old grump did find us some whales. Sort of. He actually found another whale-watching boat that had found a whale. But we got to see a whale, a humpback whale, a 20-25 ton "teenage" male humpback, and man did he give us a show. He flapped his crusty whitish flippers (humpbacks have the longest front appendages - in their case, fins - of any mammal, in proportion to their overall length. Longer than giraffe legs.) He would slap the water and he would also slap his big humpback belly, which has these crazy grooves that run along it, giving it a striped appearance. He hung out, seeming to perform for us, slapping and blowing, doing the back stroke, & occasionally diving down below, disappearing into the green-grey water.

After hanging around with the first whale for awhile, we moved on. The tour operators were visibly relieved that they would not have to refund our ticket price, and the fog started to lift. The old guy was still grumpy but he came through again, this time finding Salt and her calf. Salt is an adult female weighing closer to 35 tons (female humpbacks are larger than males). She was first sighted on Stellwagen in 1976, and was believed to be a full grown adult already at that point. So she's probably at least in her late 30s, like me. She's still reproductively active, as she was hanging out with her calf, her TWELFTH one. Can you imagine 12 pregnancies? Although I guess if you only had to raise them to age 2, it might make the thought of 12 kids more appealing. On second thought, not really. Humpbacks reproduce every 2-3 years, birthing their calves in their warmer southern habitat, then trekking on up to Stellwagen to get fat on the teeny tiny fish that like to hang out in this nutrient-rich upwelling zone.

Salt & her calf (who had a name I can't remember, but it wasn't Pepper) showed some different behaviors than the single young dude whale had. They didn't do much slapping and rolling, but they seemed almost to be snuggling together, if it's possible to snuggle while swimming. It was sweet and made me want to snuggle my own calfs. They were both making these squeaky, cooing noises, which they claimed was "humpback language." I wish I could freeze them at this age when they are still so certain of their own magic.

It was difficult to photograph the first two sightings because it was still fairly foggy, and by the time the fog lifted I was sick of pushing the button only to have the delay cause me to capture a perfect picture of the surface of the water. I did get a few good ones. I also shot an mpeg that is poor quality but captures the first whale's fin-slapping behavior. (The predominant kid voice you hear is Emma's friend Kaitlyn, waxing poeting about how the whale is saying hello to us, which I actually think he might have been.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ROUdVlvtu4

I was born and raised in New England and have lived here for more than half of my life, but I've never been on a whale watch. And while I still have qualms about whether it is good or fair that boatfulls of sunburned toursists steam through Stellwagen Bank, cameras at the ready, to gawk at 30-ton cetaceans...I admit I was awestruck. It almost made me feel like a calf again.

Don't Cry for me Argentina

Last night I watched a young man whose diapers I changed 20-odd years ago light up the stage in a local summer stock production of Evita. Truth be told, the show was so-so, it suffered from a lack of staging, in my completely unqualified opinion. But Jon was fantastic in his ensemble role, and was an absolute riot during the cabaret performance afterward. Pure entertainment.

Jonathan, you're a superstar! I apologize in advance for selling your baby pictures to Us magazine.

Rockin' the Suburbs

Last night we officially atoned for the last several weeks' worth of tag-team parenting and Nickelodeon marathons by staging a good old-fashioned backyard camping trip, complete with sleeping bags, flashlights and s'mores. Pete somehow located the rubbermaid storage bin with the dusty old camping supplies and made the happy discovery that the 4-man tent we bought on the cheap back in 1996 still works.

I think the last time we slept in the tent was twelve years ago, in an old growth forest in northern California or southern Oregon, en route to Kodiak. I remember there were these banana-like tree slugs and crusty, craggy tree stumps big enough to hide in. It felt like an enchanted forest, filled with ancient, secret magic. At least until about 3am when some kind of mystical forest creature started scuffling around outside our tent. Pete said it was a deer but it sounded more like one of those half-man, half-goat things. We all know they eat banana slugs.

So last night, there she sat in her blue-and-gray nylon splendor on the recently shorn lawn, a few feet from the deck. Since the backyard is fully fenced in, and Bella slept on the deck all night to keep watch, we felt pretty confident that we could protect the girls from any errant man-goats or ill-tempered unicorns. But there was a moment of tension when we realized that we forgot to turn the sprinklers off.

By the way, I did some quick camping math & have concluded that a 4-man tent purchased 12 years ago for $14 is really not big enough for 4 people, not even when 2 of them are under 8.

Why you should have kids when you are still in your 20s

Overheard, 43-year-old dad to 7-year old daughter...

"Emma, you have a way of cuddling that exhausts me."