As many of you know, we spent the last nine days in New England, visiting friends and family. Despite the often oppressive humidity, to which we are no longer accustomed, and a pretty intense schedule, we had a wonderful time.
First stop: a visit with our friends Rebecca and Dan and their baby boys, Chase (first picture below) and Austin (second picture), who are adorable.
On Saturday, June 28th, my dear friends Lisa and Daniel were married in a beautiful ceremony in a beautiful Italian garden at the
Codman Estate in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Excellent food (including a fantastic cake from
Flour Bakery in Boston) and a chance to see some of my favorite people. Here's Lisa and Daniel, below -- the zoom on my camera isn't very good, so they are a bit small...
While we were waiting to go into the reception, four goats from a farm down the road decided to pay us a visit. This was amusing until they tried to storm the tent. Somehow, we managed to keep them out, but I did have the opportunity to get a few pictures.
On Sunday we threw my father a surprise 60th birthday brunch at
The Blue Room, one of our favorite Boston-area restaurants (of course, we are a bit biased -- Stacey used to be the sous chef there). The food was fantastic as usual, and as usual we ate way too much. We also got the chance to see some old friends there, including our friend and wedding photographer Wayne, who was our server, and whose
photographs are currently on display in the restaurant. And my father was definitely surprised.
On Sunday evening, the three lovely Pearl Street Princesses (Emily, Leah and Julie) took us to dinner at
TW Food in Cambridge. We are still trying to decide which of the eight courses (and two amuse bouches) we liked the best -- right now, I think the buttery garlic scape soup with parmigiano reggiano is our front-runner. I really, really wanted seconds.
Monday brought lunch with the ladies of the Boston library at Nixon Peabody and dinner with Brendan, Melodie and Wayne.
On Tuesday, we drove up to Maine to spend the rest of the week at my father's new summer house in Denmark. Stacey and I made a slight detour to Ogunquit for massages at the
Cliff House Spa and lunch at
MC Perkins Cove. We have wanted to eat at MCPC ever since it opened a few years ago, because the owners are known for running
Arrows Restaurant, the local-food mecca of Maine (Bostonians, take note -- they have also recently opened a restaurant called
Summer Winter, in the Burlington Marriott). The food is great, and the view, below, is just as good, if not better.
My father's house in Denmark is every bit as relaxing as we had hoped, and we spent days doing nothing more than cooking, chatting, sleeping and drinking (with the exception of one very taxing game of miniature golf). The weather was amazing -- mostly sunny, warm, and breezy. It was pretty rough. Here's the view of Hancock Pond from the lawn.
And here is the all-important hammock.
My father and Bernice used the proceeds from a yard sale last year to buy a little sailboat (aptly named Yard Sail) and this was the week to put it in the water. Below, Susy and our friend Rick tie it to the dock after Susy gave it a test-row. The mast and sail are obviously not yet in place.
Yard Sail at twilight.
The next day, it was time for its maiden voyage. Bernice and our friends Rule and Elayne hoisted the sail...
...prepared for take-off...
...and sailed away!
Dad and Lucy (and I) watched from the dock.
Our dear friend Emily reported recently that she and some friends had begun making an effort to visit new places and see new things close to home, an initiative known as TIMOT, or Tourist In My Own Town. Stacey and I, as relatively new transplants to this area, have made plenty of pilgrimages to San Francisco and points north, but have spent very little time sampling tourist destinations in San Jose itself. One of the most famous is the Winchester Mystery House, which is less than four miles from our home. We drive past it often when we go shopping, but neither of us had ever visited it until today. With a clean apartment, a clear schedule, and a two-for-one coupon, we decided to go check it out.
Though I do not think I would have gladly paid full price for admission, the house is admittedly sort of fascinating. The story is bizarre: Sarah Winchester, wealthy widow and Winchester Rifle heiress, began building the house in 1884 and did not stop until she died thirty-eight years later. This means that the house is enormous, but also that rooms were constantly renovated (over 600 times, according to our tour guide). It's a convoluted warren of staircases (the most famous of which leads straight into a ceiling), hallways, strange nooks and closets, and doors -- some of which open into walls, or into open air (see first picture above). Supposedly Sarah Winchester consulted a psychic in Boston who told her that the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles would seek vengeance, and her strange building plans were intended to keep them at bay, confuse them, or appease them, depending on what you read. It's basically a 160-room testimony to mental illness.
It's also rumored to be haunted, but we neither saw nor felt anything. Our tour guide told us a story about his cell phone dialing the number 13 (Sarah Winchester's favorite number, repeated superstitiously throughout the house in ceiling panels, drain holes, coat hooks, and windows) by itself, but it sounded pretty bogus to me.
