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December 26, 1996
Hope Street. The spinal cord of Providence. A leisurely dark roast and a bagel at the Dunkin Donuts with the gorgeous Russian immigrant waitress (I flirt with her, she flirts back. Nancy thinks it's cute.). Nancy and I read the paper and lingered over the dark roast before heading to the cove.
We took a long long walk on the bike path in the cold gray day. The widgeons were really active, rising as one and flocking to wherever the hooded mergansers were. They like to hang out with mergansers because mergansers dive and widgeons don't so the widgeons can score food stirred up by the mergansers. The very first birds I saw were 3 common black headed gulls! The rare bird alert tape says there are 5 there, so I kept searching for the other two. It was a fabulous day for walking despite the cold. Everything was alive. Ducks everywhere: in the cove, on the bay, in the sky...
I didn't count the swans. Nancy thought I'd never be able to sleep tonight if I didn't count the swans but I just got too cold. After our long walk we went to Coffee Caffe on South Main Street for lunch and coffee with the intention of going back to the cove to continue counting. Lunch by the fireplaces was superb. Back at the cove I was freezing after about 3 minutes of looking at hooded mergansers so we piled into the car to go to Barrington to look at the plastic flamingos.
The Barrington flamingos are one of those Rhode Island phenomena that defy explanation. The owners of said flamingos arrange them in seasonal scenes, usually with props. We first noticed them in summer as they sunned themselves on beach chairs under beach umbrellas. They played baseball complete with scoreboard and umpire - they all wore those little plastic batting helmets the ice cream at the ballpark comes in. They played football. They campaigned for candidates at election time. They raked leaves. Now they are on the roof pulling Santa's sleigh.
After the Barrington flamingos we picked up my Xmas photos at CVS to see how the ritual "hi bob" came out, and examined them over hazelnut steamed milk at 729 Hope (yes we went back to Hope Street - it is the center of the universe - without it we would be hopelessly lost).
This felt more like a holiday to me. No pressure to get the presents wrapped, give the right gifts, pitch in with the meal preparation, be unfailingly cheerful... just a plain old day to putter around.