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!

Person of the week

It is the day before Christmas. So many things to be thankful for. My dear husband Bill. Friends and family. The Guilford Poets Guild. Our new anthology, which turned out so well. And the wonderful writer for the Guilford Courier, Pam Johnson, who decided I would make a suitable "person of the week." Such a nice welcome for a new resident. You can read about it here.

book angst over

The anthology, part and parcel of my dreams and untold waking hours as well, has just been signed, sealed and delivered to our door. Looks great, its lovely design, the poems lifting off the page with their authors floating in luminous gray, Richard smiling at us, Katrina at the window, the misty Grass Island scene on the cover, the whimsical bicycle holding up the rear, and all those wonderful poems people submitted beginning way last March, early this year. On display here, the postcard, send them out!

It seems we just got back home from Gilmanton, for Thanksgiving. Dinner at Heather's, a lovely walk around the Beaver Pond with Mark, Bill, Cocoa, Tyler and his friend Sofia. And now we're going back again for Joe's 80th birthday party. After the book launch party. Hmmm, have to fit in thinking about Christmas presents, cards, a tree. I'm sure it will all work out. After Christmas we're taking the train down to D.C. to spend a few days with Karen, Fede and the girls. And then back to NYC, a bridge event for Bill, visiting museums for me. Well, he might get to go to a few museums, too, I'm sure we can work that out too!

Before we know it, it will be 2010. The year 10. No more oughts. The century is gathering speed. All those things we did when we were young seem so long ago. But, just as they explain about the brain, those memories are solid, it's the things that happened last week that are first to go. Hopefully, not all of them.

California Dreaming

At the end of our trip to California, we took my sister to Joan's on Third in the Fairfax area of LA, it was my birthday brunch. The sign holders here were a little upset with me when I snapped their picture, but it was so nostalgic to see folks like that, so earnest, on the street corner. Other eating adventures were at Fraiche in Culver City and Nicole's in South Pasadena. We walked all over the Arboretum in Arcadia, a whirlwind tour since we only had about 40 minutes--the wind was indeed whirling that day, too.

We started out the trip in San Jose, stopping at La Pastaia for a yummy dinner. Met with different poetry friends, and then my 40th reunion at Stanford started up. Friends from Italy XIV joined us at almost every event, and we wound up eating with them at a special dinner Sat. night in Mountain View at Vaso Azzurro. I met a really nice fellow from the class of '54 who put me in touch with some of his classmates who remembered my brother Bruce. He was interested in researching the houses of Gustav Laumeister in Palo Alto and by some coincidence I shared with him the fact that I had written a paper on Laumeister for Palo Alto Stanford Heritage. I mailed it to him this week.

California seemed a little arid, and how come it was so warm in October? I brought all the wrong clothes again although I did wear my coat once, I think. Nice to come back to beautiful Connecticut, there were even a few leaves on the trees for us to see. And a conference on John Brown to attend at Yale. A full calendar ahead of us.

Twas brillig

October has arrived and the leaves are slowly turning into their new, bright selves. We've been going to New York a lot. One trip early in September was because, mon dieu, I remembered the James Ensor show was almost over. So off we went to the South Street Seaport (the exhibit of Dutch New York), on the way discovering a cool lunch spot named Resto (it's Belgian and I shoulda had the beer, but the hamburger and frites were delishious), and finished off the day at the MOMA Ensor exhibit. The printed material suggested Ensor's love of masks and weird costumes of course came about because of his family's souvenir store in Ostende. I was lucky to have visited there in 2002 (the James Ensorhuis). Our trip down and back in one day was pretty exhausting.

The next day I was in the Guilford Citizens Parade--twice! Well, I mean the Friends of the Library let me march with them--actually I sat in a haywagon and held up picture books as we rode by the crowds. And since the Friends haywagon was early on in the parade, when that was done I leapt down and ran to see the rest of the entries. So when the Guilford Peace Alliance came by, Edwina, Greg, Gwen and Norm marching prominently with their signs, I joined them, too. Was thinking some of the folks by the side of the road would be scratching their heads--wasn't that woman on the library haytruck earlier in the parade?

Paid for all this activity, came down with a baad cowd. But a week later we went back down to NY again, this time staying overnight to pamper ourselves. The main event was the opening of the Poets House new building near Battery Park on the Hudson. A sunny day and the lineup of poets reading was impressive: Mark Doty, Marie Howe, Philip Levine, Billy Collins, Galway Kinnell, among others. We met up with Gwen and Norm and one of Gwen's painting friends--we ate tapas together at Boqueria.

In between these trips the sun shone brightly during the month, and I discovered the walk at the end of Neck Road (the street that starts in Madison and ends up in Guilford). The beach skirts the edge of the Sound and lands you at the red shack on Grass Island. And the nice thing about it is that even though it's an "island," you don't have to cross any water to get there!

Will have more of New York starting again soon, next weekend it's back to Open House New York, trekking about various neighborhoods, sneaking into some of the most interesting buildings in NY. Til then.

The long unique summer

Lots of rain in the early summer. Got to the town beach by mid-July, then we were off to Gilmanton, it seemed. Jumped into Drew Farm life with Jenny, Phil, Frano, Clare and Lucy. Craziness all day it seemed! The kids loved the "bored sheepherder" video on youtube--we had to play it at least once a day. When the kids went back to Buffalo it was verrrrry quiet. We picked up toys here and there, arranged furniture, brought out all the wine and sherbet glasses, relished the warmer weather. By our last week it was almost summer again!

The Rock Party was a beautiful afternoon again, and this year we got down to the bottom before the moskeets got us. Bill and I drove Frano home--a deer leapt in front of our car but made it across 140. Jay and Alaiyo, newlyweds, were adorable. I tried to help teach Alaiyo to swim. She who could probably hike 4 miles before I even got started was having a hard time catching on. Must be difficult to learn to swim as an adult. The Listening party at the Hottels was memorable as usual, this year it was Carmen. I found myself voting for Maria Callas but dissing Placido Domingo. And I was in the minority--che strano! Down in Guilford for a few days, catching up with mail, two poetry meetings within three days, firming up our anthology plans. Then back up by train to Boston, by bus to Concord. More silken water to float around in. One day we hiked through a cornfield and drove over to Pittsfield (see photo of dam in downtown Pittsfield).

I'm writing this in Northampton, Mass. where we've returned after 14 years, staying again at the Autumn Inn, and eating at the same good restaurant, India House. Last night the weather was perfect, the town lively, we found a good bookstore and a place that served great espresso and gelato to us 4 minutes before they closed. Earlier in the day we strolled along the old avenues of Historic Deerfield. This morning it will be Emily Dickinson, her house, her life, then on to the poetry of horses getting serious in the paddock--before they strike out on the track at Saratoga.