The Rendezvous opened this last Saturday and I've been there ever since. It's an amazing place to hang out, snack, drink, socialize, listen to the jukebox, play Ms. Pac Man, knit, crochet, write, or waste time. Here's pictures!!
Hello internets
It's been forever with the updates. Oops. Here you go:
In late July, a bunch of us went to a pond in New Hampshire to help fellow Turners Fallsian Sarah celebrate her birthday. Miss Anja, my driving student, drove the whole way!! Bo Doggy got soggy.
We met the fuzziest puppy ever at breakfast.
Then, it was off to the Pacific Northwest.
A first drive over the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge.
A lovely visit with all at the house of Southpaw:
A visit to the house my great great grandfather built in White Salmon, WA where my grandmother was born.
And Mt. Adams.
In Seattle, guess who had her Luau on?
Took in the many Port Townsend sights.
Fall in New England is amazing. Last fall when people said it hadn't been that great of a year for fall foliage (because it might not have been cold enough at the right time and the rains and wind wiped out the fun early), I had no idea. Until this year. I have piles of photos (400+) on flickr that don't even begin to do it justice. Whoa. It may rain soon, so we'll see how long the color lasts. For now, sin precio!
It is getting colder, however. I'm not sure how brave I'm feeling. Another thing they said about last year ... the winter wasn't that bad. Dang.
Montague, MA has a tradition of burning a big bonfire in the baseball field every July 3rd. I think it may be some sort of Massachusetts tradition to have bonfires the night before the 4th of July. Weird. Anyway, Liz, who just finished her MFA, invited piles of people to her house in Montague for a BBQ and bonfire viewing party. Very festive! Very hot fire! Bazzillions of mosquitoes. We all took silly pictures until our camera batteries died. Click on the images, for more pixeled versions, or go to flickr and browse around my existence.
Bo Doggy and Bo Owner Booger were there too:
Sadly, earlier that day, my "big bikes, big beer, big party" glass broke. My counterspace is too small for efficient kitchening. :-( Curly Monster, aka Genevieve, coerced me to "snag" it years back. Was it at the Rocker Bar and Grill in Bothell? Anyone know what she's up to these days?
Thankfully, one very important vessel is still in tact.
And, my kitties are still cute and fuzzy:
Most of the flooding that you're reading about in the headlines is more east of where I am (along the coast of Massachusetts and New Hampshire), though I was fully prepared for weather drama! This snippet from the Weather Service takes the wind out of the drama sails though.
"For the Connecticut River at Montague...
the Flood Warning has been cancelled.
The 11 am Monday stage was 26.1 feet.
Flood stage is 28.0 feet.
Flooding has ended and the river will gradually recede."
This is one of my favorite links for tracking river levels around here. If you recall, October was quite soggy too!
I decided to go for a walk, in case the national weather service was all wrong, to see if I saw evidence of sogginess. My conclusion: the October water levels were higher. I did get some happy photos though before my camera batteries gave up on me. And, I met a new friend!
Muskrat love? I think this is a muskrat. Discuss.
Picnic Duck?
The Great Falls (Turners Falls)
Vines on the Gill-Turners Bridge
I'm crushing your Dandelion Head.
Dogwood and Church Brick
Mz. B and I had a great time during her brief 48 hour visit. We had a stroll around Turners Falls, a Thai food adventure in Greenfield (plan B since the Koko cafe failed to cook that day), naps!, yummy lunch in Amherst at Fresh Side, an Amherst Books visit, a tour of the Emily Dickinson museum, happy cow and lamb sitings, Mz. B had soft serve ice cream at Yelena's in Turners, naps!, dinner at the Lady Killigrew, a drink at Yesterday's! with a neighbor, laundry at Suzee's, and finally hangin out at a bus stop in Brattleboro, VT so she could meet up with the dude in Montreal. Whew! And I didn't even break the happy fun Mz. B -- lots of naps and potty breaks for the sake of Beulah. :-)
It has legs!
Welcome to my birthday! Yes, if you know me and forgot, now is the time when you send me a festive email. :-P
My birthday this year is especially patriotic and wholesome. Why? It's a holiday in Massachusetts today for Patriots' Day. The holiday honors the Battle of Lexington and Concord which started the American Revolutionary War. Go! Fight! Win!
Minutepeople unite! Boston Marathoners ran today too!
Later, I will be celebrating this historic moment by making a few UMASS pals eat Korean Food with me at a place on Route 9 in Hadley that has a reputation for being yummy. We shall see!
The St. Patrick's Day Parade in Boston on Sunday exceeded all expectations for this Norwegian! Green, cold, festive fun was had by all. I've posted a bunch of photos on flickr. Enjoy the browsing.
Puppies unite to toast the Irish!
Are we having fun yet?
It's about Guiness!
The view!
J and I went to Shelburne Falls on Saturday, hoping to relive an amazing breakfast we had there last November, but sadly the cafe was closed for spring break. We found another adequate meal though, and then trudged around taking in the scenics. Last time we were there snow covered the rocks in the falls, so we didn't know how pretty the rocks were. Now we know, and so do you! Vote for your favorite pet Shelburne Falls rock today on flickr!
After Shelburne Falls, we went to Brattleboro, VT. A fun wee little town where there is a chapel converted to a Hotel Pharmacy. Of course!
J finished up her visit to Western Mass today. Here are some of our adventures from her travels.
I'll start with J at the Lady K on Saint Patrick's Day.
J climbs the Mt. Sugarloaf in the )@($#%&* cold!
A poet at the peak
More J travel adventures on flickr and to be continued!
Greetings!
In my quest to cover more ground photographically, I took my camera to a favorite spot in Montague, MA today. I captured The Lady Killigrew, The Book Mill, and other associated buildings near the Saw Mill River. Since it was snowing, it was especially scenic. More photos at flickr.
And bonus -- I ate a yummy #2 sammich at the Lady, ran into Bo and Bo's owner there, and bought 2 books at The Book Mill (their motto being -- "Books you don't need in a place you can't find" and no, I didn't technically need the books, but they're mine now!). I didn't think it would keep snowing, but it did ... so since I slipped and slided a bit on my way home (didn't run into anything!), the rest of my evening will be spent chillin in my apartment. Current temperature is 21.4 degrees F. I'd say we have at least 3 inches, maybe 4. As you can see, Lucy is in charge, AGAIN. I think she's leaning towards watching a DVD.
Howdy!
The latest updates on Massachusetts Life:
--Last Friday, J and I went to Emily Dickinson's grave in Amherst, which is very near her old house which is now a museum (I hope to go there soon), and we read her poetry there and generally thought about death and eternity and stuff in the snow. Then we went to Lady Killigrew and had hot tea and a good pee and I bought a used reference book on poetry. Gotta stop reading poetry that rhymes. Here's pictures! (I'm still getting used to FlickR .. hopefully you'll find all the EM photos.)
--J and I went to Boston last Saturday. We drove to a suburban subway stop and headed into town, had a traditional Irish breakfast for lunch at an official Irish pub, roamed the streets, checked out famouse people dead in historic graveyards, saw massive amounts of cool paintings at the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and then had yummy Chinese food in Boston's Chinatown. There's tons left to see and do in Boston and we only had 1 day, but it was a fine introduction. Here's pictures!
--On Sunday, J and I went to Shelburne Falls and saw a super cute little town with an amazing falls on the Deerfield River. We shopped a bit, checked out the falls and the many potholes in the river, then had a yummy breakfast for brunch at the Bridge Street Cafe that everyone should go to. Then we went to North Adams to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, also known as Mass MOCA. A very cool setting, and cool art too! J and I both liked the paintings on display from an art studio in Berlin ("Live After Death: New Leizpig Paintings from the Rubell Family Collection), and the Becoming Animal exhibit was a trip. Here's pictures! (I'm still getting used to FlickR .. hopefully you'll find all the Shelburne Falls photos.)
--This weekend there's another installment of Live Lit on Friday at Amherst Books, a Turners Falls Art and Icicles gallery/art weekend thingy, and a poetry reading (and other arty stuff) in a laundromat. It's the laundromat below me, and I get to read for 5 minutes along as will bunches of other folks, including my landlord and a fellow MFA-er at UMASS. I will report back on what it's like, should be fun.
--Oh, and it will probably snow at some point in the next 3-4 days. Wee!
Coming soon:
Cat Meditation (looking for recommendations on how to get videos from my camera small enough to post on the internets.)
