The Mast-Head: For Better or Worse

    The restaurant economies of Bridgehampton, and to a lesser extent Water Mill, have benefited, albeit ever so slightly, from our eldest daughter’s taking to ballet and other forms of dance in a big way. The greenhouse effect, on the other hand, gives me room for pause.

    Lisa and I decided to lease a fuel-efficient vehicle a few months ago, but the way things worked out, it became my wife’s daily drive, and I was left with the Tundra. It’s old and generally filled with fishing gear or surfboards or things destined for the dump. I worry that it may mortify Adelia when I pick her up at school, but it is what I have for now.

    Due to the way my wife’s and my schedules work, I have become the designated driver for Adelia’s practices. Three evenings a week, I am killing time in Bridgehampton, and one night a week, in Water Mill. I have so far been able to evade a Saturday Bridgehampton run to practices in advance of a December performance of “The Nutcracker.”

    With little else to do during these times, I am eating my way around both hamlets’ restaurants and scoping out the best wireless Internet hot spots. There’s a sweet taco deal on Tuesdays at one place, I learned, and a really odd and lonely bar crowd at another.

    Between Adelia’s after-school pick-me-ups at Starbucks and my dinners out, the food budget has taken a turn toward the extravagant. It’s a good thing I started bringing my lunch to work after Bucket’s closed last year, I suppose.

    At the same time, I try not to think about the hole in the ozone or global warming my Toyota pickup is contributing to, but every time I fill up the tank, the sharp, stabbing pain in the wallet reminds me. That is, if I forget about how much the dance classes themselves are running us.

    All the money and idle hours are well worth it, however. Adelia loves dance, and I like the time to do nothing much at all other than eat around.