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November 06, 2005
time sure does fly when you're not at work!
well, the vacation officially ended on friday, and i go back to work tomorrow. in an attempt to psyche myself out about returning to work tomorrow, i've decided to take today to share my east-side picts with you.
here we have the family homestead. it's the end of an old hat factory...well, it was a hat factory at the turn of the century, when the mill river was flowing behind it. then the oxbow developed, and it became a factory for OTHER things...as well as a bowling alley at one point (i think that's what i was told anyway). when our family moved into our end, the rest of the building was all-original parts(as it were) and most of the other spaces were used as live/work artist studios. not just painting and printing, but some amazing fibre artists as well. i really love this place EXCEPT because it previously lay next to a river bed, the foundation is infested with every creepy crawly bug know in new england, and prolly then some too. they, and the bats, like to make sporadic excursions into the interior of the house, which gets the ol'adrenaline pumping at usually the most inopportune of times. it's gonna take some getting used to having inspect bath towels before you use them again...
the first couple of days i was home, i participated in the festivities surrounding my father's 50th high school reunion. there was a lot of partying, and dinners, and partying, and brunch, and partying...at one point, after we'd gone to the house of some family friends, i thought it was about midnight...turned out it was about 7:30pm. i don't know how these people, all of whom are 50+, do it....and i sure as hell hope they don't expect me to maintain that pace. unfortunately, i don't have any pictures from all of the shenanigans to share with you. didn't take any...wicked bad blogger i am.
from northampton we drove down to misquamicut to partake in the seasonal closing ritual at the pleasant view inn. all though the ritual turned out to be kind of a bomb(can you believe it rained for almost the ENTIRE TIME I WAS BACK HOME? hence i have NO autumn foilage shots to share at all), we hung out with some friends who are more townie in origin, and we had our fun, as sporty will attest:
the only elaboration i'll provide is that, at one point in the evening, we found ourselves being serinaded with beatles tunes sung in cantonese.....dude you just never know when you're travelling with sporty.
one of the kitchens i had a job in during college when i spent summers down there with my family, was THE OCEAN HOUSE. it's really, really old, and was in it's heyday around the turn to the 20th century. rich families would spend whole summers there in watch hill, enjoying the beach, riding the carousel, or strolling the village center. 80 years later, when i worked there, it was basically the same deal, only the top two floors were closed, and the place wasn't filled the way old-timers claimed it used to be.
and LOOK!!! i saw my very first tree ent in real life!!!!
after an overnight we went back up to northampton. i ran an errand over to hadley, and on the return trip, i saw this:
i did a double take, cuz i thought it was too late in the season. i've tried to explain what tobacco barns look like to folks, and haven't done such a swell job. but here's one in full action!!!
can you see how the tobacco is hanging up inside to dry? there's a lot of tobacco grown in western mass...potatoes, asparagus, and tobacco...so there you go...
another thing i've mentioned to some folks is the large polish population in my home town. MR.SKIRVIN, will you look at that perogie selection!!!! and you know there were like a gazillion different kinds of keilbasa...
i spent a good amount of time at the supermarket when i was back east. i made like 4 different pots of soup while i was there. i'd gotten a new cookbook and was really into trying out the different recipes.
below, you'll find the mccolgan clan. we'd gone to have breakfast up at the look restaurant. in front you have my younger brother tully...yup-yup, just like the coffee place here. (he friggin LOVES that coffee BTW). not the most flattering of pictures, but what can you do? i always thought tully looked like mike seaver from growing pains...can't remember the actor's name at the moment. anyway, next there you have sporty himself, although it's really mostly the back of sporty's head. then, way back there, is sporty's brother, uncle ed...sometimes known as farmer ed. he bought a farm that had a sugar house, that my cousin and her husband now own. i like that uncle ed is politically liberal too.
after a few days in northampton, i went down to nyc to hang out with aunt caroline for a few days. although i understand a lot of what i experienced had to do with weather, the bus trip down there was the most hellish i've ever been on. let's just say that i could've flown to jfk airport from sf in less time than that bustrip that usually takes 3 1/2 hours.....
i was pleased that every morning i was there, i woke up to giada on the television; followed by rachel ray even!
the first day we went to check out the new costume exhibit at the met(you couldn't take picts), and checked out a couple of things along the way.
that's aunt caroline herself in the orange coat
we were both very taken with this JOAN OF ARC painting. there are parts that are so photo-realistic that it's creepy....
that night we went out to dinner in the neighborhood. aunt caroline had found this awesome vegetarian restaurant just a couple of blocks away. i'm tellin'ya, this place put GREENS to shame(although i cannot remember the name at the moment; lemme do some research and get back to you). not only did they offer more diverse vegetarian california cuisine, they did it in an amazing 40's style dinner club decor. the beauty of the moon that evening, right outside the building's door, really did reflect my overall experience.
the next day we to the morning show of GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK(amazing movie, PLEASE check it!), then re-vamped this side hallway back in the apartment that had gotten full of "stuff". after we were done with that, aunt caroline suggested that she would like to see the shopping center that had been put in the place of the old colluseum(few blocks behind the ritz). it was a beautiful, but typical shopping center. i suggested we check out williams & sonoma, cuz, well, i have yuppie cookware dreams...i admit it. while we were in there, checking out all the cookware, gadgets, and specialty items, i was blown away to see this guy!
that's mark bittman from the food network's old show HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING with mark bittman.
i really enjoyed his demonstration, but i kinda felt for him at the same time. there were all these older women (who totally don't look like they've ever been regular cooks) who kept asking him things like, do you HAVE to use that kind of pan?", or "do you HAVE to use butter?", or, the best, "do you HAVE to use shrimp?" i don't blame him for being a bit short with the response that mostly shrimp are required in shrimp dishes. i asked him if he had any culinary suprises while writing the cookbook, and he looked at me like i was a ph.d. candidate....
on my way outta town i was taking random shots. unfortunately i did not get the one of the guy at the corner of 68th & park who i believe was ari shirazi. man, now THERE'S someone i'd wanna have a beer with.
i went home, turned around and went to ted's new house in roslindale. dude, it's so totally the raddest fixer-upper ever. i entered through the back, on which there is a giant deck. it let me into the all season porch.
then you go into the dining room.
in between the dining room and the non-eat-in kitchen is;
the dreaded wall. i know part of the renovation of the house involves the elimination, if possible, of this wall.
and there's the man himself, in his natural habitat...the kitchen.
and we spent quite a bit of time in this very living room. as i said, the weather wasn't all that great. we did go to building 19, which was a throwback, and we did go to a couple of different grocery stores;
that's the sunset outside of onna them, and we did look for the THIS OLD HOUSE project currently(?) going on in cambridge, and we also carved some pumpkins, which will come in the next installment. i'll prolly finish this up tomorrow, since i haven't done too much outside of the apart in the past couple of days, other than go to the movies with damon and nathalie to see REVENGE OF THE WERE-RABBITT.
oh; and by-the-by, i'm gonna try doing entries in the pm for a bit....experimentation runs rich in my life right now....
Posted by Meagen at November 6, 2005 09:23 PM
Comments
Did you know that the big, always falling down tobacco barn on Cemetery Rd ("a dreaded sunny day..") is long gone? I think with all of the pics I have of that barn, I could do a time sequence of it standing, collapsed a little, then roof on the ground, then gone.
Thanks for making my house, and ass, look good on your site. I like your idea for a blog for me: "My Old House", "This Old House.....is COLD!", "My Old House and the Neighbor's House Bring Down the Neighborhood"
BTW, I still have the pumpkins. They have black and red(!) mold growing in their features. I'll try to send you pics before I chuk them out this week.
Posted by: tedzzo at November 7, 2005 02:16 PM
TED YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO A BLOG!!!!
as i just re-read this post, i realized there was all this stuff i totally forgot to mention. like the fact that the second floor of ted's house is almost all re-done, and i never even took a single picture of either bedroom, or the office....gee willikers!
oh, and ted, i think you should call it; THIS COLD HOUSE.
Posted by: meagen at November 7, 2005 08:10 PM