Our deck is surrounded by 7 evergreen trees. Most are hemlocks though there are a couple of long needle pines.
This time of year those 'evergreens' are not 'ever' by a long shot. They drop brown needles, some of them 3 inches long, and clusters of needles so consistently that we could sweep the deck hourly. Most of the problem with the droppings is our Puli goes out and lays on the deck and brings in a handful or more of needles and clusters. We pick them off as best we can, but he spreads them throughout the house.
What strikes me about all this is how sloughing off the past creates the future.
We do the same, you and I with hair and skin cells. We leave them behind and move on.
Go look at your hair brush and how much you've shed lately.
Nature is always renewing itself by casting off the old and getting ready for the new.
I love Autumn because I know all the fallen leaves and withered plants are simply to make room for what will break forth in the spring.
Things change...we can't stop that...but things renew and come forth again.
Nature teaches us that.
We should ponder it.
Really.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
a bird's life
Yesterday I was up here in my little office where I am writing this when I heard a crash downstairs.
I went down and our cat, Luke, had knocked over a huge vine on a trellis just by the back window at the bottom of the back staircase. (We have stairs just inside the front door and another set in the back of the house at the end of our kitchen, sitting room area.)
I went outside to find Bern so we could clean it up (she did most of the cleaning since all the plants--that have come in from the deck for the cold--are her domain). Lukie wouldn't stay away from the window no matter how we shooed him away and when the plant was upright again, Bern realized there was a bird trapped between the window and the storm window/screen contraption.
I went outside and realized the storm window had a three inch gap at the top and that's how the bird got inside. The cat had freaked him/her out so much that she/he couldn't figure out how to find the gap at the top. There was a gap at the bottom where the bird could escape because the screen was down and the storm window up there. But again, the cat had the bird freaked out.
I shut Luke up in our bedroom and Bern put some of our parakeet's seeds on the window bottom and eventually the bird came down and flew away.
In the midst of all the unspeakable horror of war and pestilence and unrest in the world, giving a bird back his/her life is surely not worth mentioning.
But it felt wonderful to know the bird would live on and not die in our window.
Little things that you can control matter so much in the face of global things you can't control
Ponder that and notice the little things of life a little more. Turn off CNN and never turn on Fox News and be present to life's small gifts and wonders.
That's what I intend to do, more and more.
I went down and our cat, Luke, had knocked over a huge vine on a trellis just by the back window at the bottom of the back staircase. (We have stairs just inside the front door and another set in the back of the house at the end of our kitchen, sitting room area.)
I went outside to find Bern so we could clean it up (she did most of the cleaning since all the plants--that have come in from the deck for the cold--are her domain). Lukie wouldn't stay away from the window no matter how we shooed him away and when the plant was upright again, Bern realized there was a bird trapped between the window and the storm window/screen contraption.
I went outside and realized the storm window had a three inch gap at the top and that's how the bird got inside. The cat had freaked him/her out so much that she/he couldn't figure out how to find the gap at the top. There was a gap at the bottom where the bird could escape because the screen was down and the storm window up there. But again, the cat had the bird freaked out.
I shut Luke up in our bedroom and Bern put some of our parakeet's seeds on the window bottom and eventually the bird came down and flew away.
In the midst of all the unspeakable horror of war and pestilence and unrest in the world, giving a bird back his/her life is surely not worth mentioning.
But it felt wonderful to know the bird would live on and not die in our window.
Little things that you can control matter so much in the face of global things you can't control
Ponder that and notice the little things of life a little more. Turn off CNN and never turn on Fox News and be present to life's small gifts and wonders.
That's what I intend to do, more and more.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
I just realized
I just realized that Daylight Savings Time begins on November 2 this year.
'Fall back' comes on All Saints' Sunday!
I still have to think a bit more since linear time confounds me to decide if I get an hour more sleep or an hour less. Right now I'm betting it's an hour more.
I also found out, as I researched this a bit on line, that different places in the country and the world, give the hour back at different times by law or something. How crazy is that? Does it matter if we fall back from midnight to 11 p.m. or from 3 a.m. to 2 a.m.? Aren't we all mostly asleep when this happens? Can't I just set my clock back when I go to bed--or even sometime Saturday afternoon? What difference does it make? It's just an hour, after all.
But since Christians are so consumed with worrying about stuff that, in the galactic scheme of things makes no difference: like whether a woman can be a priest or whether a woman can have an abortion or whether a woman and man can practice birth control or whether fetal stem cells can be used to cure horrific diseases or whether two men and two women can love each other enough to be married (all of which I would say a resounding YES! to) shouldn't we be worried instead that the time change always takes place on a Sunday and impacts Christian worship more than anything else?
And changing the clocks on All Saints' Sunday violates the sanctity of one of the most high Holy Days of the church calendar. Come on people, that gives us one more meaningless things to be huffy about.
There is a resolution to our annual Diocesan Convention, signed by people I love, that seeks to keep people from calling their male priests "Father".
The mid-East is involved in a war that might consume it ultimately. Hong Kong is a nightmare. Ebola is killing people faster than we can count. The distance between rich and poor in this, the richest country in the world, grows more disparate every day. Europe is still mired in the recession we have escaped.
What people call their priest seems, how to say it without causing offense?--well, there is no way, stupid and meaningless.
I told someone today that a 'non-gender' title for an Episcopal priest could be "ass-hole".
That could work. "Ass-hole Bradley"...I'd answer to that....
Lord help the Church to take it's eyes away from it's navel for just a moment....just a moment.
'Fall back' comes on All Saints' Sunday!
I still have to think a bit more since linear time confounds me to decide if I get an hour more sleep or an hour less. Right now I'm betting it's an hour more.
I also found out, as I researched this a bit on line, that different places in the country and the world, give the hour back at different times by law or something. How crazy is that? Does it matter if we fall back from midnight to 11 p.m. or from 3 a.m. to 2 a.m.? Aren't we all mostly asleep when this happens? Can't I just set my clock back when I go to bed--or even sometime Saturday afternoon? What difference does it make? It's just an hour, after all.
But since Christians are so consumed with worrying about stuff that, in the galactic scheme of things makes no difference: like whether a woman can be a priest or whether a woman can have an abortion or whether a woman and man can practice birth control or whether fetal stem cells can be used to cure horrific diseases or whether two men and two women can love each other enough to be married (all of which I would say a resounding YES! to) shouldn't we be worried instead that the time change always takes place on a Sunday and impacts Christian worship more than anything else?
And changing the clocks on All Saints' Sunday violates the sanctity of one of the most high Holy Days of the church calendar. Come on people, that gives us one more meaningless things to be huffy about.
There is a resolution to our annual Diocesan Convention, signed by people I love, that seeks to keep people from calling their male priests "Father".
The mid-East is involved in a war that might consume it ultimately. Hong Kong is a nightmare. Ebola is killing people faster than we can count. The distance between rich and poor in this, the richest country in the world, grows more disparate every day. Europe is still mired in the recession we have escaped.
What people call their priest seems, how to say it without causing offense?--well, there is no way, stupid and meaningless.
I told someone today that a 'non-gender' title for an Episcopal priest could be "ass-hole".
That could work. "Ass-hole Bradley"...I'd answer to that....
Lord help the Church to take it's eyes away from it's navel for just a moment....just a moment.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Hard to tell it's done in the dark
I love to grill. I do all the meat stuff (hamburgers, hot dogs, steaks, pork roasts, chicken, lots of kind of fish) but I do vegetables as well (peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, asparagus, potatoes, onions, mushrooms, etc.)
But when fall comes, things get iffy.
Our grill in on the deck (charcoal, thank you, a Weber) and I never use lighter fluid, a chimney with newspaper is my way. But, although there is a light on our back porch, it doesn't quite illuminate the deck and since we eat at 7, telling if something is done in near darkness is hard.
Tonight I did some marinated tuna (lemon and oil and pepper mostly, with some other spices) and it was so dark I couldn't tell if it was done, fully cooked.
Finally I just took it off to take it in the kitchen and check and discovered it was just right. I've taken to buying fish and everything else in two thicknesses since Bern likes everything more done than I do. My thick filet was pink in the middle and her thinner piece was cooked through white all the way.
It was very good, thank the sea and my grill and good luck.
But, unless I grill in the daylight, grilling is probably over for the year. It is plum dark at 7 in mid-October. And we're about to go back on Eastern Standard time so soon it will be too dark to grill before 6.
Too bad. I love to grill.
But when fall comes, things get iffy.
Our grill in on the deck (charcoal, thank you, a Weber) and I never use lighter fluid, a chimney with newspaper is my way. But, although there is a light on our back porch, it doesn't quite illuminate the deck and since we eat at 7, telling if something is done in near darkness is hard.
Tonight I did some marinated tuna (lemon and oil and pepper mostly, with some other spices) and it was so dark I couldn't tell if it was done, fully cooked.
Finally I just took it off to take it in the kitchen and check and discovered it was just right. I've taken to buying fish and everything else in two thicknesses since Bern likes everything more done than I do. My thick filet was pink in the middle and her thinner piece was cooked through white all the way.
It was very good, thank the sea and my grill and good luck.
But, unless I grill in the daylight, grilling is probably over for the year. It is plum dark at 7 in mid-October. And we're about to go back on Eastern Standard time so soon it will be too dark to grill before 6.
Too bad. I love to grill.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Cabbage core
Back when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother 'up on the hill'--which is how we described where she lived. I had 4 Pugh cousins and 2 Perkins cousins who lived nearer her. The Pugh's (children of my uncle Lee and aunt Juanette) lived across the red-dog road from Mammaw Jones. Bradley and Mejol Perkins lived in a house half-way down the hill.
I lived about 5 miles away.
Mejol was my youngest cousin and she's five years older than me. All the others (Duane, Joel, Marlin and Gayle along with Mejol's brother, Bradley) were even older. I was the baby of the brood and alternatively spoiled rotten and harassed by them--except for Mejol. She was my line of defense from the boys.
Whenever my grandmother fried cabbage on her wood cooking stove (and she fried it a lot: cabbage was a food group on my mother's side of the family...the Bradley's seldom ate it) whichever cousins were there would fight over the core. Cabbage core was one of the treats of my childhood. Usually we'd go to great lengths to divide it up.
It is crisp and sweet and better with salt with a little tang of something earthy.
I thought about it because I fried cabbage (not on a wood cooking stove, by the way) earlier this week, and I carefully saved the core.
As I've been writing this, I've been eating it, with garlic salt, because I can.
You know how lots of foods from the past don't live up to your memory when you eat them in today?
Let me tell you this: cabbage core does!
While I've been writing and eating (cabbage core with white wine--that's not from my childhood!) I've been tasting my grandmother's kitchen, up on the hill, so long ago.
(A week or two ago, I fixed myself a turkey sandwich on white bread with mayo, iceberg lettuce and bread and butter pickles. It's a sandwich that the women of one of the Black churches in Anawalt, WV, when I was a boy, would sell. We didn't socialize with Black folks back then, but we bought their food....I always remembered those as the best sandwiches I ate growing up. The one I made myself almost lived up to the memory. I'll try again after Thanksgiving since I think the key is that the turkey come from a bird, not the Deli.)
But cabbage core....Lordy, Lordy, it was like being with my cousins again! Back at Mammaw's house, with the smell of frying cabbage in the air.
I've realized between this and the cabbage rolls Bern made today, that cabbage is one of my favorite vegetables. An slaw...I love slaw. And sour kraut, how good is that?
I'd probably forget to put cabbage on the list for my final meal...but I hope not.
I lived about 5 miles away.
Mejol was my youngest cousin and she's five years older than me. All the others (Duane, Joel, Marlin and Gayle along with Mejol's brother, Bradley) were even older. I was the baby of the brood and alternatively spoiled rotten and harassed by them--except for Mejol. She was my line of defense from the boys.
Whenever my grandmother fried cabbage on her wood cooking stove (and she fried it a lot: cabbage was a food group on my mother's side of the family...the Bradley's seldom ate it) whichever cousins were there would fight over the core. Cabbage core was one of the treats of my childhood. Usually we'd go to great lengths to divide it up.
It is crisp and sweet and better with salt with a little tang of something earthy.
I thought about it because I fried cabbage (not on a wood cooking stove, by the way) earlier this week, and I carefully saved the core.
As I've been writing this, I've been eating it, with garlic salt, because I can.
You know how lots of foods from the past don't live up to your memory when you eat them in today?
Let me tell you this: cabbage core does!
While I've been writing and eating (cabbage core with white wine--that's not from my childhood!) I've been tasting my grandmother's kitchen, up on the hill, so long ago.
(A week or two ago, I fixed myself a turkey sandwich on white bread with mayo, iceberg lettuce and bread and butter pickles. It's a sandwich that the women of one of the Black churches in Anawalt, WV, when I was a boy, would sell. We didn't socialize with Black folks back then, but we bought their food....I always remembered those as the best sandwiches I ate growing up. The one I made myself almost lived up to the memory. I'll try again after Thanksgiving since I think the key is that the turkey come from a bird, not the Deli.)
But cabbage core....Lordy, Lordy, it was like being with my cousins again! Back at Mammaw's house, with the smell of frying cabbage in the air.
I've realized between this and the cabbage rolls Bern made today, that cabbage is one of my favorite vegetables. An slaw...I love slaw. And sour kraut, how good is that?
I'd probably forget to put cabbage on the list for my final meal...but I hope not.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Tim and Mimi's Wedding #3
THE DAY ITSELF
We slept in and had breakfast at the free breakfast stations of the NU Hotel. I just wanted to hang out in the hotel so we passed on wandering around the city with Josh and Cathy and the girls. Had lunch with John Anderson at a place literally across the street from the hotel--one of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten, by the way.
Mimi and Tim's plan (and, again, I tell you, the reason this was the best wedding ever is that they orchestrated every moment of it and got it to be 'what they wanted') was that Bern would go to Mimi's friends apartment with Tim's mom while Allison 'made her up' and I would go with Tim's dad and brother to Tim and Mimi's apartment to watch him get ready. All this at 4 p.m.. Then we'd all meet at Ici, the restaurant where the service and reception would take place. We took two car services because Tim had to take amplifiers, computers, mixers and other stuff I don't understand (for the reception and the music and all (like I said, these two made it be what they wanted it to be.)
There were photos of families and the girls as flower girls and Tim and Mimi. Then waiting around until 6:30 when the service was scheduled in the little courtyard behind the restaurant. Bern had this great idea to tie the two rings onto ribbons tied to Emma and Morgan's dresses--Tegan was scattering rose petals. About 15 minutes before the service, the bow came undone and Emma lost Tim's ring. Yikes! But we were in an enclosed space, after all, and Tim's brother stepped on the ring and we got it back. So Bern appropriated the rings and didn't give them back until the sort of procession (Bern and Me, Bob and Carol, the girls, Tim and Mimi) and put the rings on Emma and Morgan's fingers and made them make a fist under threat of pain.
Anyway, two things happened: when Tim and Mimi were seen by the crowd, everyone started applauding and cheering and Morgan joined in and Mimi's ring came off her finger. We were all up front and someone found it right away. No superstition from Mimi and Tim, they just laughed.
The 13 minute service was like that--mistakes and laughter and tears.
Mimi had to tell me to let people sit down (I was as nervous as I've ever been at a wedding--partly because I wasn't in 'complete control' and partly because I didn't want to mess it up for Mimi and Tim). Tim got four words into the vows when his voice broke and he had tears on his face. Mimi laughed and then started crying herself. She tried to put Tim's ring on his right hand and everyone laughed. We prayed for them and then cheered like mad as they walked out.
Drinks and toasts upstairs while Ici's staff got ready downstairs (if you're ever in Brooklyn, find this restaurant--it's on DeKalb Street, farm to table and impeccable).
The rest was like a dream. 70 people (counting Tim and Mimi) remarkable food (best ever wedding food) served family style. Mimi and Tim leaving to move from table to table (about the only 'traditional' thing they did). Dancing and desert back upstairs (no 'wedding cake' but an assortment of puddings, pastries and 'cake pops').
I could go on and on but I won't.
It simply was this: 'just like them' and 'perfect'.
My baby girl is married (at long last!) to the man I would myself had picked for her. So much love at that service from friends and family. So much graciousness from Tim and Mimi. Something that came together 'just right'. Perfect.
We slept in and had breakfast at the free breakfast stations of the NU Hotel. I just wanted to hang out in the hotel so we passed on wandering around the city with Josh and Cathy and the girls. Had lunch with John Anderson at a place literally across the street from the hotel--one of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten, by the way.
Mimi and Tim's plan (and, again, I tell you, the reason this was the best wedding ever is that they orchestrated every moment of it and got it to be 'what they wanted') was that Bern would go to Mimi's friends apartment with Tim's mom while Allison 'made her up' and I would go with Tim's dad and brother to Tim and Mimi's apartment to watch him get ready. All this at 4 p.m.. Then we'd all meet at Ici, the restaurant where the service and reception would take place. We took two car services because Tim had to take amplifiers, computers, mixers and other stuff I don't understand (for the reception and the music and all (like I said, these two made it be what they wanted it to be.)
There were photos of families and the girls as flower girls and Tim and Mimi. Then waiting around until 6:30 when the service was scheduled in the little courtyard behind the restaurant. Bern had this great idea to tie the two rings onto ribbons tied to Emma and Morgan's dresses--Tegan was scattering rose petals. About 15 minutes before the service, the bow came undone and Emma lost Tim's ring. Yikes! But we were in an enclosed space, after all, and Tim's brother stepped on the ring and we got it back. So Bern appropriated the rings and didn't give them back until the sort of procession (Bern and Me, Bob and Carol, the girls, Tim and Mimi) and put the rings on Emma and Morgan's fingers and made them make a fist under threat of pain.
Anyway, two things happened: when Tim and Mimi were seen by the crowd, everyone started applauding and cheering and Morgan joined in and Mimi's ring came off her finger. We were all up front and someone found it right away. No superstition from Mimi and Tim, they just laughed.
The 13 minute service was like that--mistakes and laughter and tears.
Mimi had to tell me to let people sit down (I was as nervous as I've ever been at a wedding--partly because I wasn't in 'complete control' and partly because I didn't want to mess it up for Mimi and Tim). Tim got four words into the vows when his voice broke and he had tears on his face. Mimi laughed and then started crying herself. She tried to put Tim's ring on his right hand and everyone laughed. We prayed for them and then cheered like mad as they walked out.
Drinks and toasts upstairs while Ici's staff got ready downstairs (if you're ever in Brooklyn, find this restaurant--it's on DeKalb Street, farm to table and impeccable).
The rest was like a dream. 70 people (counting Tim and Mimi) remarkable food (best ever wedding food) served family style. Mimi and Tim leaving to move from table to table (about the only 'traditional' thing they did). Dancing and desert back upstairs (no 'wedding cake' but an assortment of puddings, pastries and 'cake pops').
I could go on and on but I won't.
It simply was this: 'just like them' and 'perfect'.
My baby girl is married (at long last!) to the man I would myself had picked for her. So much love at that service from friends and family. So much graciousness from Tim and Mimi. Something that came together 'just right'. Perfect.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Tim and Mimi's Wedding #2
THE PARENTS' MEET
We found Cathy and Josh and the girls for a late lunch and then went to the hotel to get ready for 'The Meeting of the In-laws". We had never met Tim's parents. There were a couple of holidays over the years the McCarthy's lived in Springfield, MA, when something was planned. But it never happened and then they moved to Florida.
So, Tim and Mimi's plan (and everything about this whole two days went according to Mimi and Tim's plan--which was why it was so wondrous since Tim and Mimi are wondrous) we would take a cab to the corner of Decalb and Morgan (I think it was) to meet up with the McCarthys and Tim and Mimi.
The first cab driver didn't have any idea where Morgan St. (if that was it was) and told us to get out when he turned the first corner. We hailed another cab and took us to Decalb but had no idea where Morgan was and let up out charging only half the fare. I went into a Pizza Place and asked one of the Pizza guys where it was and he said, "go the the corner and take two lefts" and he was right and Mimi was waiting in front of the German place to lead us across the street to another bar because the German place was too loud.
The bar was perfect. So Jim and Bern met Bob and Carol (I can't help finishing that with "Ted and Alice" for those of you who remember). It was a tad awkward but not much and we fell into an easy conversation. I really liked them, which was good. Bob was a bit quiet but Carol is a talker so it all worked out. After having a drink and beginning our relationship, we all walked four blocks to an Italian Restaurant where we met up with Tim's brother and Josh and Cathy and the girls for a family meal that Mr. McCarty insisted on paying for (since it was, I suspect, in his mind the equivalent of the 'rehersal dinner' which in a traditional wedding would be paid for by the groom's parents. But when the two getting married are 39 and 36, all the 'traditions' are off.
(One odd moment, I'd gone to the bathroom at the bar before the restaurant and when I came back I saw a man hugging a woman I thought was Mimi. Since we were expecting Tim's brother, I assumed that's who it was, so I went up and introduced myself. He was polite and said it was good to meet me, but then I saw Mimi still seated and realized the woman only faintly looked like her and the two of them moved past me and on....I wonder what they made of that....)
The meal was great. Tegan fell asleep and Morgan was beginning to fail, but Emma was bright and amazing because she was sitting next to Tim and the girls think of him as a Rock Star of the first degree, so she talked incessantly with him throughout the meal.
Cathy and Bern took the girls to the hotel in a 'car service' (living in NYC means never having to drive and meeting lots of people from other countries in Uber, cabs and car services) while Josh and I went next door to The Mayflower--a bar with no sign that is about the size of our kitchen. We could get 35 people in our kitchen if all the stuff was moved out and that was the limit of the Mayflower. Tim and Mimi had let folks know if they wanted to see them on Marriage Eve they could come there from 8:30 on. And a lot of people did. Bern's cousin Frances and her partner, Cindy, the McCarthys, Jeff, Tim's brother (a real sweetheart), and a lot of what I call 'the Bennington Posse--people in their 30's who went to Bennington College with Tim and Mimi. Tim was a senior when Mimi was a freshman, so most of them knew them both, though some only knew Mimi while in Vermont. But since Mimi and Tim have been together for 13 years (only after meeting up in the Bennington Posse in NYC--all of them knew them both well.) What a great bunch of young people: friendly, smart, successful and in love with both Tim and Mimi.
We had a great time. I got back to the hotel at midnight, in a 'car service' with Josh. Both Bern and I were exhausted and I'd had more white wine than anyone really needs.
We slept. Wedding-Eve was over.
We found Cathy and Josh and the girls for a late lunch and then went to the hotel to get ready for 'The Meeting of the In-laws". We had never met Tim's parents. There were a couple of holidays over the years the McCarthy's lived in Springfield, MA, when something was planned. But it never happened and then they moved to Florida.
So, Tim and Mimi's plan (and everything about this whole two days went according to Mimi and Tim's plan--which was why it was so wondrous since Tim and Mimi are wondrous) we would take a cab to the corner of Decalb and Morgan (I think it was) to meet up with the McCarthys and Tim and Mimi.
The first cab driver didn't have any idea where Morgan St. (if that was it was) and told us to get out when he turned the first corner. We hailed another cab and took us to Decalb but had no idea where Morgan was and let up out charging only half the fare. I went into a Pizza Place and asked one of the Pizza guys where it was and he said, "go the the corner and take two lefts" and he was right and Mimi was waiting in front of the German place to lead us across the street to another bar because the German place was too loud.
The bar was perfect. So Jim and Bern met Bob and Carol (I can't help finishing that with "Ted and Alice" for those of you who remember). It was a tad awkward but not much and we fell into an easy conversation. I really liked them, which was good. Bob was a bit quiet but Carol is a talker so it all worked out. After having a drink and beginning our relationship, we all walked four blocks to an Italian Restaurant where we met up with Tim's brother and Josh and Cathy and the girls for a family meal that Mr. McCarty insisted on paying for (since it was, I suspect, in his mind the equivalent of the 'rehersal dinner' which in a traditional wedding would be paid for by the groom's parents. But when the two getting married are 39 and 36, all the 'traditions' are off.
(One odd moment, I'd gone to the bathroom at the bar before the restaurant and when I came back I saw a man hugging a woman I thought was Mimi. Since we were expecting Tim's brother, I assumed that's who it was, so I went up and introduced myself. He was polite and said it was good to meet me, but then I saw Mimi still seated and realized the woman only faintly looked like her and the two of them moved past me and on....I wonder what they made of that....)
The meal was great. Tegan fell asleep and Morgan was beginning to fail, but Emma was bright and amazing because she was sitting next to Tim and the girls think of him as a Rock Star of the first degree, so she talked incessantly with him throughout the meal.
Cathy and Bern took the girls to the hotel in a 'car service' (living in NYC means never having to drive and meeting lots of people from other countries in Uber, cabs and car services) while Josh and I went next door to The Mayflower--a bar with no sign that is about the size of our kitchen. We could get 35 people in our kitchen if all the stuff was moved out and that was the limit of the Mayflower. Tim and Mimi had let folks know if they wanted to see them on Marriage Eve they could come there from 8:30 on. And a lot of people did. Bern's cousin Frances and her partner, Cindy, the McCarthys, Jeff, Tim's brother (a real sweetheart), and a lot of what I call 'the Bennington Posse--people in their 30's who went to Bennington College with Tim and Mimi. Tim was a senior when Mimi was a freshman, so most of them knew them both, though some only knew Mimi while in Vermont. But since Mimi and Tim have been together for 13 years (only after meeting up in the Bennington Posse in NYC--all of them knew them both well.) What a great bunch of young people: friendly, smart, successful and in love with both Tim and Mimi.
We had a great time. I got back to the hotel at midnight, in a 'car service' with Josh. Both Bern and I were exhausted and I'd had more white wine than anyone really needs.
We slept. Wedding-Eve was over.
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