All things fade into dark green water down by the lake

Yesterday was what spatch is accustomed to refer to as A Day, by which I mean that I spent it in the greater hinterlands of Rhode Island and Massachusetts with selkie on the occasion of her beloved grandfather's ninetieth birthday. We had dinner at S.S. Dion on the waterfront of Bristol Harbor, where I was introduced to about thirty relatives of assorted degrees and generations and had the best conversations with the one who went as Belle for Halloween because his five-year-old daughter asked him to. (He showed me the pictures. He looked great.) There were fried oysters for dinner and two cakes made by one of the cousins our age. The grandfather and his second wife hugged me when the party broke up, which I had not expected. We got yelled at by a seagull on the slipway. Otherwise the purpose of my presence was emotional support against damage radiating like black light and event horizons and I believe I discharged my duty faithfully; also I got some pictures in the process. Most of them are ancestral homestead, but there is also the sea.

( And pretend that dark water will cloak our deepest intent. )

I regret nothing about having been there for one of my dearest friends and the mother of my godchild, even if at one point way too close to our scheduled departure time we were seriously discussing stealing a car from the middle of cabin-bearing woods. We got home all right to our respective states. We slept late. Today I am doing nothing except reading Ross Macdonald and being visited by rushthatspeaks. But Monday could be boring and that would be just fine with me.