Cape Cod during the second week of September turns into a very special place. It sheds its tourist glitter into the ocean and becomes almost mystical. Breathtaking sunsets, never the same. Wind and sun go through your body giving you a release from the trivial worries.

The places are almost empty but still alive. A few natives are super friendly, they relax in their chairs. They are glad to see you coming in, they chat and smile. The birds are the rulers now. The black crows are walking along the streets, sitting on poles and back yards getting sunbaths.
Our favorite beach on the lake is empty, we feel that we are the masters of the land and we can do whenever we want. When my son wakes up his first question is:"Where are we going today?" He got into the spirit of vacation very fast. We eat seafood, which is delicious and readily available, or doing barbecue on the backyard.

There are also old people. As we are eating the breakfast they start migration to the ocean. There are couples, small groups of women sharing the stories, that you can hear if you want to. The rush hour here is 6.30 to 7 pm, the sunset time. Everybody is on the ocean edge observing how the sun and clouds are painting a new beautiful composition every evening that includes the smells of the ocean and sound of the waves. Around Wednesday the change is happening, one crowd is leaving and next hasn't came yet. On Thursday and Friday nights more and more cars parked at the hotels and rental houses. We left on the beautiful Saturday morning saying goodbuy and thank you. Back to civilization. I wish we cold stay a few days more.

Life often comes between me and my blogging. I have two unfinished posts, and now when I am looking at them I am not sure what I wanted to say. One was about how my boss for some reason decided that my vacation wasn't too important, and I could switch it. But now after two weeks it all seems water under the bridge. The other post was about our vacation but I have a bit different feelings about it now. But I think I want to write it down anyway. So I am going to start over...

Every time after I talk to my mom I feel horrified. Will my son talk to me that way? Will I be as inflexible as her? The barrier between different generations seems so high almost impossible to overcome. I am often wondering, how come though she raised me we don't have much in common. She is doing so much for us, but I have a very long way to go to learn to appreciate it, without saying: "This is great but..." There is always a but, and it shouldn't be there. I am trying to accept my mom as she is, but .... here it is again. That is very irritating. How people do this? How do they reach each other through time and connect?

A few days ago I finished reading a novel "The Island" by Elin Hilderbrand. This turned out to be one of the romantic stories that I swore off quite a while ago. It was a recommendation by one of the women book clubs so I suspected that from the start but decided that variety probably will do me good.

It was quite an amusing read and I did enjoy it. Probably because the last book like this I had read 9 years ago so it was almost refreshing. I am like so many women deep inside quite a romantic and this book reminded me about this almost forgotten feature. Sometimes it made me smile and a few times I wanted to bang my head against something hard.

Pretty often I think these kind of books should be gathered and buried somewhere as they raise very unhealthy expectations and I saw too many girls that couldn't separate fiction and reality. These stories are hopelessly romantic and have almost absolutely nothing to do with the reality. They cater to the woman's dream of the perfect man (prince) that will come along and all the worries will be over. Also they somehow all follow the same plot points. So enough is enough I probably will wait a few more years to read another one.

I love my way to work. As I am emerging from the subway I see people. Some are like me moving with purpose - going to work, some are tourists. Young couples, friends and families having breakfast at Starbucks and Au Bon Pain. They are talking and smiling. This early in the morning people are looking forward to a new day and optimistic. Nice feeling.

As I walked through the door I started to notice the first signs of the coming of the fall. The elusive smell in the air, the tree on the backyard loosing its red leaves, and although I know that we probably still have a few good weeks, but something squeezed my heart as I realized that summer soon will be over. The little sweet nostalgia about hot summer days. I love fall, but it makes me a little bit blue as a premonition of the upcoming winter hibernation. There is a sense that maybe I should hurry and do a little bit more summer stuff.

Random thought. I am at the point of life when people around me, getting married, buying properties, having children - the positive news. How long is it going last? Maybe ten years, maybe a bit more. What kind of new major things happen to the people after they hit 40-45? Basically you are all set, your life is on track. What people are looking forward to later in life?

Inlawvasion. My husbands parents are visiting. My pans are misplaced, the mystical ceramic cookware flooded the kitchen and my father in-law paintings the house. I am irritated, my husband is nervous and my child is happy and this is all that matters.

To get a relief we went to see "Inception" last night. I haven't been in the movie theater for months. Very nice feeling to be free, but now in the lobby I am buying coffee, not popcorn. I really enjoy how DiCaprio matures. Almost all movies I recently watched with him I liked. Also all of the main characters in the movie were very well played. In some places I thought the movie could be shortened but overall I thought it was good.

Sitting on my bed and trying to write from my iPad since I already missed last weeks date and there are quite a few things I still need to do today. I can't do much at night anymore since my child decided to torture us by not sleeping until 11 pm. So we are basically screwed unless we figure out what to do about it. But enough complaining. My child will be old enough soon, or too soon.

Today as I was playing with my son I noticed the new signs of his development. I don't know how children do it, but they do grow super fast. For the first time today my kid didn't ask me to go with him into the dark closet. He wanted to show the stars projected onto the ceiling to his staffed animals. Now I am wondering if I am giving him too much space, and he is becoming very independent already. At two and a half years it might be too early. I don't agree that we need to prepare our children for "the hard life" ahead by making them independent and self-sufficient. I am sure that he will have many chances to figure it out. All I can do is to let him know that I will be there for him and he can count on me.

This afternoon I was sitting at work and contemplating if i should or shouldn't go with the co-workers for an outing. I was tired and I had things to do so it was so much easier to stay, but finally I decided that it might be very nice experience and as those things go I was right.

We went to our beautiful main library for a tea. Everything was set up very nicely. The large light room decorated with flower arrangements and a quite interesting chandelier. The view of the beautiful garden. The tables had nice linens, and cute cups and plates. I ordered Bangkok tea, green tea with coconut flavor and couple other flavors, it was delicious. Served with the tea there were sandwiches, fruit tartlets and scones, all little and very cute.

What was very pleasing we weren't talking about work at all, and I was glad my boss wasn't there, because she tends to bring up the work when we go to lunches with people. The conversations were light and relaxing. We talked about pets, books, singers, movies, Twilight, and of course how my water broke at work, which somehow always comes up although it was two and a half years ago.

Another thing that I noticed how comfortable I was, I knew at least something about everything people were talking about, except of course the pets part, since I am not really interested in that. I guess listening to the radio a lot pays off.

The whole thing seemed very civilized and mature, and I was really glad I came. I am a big fan of the tea and especially when it happens in a such aesthetically pleasing space.