Old Post Maine trip

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Maine Trip Report

Elizabeth had an Authentic Movement conference in Yarmouth, Maine, so I tagged along. This left me free to wander about nearby Portland and then meet up with her in the evening. We had a great motel in Yarmouth with a fine large screen television. We hooked up our DVD player and watched Hitchcock movies whenever we were too tired to explore.

We started this trip by spending a day at the University of New Hampshire with our niece Nora who is a Freshman there. Nora gave us a fine tour of the campus and her rooms, introduced us to her roommates, led us shopping, and in general delighted us with her stories and wit. It was hard to leave her.

Here we are shopping where we ran into a stringed instrument player and had our photo taken with him. The women shopped at a quirky jewelry store and bought earrings together. I decided not to get an earring so I was left out of the earring photograph.

(click to enlarge enough to see earrings)

I spent the first day wandering around Portland. I had done no pre-planning, but as I entered the city there was a fine Visitor’s Center and people to plan for me, highlighting maps. While they recommended that I pay to park right in the downtown, they tipped me off to the area where I might find free parking, so I saved $14 the first day.

Almost everything in Portland presents a fishing theme. So I was delighted.

I wandered around the harbor area walking out on the long piers to see the lobster fishing boats and the recreational yachts. It was deserted and wonderful.

One pub along the wharves

Antique Boat Carpenter's tools

Restaurant mural section

Peter and Jen had visited Portland on their honeymoon and stopped at $3 Dewey's tavern. As Peter explained it, the place was once a bordello and the prices were:

$1 Lookee
$2 touchee
$3 Dewey

We did not end of eating there, but we did tour the place and snap some photos:






With my dollar off coupon from the Visitor Center, I headed for the art museum and found it loaded with art that represented fishing and fisherman. It was a huge place! A special exhibit of Children in 19th-century was absolutely my favorite art exhibit in recent times. Using Winslow Homer’s “Snap the Whip” as central to the theme, the museum had assembled a wonderful collection of boys and girls in the late 1800’s. I was reminded over and over of my grandfather who was born in 1861. When I was very little I would crawl into his lap and ask him to tell me about when he was little. I wished that we could have toured this exhibit together.

I have no training in art appreciation. I like realism or art that approaches it, and I love art that is narrative. I especially love kids with fishing poles and here they were.

Much of the rest of museum was filled with paintings that were realistic and narrative. There was very little abstract stuff based on “found objects.” I find most of this sort of art ugly or silly. Perhaps this is more the fault of my own ignorance; however, I don’t think I lack aesthetic sense. I enjoy shapes and love to hunt for them with my camera in the details of forests or beaches. I just don’t want them in the museum. One such piece was a huge, ugly black wall with shelves on which piles of newspaper had been burned so that the middle was newspaper and the outside was black ash. It had something to do with the Holocaust. I was not moved.

But 90% of the art here I would visit again. I miss it as I write. I want to go back soon. Winslow Homer was all around. NC Wyeth was there. “Cross by the Sea” by Georgia O’Keefe was fun.

A painting believed to be another DiVinci Mona Lisa painting was a fascinating puzzle.


I could photograph some pieces without flash, but not others. Nothing in the 19th Century exhibit was allowed to be photographed. Here are a few I loved:







There were a few old books on display as well as paintings. Here was a first edition of Huckleberry Finn open to the woodcut on the first page of Huck fishing. It was awesome for me to see this. Twain has been very important to me, and teaching Twain one of my favorite memories of Livingston. I realized that the exhibit of 19th Century art around the theme of children also reflected my favorite genre, adolescent fiction. I just finished Walter Mosley’s Fortunate Son and enjoyed that strange coming of age story.

Here are two quotes in other books that reflected children’s themes that I loved:

“John Thomkins went a fishing
With a pole of birch.
He tried to catch a salmon,
But he only caught a perch.”

1850 “the Little Folk’s First Steps on the Ladder of Knowledge.”

This reinforced the prejudice against small panfish that existed so long ago and was taught to children.

“It is impossible to keep a hat neat if you use it to catch bumblebees and whisk ‘em, to bail the water from a leaky boat, to catch minnows, or to transport pebbles.”

Charles Dudley Warner
Being a Boy 1877
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Elizabeth and I took a ferry to Peak’s Island. We were the only tourists on the ride. $3.25 round trip. It was fine to be out on the water at sunset. I love a good boatride and I love it to be with the locals and a good price.













Elizabeth and I went to a famous lighthouse and walked along the rocky coast watching the waves crash against the rocky walls and trying to identify the bobbing birds.





href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4387/1895/1600/dewey%20looking%20at%20water.jpg">


We have no photos of LL Bean. I bought a couple small packages of tiny black twister tails to put on my bluegill jigs in the spring. I really want purple, but balck is second best and I am out of the tiny purple tails. I'll probably find some in Vegas at the Pro Bass shop at Silverton. Here at LL Bean Elizabeth found new boots, some snow shoes, and some shoes. She loved the place. I loved sitting and watching trout in an indoor pond while she shopped. They were wonderfully attentive. It was like going back in time to when shoppers were treated like high rollers in Vegas. Also, if anything breaks, we send it back. 100% guarantee.

I had a spurt of what I guess now is arthritis in my right hand, but I feared it was gout so I stopped eating lobster and oysters and fish. But I still found a fine special in the local paper for Elizabeth. DiMillo’s offered a twin lobster dinner for $19.95. It is usually $34. What a deal!! I had a fine marinated chicken, but I was very jealous of Elizabeth and bib and cracking tools and melted butter. The restaurant is a floating restaurant and marina at the end of long Wharf. While we ate, we watched the bobbing of boats tied to the pier along side the restaurant. It was a fine ending to a great trip.

We will go again. And we will go off season. It was uncrowded and cheap.

Old Post Salmon Run

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Off to Salmon Run

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Elizabeth and I took a little wandering drive into Massachusetts. We forget how close it is. Pittsfield is as close as Schenectady; we just don't head in that direction very often. Lee is about ten minutes farther. In Lee is the Salmon Run restaurant where they do salmon about a dozen ways and have offer a microbrew with Sailor in the name. I am partial to the Buffalo style with a bit of hot sauce and blue cheese. Eliz was smarter with the weight watcher special. I ordered sweet potato fires and they were delicious. We both enjoyed brussel sprouts even if they were a bit overcooked for Elizabeth. I like my beans crisp but my cabbage well done. It was a delightful meal.
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I really enjoyed a stroll along the main drag. We poked in some shops. The thrift shop was closing up, but there was one spot where Elizabeth played with singing bowls that were too expensive, but fun.
I took a few photos of buildings and such. Here is a fine old Episcopalian Church.




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In one spot I found a little old stone water fountain erected in honor of some local temperance leader. I liked the small fish as well as the fitting tribute to temperance, a source of water.






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We went inside the library. It was a fine old building with a delightful oval skylight just inside the door and rich wooden columns. However, most of the library space was a bit too crowded. One room with a fine old library table and a fireplace would be a perfect place to study or read if odds and ends of junk were not littered about.
In a library like this there really is no place to put a computer, so a few were stuck in corners looking very out of place. Actually, even modern books might seem a bit out of place. I'd prefer shelves filled with those old Riverside editions from the late 19th century, hard bound old books looking plain, with no colorful dust jackets or cellophane like shine. The periodical section was well stocked with newspapers and some interesting magazines. There were three fine comfortable leather chairs. I could imagine myself spending a few quiet hours in that section. Instead, for 25 cents I bought a paperback mystery with a colorful paper cover, a Sue Grafton E is for Evidence Well, you probably know the series. Oh well.

Old Post connecticutt trip

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Connecticutt trip

I have had quite a few funny looks and even some criticism when I tell folks that I spent my birthday on a solo trip to play poker while Elizabeth went to Mexico's Copper Canyon with Ann Marie. It is odd I suppose. Perhaps it helps to understand how Elizabeth and I celebrate birthdays. We celebrate all month. So the actual date holds less meaning. Elizabeth and I do like to think out of the box.

Actually, I had quite a party on my birthday. I was in Mohegan Sun at the wildest table of the trip, drinking 1800 Tequila with a 38 year old very gregarious black woman named Jen on one side and a quiet, but friendly, 50 year old woman on the other. We were loud and crazy and toasting my birthday and the older woman's 29th wedding anniversary with rounds of tequila. It was very funny, and a great party.

The date coincidences were really funny. I also played with an older fellow named Dewey at a table earlier the same day. Very odd. In the last hand he played before he went off to supper with his wife I beat his 3's full with my 6's full so perhaps he will not remember our meeting with joy.

And when the woman with the October 13th anniversary left, she was replaced by a fellow who was celebrating his 50th birthday that same day.

As the tequila took affect, I got plenty of hugs and cuddles from Jen who seemed to like me quite a bit. Jen is a drug counselor so there were plenty of jokes about her "counseling" me on 1800 Tequlla which is better than Cuervo because it's made from 100% Agave. (Cuervo is made from bleached sugar.)

The other woman talked to me about literature. She was Irish and liked to hear about William Kennedy and his writing about Albany. She remembered seeing Ironweed in the movies. Her sister lives in New Mexico so she was happy to hear of Tony Hillerman's mysteries (ps: Hillerman died 10-26-08)and even got some paper to write down the author's names. No one knew I had been a teacher either. I rarely mention that.

I told her too about the duck races

http://www.racingducks.com/

which I first heard about from my sister Gladys when when she lived in New Mexico. Being a great lover of all animals, Sis was so hopeful that one day she and daughter Beth might own a duck and get in in the races. Sadly, that small pleasure never happened. They lived a pretty tough life and now both are gone. So many changes.

Jen's boyfriend and the woman's husband hovered about trying to get them to go eat, but they were cool about all the attention I was getting and joking around with me. It was quite a party.
Then suddenly, like all poker parties, it was over. Jen actually went all-in (tough to do at limit) with second best straight and lost. The other woman went to have a late supper and never returned.

The rest of the night was one of my poorest. An old grump rejoined ourtable. He was one of those grumblers and whiners who always have a tough break, even when they win. I had had enough of him when he was there before and I guess the tequilla loosened my tongue a bit. I was not polite.
I had to wait for the tequila to wear off and over the next few hours out drained a good bit of money. It was another aggressive table with raises preflop, and I payed on my good hands without good flops to win the big pots.
Plenty of second best hands and a long, long draining of blinds with two aggressive players at the table who would have paid me well had I been lucky with hands. They were friendly enough. But it was not the same party mood. Finally, I folded my two pair on the flop hand and called it a night.

The dealers were very friendly everywhere. At Foxwoods they are all waiting to see who gets layed off. 700 layoffs planned.

There were plenty of pretty dealers to watch too in between playable hands. Poker gives you plenty of time to study the delightful faces of pretty girls. Turning 62, I was singing that sweet song for seniors, "Beautiful girls, walk a little slower when you pass by me" and laughing to myself.

I found the fellowship this trip was better than average for local casinos. It was more like Vegas. On my last day I played with Joe, Tom, Gary, and Dave and talked a blue streak with them about Laughlin and silver strikes and Vegas. Tom had a Colorado Belle hat which he had bought for just $2. he told me where to look at the Belle. They were all interested and I'll actually write Gary and send him discussion board links. Along with them was a young black woman who laughed and teased. She was very funny.

Tom also introduced me to Sambuca and coffee, with the alcohol served on the side so you can see that you actually get a shot of it. It is a great drink. It woke me up and made me cheerful.

I wish I could attribute my losses to alcohol, but in neither of my drinking sessions did I lose much money. My losses were ground out over time. I lost almost $500 in 34 hours of poker. I discuss the math here:

http://foxwoodspokertr.blogspot.com/2008/10/foxwoods-and-mohegan-sun.html#links

I went to see Mohegan Sun and play poker so I did not do too much sight seeing. I did make a visit to the ocean at sunset and eat lobster on a picnic table in view of a Marina. Abbot's in the Rough
http://www.abbotts-lobster.com/
was ending their season and I was there for the festivities along with dozens of other folks. I found the place on the Internet and used the GPS to get me there. It was really wonderful but very basic. The lobster was steamed to perfection and cracked to make it very easy to eat. The meat just lifted out. It was wonderful to be outside in just my shirtsleeves in October with the water all about and the boats coming by. It was a bit pricey ($24 with clam chowder, corn, cole slaw) but worth the fee.











Without the GPS I would never have found it. The route wound down to the water with turns every mile, perhaps six in all. It ended with a ride down a dead end small street pat beautiful old fashioned sprawling ocean homes built in the late 19th century.

This was my first really long solo trip using the GPS to work against my geographic inabilities and it is just such a thrill to be able to go anywhere and do anything. I stayed at a motel for $50 that was 15 minutes from the casinos, again through winding streets, yet at midnight I could find my way back without difficulty.

The only time I was lost was when I tried to find my way to Foxwoods from Abbott's without using the GPS. I had not programmed Foxwoods into it and that casino did not show up in points of interest. Finally, I gave it up, used my player's card to call for their address and plugged it in. I was a couple miles away, but would not have known which way to go and was on country roads with no source of verbal directions. I had stopped earlier for directions and they had seemed easy enough. Just one turn the fellow said. However, the road had two V's where I had to choose a path.

Over the course of the trip I made a couple early turns, but Lorry always simple redirected me and I found my way without any anxiety.

I ate in buffets the rest of the time except for one birthday extravagance. I had a sample at the Oh Boy 50's diner. All kinds of deep fried things I am no longer eating: wings, fries, onion rings, poppers. And it was good too. I ate it at midnight on my birthday.





http://www.ohboydiner.com/aboutUs.html

This place was like a 50's diner with a space comic theme. Inside was a rocket ship painting and some framed posters of old space movies and play robots from the 50's.

So I was off my diet, but I did not overdo and came back with no weight gain. It was fine to taste deep fried, and meat, and have a cookie, but I'll be back in the groove today. I was amazed to drink so much and not gain. I have been staying away from alcohol too here at home.

Along with the GPS, coffee has also changed my life. I still enjoy tea more than coffee, but that black liquid sure works to keep me awake. I could not sleep much after 6 AM and played usually until midnight with no naps. My last day I played and had supper just before 9 and drove home in the dark without much difficulty.

I was uncomfortable driving out. I dropped Elizabeth and Ann Marie at the airport at 5AM and headed out from there, starting in the dark and I was a bit anxious. I needed lots of bathroom breaks and they were not easy to find along that route. Finally, the sun came up and the road burst into the colors of autumn. Then things got a bit better. I had a nice breakfast at Old Tymes

http://www.oldetymes.com/

when I hit Norwich. It was a fine, inexpensive meal or eggs, grits and blueberry muffin. The coffee woke me up. Their prices for lunch and supper (lots under $10) are also very reasonable. I will stop there again.

While the tables are less cosmopolitan in Connecticut. I met some interesting people on the trip. At the motel was a poker player who has made his living since he took his $3000 in college money to Vegas and turned it into $30,000 playing high stakes games. Since then I suspect he has not done so well. He did not have a car and lived in this cheap motel, paying by the week.

Joe was a young college fellow who studies and sings opera in Pottsdam.

Foxwoods was filled with locals who knew one another and played a good, predictable game.


My motel was basic, but nice with a kitchen that I only used for tea in the morning while showering and watching the news. It seemed odd for me to be squandering my money gambling while the economy goes to hell. I was cheered by the election news. I think Obama has it in the bag. And generally I have been more and more frightened by McCain and Palin. He seems grabbing at any straw to win. She is just nuts. And it was not nice to see how hateful some American voters can be and see racism still so alive and well here in the Land of the Free. That one town meeting turned so ugly that McCain had to take the mike and shut down the shouted abuse. Thankfully we don't seem to produce Hitler like demagogue's here who would represent some of these nasty crowds.

What Republicans will do for issues now is very hard to imagine. Already they have spent more than Democrats, so fiscal conservatism is out the window and now deregulation and faith in the free market is gone for many decades. So odd to see McCain having to call for regulation and government help for people. I guess the Republicans still have militarism and the conservative social agendas as well as representing the wealthy class. But I expect we will see a Democratic government at least until folks realize that there are no miracles coming and get disillusioned again.

Hillary and Bill finally actually got some energy to campaign for Obama when it was clear he was going to win and she could not plan ahead another four years but needed to get on board. Bill really disappointed me this past month. So many disappointments in folks I admired. Jesse Jackson just disgusted me.

Well, I don't usually discuss politics.

It was a fine trip except for the score. I listened to old radio shows on the way home. And here I am ready for one of Greg's games and the last Presidential debate.

Old Post Bennington

Saturday, July 10, 2010

BENNINGTON

Elizabeth and I went up to the Bennington Farmer's market to see Abigail and Bruce who gave us a large bag of free organic veggies that had not sold today.
Then we all went for a bit of lunch at Isabella's, and then to Spice n Nice for some organic shopping.
Isabella's has great sandwiches and these really tasty salads as well as good tea and coffee.  It is a delightful place to munch and visit and just a short walk from the Farmer's Market, although we took the car and parked.
On the way home be bought farm grown corn and tomato and melon.  Hope they are good.

Elizabeth is cooking the corn up now with a lean pork tenderloin and some of the peach apple sauce we bought.  We have been off the healthy food and the scale shows it, but we have just about exhausted the bad food that we collected over last weekend, the pizza, wings, M and M, other sweet things, so maybe we can get disciplined again.

Our friend Janet talked to us about the value of Tumeric so we added it to our daily supplements and hope to cook more curry as well.

The day is humid again.  I don't like that much.  I loved the rain this morning and went out in my Frogtog to being in some chairs still lingering from the party.
I took a morning nap, and had two coffees at Isabella's with my chicken curry salad, so I am pretty wide awake.  That is a great little place to eat.
I love Bennington anyway.  When we wanted to cross at the four corners, we pushed the button and all the lights went red for all cars so we could cross kitty corner instead of waiting twice.  Nice little touch.

It looks like some poker buddies and I will head up to Mohegan Sun/ Foxwoods for an overnight next Wednesday-Thursday.  That should be fun.  I have not played at Mohegan in over a year.

Old Post Dana and Amanda and Boston 2010

Monday, September 06, 2010

Boston with Amanda and Dana and then home again with Abigail and Bruce

Amanda was not too busy and met us in the park in downtown Boston where we walked through flowers and various performers. One fellow did some card tricks. He was very good.

Amanda added life to the day with her perky, laughing, warm and loving banter, her stories, her celebration of all ironic, her hugs. For some unknown reason she genuinely likes me and I soak it up. She is uncritical, uncompetitive, and relaxed with me, and simply enjoys me in a way few do.

And she is a pleasure to look at.

Amanda turns thirty this Christmas time, and so none of her attitude is at all jaded by aging or debility. She may have some questions about the directions of her life as she moves out of the twenties, but her youth and her care of herself precludes the kind of struggles with aches and pains and threats of serious illness that haunt my stage of life.

Lately she has been doing extensive hiking and is in perfect shape. She likes mountains and water.

She and Dana now work again in the same company, called 38, so perhaps we will see more of her.

Elizabeth and I do not have the shape or energy we once had for these outings, so we tired more quickly than I imagine when I think of being the tourist.

We stopped for a meal outside of sandwiches and soup.

We walked by Quincy Market.

And then we took the T home. Dana kept us out of the crowds and we had seats for the return trip. On the way out we stood and Elizabeth once lost her balance, but was saved by a fellow traveler.

With plenty of people to watch and conversations to enjoy on the T, the diversity of the crowds and the overall celebratory tone of the day made the ride, even when crowded, was quite delightful. I love sitting by Burden Lake each day and watching the birds, but it does isolate me from the mix and movement of people.

Compared to NYC this subway ride was more friendly and easy with fewer folks to watch carefully for aberrations that might be toublesome. Perhaps it was that we were on holiday as were most of our companions.

Missing in the mix were people in baseball style caps, except the Red Sox fans of course. I looked a bit of a character with my long beard and my light blue Colorado Bell Laughlin cap with dice on the brim. Few people wore hats in spite of the sunny day. I wondered if it were going out of style.

Amanda told us that her experience in LA had been very different from Boston, that the folks there seemed much more driven to present themselves as important, dressing up for the day, dropping names in the conversation, eager to impress. She did not like that. She is thrilled to be back in Boston and while she misses some of her LA friends, in general she loves the town.

I got that sense as well.

Odd too because the traditional view of Boston from my childhood going back, is that it is full of stuffy bluebloods and not as easy going. California always seemed the place where one relaxed. However, she felt that LA was very different from San Francisco and other parts of California.

On our great trip to California a couple years back, we certainly did not feel any of what she mentioned in brother Jim's town or as we drove up the Coast. We did not spend time in LA.

The three of us stopped for some yogurt and then came home to relax and watch some movies on television. Dana's choice in movies is always very different from mine. He likes what I generally avoid, movies which have the theme of the individual quest to save the group along with the scenes where the enemy nearly eliminates the good folks, but through nearly miraculous luck, as well as determined persistence, the hero/heroes emerge victorious. He also likes animation where typically the characters are one dimensional. 

 We watched two movies that were a bit like that. We also we watched a movie called the Invention of Lying which was very good. The world was still fantastic and imagined, but I could to some extent identify with the characters. None of these, however, match the power of Get Low for me. Still it passed the time. I was ready for sleep long before sleep was practical and slept easily and well as soon as my masked head hit the pillow.

Dana's couches are very comfortable. He made one into a pull out bed last night, but I am just too heavy for those. As a couch pre-pullout, the sleeping spot had so much more support and cushioning.

So I felt rested when I wake up now at three am. I am ready to hit the road, but Elizabeth is not. These old age days that start from three to five in the morning wear me down. There is rarely much to do during those times.

I was hoping to catch up on the internet but my connection has timed out.

HEADING HOME

We had a fine drive home, leaving early to beat the traffic.  We stopped near Ware Mass for breakfast following an entry in the GPS, but it seemed as if it would be too far.  I asked an old fellow at a Cumberlin Farms where we bought gas and he told me that Crystal Springs was just up the road.  We would have passed by because the sign called it a dairy bar.  As we pulled in we saw a couple dozen trucks, men standing about outside and we knew it would be good.  It was. There was even a special Maple cinnamon bread made by a local Portuguese baker.  It was delicious.

While we at a fellow at the counter was telling one of the other locals about another local who was building a house and encountered bears who came almost every day.  Once he was using the chain saw in the backyard while the bear was sleeping in the front.  His wife was so frightened that she drove her car the few yards to the mailbox and back into the garage so as not to encounter the bear when checking the mail.

This fellow and I started talking and he was quite friendly.  He told us how to find the Quabbin Reservoir and that it only took ten minutes to drive through it and was well worth the time.   

He was right.

It was fantastically beautiful and I want to go back when we have time and energy to walk some of it.  Some of the lookouts let us peer over miles of water separated by green hilled islands and all of it undeveloped.

At one time it had been populated.  Just before I was born it was created by flooding after they dismantled and moved the towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott and abandoning 36 miles of railroad. Some of the graves were moved.  Some were not.  There were photographs of these towns and what the valley looked like when they were vibrant, and again what it looked like after the flooding.  Other photos are mixed in this collection:

Images

Along the route we saw some deer grazing very near the road and very used to people.  

It was a fine ride.

We had no traffic driving home.  It was an easy journey.

Along the way we listen to Walk in the Woods read by the author Bill Bryson.  I bought this with Schwartz at the book fair on tape.  I almost passed it up as Bryson is just a bit too sarcastic for me in many of his travel books and he has trashed places he visited that I have been to and fully enjoyed.  But Chuck told me it was the one book by this fellow that he had enjoyed and he was right.  It was a perfect book on tape to travel along with and our journey went so much quicker listening to the slow ordeal of his journey.

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Later we met Bruce and Abigail after they saw Get Low and loved it.  They treated us to dinner at the foo foo restaurant near the Spectrum.  I had a fine risotto which has to be the best I have ever eaten.  The conversation was wonderful as always with stories of sweating copper plumbing, building and rebuilding, how to make kale chips, and various details of our children's lives.  These two are just delightful!  Yesterday they were married 29 years and together more like 40.  Such a long, sweet time together.  

Bruce is winding down on the farm , selling most of everything he harvests, and expecting either no rain or an early frost to end this year's crop soon.  

We had cream brulee and a huge chocolate brownie sundae on top of all the regular food.  Oh my, no chance of losing any fat today.

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Sunday, September 05, 2010

Live from Boston

We are up and Dana is sleeping.
We went to sleep at about nine last night.  I suspect he was up until about one.
We all had a fine first day here at his his new apartment.  It is a delightful neighborhood, filled with a diverse crowd of mostly young people: Asians, Slavic Europeans, Russians including Hassidic Jews in costume, and many many Boston College kids who yesterday were all in yellow T shirts indicating they were fans of Boston College.  Dana had a matching shirt that indicated he was from University of Rochester.  No Yankee cap, however.

As well as celebrating his new apartment, Dana is celebrating his new job.  He has moved to a company called 38 after it's founder Curt Schilling's baseball jersey number.  He will do pretty much the same work with perhaps more emphasis on development.  He starts next week.  It will move to Rhode Island, (maybe-see this); however, that is only a half hour away.



Dana is less than a mile from the campus and less than that from a fine little water reservoir with a delightful footpath.  So unusually wonderful to be in the middle of city and yet on the edge of water.  We walked a bit of it enjoying the fine breeze that broke the humidity (thanks Earl) and wondering about one stone building that looked exactly like the Albany City Hall.

Along the major road passing Dana's apartment building is the T.  This is a delightful little train that runs above ground with a fine horn and some occasional tinkling of bells. It was fun to ride it to the restaurant.

The street is lined with one small shop after another. However, this is nothing like the repetitive fast food chain endless nothing we see along the roads in Florida.  Each one of these little places seemed to have some distinctive character or charm.  It is a very pleasant neighborhood, city but not crowded city, buys but not shoulder to shoulder crowded.

Of course, the crowds of Boston college aged students meant that on our walk there were scads of young, beautiful women, still dressed scantily for summer heat, their long bear legs graceful in the sunlight, who ran or sauntered through the park or along the sidewalks, who walked their dogs or had serious conversations with their boyfriends, sometimes in Asian languages.
They seemed to be everywhere.
So unpleasant for me!
I much prefer to be immersed in populations of people my own age, pushing walkers and talking about death and their latest medical procedures and ranting about how awful America is now compared to back in the day when I gather from their rants that life was good because in those good ole days we would never imagine having some lying, Black Muslim, non-citizen, Terrorist sympathizing, ultra Liberal, Socialist conspirator  as President.
NO NO!!  We liked Ike!!

And while we were after all in Boston, I doubted that we were watching too many people who identified with Tea Party movement or would easily use vocabulary like "refudiate."
Nor do I expect there were too many nativists who would feel comfortable in the Know Nothing Party of  the 1860's.
These luscious, intelligent, and affluent young beauties reflected the diversity of America and seemed happy and hopeful and full of joyful life.
So annoying!
And if you believe that, I have a fine Boston water reservoir here that I can sell you for a pittance.

We ate at the Publix House in Brookline and selected from the menu of about seven hundred thousand beers.  The beer menu is in very fine print and twenty times as long as the food menu.  Once again I was sorry that the old days were gone when beer was just mildly carbonated alcoholic piss water, but I managed to adjust as best as an old guy can to all these modern choices.
I skipped the Belgium and Swiss beers.  (After all, what did those countries do for us in WWII?)
I drank a local bitter called Hedgerow with full and delightful taste created by a brewery called Pretty Things, a name that seemed to appropriately complement my walk through the Brighton neighborhood and connected me with Emerson and Thoreau since it is brewed in Cambridge.  Had the Transcendentalists met in this era, certainly it would be over beer and this local brewery their choice.  So actually I wasn't indulging a decadent craving, but merely reducing literature to liquid.
The slogan of this brewery is they are "Hell bent on foolishness and frippery."  I think I should like any beer that celebrates frippery or uses that vocabulary.  So I suppose I might review the beer by saying,"Its full bitter taste reflected the delicate tension between Transcendentalist thought and frippery."

Dana had Racer X and Elizabeth had Arcadia Starboard stout.

Beers were served in glasses appropriate to each selection.  There was a huge warning in the menu not to steal the glasses.  I did pick up some coasters adverising Chimay beer.

With the beer was certainly the main portion of the meal, we also snacked well:  Salmon, mac and cheese with Andalusia sausage, oysters and hushpuppies and a duck confrite.  At the end we were full.

Then we went back to Dana's to watch this Matt Damon movie that is the most confusing movie I ever watched, all about the FBI, a corn syrup company, multinationals making illegal deals and an inventive, if habitual liar.  This morning I read parts of one of Dana's books entitled Descartes Error in which the author attempts to reconfigure our common sense understanding of emotion and the rational brain.  The entire book starts when Phineas Gage, a railroad worker gets distracted blowing up mountains of rock and blows his 3 foot tamper iron bar completely through his brain.  He survives, but his personality is totally changed.  I think had he lived in our era, he might have understood the Matt Damon movie.

It looks like a fine day today.
We might see Amanda.  Joy o' joy!  Or not, if she is busy.
Ah, the great tragedies of Boston life.

Dana is sleeping through most of the day so we may have to see Amanda after dark.
Elizabeth is also now sleeping once again.

Old Post Trip to Massachusettes with art

Friday, September 30, 2011

Trip to Massachusettes

Note: This is still a post in progess.  Elizabeth has more photos on here camera and I'll just post them here when I get them. I need to get things written and posted or I forget things.

I'll also edit tomorrow.  So if you are a really detailed reader, you should return and reread later.  It will get better.

Elizabeth and I went up to the Clark to see the Pissarro exhibit.  I could not take photos there, but here is some sense of what we saw:

http://www.clarkart.edu/exhibitions/pissarro/content/exhibition.cfm

http://blog.timesunion.com/localarts/on-exhibit-pissarros-people-at-clark-art-institute/16823/

I am not thrilled with impressionists, but I enjoyed seeing these.  I certainly enjoyed his celebration of the common laboring people.  He was one of the first to do that.  I liked that he thought labor was admirable, but that it should be balanced with leisure.  He especially celebrated farm labor.  In the cities capitalism had destroyed the chance for common people to be comfortable and happy.  He did an entire book on the evils of capitalism in the cities.

Most of his work reflects pretty young women working in the fields, picking apples, working as maids.  

What I learned about myself is that if a painting reflects the rich beauty of the human face, I like it better than those that try to celebrate the human figure or people in a scene without managing the face.  Impressionists can do that, since what they depict are not the kind of realistic details that allow us to interact with a face.  It hit me that Pissaro did manage to give us a sense of the personality via the face.

One painting was of himself reading in 1893.  It could have been something out of the 1960's.  He looked just like many of my old friends.  Once there was a decent reflection of human personality, then the impressionist creation of the easy chair and the rug in small brush strokes worked for me.  Pissaro compared making those small brush stokes over and over to the same kind of labor a farm person does when they do their tasks over and over.  It gives a new slant to repetition.  A sweeper might provide service without drugery.  One painting celebrates washing dishes.  

There were many celebrating the harvest.  It was a different take on farm work than Hawthorne had after he lived a Brook Farm and did some of it.  Was it romantic?

I was interested in The Pork Butcher - 1883 as it was a sweet painting with no blood. A woman was doing fine cuts on the meat.  Nothing was hanging.

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=12080

Sad was the story of his daughter Jean, called Minette, who died.  He painted her as she declined.

After seeing the technique of using flat planes high and behind the main focus of a painting, I went to see Winslow Homer's undertow, one of my favorites.  However, I did not like his plain sky now that I had seen what could be done there.  I love all the drama and the action and the water.  Maybe the guy on the left is a bit overdone.  However, this dull, grey sky needs something more.  

Francis William Edmonds - City and Country Beaux

I got a good laugh out of this one. However, it was also a very different take than Pissaro on the city versus the country.  Here the county fellow is a bumpkin and the city fellow is polished.

Very similar was this one

Here is a cool painting called The Card Player's from 1646, 300 years before I was born.    David Teners the Younger.

This painting was about burglars being arrested, but I thought I use it the next time I talk about rules discussions in poker.

In the Prado I had a favorite painting of Saint Jerome. He was an interesting religious character who live in a cave and was totally devoted to God.  As an old man there are other sorts of meanings in the holding of the skull, a reminder of death.

There was a couple paintings done by Goya. This one is called Autumn.  I caught the Goya in this woman with the basket on her head and it reminded me of the Prado.

I can't remember the name of this one.  But it is just wonderful.  Here is what I mean about faces.

How could I not like this next painting?  It is called, The Amorous Proposal and is an old man's fantasy. Francois Le Moyne, a French painter is the artist.  The girl's youth shines out against the dark sense of the old man. I have had a card with this painting on it on my dresser since my last visit.

Outside other sculptures picked up the themes of Pissarro.  They were very well done.

We walked along a nice wooded road and path to get to the newest part of the Museum and see some interesting modern art.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Anatsui

http://www.google.com/search?q=elanatsui&hl=en&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS435US435&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=bVqGTuuHK8-r0AHpk-3lDw&ved=0CFYQsAQ&biw=740&bih=394

Basically the artist put together fine bits of found aluminum and other metal so that it looks from afar like woven fabric.  It was quite decortative and beautiful and showed an amazing process.
I did not take photos of the art; I did of the path.












On out way out we had lunch at this place.





I had a wonderful salad with grilled prunes, granny apples, Gorgonzola  large walnuts over greens and dressed with a raspberry vinaigrette that they make there at the restaurant.  This place is a bit upscale, but we sat in these large tall backed upholstered chairs and just had a fine time.  We were early and the only ones there for a long while.  Elizabeth had some seafood, but it did not set well on her stomach.  I tried one scallop and my stomach liked it.  I drank an IPA called Lost Sailor.
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/33/89
I think Saranac is a better IPA, but it was good to have a local brew.

The bathrooms were uniquely marked

I guess they wanted us to figure out which was which.  It hardly mattered since they were for one person at a time.

On the way back we stopped here:

There was a lot of drumming in the small temple.  This temple was being painted.  Tomorrow is a big celebration, an anniversary of sorts.  It was interesting to see all this.  We don't yet know what it means.

Here is an interesting way to build a bench.  Are the sandwiched sections there because they needed more height or to act as nailers or to hold the seat together or for some symbolic reason.  All the benches had them.  I may steal this design.  I sure have lots of short pieces of pressure treated wood that I brought back from Ann Marie's.

On our way home we stopped at the Plum Blossom 

http://web.timesunion.com/entertainment/restaurants/onereview.asp?RestaurantID=1335

outside of Troy along route 7 and just across the street from Ron's fish fry.  It is a fine sit down Chinese place and the food was all good.  I had Peking duck...well,  Elizabeth and I had Peking duck.   It came over a fine bunch of fresh mixed vegetables: squash, broccoli, little corn, carrots.  I upgraded to fried rice and started with a delicious chicken corn soup.  We took most of Elizabeth's sesame chicken home for another snack.  Nice prices as well.  Strong tea and noodles with sweet/sour or mustard dip came with the meal.  Maybe the tea and the coffee at the Clark helped keep me up into early morning.