Is this Heaven?

Yes!

(It's Iowa!)

Last weekend, I was back in Eldridge, Iowa for my North Scott High School reunion.

I had a little time after dinner with my family, so I drove around my old "neighborhood".

This is the view from the house I grew up in.



I'm always amazed at how straight the rows are.



We don't have these in New York.



Or these...



Or these!



I stopped to see a friend who couldn't make it this time...





then drove into town.



(Just to compare, this is the view down 9th Avenue in New York.)



Then I walked into Al & Gerry's Tavern, and a guy I've known since the 3rd grade gave me a big hug and said "Welcome home!".

And, I was!

Try, Try Again

I definitely didn't succeed at first.

So, this weekend, I decided to... you know.

I started with the "Breezy Beach Wrap" again.


First of all, I don't LOVE this fabric. And, I'm starting to think that I might not like wrap skirts at all - they really only look good when you stand perfectly still. (And how practical is that?)

So, I decided to try a pencil skirt with a side zipper.



This has potential. I gave up after several hours of sewing seams, ripping out seams, sewing seams, ripping out seams...

But, I might "try, try again" again someday.

Summer Reading List

I was never assigned a summer reading list when I was in school, and I never really thought about what books I would read, or when. For a while, I read something epic over the whole summer - one year, it was Gone With the Wind, another year it was Anna Karenina...

But this year I decided to create a summer reading list, based on my summer plans.

BOSTON
I was in Boston over Memorial Day weekend (the unofficial start of summer), walking through the North End, past Paul Revere's house and the church where he hung his signal lanterns, and my friend asked "Which was it - one if by land or two if by sea?". And I realized...

I don't know.

So, I'm currently reading Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, by Esther Forbes. Originally published in 1942, it won the Pulitzer Prize, and is really good so far!

LAKE GEORGE, NY
The Lake George Area is located in the foothills of the Adirondacks, and is about 3 1/2 hours from New York City. The village of Lake George has many restaurants and shops, and you can walk to the beach, go kayaking, or have a cocktail overlooking the lake.

In 1756, Paul Revere volunteered to fight the French at Lake George. And, Cooper's Cave in Glens Falls (in the Lake George area) is also the setting of the James Fenimore Cooper novel, The Last of the Mohicans (which is also a movie, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, who is really cute).

IOWA
I'll be going home for my high school reunion this year (not telling which year). So, maybe I'll read A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley. It's set on a farm in Iowa, and is focused on the dissolution of a family through a retelling of the King Lear story. I guess I should probably read King Lear too...

CAPE COD
I have no idea if I'll actually make it to Cape Cod this year. I've wanted to go there for the last 3 summers. At least I can read The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt, based on his family's summer home, which was built in 1903 on Wings Neck, a undeveloped strip of Cape Cod overlooking Buzzard's Bay.

It's not just the story of a summer house, though... It's the story of the Colt family, who owned the house for it's first hundred years, and, despite being determined to keep their home, made the difficult decision to put it on the market after losing all their money.

And finally...

KANSAS CITY
My friend Winnie will be moving from Kansas City to San Francisco soon, so I'm planning a trip to see her before she leaves. I lived in Kansas City for many years, and still have a lot of friends there, but it won't be the same without her.

Next year, my summer reading list will have a book about San Francisco, but this year, it'll have to be An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser, which is based on an actual criminal case, and inspired the movie A Place in the Sun, starring Elizabeth Taylor.

It's also 850 pages, so I think that's enough for one summer!

So, there it is - my first official summer reading list:
- Paul Revere and the World He Lived In
- The Last of the Mohicans
- A Thousand Acres
- The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home
- An American Tragedy

Wish me luck!

Another weekend, another trip to Massachusetts

This time to Boston!

Boston is a beautiful city, with a lot of history, and we had a GREAT time.

FRIDAY

After a very long ride on the Mega Bus (which Mega sucked), I met my friend Andrea at the Liberty Hotel on Charles Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood.

The Liberty Hotel was once The Charles Street Jail, built in 1851 and officially closed in 1990.

It was GORGEOUS!

The front



The lobby



Former cells



View of the Charles River and Cambridge from our window



They even have bikes you can ride!



After our complimentary glass of champagne (nice!),



we headed out to wander around the city.

Our first stop was the Public Garden.



to see the Swan Boats.



Then, we stopped for a late lunch at Jacob Wirth, which first opened in 1868 (and can soon be seen in the upcoming Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz movie "Knight & Day").





After lunch, and a couple of Sam Adams Summer Wheats (me) and Maibachs (Andrea), we wandered through the city, until we found ourselves (completely by accident, really!) at the Bull & Finch bar on Beacon Street, which inspired the tv show Cheers.



At first we just walked by. But then... we started to slow down. Finally, I turned to Andrea and said (sheepishly) "I'm kind of curious." Luckily, she laughed and said that she was too. So, we agreed to just go in and check it out.

We ended up staying there the rest of the night.

As is often the case, you have the best time when and where you least expect it.

There were shots of Absolut, in honor of our new Swedish friends Peter and Frederick...



and more Sam Adams...



which naturally lead to dancing (despite the lack of dance floor),





and this...



SATURDAY

I woke up way too early, and unfortunately couldn't get back to sleep, so went for a walk along the Charles River,





then had brunch at Panificio on Charles Street.

By this time, Andrea, and our friend Kris (who'd driven up from New York late the night before) were up so we headed out to The Freedom Trail, a 2.5 mile red-brick walking trail that leads to 16 historic sites.



Our first stop was the Old State House.



The Old State House was the seat of British Government before the Revolution, and afterwards served as the Commonwealth’s first capitol building, with the office of the state’s first governor, John Hancock. The Declaration of Independence was read to the people of Boston from the building’s balcony in 1776.

Some of the most significant events leading up to the Revolution took place in and around this building, including Samuel Adams urging resistance to taxation without representation. And, the Boston Massacre, which occurred in 1770, resulting in the deaths of five men, and galvanizing public opposition to the British.

Next was Faneuil Hall, and the famous grasshopper weathervane.



Behind Faneuil Hall is the Faneuil Hall Marketplace, with a variety of shops, restaurants and tourists. Lots and lots of tourists.

From there, we followed the Trail (in the cute new shoes I bought at the Faneuil Hall Marketplace!)



to the North End of Boston, the city's oldest residential district, where people have lived continuously since the 1660s.

Today the North End is home to Boston's Little Italy, but this is also where Paul Revere lived, with his mother, wife and 16 (!) children on the night of April 18, 1775, when he was sent to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were marching to arrest them.

His home is still standing, and is downtown Boston's oldest building.



The Christ Church, where he famously hung his signal lanterns, is also located in this neighborhood.



After a long day of sightseeing, we decided to return to the hotel to get ready for a night out watching the Chicago Blackhawks. The weather, however, caused us to change our plans slightly...

A brief downpour had us running (literally)



to the nearest Irish pub.



But eventually, we made it to our destination, The Four's Restaurant and Sports Bar, rated the #1 Sports Bar in America by Sports Illustrated.



I don't know if that's true, but they did have great Clam Chowder, and the Blackhawks on every tv.



And, the Blackhawks won!

(Imagine The Fratelli's Chelsea Dagger playing right now)



SUNDAY

Fenway!

After lunch at Bouchee on Newbury Street (the Grilled Two Cheese Sandwich, with brie and gruyere, tomato, arugula and dijon on fresh wheat bread was delicious!), we went to the Boston Red Sox / Kansas City Royals game at Fenway.

I used to live in Kansas City, so of course I wore my Kansas City Royals t-shirt.



We sat in the bleachers...



Saw the Green Monster...



Did the wave...



Sadly, by the 7th inning, it became painfully obvious that the Royals were not going to win (the final score was 8-1), so we walked across the street to the Cask & Flagon, which had been recommended to us the night before, and is, according to ESPN, the best baseball bar in the nation (as opposed to the #1 Sports Bar in America according to Sports Illustrated).



Inside, we quickly became friends with four guys from New York, then the people at the table next to us (as soon as they ordered pizza).



After a brief trip to the Landsdowne Pub, we ended up at Game On! with the boys from New York for more of this...



MONDAY

Monday was Memorial Day, and our last day in Boston. Before we left, we walked to Boston Common, where 20,000 flags were placed at the Sailors and Soldiers Monument, to commemorate all the Massachusetts men and women who have died in battles since World War I.