Edgartown Town Column

By Gail Craig - March 6, 2008
508-627-3754
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It's Monday morning following school vacation week and I have one question, one that I know I share with a number of other parents. Why is it that all during vacation week, my kids were awake at about 6:30 in the morning but I have to wake them up and drag them out of bed on school days?

I am not a morning person. I am now, and will forever be, a night owl. However, I realized this morning how much I enjoy waking my children in the morning. I climb into bed with each of them and, because they aren't really awake, they snuggle in close to me and give me morning kisses and hugs, generally without opening an eye. And nine times out of ten, they will say something either deeply profound or hysterically funny. It really is a great way to start the day. Of course, it's generally very quickly followed by "Get up, eat your breakfast, would you please finish your breakfast, hurry up and eat, get dressed, I said get dressed, brush your teeth, why aren't you dressed yet, where's your homework, did you brush your teeth, put the Gameboy away, no artwork 'til you're ready for school, no you can't watch TV, okay let's go let's go let's go, we're late." That part isn't as much fun.

Island Theatre Workshop's second annual one-act festival opens Friday, March 14, at the Katharine Cornell Theatre. Three directors - Lee Fierro, Kevin Ryan, and Leslie Stark - will be offering a program of four plays, all of which look at life with both humor and sadness. The one-acts will be performed Friday through Sunday, March 14-16, and Friday through Sunday, March 21-23. All performances begin at 7:30. Admission is $15. Island Club cards will be accepted and there is a senior discount of 20 percent. For further information and to make reservations, please call Kevin Ryan at 508-627-3166.

The Martha's Vineyard Women's Network March Breakfast Meeting, entitled "Creating Your Online Presence and getting the world to see it" will be on March 11 in the Baylies Room at the Old Whaling Church. In this interactive workshop, participants will discuss online marketing strategies that can work for any business. The best part is that you can do these techniques yourself or you can hire professionals. You'll learn about blogging and blog marketing, article campaigns, online PR, email marketing, and web 2.0 - and you'll get the tools to build your own strategy. The information will be presented by Julie Roads, owner of Writing Roads, a national writing and marketing company. Registration begins at 7 am, with the meeting beginning at 7:30. The fees are $20 for members; $25 for non-members before Thursday, March 6, and $30 for all walk-ins.

Condolences go out to Pia Gundersen and her family. Pia recently lost her mom after a lengthy illness and she wrote me to share the mixed blessing of her passing, to which so many of us can unfortunately relate. When someone is ill and in pain, it is so normal to want them to pass away easily to stop their discomfort but at the same time, we certainly don't want to let them go. Pia was fortunate enough to be there with her father and sister when her mother passed, for which she is grateful. I know Pia has been going back and forth to New York with some frequency while her mother was ill so I have no doubt that, though her life may seem a bit less hectic over the next few months, she will feel a great loss of what to do with herself.

In the belated news category, congratulations to Jean Andrews, winner of the library's Valentine week raffle of a basket stuffed with treats; a big, heart-shaped box of chocolates, several smaller boxes of candies, a handsome Edgartown Library bear, a silver library charm, and for that romantic (and healthy) holiday dinner, a $25 gift certificate from Edgartown Seafood. Thanks both to Edgartown Seafood and to Liz Cosgrove for making this raffle project possible. The library promises another raffle for the month ahead so be sure to stop by their temporary quarters at town hall for details.

Pia is really a beautiful writer and her emails are always lovely, even when the news is sad. She added in her note that the day after she returned to the Island, she, Kevin, Jacob, Eli, and Ingrid left for vacation to go skiing with Roy and Dottie Gundersen in the Berkshires. Jacob is completely hooked on snowboarding, while Eli is a fan of skiing. It must be all that Nordic blood! Eli was skiing the black diamonds by the third day, snowplowing at high speed the whole way down, with a grin from ear to ear. Little Ingrid lasted one day on skis and was content to either play in the snow or explore the town. It was a great getaway, and even Pia was able to overcome her fear of the chairlift and try to keep up with the boys. One of the days, exactly one week after Pia's mother passed, they had a beautiful gentle snowfall. Pia shared that looking out at the bare birch trees and pines and all that beautiful snow reminded her of her mom and what she must have looked at as a child growing up in Finland. Pia felt her mother with her, and didn't fall down once that day, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a sure sign that her mother was there. Our mom's lift us up in more ways than we know and sometimes we don't know it until we lose our own mothers and become moms ourselves.

I've just given my email a final check for any last-minute news and finding nothing new, I'll draw this column to a close. Have a great week.

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