North

We headed north for a quick jaunt to Vermont this weekend, G and I.  Our fab friends (from back in law school, oh, 19 years ago) are in New England visiting their daughter who's at Dartmouth's debate camp this summer. We jumped at the chance to hang out with them when they invited us to crash their vacation for a blissful day or two.

You've got to love a town with an announcement blackboard, right?^

Such great people. (Hope you don't mind my posting the photo, guys...hey look, I'm in the window. Never let it be said I don't post pictures of myself.) 

Amazing what a 24-hour roadtrip can do for your outlook. Vermont, you did yourself proud.

G generously offered to drive while I put back the seat for a bit and snoozed on the way home in the warm afternoon sun. Our time up north was filled with marvelous views but I think this one was one of my favorites.

True north, that G.

Ancestors 1, Progeny 0

There was precisely one week this summer that would work to go to visit G's parents before they return from their mission this fall so we packed our bags and headed to Nauvoo last week.

Lauren, now gainfully employed as a full-time camp counselor, stayed home with Louie.  (This is why I didn't mention the trip before now, because you know how you never know with the internet?) We missed her. I think she missed us a little but mostly really loved the taste of independence and solo living, judging from all the cereal bowls scattered throughout the house.

I'm pretty sure we'll never ever have the chance to see G's parents in a show again. Every missionary there participates, no exceptions. This is about 639 miles outside of his dad's comfort zone. I don't think raised-on-an-Idaho-ranch civil engineers have "perform in a musical" on their bucket lists. They've been hiding their lights under a bushel, though! They've got comic timing and great projection. Nevertheless, I think Grandpa is counting down the days to his theatrical retirement.

This is where G's parents live. Don't you love the lettering along the roofline? We tried to guess the translation but failed miserably. A party city is very good? 

Maddy in the room where the Relief Society was organized, the upper room of the Red Brick Store.

I feel like I need to confess something. The last day there it was SWELTERING. I've always kind of rolled my eyes a bit about midwest heat and humidity. I mean, I live in Boston; we know humidity (I thought). Let me apologize to all of you midwesterners: Illinois/Missouri heat and humidity is a completely different beast. The final day the heat index was 106 degrees.  We had saved this special family time right before we left to walk down Parley Street where, in 1846, the wagons were all lined up for departure across the Mississippi and into the west. We planned to read the personal accounts on each marker and ponder about our ancestors doing really hard things. Everyone says this is very moving and spiritual. 

But it was so hhhhhhhot. So instead we made Sam get out of the air-conditioned car and yell/read the quotes at us through the window of the car. Believe me, the irony was not lost on us. Sorry, ancestors. We're wimps. We can do hard things but not at 106 degrees. 

Speaking of ancestors, this is the land owned and occupied by my great great grandparents, Richard Bentley and Elizabeth Price, back in the 1840s. (G's mom helped me look up my family's names in the land records and--lo and behold!--he had a nice little parcel of land.)  I wonder what they felt about leaving this beautiful field behind. I wonder if they were in the line at Parley Street. For me, this was the more sacred and personal space, standing where they stood. If things went differently, would this have been my hometown? 

After Nauvoo, we headed north to see some of our favorite friends ever (we are still recovering from their move away years ago) for the 4th of July weekend. Fabulous food, happy & content kids, comfy beds, swimming, movies, and talks late into the night--it was the perfect weekend, so perfect that I only managed to get out my camera once, at the fireworks.

Under Christie's photography tutelage, I took my 387 photos of fireworks:

It was a great trip.

{The only possible downside to the trip (besides the heat or our wimpiness) was that my wallet got lost/stolen on the trip there. Boo for cancelling credit cards and losing my favorite red clutch, yay for having my drivers license in my pocket so I still had id for the plane ride back.}

. . .

Trip miscellany

Read: The Forgotten Garden (Kate Morton), The Summer of the Bear (Bella Pollen) -- recommend both

Heard: Radio Lab podcasts, Vocal Point cd (they performed in Nauvoo), The Civil Wars (my new band obsession)

Ate: Way too much.

Quote: Sam~ (on seeing a photo of himself) "This camera just doesn't understand me" (I completely know how that feels)

Especially memorable: Carthage Jail, Vocal Point, walking through old Nauvoo early every morning with Maddy, adjusting to being a (temporary) family of four, lots of laughs

Great speeches and other outbursts

If you're strapped for time, here's the summary:

It was a great time in the old town Monday night.

And I'm getting too old to try down-and-back-in-one-day trips to NYC, by the way. 

. . .

All in all, it was a fun night, very hipstery & New Yorky. I met Nancy at Hampton Chutney on the Upper West side and then we walked up to Symphony Space for the show.  Good to have some sister time: lots of laughing and good talks.

I won't try to review the whole night (you can get a feel for it in this blog post I came across).  It was a great selection of speeches, from lots of different political and historical perspectives, hilarious at times and moving at others. I geekily got out my trusty Moleskine to jot down the names of speeches, since I knew I wouldn't be able to recreate the whole list from my rusty memory. Here goes, with links where I could find them in case you're curious:

1. John Winthrop's City Upon a Hill speech (delivered by John Oliver)
2. Chief Seattle's "We Will Haunt You" speech (Sarah Vowell)
3. Mario Cuomo's Democratic Convention speech response to City on a Hill (Bobby Cannavale)
4. Washington's letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport (Sarah Vowell)
5. Interview between Woody Allen (Bobby Cannavale, who does a perfect impersonation) and Reverend Billy Graham (Eric Bogosian)
6. Abraham Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural (Ira Glass)
7. Theodore Roosevelt's The Strenuous Life (John Hodgman, complete with push-up breaks and "bully!")
8. Queen Elizabeth to her troops before defeating the Spanish Armada (John Oliver)
9. Buffy the Vampire Slayer's battle pep talki (Ira Glass)
10. George Patton's address to the 3rd Army, 1942 (Sarah Vowell; George used some salty language)
11. Dick Gregory's speech after release from Birmingham jail (Wyatt Cenac)
12. Don Rickles and various other oddities and outbursts (Amy Sedaris)
13. John Cleese's funny eulogy for fellow Monty Python-er Graham Chapman (John Oliver) following the Undertaker sketch by Cleese (John Oliver) and Chapman (Wyatt Cenac)
14. Eric Bogosian's own spiel on normalcy in the Reagan era
15. John Hodgman's own speech at 2009 White House tv/radio correspondents dinner with Wyatt Cenac playing Obama

 . . .

Afterwards, I walked the 30ish blocks back to my car (I do love city walking but I had parked at Lincoln Center mistakenly thinking that the theater was in that neighborhood) and started back for Boston around 11:30. Big mistake. There was a ton of construction on the way home, lots of stop-and-waits and traffic narrowed to one lane.

It reminded me of the night I went to Philadelphia for dinner with Nancy and Chris and back home again. But this time (older?wiser?) I gave in.  At 1:45, when I realized it was going to be after 4 a.m. before I made it home, I found a little cheap Comfort Inn in Connecticut, texted G not to worry, and declared defeat against my drowsy eyes.  Note to self: do not kid yourself. You cannot pull all-nighters anymore. 

Still, it was worth it.

Glass ceilings and mockingbirds

What a fun & full weekend! On Saturday we met my parents at the MFA & saw the Chihuly Glass exhibit (amazing! look at that ceiling in the big photo below!)

But the real reason we went was to see Hey, Boo!, a feature-length documentary about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird. Definitely see it if you get the chance. It was surprisingly emotional for me and, judging from the sniffling and wiping away of tears around me, I wasn't the only one. (Obsession alert! I've also written about Harper Lee here and here)

A few take-aways:

1. I always thought that To Kill a Mockingbird sprung sort of fully formed from the mind of Nelle Harper Lee. But it actually took a LOT of work and two years of grueling rewrites even after she finished the initial story. 

2. Two friends (a married couple by the name of Brown) believed so heartily in her talent as a writer that they gave her a Christmas gift of enough $ to support her for a year so she could quit her job as an airline reservations clerk and dedicate herself to writing. She said it was not so much the $ but their complete faith in her that carried her through the creation of the book. What fantastic friends, definitely fifth business material.

3. She started law school but quit to be awriter. Sometimes quitting is good.

4. Atticus is based loosely on her own father, A.C. Lee, who was a member of the state legislature, an attorney, and an editor for Monroeville's newspaper. (I just found a great LA Times article about Lee's last interview and some of her influences here.)

4. While the character of Scout definitely embodies Lee's characteristics as a young girl, over the years she has come to feel more akin to Boo Radley as the media and well-meaning, curious fans have sought to bring her out of her private isolation. "Know what'd happen then? All the ladies in Maycomb includin' my wife'd be knocking on his door bringing angel food cakes. To my way of thinkin', Mr. Finch, taking the one man who's done you and this town a great service an' draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight – to me, that's a sin. It's a sin and I'm not about to have it on my head. If it was any other man, it'd be different. But not this man, Mr. Finch...Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough."  Although meeting her is one of my dreams, I suppose reading her book is enough for me, too.

. . .

Click here for a clip of the documentary, a portion of the section on Scout.

In retrospect

A few afterwards afterwords...

1. See? I was there, too. I love this photo with Maddy, complete with drunken sleeping guy behind us.

2. Maddy sporting a fascinator. Let's all wear hats more, okay?

3. Sam is at the point where he just tolerates my picture taking.

Me: Come on, let me take a picture (with chocolate smeared all over his face after a nutella crepe). You know how much your mama loves a good photo.

Sam: Annnnnd...you know your son loves his good dignity. Sorry mom.

I didn't take the picture. Dignity trumps photography. Most of the time.

4. Pilgrimage to the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens. This insures that my kids never grow up, right?

. . .

Favorite times: the Fat Bike Tour around London | just sitting in the parks watching people (I even saw John Oliver doing interviews for the Daily Show in St. James Park) | 39 Steps via the Half Price tkts booth | Les Miserables (according to G, the musical that launched a trip to London. It's a little bit true) | Churchill War Rooms | walking around with G on a night out | Portobello Road Market (crazy fun on Saturday mornings) | the London Eye | the Hyde Park ward | seeing Rosetta Stone and Elgin marbles in person at the British Museum

The weather: The weather deserves a starring role in the story of our trip. It was extraordinary. The sun, the lilacs and every other conceivable flowering thing, the green grass, the warmth. We were there during a charmed stretch of days, that's for sure. You can tell in my photos (last post) that I was obsessed with the blue-blue sky. It sprinkled once for about an hour. Truly a London rarity. Thanks, mother nature. We owe you one.

Memorable moments: when I fell down the stairs at Pizza Hut (for starters, it's embarrassing that we were even going to Pizza Hut in London but we needed something fast before a show, okay?), Sam falling down the stairs at the Serpentine, looking over at my kids' faces during Les Miserables (tears were shed). Actually, I had many stop-and-bottle-up-time moments when I just felt so lucky to be with my family, at these ages, mindful of the fleeting time. This was a trip well savored, I promise. At least once we got over grumpy jet lag.

Food: Zizzi | Byron's | pub fish+chips | picnic food from Harrod's | nutella + strawberry crepes from a street vendor | truffles from Harrod's | awesome fresh fruit and delicious bread and croissants

Trip Reading: Vogue & Vanity Fair, Anna Quindlen's Every Last One (me) | The Book Thief (Sam) | Michael Connelly's The Lincoln Lawyer & The Fifth Witness (G) | The Secret Lives of Dresses & Jane Eyre (Maddy) |  Roma & The Postmistress (Lauren)  

Notes for next time (ohpleasemayIhaveanexttime?) things we missed but wanted to see: Hampton Court | Stratford | Bath | Cambridge/Oxford | St. Paul's | National Gallery | Beatrix Potter's Hilltop Farm & the Lake District | Stonehenge | Colchester and ancestral villages | Harry Potter sites | the V&A.

. . .

photos via my iphone + the instagram app