birds

Today I got an early start, but it was quite unintended. I woke up at 5:30 and after checking the nothingness that happens on Facebook and Twitter, I walked upstairs at 6 and read 40-something pages in my AP biology summer reading book. Until 7. Then I found a Dunkin Donuts bag on the kitchen counter and in it was a chocolate glazed donut. My absolute favorite kind. So, while no one was awake, I sat in a corner, at 6 in the morning, covertly eating a donut by myself, stopping every so often to make sure no one was coming downstairs to catch me.
After my donut, I went back to sleep - engaging in rather lardish activities here on vacation - and at 8 am we were all up, including my best friend who slept over.
We went up to the overpriced convenience store and tried to find the right newspaper out of the overwhelming variety - New York Post, Wall Street Journal (not happening), Daily Item, among others. I was looking for the Globe, but it was all out, and we apparently got the wrong newspaper. One more consumer dollar devoured by the hungry commercial society in which we live.
After buying the wrong newspaper, we came back and went out for a bike ride around town. I wanted to go to the cemetery and water the two plots we visit but we made a few pit stops along the way, like the playground and the wharf (of course).
When we got to the cemetery, I started to take some pictures with my camera and we found my dad's dad and my dad's grandfather's stones in the front of the cemetery, overlooking Short Beach. The flowers were dead and sad looking, so we watered both of them, only it went to waste because it rained in the afternoon. I was glad to see that people were mowing the lawn and that other people were there to fix up the plots of their loved ones. It's important because it's a physical, human, and material way of showing that we love and remember someone who passed.
When we came back, it rained for the afternoon, and we all - me, my sister, my brother, my best friend, and my two cousins - painted at the bar in the kitchen. We were at it for hours too. Sitting, talking, listening, and having fun. I actually made a picture of birds, but they all interlock with each other. Gotta see it to understand it. It could become a new stationery design.
After dinner we went over to Swampscott and got ice cream and sat next to this goose statue (yet another item that completes my bird motif). Me and my sister identified dog breeds that passed. We must have looked absolutely absurd. But sometimes it's the simple things that count most.
By the way, birds relate to this post in many ways: the bird painting I made today, the seagulls I photographed today, and the "early bird" thing. I was a crazy kid.