HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

This column is being sent from Heaven. No, I haven’t died although, as the Island’s ghost hunter, if anybody is going to file a story from the Other Side, I guess I’m the woman for the job. In fact, let me make this promise to you: If while crossing Circuit avenue I’m hit by a truck, you will hear from me: how do you like them shivers?

No, this Heaven exists right here on Martha’s Vineyard. Jack and I took up the lovely offer from the management of the Mansion House in Vineyard Haven: If you’re a year-round Island resident you can book a night in the luxe hotel any time during the month of January for the sum of — are you ready for this? — $25 per person. This includes breakfast at Zephrus, one of the town’s most chic restaurants, full use of the indoor pool, and of the state-of-the-art fitness room. This gift to the community is a way of celebrating the inn’s 25th anniversary under the aegis of Susie and Sherman Goldstein. It’s also a toast to the couple’s capacity to upgrade the former Tisbury Inn — which, in its century-and-a-half incarnations has burned to the ground not once but twice, the first inferno taking place during the Great Tisbury Fire of 1883, the second a few years ago — from a slightly bedraggled historic landmark to a first-class hotel.

So Jack and I reserved a room for Jan. 26, a day that happens to sit between both our birthdays in another of a string of synchronicities that lets us know we were destined to marry and raise my dog, Huxley together.

So here we are in what can only be termed the honeymoon suite (so far our honeymoon has consisted of mornings in the West Tisbury library; Beth, Steve, Colleen and all the other great staffers have asked us if we intend to go anywhere a touch more romantic, so we’ve asked them to dim the lights in the basement stacks and to play a little Barry Manilow).

Susie and Sherm of the Mansion House are old, old friends of mine, so I figure they may have had a hand in passing out this beyond-fabulous room assignment. We have a suite on the southeast corner of the fourth floor. We can see the broad expanse of the harbor all the way out to the Sound, the ferry gliding in to the wharf, and the Lagoon as it wraps itself around the southern end of town and catches a lagoon-within-a-lagoon pool of pale apricot light from the morning sun. Five Corners, we can see, rarely hosts a lull in traffic but, as much as we all complain about this multi-pronged mess, it’s a bona fide miracle that at this junction, drivers practice advanced road anarchy without collisions occurring at five-minute intervals. In fact, if you don’t believe in guardian angels, just try observing Five Corners from the fourth floor of the Mansion House and you’ll experience a spiritual transformation like no other.

So okay, we have a living room with a fireplace that lights with a flick of the wrist. The bedroom contains a king-sized bed and a white linen duvet thick enough to need a hydraulic crane to lift it on and off the mattress. The bathroom has a Jacuzzi tub big enough for two, but I just learned that tough guys from South Boston don’t do baths. As Jack explains it, “My chest and head stick out of the water and get cold.”

Breakfast is included in the package — eggs, homemade bread, muffins, sausages, yogurt, fruit; the works. By the time this issue of the Gazette hits the stands, you’ll have only the upcoming weekend left to take the Mansion House up on this super offer.

Thank you so much, Susie and Sherm.

Save Valentine’s Day, Saturday, Feb. 13: the Friends of the Oak Bluffs Council on Aging is presenting a breakfast at the Senior Center on Wamsutta. For the affordable price of $7 for adults, $4 for children, guests will be provided with pancakes, bacon and eggs, as well as coffee, served to you either in a cup or intravenous style, depending on what you were doing the night before. Proceeds will benefit the FOBCOA. Sorry for being bossy, but this should go straight in to your calendar.