Weekend Update
Aug. 9th, 2010 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lawnrrdThis weekend we spent in Kent, Connecticut, which is near the western edge of the state, about halfway between the northern and southern borders. Friends of ours—parents of one of the boy's classmates—have a weekend place up there, and they invited us to join them for the weekend. We'd been there before, and it's beautiful up there.
It's also not air conditioned, however, and those of you who know me well know that I am not at my best in the heat. (I like to think that I'm becoming more tolerant of it lately.) I got lucky, though: Saturday was beautiful, with Saturday night being perfect for comfortable sleeping, and Sunday was kind of nice.
They have two kids. One is about the boy's age; the other is just over a year younger. The three of them made a interesting crew, as you will not find three more different kids anywhere. The boy is, well, the boy: lots of talking, lots of questions, and everything is a game with scoring, a winner, at least one loser, and lots of rules that the boy continually varies to make sure that he is the winner. His classmate is skinny, nearly insubstantial, and not very verbal, but sweet. Her little sister is very, very girly.
They also have a dog who has decided that, age be damned, he's not quite through being a puppy.
We arrived just about lunchtime on Saturday and had lunch. The grownups talked, and the kids ran around as kids do. At one point we went looking for frogs and briefly detained two spring peepers. We drove out to the farm stand for fresh tomatoes and other vegetables, and the moms took the kids in the afternoon to watch cows get milked. Then the moms tagged out, and the dads took the kids for a late-afternoon swim at a nearby lake.
For dinner Saturday night, we had a stereotypical but delicious summer meal of grilled steaks, corn, and a salad. After dinner, we built a small campfire in their small firepit and made s'mores and fed the mosquitoes. After putting the kids to bed, the adults went back to the fire and talked and drank wine. The sky was clear, so we watched the Perseids, and I used Pocket Universe on my phone to identify constellations.
The main activities for Sunday were preparing to go the Litchfield Jazz Festival, which entailed a picnic lunch, and then going to the Litchfield Jazz Festival. We bought lawn seats, which meant that we got to sit outside on the lawn and watch the musicians, who were playing inside, on a giant-screen TV. There were just enough clouds to keep the sun tolerable—most of the time, anyway—. The picnic was delicious.
The kids had a great time. The boy spent quite some time interrogating a young couple who had been hiking the Appalachian Trail and had gone about 1,400 miles so far. They did not report any sightings of Mark Sanford, although no one pressed the question.
As for me, I had an OK time. I was slightly bored a lot of the time, although in hindsight I could probably have fixed that with some time by myself to recharge, possibly including both a nap and some exercise. The Jazz Festival was not bad, though not really my thing, either. Werewolves were mentioned repeatedly, which amused me to no end for reasons I'm not going to tell you.
The festival did provide a moment of pure magic, though. We had wandered into a master class taught by Béla Fleck, and someone asked him about the classical music he had arranged for, and played on, nontraditional instruments. For about 90 seconds, I sat transfixed as he played Bach on the banjo.
Then we drove home and got stuck in traffic.
It's also not air conditioned, however, and those of you who know me well know that I am not at my best in the heat. (I like to think that I'm becoming more tolerant of it lately.) I got lucky, though: Saturday was beautiful, with Saturday night being perfect for comfortable sleeping, and Sunday was kind of nice.
They have two kids. One is about the boy's age; the other is just over a year younger. The three of them made a interesting crew, as you will not find three more different kids anywhere. The boy is, well, the boy: lots of talking, lots of questions, and everything is a game with scoring, a winner, at least one loser, and lots of rules that the boy continually varies to make sure that he is the winner. His classmate is skinny, nearly insubstantial, and not very verbal, but sweet. Her little sister is very, very girly.
They also have a dog who has decided that, age be damned, he's not quite through being a puppy.
We arrived just about lunchtime on Saturday and had lunch. The grownups talked, and the kids ran around as kids do. At one point we went looking for frogs and briefly detained two spring peepers. We drove out to the farm stand for fresh tomatoes and other vegetables, and the moms took the kids in the afternoon to watch cows get milked. Then the moms tagged out, and the dads took the kids for a late-afternoon swim at a nearby lake.
For dinner Saturday night, we had a stereotypical but delicious summer meal of grilled steaks, corn, and a salad. After dinner, we built a small campfire in their small firepit and made s'mores and fed the mosquitoes. After putting the kids to bed, the adults went back to the fire and talked and drank wine. The sky was clear, so we watched the Perseids, and I used Pocket Universe on my phone to identify constellations.
The main activities for Sunday were preparing to go the Litchfield Jazz Festival, which entailed a picnic lunch, and then going to the Litchfield Jazz Festival. We bought lawn seats, which meant that we got to sit outside on the lawn and watch the musicians, who were playing inside, on a giant-screen TV. There were just enough clouds to keep the sun tolerable—most of the time, anyway—. The picnic was delicious.
The kids had a great time. The boy spent quite some time interrogating a young couple who had been hiking the Appalachian Trail and had gone about 1,400 miles so far. They did not report any sightings of Mark Sanford, although no one pressed the question.
As for me, I had an OK time. I was slightly bored a lot of the time, although in hindsight I could probably have fixed that with some time by myself to recharge, possibly including both a nap and some exercise. The Jazz Festival was not bad, though not really my thing, either. Werewolves were mentioned repeatedly, which amused me to no end for reasons I'm not going to tell you.
The festival did provide a moment of pure magic, though. We had wandered into a master class taught by Béla Fleck, and someone asked him about the classical music he had arranged for, and played on, nontraditional instruments. For about 90 seconds, I sat transfixed as he played Bach on the banjo.
Then we drove home and got stuck in traffic.
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Someday I'll be old enough to stay out watching the stars
Date: 2010-08-09 02:20 pm (UTC)Have you heard his arrangement of Danse Macabre that he did for Neil Gaiman?
Re: Someday I'll be old enough to stay out watching the stars
Date: 2010-08-09 02:25 pm (UTC)I have not heard that arrangement, or even heard of it, but I imagine it would be interesting at worst.
Ever get the impression I plan my vacations far in advance? ;)
Date: 2010-08-09 02:38 pm (UTC)I just don't see the attraction of 3 months of hiking. I'm very glad that Bill Bryson had such nice things to say about our bits of the trail though and I'd like to someday go back to Shenandoah NP. Maybe someday if I have too much time on my hands I'll do the Hundred Mile Woods in Maine though. Well, if I get better at hiking too.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-10 04:13 am (UTC)