New Hampshire Family Visit

After the New York City Marathon we drove north to Crown Point, New York to stay overnight in the backyard, in our camper, at a friend's old Victorian house.  She is fixing it up with plans to live in it so it is fun to come and help and to see the progress.  We didn't help this time.  We got in after dinner and left bright and early in the morning.  We took our time heading over to Center Harbor, New Hampshire in order to time our arrival with Dave's brother's return home from work.  

We had a nice visit with him and his wife, Karen, who was vectored back home from the airport in Baltimore where she was held up while things were being canceled in Florida due to yet another hurricane.  

We visited Tim's work site as we usually do when we visit him.  He retired a few weeks later so maybe we saw his last work site.  

We did some hiking about. 

This is Tim and Karen's house, redone a couple of times since it's origin as a barn in the late 1700's. It looks like it could be featured in Architectural Digest, in my humble opinion.  It is gorgeous.

We saw this tree when out hiking.  I love that someone built this little door for it. 

And that was that. 

Seawitch Festival, Rehoboth Beach

Like last year, we were a day late and a dollar short with the Seawitch Festival Parade in Rehoboth Beach.  We did better this year than last though.  Last year we were actually in Rehoboth Beach vectoring to a parking spot when we decided we really didn't have enough time to see the parade and still get to our bank to do loan paperwork for the truck we were buying.  This year we just slept in, due to emotional events such as Dave having a potential diagnosis of cancer, we didn't make it quite in time doe the entire parade.  In fact, we made it for the tail end.  But it was better than nothing. 

 I love me a good Seawitch Festival Parade. 

New York City Marathon

We volunteered at the New York City Marathon from 3am-1100am on November 6.  This time, instead of sleeping in our Subaru in the parking lot at South Staton Island Beach we slept in our camper.  Last year when we'd volunteered for that time frame we didn't realize that our camper would not be outfitted for the replacement truck (with four wheel drive) that we bought in order to more safely trailer our River Dancer C-Dory in and out of the water.  But this year we were all cushy and comfy in our camper.  We had sashimi for dinner at a nearby restaurant, turned in early and slept good until 2am when we got ready and caught a shuttle the short distance to the marathon start point at Fort Wadsworth Park at the base of the Verazzanno-Narrows Bridge. 

We really enjoyed our volunteer time.  Our job was to check in other volunteers.  Maybe next year we will see about volunteering at the finish line in Central Park.  That could be fun.  And a lot more chaos, probably.  Hmmmm...  Maybe.  Maybe not. 

Maybe.

Brandywine River Art Museum

We visited the Brandywine River Art Museum which has been on my list of things to do in our area since we moved to Delaware a couple years ago.  Art museums and nature are places I like to go when I'm depressed or even when I'm not depressed.  But I've been depressed for a month or so.  Dave may have prostate cancer so that is depressing to say the least about something that is the most distressing.  And with it came a conversation between him and me that brought up some really serious relationship things between him and me and that has not really resolved itself.  Also, there are other family issues that are weighing on me.  Tis the season, isn't it.  " Well I don't know what to say except it's Christmas and we are all misery."  
 

But the Brandywine River Art Museum certainly cheered me up for a while. 

The exhibit is called Fragile Earth: The Naturalist Impulse in Contemporary Art. It features four artists, Jennifer Angus, Mark Dion, Courtney Mattison and James Prosek.  Jennifer Angus had artwork that made me smile - lots of displays of insects.  One of the rooms was done up only with her art.  In my mind, it was laid out similar to an old museum of natural history that we'd visited somewhere in New England but I can't quite remember where...Vermont?  I talked to the security guard at the door and mentioned that he must hear and see lots of odd things.  The art was odd, odd in the way I like it but recognize that many people wouldn't.  He said some people open the door and turn right around and go back out.  I'd seen as much when I was in there.  But I loved it.  

Below, is a collection of found objects from the beach and it was the first thing I saw at the Brandywine River Art Museum once we were inside.  It made me smile because we have found so many of the same types of things and have collections of some of them.  

Mark Dion's collection, "Cabinet of Marine Debris"

After we left the museum we walked the grounds, also beautiful. 

Then we had dinner nearby.  A nice dinner with good wine and good food. 

Iowa to See My Mother

Yeah, the rural midwest celebrates and brags about shit beer (see below picture) in a diner in Illinois while on our way to Iowa from Boone, North Carolina to see my mom.  Ugh.  They had wine though and it wasn't all that ugly on the tongue as most dive bar/diners in the midwest offer if they offer wine at all. 

Harry Potter has turned vintage telephone booths into a fun thing. This one was in a restaurant in Burlington, Iowa, right off the butt-ugly M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. 

Fun mural.

Me and my mom and the doll she has as doll therapy for her dementia.

I miss my mom as she used to be, the phone calls the letters.  I called her nearly everyday the last few years until she was "committed" to a nursing home due to continued falls and a family member finding her on the floor in her house and other indications she could no longer care for herself in a way symbolizing healthy behavior. I use the word symbolizing because many Americans, even with means, don't live in a way that is healthy, what with the Capitalist-fed diets we eat of processed foods and consumption of tons of byproducts (buyproducts) of carcinogenics used to make us comfy and elite. 

But even with my mother's dementia I am still getting to know her in ways I never would have otherwise.  Not that I'd have wished dementia on her or anyone.  But I am making lemonade here.  And I am grateful that my mother is not in pain on a daily basis, not lonely, not angry and she knows she is loved and is still loving and doing what she's done all her life - caring for others (the doll therapy).  We women are amazing, wouldn't you say?

Boone, North Carolina

This is the only picture I took in the Boone, North Carolina area where we went around the 20th of October 2022 to attend a memorial service for Dave's cousin, Jan, beloved to us and to many others.  Family and friends came in from all over to be together as her ashes were interred.  We had a loving good time celebrating Jan.  

Dave and I got there a couple days ahead of time and did some walking and exploring.  We camped at a campground just beyond the barn in the picture above.  It was a nice campground and we put in some miles walking.

In the town of Boone we happened into a thrift shop where I got lucky with an original painting by Anne Peterson Klahr which still had the price tag on the back for $250.  The name of the painting, also on the price tag sticker is Assimilate.  I love it.  My gain. Was it at the thrift store because someone gifted it to someone else who didn't want it?  Was it a leftover piece from an otherwise sold-out show?  Who knows what the story is on the painting.  I looked her up and found virtually nothing using the name Klahr.  And what was the painting doing in Boone when nearly everything about Anne Peterson takes place in Idaho, from what I can see on line.  She does murals and paintings. I love love love her work. 

Assimilate.  I am assuming it is an assimilation with nature, with trees, foliage, with water and sky. I love it. 

Community Parade - Milford, Delaware

The night before we headed out north to Wilmington, Delaware for a MRI for Dave, we attended a community parade (Halloween time) in Milford, Delaware.  It used to be called the Halloween Parade but political correctness haters indicated with slight sneers that the name had to be changed.  The parade began 70 years ago during World War II. 

We'd heard from the docent at the John Dickinson Plantation just outside of Dover Air Force Base, that the Citizens Hose Company Band would be marching in this parade.  We wanted to see and hear them.  And we did.  It was a really nice parade.  We loved seeing how many different people from surrounding communities and business came out with floats.  I waved and smiled a lot.  It made me happy to see the level of participation.  If they can spend the time getting floats together and ride the route waving, I can stand there and wave back and enjoy the moment. 

The theme this year was "splish splash".  

My pictures suck.  Sorry.  But the parade was fun.  The Medings Seafood restaurant, Milford, had two of their vintage vehicles in the parade and I think one was a boat, which would make sense, right?  A guy on one of their vehicles was waving to the crowd and pointed right at me and gave the peace sign and a thumbs up.  I responded in kind.  Also with a big smile.  

It was a bit cold and breezy to be standing there for the parade but I wanted to see the Milford High School Marching Band which I figured was going to be bringing up the rear.  It did.  It was fun.

When the Citizens Hose Company Marching Band (volunteer fire department band from Smyrna, Delaware) came by Dave joked that we could be in it.  His meaning was that they were not very good and even with us not playing instruments for years, we could still fake it enough to contribute.  I love the idea of that marching band and don't want it to have to fold so I'm sorry to criticize.  The musicians have full time jobs.  I suppose.  They donate their time and passion.  I suppose.  They date back to 1947.  True dat. And they've played for Presidents Eisenhower and Clinton.  The fire company itself has marched in parades since 1886. Paul Yoder, a world-renowned composer and arranger, wrote "I Love Old Smyrna" which is the band's theme song now.  

Yoder was born in 1908 in Tacoma, Washington and died in Hendersonville, North Carolina in 1990.  He spent time in Japan after WWII.  He wrote or arranged many pieces still used today and it is said that a band student in the years between 1930 snd 1970 in the US would probably had played a Yoder piece.