Dream Trip

We've just come home from a dream trip, 8 days in Italy, 5 in Antwerp and the Netherlands. Not a long trip, but packed with wonderful experiences. We went to Italy with our friends Gwen and Norm, who had never been to Italy before, so Bill and I were the guides. We began in Rome, then drove to Country House Montali in the midst of Umbria, took day trips to Panicale (our wedding locale), Assisi, Pienza, and the Abbey of Sant'Antimo. Final 3 days were in Florence. Then we all flew from Pisa to Amsterdam and split up, Bill and I travelling by train down to Antwerp, where we spent 3 nights tasting gourmet food and exploring the city's beautiful museums and churches. We picked up a car in Breda and drove through the southern part of the Netherlands looking for the places where my Dutch ancestors lived: Den Bosch, Almkerk, Woudrichem, Heusden, Noorderloos, Laeckervelt, Lexmond, and Vianen, and then we finished out our trip by staying the last night in Utrecht, a gorgeous city of canals and more gorgeous architecture.

Now we're back in glorious Guilford in the height of autumn colors. Back to projects for the Guilford Preservation Alliance, the Guilford Citizens for Responsible Development, and the Guilford Poets Guild. So what else is new??!

July into August

On our way back to Gilmanton for round two, we drove up to Northampton, had a nice dinner at Circa. Next stop, Albany, staying at the Desmond Hotel with a wedding party and a whole bunch of soldiers with their families attending seminars on supportiveness so that there were phalanxes of men in khaki camouflauge, then giggly bridesmaids, on our way to breakfast. Bill and I enjoyed the Diana at Saratoga, both had some money on the winner, Proviso, which edged out 3 other horses in a four-way photo finish.

Joining Jenny and the kids was especially lovely this year, they are all a little older and so much fun to be with. A poem I wrote about them:

Grandchildren

After they had gone, it was almost as if I had dreamed them.

The younger girl followed her sister everywhere.
They strutted past me, making crisp turns, re-enacting a parade
on the front lawn, beating sticks together like snare drummers.

Their brother pondered large questions,
such as whether, after fireworks, it were possible
to sweep up all the sparks.

And if brooms existed that wouldn’t catch fire.

Also, he had read in a local newspaper that Mars
would appear on August 27 almost the same
size as the moon. And it would crash into us.

These are exciting times.



Soooo, the second week of August I went off to attend the Advanced Seminar at The Frost Place, with Nan, a bunch of new friends, and our faculty: Gray Jacobik, Jeanne Marie Beaumont and Fred Marchant. I learned a great deal from all 3, from all the other 18 participants, really. I am going to think about each line, whether it needs to be in the poem, whether something else needs to be in the poem, whether the poem is finished, well, I should be paying more attention, I think. No dashing off poems.

Got back to Drew Farm for a few more days before we head back to Connecticut. Attended Opera North in Lebanon, a lively performance of Don Giovanni. A visit to Portland and Brunswick is in the near future. More later.

Chugging into Summer

Late May brought us to Boston to help Tyler celebrate his graduation from Boston College. On hand were his Swedish sweetheart Sofia (on left in photo), his sister Corinne (on right) and his parents and grandparents...and us. Tyler and Sofia visited with us a few days in Guilford. We showed them the usual spots: the Thimble Island Cruise, Chaffinch Island, Lenny's for seafood, Stony Creek.

Also in May I attended a wonderful outdoor poetry reading at Poets House in NYC, heard Bob Hass and Brenda Hillman, sat with Dan Bellm (a nice surprise to see him there!). In early June a group of us drove up in pouring rain (well, Norm drove, thank you, Norm!) and heard Galway Kinnell in a reading at the Sunken Garden poetry festival. And at the Poetry Institute reading that month I was asked to participate in a panel to present a Favorite Poem program--got to share some of my favorites with the lovely crowd at the Young Men's Institute Library in New Haven, always a nifty venue.

Fourth of July weekend we spent in Gilmanton and we're glad we did. The weather was glorious and we got to see so many friends. Wendy's grandchild Marisa was there with her parents Lisa and Mark. Carolyn and John Dickey had their annual brunch after the Fourth of July parade, and the Wilsons hosted a lovely cookout at their place. Saw Jay and Alaiyo and then at the pond we chatted with Francesca and Graham and Josh (part of the younger generation not always present)--met some new folks, too.

In mid-July we went for the day to Mystic, met Toby and Bill there, friends from a trip to Mexico in 2004. We had a nice lunch at Kitchen Little on the Mystic River, then drove to Rocky Neck State Park where Bill and I took a dip in the Sound, and finished by coming back to Stonington, a lovely walk in the Conservancy meadow, and dinner at the Water Street Cafe, which was excellent!

Back from California

So April is now gone, for all intents and purposes. I am reading Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time so my time references are way off. I only know I am towards the end of book six (out of 12). But it seems we just took a two-week trip to California. We started out in San Diego and had a lovely visit with our friend Janet Richards. Sat on the beach at Wind 'n Sea and watched surfers. Watched my great niece play soccer and went on a nice trip to the beach with her sister (in San Clemente). Visited Pacific View cemetery and saw my parents' grave stone, it looked nice. Lunch with niece Kathleen. Four lovely days in South Pasadena, stayed in my sister's new home, went to Santa Anita with friend Mimi (I had the big winnings on the day, not that the winnings were large, just that 4 of 5 horses came in for me). After a yummy brunch we strolled the grounds of the Huntington Library with Kirk and Melinda. Tore ourselves away to fly to Northern California.

In Palo Alto it was mostly rainy and windy, very uncharacteristic. Dinner and poetry at Joyce's with the old group was really nice. Took great nephew Riley out to dinner the next night. Drove up to Berkeley to stay at the Shattuck Plaza. The Sixteen Rivers East Bay launch of the new anthology at Mrs. Dalloway's was a terrific reading and we were really glad we could attend this event. On Friday we ferried over to S.F., had our lunch sitting in the sun looking out at the bay. Dinner with Susan and her friend Mark at our hotel. Our last day we had breakfast at La Note and then spent the afternoon by the pool at the San Jose Hyatt, and had dinner at La Pastaia. Aaah, California, just like a dream. Compared to green Connecticut (busting out in springtime flowers everywhere) it seems a little arid. But the beaches were nice, can't complain there...

New Jersey again

We find we can't keep from noodling down to New Jersey from time to time. This visit coincided with a poetry reading in Princeton at the D & R Greenway Land Trust's Johnson Education Center where our friend Carolyn Foote Edelmann is the Arts and Education Associate. The setting was the beautiful art gallery there and the topic was trees. I was selected to read along with many other local poets, some from the U.S. 1 and Delaware Valley poets' groups, some even from Princeton the school not the place (C.K.Williams and Paul Muldoon, for example). So a wide range of voices and a great audience. We went out to dinner with Carolyn afterwards, and I went on a hike with her the next day. We also managed a dinner in Hopewell, and then set off the next day for Hightstown (it's verrrry close to the Turnpike and has quite a nice little Italian cafe), and then stopped only in Larchmont (lovely weather for our picnic in Manor Park there on Long Island Sound) and Westport (a Whole Foods stop). On the way down we had lunch in Nyack, NY and expect to go back, quite an interesting town. We also visited the Great Falls in Paterson, NJ, inspected the Simonson homes in Verona (they're looking fine, Mom), and stayed overnight in Summit, our first visit there. Nice setting and fast trains to New York!

Winter definitely seems over, although spring is not officially here yet. We're down to light coats and have even started sitting out on the deck before dinner. Rooting for the Stanford women's basketball team, we'll see how far they get this year.

Photo above of Edward Hopper's birthplace in Nyack, and closer here is my mother's home in Verona. An Irish couple live there now (reason for flag, it was not so long after St. Patrick's Day).

End of 09, beginning of 10 visits

By Christmas night, after a bit of a train ride, we were in Washington D.C., visiting Karen's family in Arlington. One day we went to Mount Vernon, my first visit there since about 1956...Another day Bill and I went to a John Singer Sargent show at the Corcoran Gallery. Also spent some time at Eastern Market. Not too much snow there, one day was very cold and windy, though. Coming back north we stopped off in NYC as Bill was playing in a bridge tournament there--the good news, we got to stay at the Hilton again. One day got together with Gwen so we could go to the Met to see an interesting show of portraits by American painters, then off to the Via Quadronno for a yummy coffee and lunch.

In January we made a quick trip to the upper East side so we could attend Monteverdi's Vespers performed by Artek, Piffaro and Parthenia at St. Ignatius Loyola, a breathtaking event. The next day we enjoyed visiting the New York Historical Society (and I did some photocopying of genealogical materials, pages from 1860s Newark city directories--what fun!).


At the end of the month we headed off to Buffalo via Kingston and Saugerties. Left our car in the train station in Ressalaer for an afternoon train ride to the City of Light. Had a fun time with the Radoses, visiting the Talking Leaves Bookstore in the Elmwood, lunch one day with Clare at Betty's, the older kids staying overnight with us in our hotel, celebrating Frano's ninth birthday, talking with his Croatian grandparents, Frank and Novenka.

In early February the mid-Atlantic got hit with two major snowstorms, which we heard about from Karen and Fede. Our snow arrived in more reasonable amounts, along with a barred owl who spent part of one stormy day in a tree branch practically right outside our back door. And posed for me. Whoooooo are you kidding? No, he really did!