a two-hour tour.

Again yesterday, Wrigley donned his yellow Float Coat and hopped willingly into the canoe, and we enjoyed a couple of hours paddling around Edgartown Great Pond. We explored far and wide, going up into several coves and checking out the homes scattered along the shore. It was bright and sunny, an ideal day to be on the water.

Today is the opposite: cloudy, rainy and dark. Which is perfect: It gives us reason to do some on-land exploring. We'll hit Morning Glory Farm early for some produce for tonight's dinner, then maybe head over to Chilmark and other parts of the island.

Speaking of dinner, last night's was again epic: Fresh (!) scallops the size of my head, pan-sauteed and then served over a succotash of sauteed onion, corn and teeny green beans, with a butter/lemon pan sauce over the top. I will never have better scallops. Eating seafood out here completely ruins it for the stuff we get at home.

We just might not leave.

dear regina: sorry about the stove.

Since Rob and I both love cooking, it's a real treat to be able to do so on vacation, especially when we have amazing local ingredients and a gorgeous kitchen to work with. (I also love the provisioning part of these trips, making a list of things to bring with us and curating a collection of recipes to make.)

With the recent remodel of the house, Regina had installed a stunning six-burner AGA stove. It's a real beauty: a gleaming black cooktop and white enamel front, with three ovens (of different sizes and functions) and about a zillion parts that naturally all need cleaning after you've put the sucker through its paces.

Which we did last night. All due apologies to the nice girls who came this morning to clean.

Sea Bass and Confetti Vegetables with Lemon-Butter Sauce

For the fish
2 sea bass fillets (sprinkle with salt)
Heat olive oil in a large skillet; add fish and cook until it flakes easily when tested with a fork.
Remove from pan, place on a plate and tent with foil.
Add 1/4 cup white wine and the juice of a lemon to the pan; cook over medium-high heat 2 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in 1 Tablespoon chopped parsley and 1 teaspoon cold butter.

For the vegetables

Cut the kernels off 2 ears of corn; chop a tomato and a zucchini (two if they're tiny). Sliver a large handful of fresh spinach. Add corn and zucchini to pan, saute 2 minutes. Add tomato and spinach, cook 1 minute until spinach wilts.

Spoon the vegetables onto 2 plates; top with fish and pour butter sauce over all.

wrigley the canoeing dog.

On Saturday, while the whole crew was here, there was an Important Canoeing Adventure. Dave, Harry, Alicia, Rob, Wrigley and I launched two kayaks and a canoe onto Edgartown Great Pond and went in search of a specific target. We all (Wiggy included) wore the appropriate, Coast Guard-approved PFDs (that's personal flotation device, in Wrigley's case a.k.a. a Float Coat). The mission? Investigate a white buoy in the pond, to which on previous trips Harry had tied various items, including a plastic shovel. Today, we aimed to attach a plastic airplane, secured with a piece of twine. The goal is to see if what's been left previously is still there on subsequent visits. Wrigley was a huge HUGE sport about the whole thing. Note to family and friends: This will likely be the photo on this year's Christmas card.

too much of a good thing.

Perhaps inevitably, we woke to a bit of dog barf on the floor by the back door this morning on Martha's Vineyard. Inevitably, because over the weekend when the whole crew were here, Wrigley was the beneficiary of some dinner-table generosity. Several of the treats were willingly given (Uncle Dave's oyster, Grandma's bread); others not so much (the two chunks of english muffin snatched from Harry's hand at breakfast). So there was barfing. Easily cleaned up, and now Wrigley is hiding under the dining table.

speaking of terrific (and fitting) poems.

Our friends Doug & Sandy shared this one:

The Good Nights
by Joseph Mills

On the good nights
when the bottle's empty
we always want
just a little more,
half a glass,
a few sips,
a taste.
We know
this desire
can be dangerous
to pursue,
that it can make
mornings difficult,
so usually we
brush our teeth
let the dog in,
lock the doors,
but sometimes,
even as we say
We really should
get ready for bed,
instead of loading
the dishwasher
we will search
for the corkscrew,
all the while
shaking our heads
in wonder
at this willingness
to ignore the clocks
and the fact we have
to work tomorrow,
this irresponsibility,
this evidence
even after all these years
of the unquenchable desire
for each other's company.

this is very sweet.

On Martha's Vineyard today, Grandma pointed out to me this poem in a collection of children's verse compiled by Caroline Kennedy (who, coincidentally, dropped by to visit last evening).

from Falling in Love Is Like Owning a Dog
by Taylor Mali

First of all, it's a big responsibility,
especially in a city like New York.
So think long and hard before deciding on love.
On the other hand, love gives you a sense of security:
when you're walking down the street late at night
and you have a leash on love
ain't no one going to mess with you.

Love doesn't like being left alone for long.
But come home and love is always happy to see you.
It may break a few things accidentally in its passion for life,
but you can never be mad at love for long.

Is love good all the time? No! No!
Love can be bad. Bad, love, bad! Very bad love.

Sometimes love just wants to go for a nice long walk.
It runs you around the block and leaves you panting.
It pulls you in several different directions at once,
or winds around and around you
until you're all wound up and can't move.

But love makes you meet people wherever you go.
People who have nothing in common but love
stop and talk to each other on the street.

Throw things away and love will bring them back,
again, and again, and again.
But most of all, love needs love, lots of it.
And in return, love loves you and never stops.

more botanicals.

Below, a few snaps of the daylilies, including the newly named Herb, at left (short for Peaches & Herb, the very bad disco band whose name seems apropos for a flower that's a gorgeous double shade of peach) and Pickelson Slammer, right, whose purple petals and lime throat remind us of our house cocktail, which features Creme de Cassis and lime juice.

Speaking of cocktails, Rob has dubbed his new concoction The Recombobulator: it's a blend of blood-orange juice, Triple Sec, vodka and Galliano. 

His recent trip to the Milwaukee airport inspired the name: After progressing through the security checkpoint, Rob looked up to see a large sign reading, "Recombobulation Zone." Which seemed thoroughly appropriate given the discombobulation that one experiences upon entering said security zone. If the TSA is known for nothing else than a Mooth Family cocktail, they're batting 1.000.

botanical nomenclature.

My tendency to label and list things extends to the garden; if you walk through the yard, you'll see little plastic (in the vegetable bed) or metal garden labels marking everything from the 3 varieties of lavender in the herb bed to the potted Chardonnay to the particular kind of lettuce growing in the veggie patch. Yes, it's anal-retentive, and I embrace it.

The summer after we moved in, Grandma gave me a half dozen daylily bulbs for my birthday or Christmas, I can't remember. We planted them along the border in the backyard, and I carefully recorded the variety name on a little metal tag which I stuck in the ground next to each one. For four or five seasons we watched as they grew, sent up buds—and were thoroughly munched by the deer that roam our neighborhood. Seriously, the deer seemed oblivious to the plants themselves, or even to the flowers, but boy ... those flower buds must be tasty.

Fast forward to the two-year period when we were in Jersey. The landscaping company we hired to keep things while we were away completely obliterated my careful little plant labels.

Last year, Rob engineered a deer-proof system involving netting and stakes—for the first season, we had a fully blooming crop of daylilies. But we had no idea what their names were. So as they bloomed, we made up new names for them, and I made little metal labels. Like Ninety-Nine, which has a gold/orange/red scheme that looks like the sun on a very hot day. Or Jackson, which has a crimson and gold palette that reminded us of the colors of USC, whose football games Keith Jackson broadcasts every fall. Or Butters (the color reference is obvious), named after a South Park character. Or Pickelson Slammer, which gets its name from the house cocktail (you'll have to ask us about that one).

So our daylilies aren't exactly up to whatever formal botanical standard exists out there. But we know what they are.

mooths in the media.

A photographer from CinWeekly took a family photo during the Hyde Park Blast festivities on Saturday.