“Can’t Stop the Music” was theme of 2011 Carnival parade in Provincetown

We are back from our annual sojourn to Provincetown, another in a series of relaxing summer vacations on the beach at the tip of Cape Cod. For the past seven years, we’ve taken at least a week enjoying slow mornings that don’t start with alarm clocks, lazy afternoons reading and napping on the beach, and the luxury of just slowing down for a few days.

We always visit during Carnival, a week-long summer celebration featuring dance parties, concerts, other sponsored events, and it’s all capped off with a parade down Commercial Street on Thursday afternoon. The theme of this year’s Carnival was “Can’t Stop the Music”: here are some shots from this year’s parade.

Yup, that's Charo, the Grand Marshal of this year's Carnival Parade. Cuchi Cuchi! No disrespect to the lady because she looks great, but there was some healthy debate going on in our gang about how old she is. She claims to be 60. Is that even possible? I seem to remember her "Cuchi Cuchi-ing" way back when I was a kid.

I'm guessing Richard Simmons?

Bruce Vilanch, best known for writing the gags for all of the Hollywood award shows, has been at the parade the last several years. 

Our favorite Provincetown performer, Miss Richfield 1981. You can catch her show at the Crown & Anchor.

The last float in the parade proclaimed that the theme of next year's Carnival bash will be "A Space Odyssey". 

Check out my friend BosGuy's blog for his video from this year's parade.

Here's my new favorite joke

I was reading a back issue of Esquire magazine at the beach yesterday and came across their feature called "Funny Joke From A Beautiful Woman". In every issue, some scantily-clad actress or musician or model relates her favorite joke, and this month's joke was a doozy. Apologies to my blond friends; it's a "dumb blond" joke, and I have to admit I didn't get it at first (maybe I'm part blond?). But then I started snorting with laughter and read it out loud to Peter, who snorted out loud with me. Here goes:

After robbing a bank, a blond, a brunette, and a readhead duck into an alley where they hide in potato sacks. The cops first go to the sack with the brunette in it and kick it. The brunette says, 'Meow'. They go to the sack with the redhead in it and kick it. She says 'Woof, woof'. Last, they kick the sack with the blond in it and she says 'Po-ta-to'.

Try this: Dorothy's summer shrimp salad

We're in Provincetown, the furthest you can get out on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a few days of R&R. And for the past couple of days, amidst all of the packing and organizing and wrapping up projects at work, I've had one thing on my mind: a salad that my mom used to make. It's really simple, and one taste takes me right back to summertime when I was a kid. So this morning, I got up early, and after a cup of steaming hot coffee at The Wired Puppy on Commercial Street and a quick walk on the beach with Otis, I came back to our apartment and started working in the kitchen. Right before sitting down to type this, I ate an overflowing bowl of salad - and it tasted just like mom's. Delicious -- and exactly what I was looking for.

Dorothy's summer shrimp salad

Boil one pound of small pasta in salted water until al dente. I used a bag of funky, small curly pasta things I bought at an Amish market a while back, but any small noodle (i.e. elbows, wheels, ears, etc.) will do. Drain, rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process, and let drain again until all extra water is gone.

Chop the following into small pieces:

• 1 large onion
• 1 large green pepper
• 4-5 stalks of celery
• one jalepeno pepper (not in mom's original recipe, but I wanted to throw a little kick into the salad)

two cans of small shrimp, drained
mayonaise
salt and pepper

Mix all in a bowl with enough mayonaise to moisten. Add salt and pepper to taste. I like lots of pepper.

See, I told you it was simple. Excuse me while I go get another bowl.

Otis the Portuguese Water Dog catches air at Castle Island

What’s that, you say? You want even more blog posts about Otis?

The morning we closed on our new condo, we took the day off from work and grabbed some breakfast at the local Au Bon Pain. It was a stunning morning, and since we had a few hours to kill before signing all of the paperwork that comes with buying a house, we headed over to Castle Island with Otis.

The pooch was in rare form. At nearly seven years old, one might assume that Otis might show signs of slowing down. But flash a tennis ball in front of his nose and it’s turbo booster time. Over and over again, he raced across the grassy lawn at Castle Island, expertly catching the tennis ball in mid-air, or bouncing it off his snout and catching it on the rebound. His athleticism and determination are to be admired; we often comment that if we ran as hard as Otis does twice each day, we’d be contenders for the next Olympic games.

Here are some photos of Otis in action:

"Yup, looks like a good morning to go catch some tennis balls."

"We there yet?"

"Let's go!"

"Time out at the water fountain"

We're now officially homeowners in South Boston

A couple years back, we sold our home in Boston’s South End and moved to South Boston (better known as “Southie”). Just a few minutes out of downtown Boston, this once predominantly working class, Irish-Catholic neighborhood has lots to offer to its growing and diverse population. Many times before on this blog, I’ve written about our love for Castle Island, just a short walk away, which offers a 22-acre park right on Boston Harbor. We’re also right around the corner from the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center and the city’s Seaport district, home to great new restaurants and hotels, the Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Moakley Federal Courthouse, where “alleged” mobster (and South Boston native) James “Whitey” Bulger will soon be facing the music after his 16 years on the run.

We’ve really come to enjoy South Boston, our neighbors, all of the green space, and easy access to downtown, the airport, and major highways. And on Friday, we made it official, passing papers on one of the penthouse units in the building where we’ve been renting since 2009.

We’re very excited about our new place, a two bed/two bath home with a deck that offers great views of downtown Boston, the Black Falcon Terminal (where more than 200,000 cruise passengers sail in and out of the city each year), and the harbor. And no rest for the weary: tomorrow morning, we’re kicking off a series of small projects to get the place ready for move-in by the end of the month: painting, sprucing up the hardwood floors, and construction of some new closet spaces. No, we’re not doing the work ourselves – my plan is to stay out of the way!

Right after the closing, we rushed home to our new place for our first photo on the deck. That's a ship at Boston's Black Falcon Cruise terminal behind us.

Otis joined us for some summer air on the deck Friday evening.

A shot of our new place. Lots of natural light and tall ceilings. It'll be a few weeks until we officially move in. 

Is Sarah Palin stalking me?

OK, 'fess up, Sarah....I see in my "Live Traffic Feed" that a visitor from Wasilla, Alaska, visited my blog today.

Sorry if you're feeling ignored -- I haven't written about you in a while. I was tempted to write a post mocking your recent mangling of the Paul Revere story, but I figured that would just be piling on. But perhaps you were just here looking for some of my older posts about you, like this one, or this one (one of my favorites), or this one, or this one, or this one, or maybe this one?