Last Wednesday afternoon I came home from running errands to discover Pat was taking off to Lynchburg at the news of a train derailment that sent tanker cars carrying crude oil into the river, setting the river itself on fire. Continue reading
Category: roadtrips
Spring, finally.
When we left here a week ago Sunday, it was snowing. We drove south, seeing more snow, in the snow, for a few hours. Honestly, we were at the Tennessee state line before I stopped seeing little snow piles here & there – especially on the northern facing slopes of roofs. By the time we stopped to gas up & stretch outside of Gatlinburg, the sun was out, the temps were warmer and we were starting to see those little hints of green that signify the arrival of spring. Continue reading
Not Camping.
In talking about a little getaway with my husband, I suggested that perhaps we could go camping. As I pretty much never offer to do this, I thought he’d like the idea. It’s not that I don’t like camping, it’s just that almost every camping trip we’ve ever gone on has been rained on. Sometimes spectacularly and memorably so. Like the time we camped out in a tropical storm on the beach at the Outer Banks. Or the time we did a three day canoe trip with Smiley & the gang. Then there was the trip when I was pregnant with Edie were no rain was in the forecast – Allison didn’t even bring her rain gear and as soon as we put in, the bottom of the sky fell out and we got something like 3 inches of rain that weekend. We had friends with us that were covered in head to toe goretex who pouted the entire time – which considering I was pregnant, cold, uncomfortable and wet the entire time should have been my job. Continue reading
In which Clara got on a boat.
Progress on the dining room was interrupted this weekend for a stop on the annual ‘summer by the water’ tour. This one was particularly glorious as it was a girls’ weekend with some of my college gals at Andrea’s St. Michael’s house. This is what Friday night looked like:
Wine & cheese and a sunset on the dock, just me & Andrea.
Breakfast was coffee & a big bowl of cherries while I sat outside reading.
It was one of those picture perfect June mornings – clear, just warm enough but not hot, with a gentle breeze to keep the bugs away. I had no cell reception, there’s no internet, no land line, no TV. Nothing to do but sit and read a book.
That was the sky. Divine, isn’t it?
After Andrea woke up, we puttered in the yard some – as she & her family are moving to San Francisco, this house is going on the market. After she met with the realtor and we filled in a hole left by the digging of the new well, Clara & Sheilah showed up. Which meant it was beer time.
On the dock again of course.
Because when you have access to something like that, I believe you take full advantage of it. Then again, we all know how obsessed I am with spending my summer by the water.
Eventually, it was decided we’d get cleaned up and head into town for something to eat. And that’s when the fun really began.
After wandering around the streets of St. Michael’s, we eventually made our way to the waterfront and found a place to eat. We had to wait at the bar for a table, which was fine with us. Us being us, we engaged everyone around us in conversation, including most of the staff. We were sitting by the door they use to go in & out of, as well as near the hostess station.
I have noted here before that as a group, we are loud and foul mouthed – Andrea & I especially. We call each other names – terms of endearment to each other, but we’ve realized others can be slightly offended at how we speak to each other.
Some might say we are badly behaved, but really, Andrea & I just don’t care. It’s the defining quality we share along with the ability to make the saltiest sailor blush with our language. If you knew us in college when we were practically inseparable, then the way we behave when we get together as forty-something soccer moms doesn’t phase you. It actually makes perfect sense, unless of course you thought certainly we’d have grown out of that by now.
We haven’t. In fact, it may have gotten worse.
When our table was ready, our bar tab was handed to us. We couldn’t help but notice the name the staff had put our tab under:
Which thrilled us to no end. Clearly, they got us. And appreciated us, as we had half the staff stopping to chat with us. A woman at the bar holding her crying toddler in one hand and a beverage in the other looked at us and sighed, “I’m having my girls weekend next weekend”.
I snapped this shot and posted it on facebook, tagging the girls at their request. We were all taken aback by the comments of friends who thought the staff should be fired – not at all. We were completely in on it. As someone who still works as a server, it’s always nice when you have a group or table that’s fun & easy, as I know we were. Well, other than the loudness factor. And the name calling. And the language. When we sat down at our table, there was a family with two small girls behind us that we tried out best to behave around, but well, they were at least quite understanding…
We discovered this little guy and he proceeded to hang out around us all night long. We took that as a good sign. We might be loud and obnoxious, but hey, we have good karma.
As we sat at dinner on the patio of the restuarant on the waterfront, Clara saw some boats for hire coming back into dock. “I want to get on a boat”. Bless Andrea’s heart, she whipped out her phone and made a few calls, trying to get Clara on a boat. Everything was booked, but we assured her, she’d get on a boat before she left.
And so, after dinner, we wandered around the marina. We came across a lively group sitting on their boat that we engaged in conversation. Next thing you know, they invited us to come aboard for a drink. Seeing this as how we were going to get Clara on a boat, I hopped aboard. When everyone else realized I wasn’t coming ashore until I finished my Coors Light, they all came aboard too.
The text I sent to my husband at about this point of the evening was “Made new friends. We’re on a boat. Not sure who’s boat, but we’re on a boat”.
His reply? “Woo-hoo! Glad you’re having fun!”
Love that man.
Meanwhile, Sheilah here was our sober driver and herder. She did it with much grace & style, as she has always done. Yes, that’s a bird on her shoulder, because when you storm a boat, isn’t there supposed to be a bird on someone’s shoulder?
We eventually made our way back to the house where the fun & games continued with late night swimming in the river, improvised ladders and glow in the dark jelly fish. As we drove home on Sunday, Andrea noted that every time we get together, we have some sort of adventure. Perhaps that is what binds us together after all these years. That and the name calling, the foul language and the fact that we just don’t give a shit what you think of us.
The Festival of the Bromance.
Oysterfest, the best holiday of the entire year, the one that kicks off the entire grand holiday season, has come and gone.
Many oysters were eaten.
Pork rinds were consumed.
Surprisingly enough, my entire fried food quotient this year was one bag of pork rinds, despite the allure of so many over the top fried delicacies.
This year’s winner for the the most over the top fried treat?
Deep fried cinnamon rolls, rolled in bacon bits.
That bacon didn’t look nearly as good as the bacon we had back on the grill.
I’m pretty sure Ryan grilled meat from the time he arrived Friday until they left Sunday morning.
Ryan brought a cooler of lamb & pork he’d raised, Dave brought rockfish he’d caught, there was even some Ankole sausage courtesy of Rieman’s father. There was also the usual gathering of crockpots, breads, biscuits and other treats made by the sisterhood to round out the meat, oysters and fried foods.
The girls have gotten big enough to pitch in too, with Edie and Abigail baking a coffee cake Saturday morning. Why yes, that is a bread knife Abigail is using to cut the butter. She grabbed the first knife she saw laying around.
This year’s stellar bloody mary table was also a staging area for the nearby grill.
Or perhaps you like a hunk of meat in your drink?
No wonder someone thought this was a great event to have a free health screening at.
There were plenty of our usual traditions, like the Fire Truck Parade Friday night, where the kids try to sit as close as possible to the loudest parade you’ve ever heard. (Don’t worry, we all wear ear plugs)
There is the Saturday afternoon parade, full of Shriners.
There is she crab bisque from the church on Main Street that is not to be missed.
We added the oyster shucking competition this year to things we do at Oysterfest.
Those ladies were serious about their oyster shucking.
And we were serious about eating them.
This little guy, the newest addition to the Smiley clan, kept the sisterhood from hitting the bar Friday night, but it did get us a free ticket to wander around the fest by ourselves (accompanied by young Walker of course) Saturday afternoon. We were going to hit the wine garden, but the line was too long. And we had wine at home.
We also enjoyed some quiet time to ourselves in this year’s back yard fort, as always, courtesy of Brooke, in the form of a pop-up camper that made for a most excellent grown up hide out.
There was plenty of the usual piles of kids and us trying to get them all to gather for one nice picture, whether posed or not posed.
The swords were Ryan’s Sunday morning craft project.
When we got home last night, I found Edie curled up asleep in the den, clutching it, her souvenir of a good weekend.
They even ate in a pile, declaring this chair the “Mac and Cheese Chair”.
There were plenty of other moments that make the weekend so special, year after year.
The most notable moment comes Saturday afternoon, after the parade where someone realizes it’s only 3:30, how can it only be 3:30 when it feels like at least 5:30? Good god, how are we ever going to make it to put the kids to bed, can’t they go to bed at 5?
Saturday of Oysterfest is the longest day of the year.
Oysterfest isn’t just about a grill full of meat all weekend, or piles of kids or fried food or parades, it’s the official holiday of the bromance.
The entire group of men have a very strong bromance. And every last one of the operates on the assumption that if you have a bromance with one of them, well then, you will have a bromance with all of them.
There’s a lot of love between those boys.
So much so that there is an entire holiday based on it.
Seriously Old School.
Back in the day, Friday nights were Big City nights. Big City was the underage club downtown that all the cool kids hung out at. And by cool kids, I mean those of us that didn’t really fit in at our various area high schools. It was really about the music, which was definitely not anything being played on radio. The friends I made there had a far longer lasting influence on me than most of the folks I went to high school with – it was a friend I made via Big City that told me I should consider checking out this school in Alabama called Auburn. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Friday night, in the town I grew up in, was the Big City Reunion. I realized it was a great excuse to go see some folks I hadn’t seen in forever, mostly my old friend Amy.
I’ve known Amy since third grade. We have moved in & out of each others lives ever since. Separately, we are both strong personalities, together? We are the people your mother warned you about. Our own mothers warned us about each other.
In grade school we would walk back & forth the mile or so between our houses. We’d walk to the mall and play Frogger for hours at the arcade. We’d go to the roller rink and skate Saturday away. We were Girl Scouts together. We grew apart for a few years in high school, but by our senior year, we had rediscovered each other and Amy was the friend who introduced me to Big City, so it seemed fitting I go to the reunion with her.
No matter how much time has passed between visits with Amy, we always pick up exactly where we left off. That much hasn’t changed since third grade. Actually, there’s a lot that hasn’t changed between us since third grade. As we were getting ready Friday, she opened up her closet to dress me, neverminding that I had brought an entire suitcase for a one night stay- and despite my initial horror that she owned a Kim Kardashian skirt, despite the fact that I swore up one side and down the other it was trashy as all get out with it’s studs and fake zippers, I tried it on and realized it looked fabulous on me. All that gym time has definitely paid off.
So of course I proceeded to wear it.
With the tag still attached of course.
Definitely not the first time I’ve worn something of Amy’s before she had. Probably not the last. At least this time she didn’t even bother with “You’re not keeping that” and just skipped ahead to “Go ahead and take it home with you”. Which I totally did because I need to have something to wear to shows that’s not my standard circa 1992 demin skirt – instead, I’m going to rock my standard 1986 taken from Amy’s closet look.
Really, the only thing missing from our Friday night ritual was Amy’s mother sprinking holy water on us.
Amy had a pre-reunion gathering at her house. A.J. showed up and it was great to catch up with him there – A.J. lived across the street from Amy back when we were all in grade school together, and his sister was great pals with my sister from Kindergarten, so he was one of those people I just was used to having around back in the day. And he’s still one of those people I like having around, who understands I need to carry a spare outfit in his back seat, just in case I change my mind about that skirt.
It was also Bike Week in York. I knew it was Bike Week, but yet I didn’t really consider what that meant. I drove up the back way, avoiding the DC beltway, which meant coming up through Gettysburg. The route is generally clear sailing until you get to Gettysburg and then you turn onto Rt. 30, which is the old Lincoln Highway and other than paving that route, I can assure you, the road has not changed since Abraham Lincoln was President. It has been 2 lanes my entire life and what should be a 20 minute drive always turns into the last hour of hell on a roadtrip. As I was coming into town past the fairgrounds, it hit me that it was bike week, because there was a line of cycles pulling in, queuing up for their parade in a few hours.
A few hours later, neither A.J. nor I put it together that Bike Week was BIKE WEEK, so as we decided to ‘cut through’ downtown, we got caught up in the mess that was going on, which meant roads blocked off and bikes everywhere you looked.
When I called home Friday afternoon after pulling into town, I mentioned to first Pat, then Edie, that it was bike week, and both asked if that meant motorcycles. I forget how so very different the town I grew up in is from where I live now. In Charlottesville, Bike Week would probably be a convention of road bicyclists, dressed in spandex, not leather. York is the Snack Food Capital of the World, while Charlottesville has been named Locavore Capital of the World. Very different foodie destinations indeed.
The reunion itself was a grand time. It was held at a bar, with a dance floor of course. Five of the old DJ’s took turns spinning records and we danced for hours. It was great to see familiar faces that I hadn’t seen in forever. It was like a high school reunion, but with only the people that you really wanted to see and far better music. The vibe was exactly the same as it had been all those years ago, especially so because you can still smoke in bars in Pennsylvania.
Best of all was spending time with Amy. A hell of a lot has changed over the last 35 years we’ve known each other, but our friendship hasn’t. She is truly an original free spirit, my best friend from third grade and one of my most favorite people in the entire universe. And quite possibly the person your mother warned you about.
Go.
My weekend:
Up early Saturday morning to hit market. I bumped into neighbor Brian and wandered some with him, comparing notes on the chickens (they live in his back yard) and talking about what we need to do to winterize the chicken house. I then ran into our friend Straz and wandered around with him. Normally I make a quick run to the stands I like to patronize and then cut out of there. Straz hadn’t been to market in a while and I found myself wandering and exploring the market like I haven’t made time for in at least a season, if not more with him. Bonus, I got some impromptu quality time with Straz, which set my weekend off on a good note. Thanks Straz.
Came home, packed up the fam for a quick little roadtrip.
Destination? The Cowpasture River Preservation Association Annual picnic. The Cowpasture River are the headwaters of the James, along with the Jackson River and fall under the duties of my favorite Riverkeeper.
The Cowpasture is one of the cleanest rivers around. It runs through the western most part of Virginia, in the Allegheny mountains. It may be one of the most beautiful parts of the state. As you can see in the above shot, the water is low. We didn’t go out on the river, but we did enjoy mingling with the members of CPRA. They are a lovely group of folks.
This hollowed out tree was a popular topic of conversation. Somehow it withstood the derecho while more solid trees around it were blown over.
The hostess of the picnic said there was an article published about it, but I haven’t been able to google it to link it. It’s big and old and incredibly hollow. It will no doubt outlive us all.
Another popular topic of conversation was the ensemble worn by the mini-me. The Picasso dress with zebra print rain boots. Pretty sure only she could pull that off. And don’t let this picture fool you – she was much friendlier to people who weren’t her mother and didn’t have cameras in their hands.
The ‘tween ‘tude is strong with her.
Johnny, one of Pat’s River Rats, so kindly put us up in his cabin farther down the river that evening.
Yet another quiet unplugged evening by the water….
I love the view from the front of the cabin. Mountains and cow pastures with the river running behind it. Quiet and soothing and a little bit of heaven.
Sunday morning, we had to get up and book it back.
Cville Swaps had our third swap this weekend. We had planned it before I knew Pat had so much going on this weekend, so I didn’t have time to whip up any baked goods, but thanks to my pickling habit, I did have a good number of jars to bring.
Which Edie proceeded to swap to get herself some new earrings that Stephanie had brought.
I also brought home some BBQ sauce, peach honey, some of Vikki’s jams as well as her pickled blueberries. (I am not the only pickling fool around.) My child is much more inclined to eat Vikki’s jams than she is mine. I chalk it up to years of my bad jam. I get it. It’s a big reason why we do the swap – so that I can get Vikki’s jams and jellies. I got some cherry vanilla, peach butter and a peach jalepeno jam that I think is going to go well on a ham sandwich.
Robyn also brought some Paw Paws, so we covered all the bases of home made, home grown and foraged for foods this swap.
Swap over, we dropped Edie at a friend’s and headed south.
The James River Brewing Company was having a pre-opening celebration. Pat’s been working with them on a few things (including a possible pawpaw brew), so we were quite happy to pop in and try some of their new brews. They officially open this weekend. Their tasting room is beautiful. In addition to the breaktaking white oak counter at the bar, they used reclaimed wood throughout. Warm space, good beer, worth the trek to Scottsville.
I sampled a few, the Green Eyed Lady being my favorite. Pistachios were used in the brewing. It has a higher alcohol content, which led me to calling it the One Eyed Lady. A few of those and I’d definitely be one-eyed.
We headed back into town and grabbed a quick bite at Beer Run. It was packed and as we were finishing up our meal, we had the pleasure of being forced to listen to the rant of some returning UVa kid who had his parents and grandparents in tow, complaining how they had to wait 10 minutes for a table. Oh the humanity of it all. I was surprised they didn’t just pack up and leave he bitched so long and so loud. Clearly he’s never worked a day in his life in the food service industry. I was trying to have a pleasant conversation and date night with my husband, after spending a weekend running around going to work with him and here this guy stood right behind us yelling about how horrible it was he had to wait for a table. It took quite a bit of willpower to not say anything to him, but I realized he’d just start yelling at me too. It was bad enough I had to listen to him. It was bum ending to an otherwise busy, but good weekend.
And now I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. The last three roadtrips I have just pulled dirty clothes out of the suitcase, made sure there were clean ones in there and headed back out. I think it might be time to unpack it, maybe put it away and spend some time at home? My house is starting to get that September old lady house smell that inspires fall cleaning and I really need to crack down on this regular bedtime thing. That child must start getting to bed at a reasonable hour on a regular basis before I will allow her any wiggle room on weekend. That didn’t go over well when I told her that but Pat did high five me on my mad parenting skills. So I’ve got that going for me.
Catching up.
Since I last visited this space, we have had a few adventures.
Going to pick up Edie from camp was the first.
After last year’s camp closing ceremonies, Edie announced that her goal for this year was to be recognized for archery at the closing ceremony. Which she was. Her face as her name was called for that was absolutely beaming. She was quite proud of herself, as were we. Is there anything better than seeing the satisfaction of your child’s face when they hit a goal they set for themselves? She was also recognized for Dance & Lacrosse. She was surprised by the lacrosse recognition as she doesn’t care for the sport. I told her she didn’t have to like it to be good at it, but wasn’t it nice to know that if she wanted to play it she’d be good at it? She was only slightly sold.
There was a dirt road involved on the way home.
We are fans of detours that include dirt roads, especially when they include ice cream as well, which this one did.
When we got home, I had her dump her trunk down the laundry chute so I could wash everything. My basement smelled like someone had been bathing in a pond for 3 weeks and then left all her towels out in a rainstorm. Which pretty much was her story.
While I was switching out the loads from the washer to the dryer Saturday night, I happened to glance over and see something wriggling in a spider web that didn’t look like it belonged there.
Turns out, it didn’t. It was a baby Eastern Ringneck snake. The tiniest little snake you’ve ever seen.
Edie really wanted to keep it, but Pat wasn’t sure if it was eating the tiny worms we brought him/her. Also, when all of Edie’s pals came by to see her the one day she was home between adventures, the little bug catcher the snake was in didn’t get properly closed and we woke up to find Ringo gone.
Hopefully it’s made it’s way out of my house. But if it eats bugs, then hopefully it will stay out of my eyesight.
As soon as I got Edie’s camp laundry done and my basement smelling like a basement again (a big improvement over pond water believe it or not), we took off for our last family adventure of the summer.
We headed down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to visit our friends the Dorbads.
19 month old Lincoln is cute as can be. He also had a nasty cold he was more than generous with. His poor mum came down with it while we were there and while Edie complained of a sore throat for a few days, I think I managed to zinc her up enough to head it off.
I had totally forgotten that when you have a 19 month old, that’s pretty much all you do all day.
Although they are awfully cute and entertaining.
We had some great beach weather. It was in the 80’s and thanks to some offshore winds, the water was ICE cold. After sitting in the sun and ‘getting warm’ as my mother used to say, it was refreshing.
Also, how nice is it to get in the ocean in August and have goosebumps from the water temperature?
We wandered down to Jennette’s pier one day so Pat could fish.
While he was up there on the pier, Edie girl & I sat on the beach nearby. We had a most fabulous chat over a coke (her) and a beer (me).
Daddy got to fish, Edie got chocolate ice cream AND a coke and I got to sit on the beach and read not quite an entire book all day, which we all considered perfect. How to top a day like that?
By heading even farther south to Cape Hatteras National Seashore the next day.
That was the view to the left of us down the beach.
How sweet is that? I adore Hattaras island and that particular stretch of coastline for just that reason.
The umbrella in the distance marked the set up of a young couple near us for the day. It was so deserted she chose to sunbathe topless. (One of us was horrified, one of us was amused and one of us thought good for her because I’d surely burn in a most unpleasant way in some uncomfortable spots if I did that.)
We went for a stroll to collect shells and to get away from all the people.
I couldn’t help but notice that Sandy McSandster, my daughter’s beach alter ego, lives on.
That child has some sort of magnetic attraction to sand. When she was smaller and would come in from the beach completely coated in sand, I chalked it up to her being a baby, a toddler, three, four, etc. But now she’s 10. And still leaves a heavy trail. I’m surprised there’s any sand left on Hatteras Island, because the inside of my car is completely coated, as is my beach bag, the cooler and I have no doubt her entire suitcase.
At one point, we let her go into the cooler for something, where she proceeded to coat everything in there with sand as well. Seriously. One hand in to grab and everything after was coated. That beer is fresh from the cooler, after she was in it. You should have seen the one she handed her father. He took it into the ocean to clean it off.
I guess she’ll never outgrow it.
Which is okay, because I happen to know 40-somethings that have similar traits. She’s in most excellent company.
Despite the fact that my child coated everything in sight in sand and our hosts were under the weather, it was a great trip. The day we spent at Hatteras was one of the most perfect beach days I’ve ever had. It was 80, barely a cloud in the sky, the water temp and the breeze just right. And I got to spend a day with those two with no outside distractions besides my book. (I’ve been plowing through “Game of Thrones”, having watched the entire show the first week Edie was at camp, I picked up the books and am now on the fourth one.)
We spent the week without television and internet. That was week two for me, unplugged and for Edie, week four. (She was completely unplugged while at camp.). It might be habit forming.
We came back Friday afternoon. Saturday I taught a pickling class for Market Central.
We pickled peaches, green beans and cucumbers.
It was a good class if I do say so myself.
I had planned on using the Ball Pickling Mix that is all over the market this season for dill pickles. However, due to a small oversight, there was no pickle mix on hand for the class. A quick flip through the stack of canning & pickling cookbooks I had brought along and we selected a new one – from my trusty Food in Jars Cookbook. We just so happened to have everything it called for on hand and so we went with it.
I’ll let you know how they turned out in a week or so when I open the jar I carried home. I’ve yet to make anything out of that cookbook or from her websites that isn’t good, so I felt safe trying that out in a class, untested.
I do need to brag that I completely guesstimated on the amount of brine to make for those pickles and turns out my guesstimate was just enough. Not only did I pull it out, I pulled it out perfectly.
I’m good like that.
I can’t say the same for the amount of peach brine I made, there were several quart jars left over that students took home with them. No one seemed to be too upset about that, as the pickled peaches were a huge hit just on the smell alone and as I pointed out, when you have leftover brine, you can use it to do another batch. I shared the recipe I came up with as a happy discovery to much rave reviews, which felt pretty darn tooting good as well.
So now we are home for a good while – school starts Wednesday and we need to settle back into that routine. The weather today – grey, drizzly and cool – was slightly conducive towards that end. I cleaned out the fridge and found a forgotten jar of bread & butter brine, but I also happened to have a few cukes on hand and some jalapenos from the garden that I threw in, so there was a batch of pickles made today while I was baking bread with the sourdough starter Leni shared with me. None of us have unpacked from the beach yet – heck, Edie still has bags sitting around with camp gear all over the house, thanks to the fact that she’s slept in her own bed exactly 2 nights since we picked her up over a week ago. It’s good to have her home, it’s good to be home and it’s good to have a few more days to collect ourselves before it all starts back up again.
Me time.
I just spent a glorious few days out at St. Michael’s.
Technically, the house I stayed in is on a cove on Edge Creek, just outside of St. Michael’s proper.
It’s an absolutely beautiful little spot.
There is no cable tv and no tv reception worth a toot. No internet access. Cell phone reception is spotty. You have to be outside for it really.
What there was was some very good wine.
Of course Caprese Salad.
After all, it’s August. It’s in season.
We ate it daily.
There was also this completely amazing vegan pizza that we added goat cheese to one night at dinner as well as a linguine with clam sauce that I’m still thinking about. Damn it was good.
There was some quality hammock lounge time.
Solitary
And with company.
There was ice cream
and little boys covering me in their ice cream by just snuggling on up to me.
Three year old boys are among my most favorite things in the universe.
In a moment of brilliance, I handed Ian an empty egg carton box and told him it was a ‘treasure box’. That game lasted us for days.
There were also some amazing sunsets.
And, in the middle of a serious deluge one morning, a visitor on the dock.
Best of all was quality time with this woman.
You really only get so many friendships like ours. Neither one of us are overly sentimental girls so we don’t tend to sit there and declare ourselves BFF’s. I think we were in our 40’s before we ever really used that the term ‘best friend’ anywhere near each other, despite the fact that we were fairly inseparable throughout most of our college careers, especially Saturday nights. We had a standing Saturday night date for years. We just hung out well together, with similar habits of reading, smoking, drinking, music and the ability to eat pizza for days on end. Some of those habits have changed, but not all of them, which is why we still hang out together well for days on end. And yes, had pizza multiple nights for dinner.
So, between being around her and being completely unplugged and absolutely lazy all week, I feel completely rejuvenated, although I’m not sure I want to fully re-enter the world. We pick Edie up from camp tomorrow and then head out to the Outer Banks for a few days before I have to completely rejoin civilization. Thank god, because I already know that first week of school is going to be a doozy. Oh summer, how I hate to quit you.
My Cousin Molly’s Art Show Extravaganza
Friday afternoon, we booked it up to Baltimore to attend my cousin Molly’s art show. Show isn’t quite the right word though. Event is more like it.
My cousin Molly and I are quite a bit alike, with her being younger, better looking with longer legs and possessing of more talent, although otherwise two peas in a pod who happen to be 13 years apart in age. Molly is an artist, who still works a day job (bartending at a local wine bar, which I guess makes it more of a night job technically). Since Edie was a wee one, Molly has always made an effort to have a relationship with her. Consequently, Edie adores Molly and has declared Molly, “her cousin” and not mine. Every time we visit, Molly makes sure she spends some quality time with Edie and always has a fun little something for her, whether it be fancy new velvet leopard print slippers or art supplies. Molly’s kind of awesome like that.
Molly and a partner have organized a few events under the artist collective title “HoodSCAPE”. They combine art, music as well as celebration in the form of costumes, face painting and parades. They held their second event, UpChuck, Friday night, at The Yellow Sign Theatre on Charles Street in Baltimore. They even got some local press.
Before the bands got started, we got to take in some of Molly’s recent works.
Totally not great shots, but you can get the drift, yes?
I’m loving her balloon paintings.
She’s also done some cool elephant ones that I didn’t get a decent shot of.
Molly made this for the show. I think a smaller version would be pretty awesome in a kid’s room, don’t you?
There were also costumes to take in. There was a bit of a pirate theme going on, with lots of tutu skirts and corsets being worn.
Patrick was King Neptune.
Of course Edie got her face painted. The main lights were switched off to spotlight the band that was performing in the middle of Edie’s paint job, so I used the flashlight app on Pat’s iphone to help the artist finish Edie’s face. Of course I had to capture the moment.
Yep, that’s my kid getting her face painted in the back of a bar by the light of a cell phone.
Poor Parenting Skills on display. Or are we opening her little mind up to all the experiences there are in the world? We had her out of there early, so I am leaning towards the latter.
Pretty impressive face painting. Little Day of the Dead action going on.
When Edie first got near the door Friday night, she was slightly taken aback. I had tried to prep her for what she was about to go to and Molly’s brother Mark had lent a hand in this, but clearly, we didn’t quite do it justice. She was a little overwhelmed when we first arrived, but she was able to realize that “under the strange face painting were just normal people”. (Her quote.)
We did not stay the entire evening, just the first hour or so, since you know, we are old and someone’s parents who happened to have the kid in tow that evening. The only musical act we caught was Joseph Mulhollen, who we really enjoyed. In the spirit of the event, he was in costume and we found him reminiscent of Rufus Wainwright. I now wish we had picked up one of his CD’s, so we’ll have to correct that.
We spent the rest of the weekend visiting with family – Uncle Kevin’s sister Mary Ann and her husband were in town visiting as well. It really was too hot to do much of anything besides curl up in the AC and watch Wimbledon, although we did make it out for Uncle Kevin’s college buddies annual backyard fireworks display and we attempted to go to Molly’s boyfriend Patrick’s band’s show, which was cancelled at the last minute due to weather or something like that. Instead, we hung out at Patrick’s parents house, meeting them as well as the band and had a darn tooting good time.
I am quite proud of my cousin Molly. I’m a little bit in awe actually, at her awesomeness. She’s a great role model for my Edie, who looks up to her, for good reason.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 
