SNARKY NEWCOMER OPINES BASELY

Rolling in the deep

BY LEAH CASNER
Posted 10/27/22

Like many of my things, my house is a franken-house, patched together from disparate and not-always-compatible parts. The kitchen and first floor bedroom (a courtesy title bestowed by the selling real estate agent on a mud room) are a portion of the original 1880s house, some of which collapsed about 70 years ago.

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SNARKY NEWCOMER OPINES BASELY

Rolling in the deep

Posted

Like many of my things, my house is a franken-house, patched together from disparate and not-always-compatible parts. The kitchen and first floor bedroom (a courtesy title bestowed by the selling real estate agent on a mud room) are a portion of the original 1880s house, some of which collapsed about 70 years ago. 

The ruins of two stone walls outline a space in the yard. Instead of rebuilding the collapsed portion, the earlier owner added a stacked three-level addition on the opposite end: a lower level garage, a living room and an upstairs bedroom, all with rather low ceilings.

The living room is paneled in the same pretend wood paneling my parents had installed in the rec room they made out of half the double carport, in the ‘50s suburban house I grew up in. The rest of the carport was supposed to be a garage, but my dad had measured incorrectly and built a workbench across one end, which shortened the length so a car couldn’t fit in. Dad had a little measuring problem. When he built his retirement home on the Greek island of Crete, he forgot about the difference between meters and yards, and ended up with a house a third bigger than planned.

The first summer we were here, our location five minutes away from Duck Harbor Pond meant we had to get kayaks. We ordered cheap ones from Walmart. Their delivery information was farcical—we were told the boats would arrive on our anniversary, but instead, Walmart shipped them on that date. Still, they were good fun when we got them several weeks later. 

But carrying them around and taking them on and off the car was a pain. Perhaps channeling my dad’s measuring ineptness, once we put kayak racks on the car, it would not fit under the low garage door. All that summer, we had to leave the car out in the weather and my husband was not happy. 

This year, I bought collapsible kayak roof racks. They turned out to be awkward to set up and even awkwarder to use, and just a touch too high on the car for me to be able to reach, so my husband had to do all the lifting and putting up and strapping tight. I think he was happy not to have to pretend that help from me was any help at all. I could take the boats off, with assistance from gravity. The fold-down racks let us put the car in the garage all summer.

If, uh, we always remembered to fold the racks down when we took off the boats. Being us, of course we forgot. So long, kayak rack and Subaru Outback roof crossbar. Fortunately the garage entrance was undamaged.

When we parked in front of Rafters Tavern for our Thursday night trivia game, one of the fellow trivia habituées noticed our car was missing its rear crossbar. Hearing our sad little tale, she told us about her folding kayak; it could be completely collapsed into a one-and-a-half-foot-by-four-foot plastic “burrito”—the nickname bestowed upon the Tucktecs in their official Facebook group—which could be carried in a car trunk. 

Weary of our rack misadventures, we bought two of the folding boats online, and they arrived within a week. Plenty of time for us to give them a tryout while the leaves were changing and before the water got too cold at Duck Harbor. 

Since we hadn’t kayaked in a bit, my arms seemed startled, insisting they didn’t know what I had in mind; I certainly wasn’t expecting them to do this rowing thing? Wherever did I get such a silly idea? 

But even my arms had to confess it was beautiful. Floating on the pond, which sparkled in the early fall late afternoon, was magical; we were surrounded by finite fall’s fantastic fluttering fiery fluorescent forest finery.

After our paddle, we refolded the kayaks. When the latches holding the folds together are undone, the kayak unfolds into a flat piece of slightly oval plastic. Beginning at one end, it is meant to be rolled and folded along its built-in creases, until it’s a nice, tight, neat package. Practicing beforehand, I had found that leaning my upper body down on it with all my weight smushed it properly. It worked splendidly on the living room floor. 

It hadn’t occurred to me that a kayak fresh out of the water was wet. When put on the grass, it becomes wet and messy and slippery. And cold. Mine did not compress into a neat burrito, but a sloppy, uncertain, unstable mess, from which a burrito’s delicious spicy filling would have spilled all over my shirt. Which is pretty much what my shirt looked like had happened, after I wrestled the muddy kayak into something resembling the pictures in the instruction video. I imagine it will get easier with time. 

Now that the leaves are turning, I think I should have kayaked more this summer, but there shall be many springs, summers and autumns to come.

house, reflection, kayaking, summer

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