Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Our little bit of Long Island has been in the news a lot lately . . .  The New York Times had a full page called "The Fork Less Taken" in last Sunday's paper.  (Click here for a slide show.)  They do this every couple of years, pointing out how much cheaper it is to buy a house here than on the South Fork, and how much less traffic there is here than in the Hamptons.  We actually have some great restaurants here now that stay open year round, unlike 23 years ago when Pete and I bought our house and you had to search for even a pizza place in December.  The article will bring another spate of tourists on weekends for a month or so . . .  What does that mean to those of us who live here year round?  No parking places at the Post Office when we need to mail a package, no bread or ice cream left at the IGA by Sunday morning, loud music crossing the bay from Claudio's until long after midnight.  Although the increased population makes me cranky, my husband loves it.  He rides his bike to the village marina to look at all the snazzy boats, and enjoys talking to strangers, getting a coffee amid the crowds on a Saturday morning.  While I love canoeing and clamming, swimming in Widows Hole, and eating fresh corn from the first of July until the end of October, I breathe much more deeply when September comes and the tourist go home.

We had some star power here last week, too.  The cast of the HBO series "Girls" was here filming an episode, as were Lady Gaga and a couple of starlets whose names have slipped my mind.  Every once in awhile Hollywood discovers us and shoots a film here, though they are rarely any good:   "The Devil's Own" with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt,  "The Romantics" with Katie Holmes (really dreadful),   some horror movie I can't remember.  They come and go, and life gets back to normal.

Yesterday, I worked in the garden and picked armfuls of hydrangeas.  I hopped on my bike (well, I got on my bike -- I don't hop so much anymore) and brought some to my friend Paula.  She was home, reading Sonja Sotomayor's biography  (which she recommends). We had iced tea and a heartfelt conversation while the ferry crisscrossed the bay outside the window.  When I arrived back home, Pete picked a basket full of peas and we made dinner together.  Another wonderful summer day.