So a couple of weekends ago, I went up to ‘upstate New York’ for a long weekend visiting Patti and Peter. That’s in quotes, because they live in Rhinebeck, which is only two hours north of here and not really upstate New York, but to we city dwellers, it’s all ‘upstate New York’.
Had a bit of a logistics problem to solve. I needed to go up on Thursday night because we were having an early start on Friday, but Thursday afternoon was my company’s annual summer outing, and I really couldn’t didn’t want to miss it, because we’ve now reached the part of the rollout in the news cycle that anyone in the company who knows me now probably knows I’m retiring. Wednesday, actually, we had a volunteer thingie at work packing knapsacks with school supplies to donate to kids, and when that wrapped up, our stylish and delightful president, Sharon, cornered me and said ‘what’s this about… I saw this in LinkedIn and forwarded it to the executive committee, saying ‘did you know about this’?’ Like anyone in the EC has more than a vague interest in what I do. Anyway, she was very sweet to bring it up at all and we chatted about it a bit. So then at the ‘outing’, which was just at a midtown restaurant, but was a ton of fun – free drinks and food, games, a raffle and so on – people had the opportunity to, and did, come up to me to confirm and congratulate me. I wasn’t gonna miss that.
But because of the timing, I had to bring my suitcase to the restaurant, which was a pain in the ass, and then get it to either Penn Station (for Amtrak) or Grand Central (for Metro North, cheaper and preferred). And I spent days worrying about this because, while it would have been a walkable distance, I assumed it would be hot and humid and I’d get all sweaty and smelly. As it turned out on the day, the actual danger was that it would be pouring buckets of rain. As it turned out, it had just started to rain, and I did end up at Grand Central with only minor annoyance. (and then we pulled out and after we left, NYC got hit with HUGE rain and even threatened tornados. Glad I missed it.)
Train trip wasn’t too bad, but for some reason, only the last two cars had bathrooms and of course I’d parked myself in the front. Got to Poughkeepsie, Patti picked me up and we had a lovely leisurely dinner of brats, which Peter cooked. Two of the delights of this weekend was that (a) Peter was around, which he often isn’t, and we have very similar brains and tastes in literature, so the conversations are fantastic, and (b) Peter loves to cook and he’s very good at it. Peter was also very excited about his newly-acquired electric car, so there was much discussion about where to charge it and how far the charge would take us.
I’d taken Friday and Monday off. Friday, we were headed east to Candlewood Lake in Connecticut, where friends of theirs have a house. I’d been there two years before, it was lovely. The house itself is lovely and, (I think like last time), Mary the hostess greeted us with homemade limeade with mint. Some cheese and crackers and we all assembled (four couples – one of whom is actually separated now, but was mostly getting along, and me) and then descended the switchback staircase down the cliff to the… I don’t know what you’d call it, a patio? A dock, a grill, a big seating area with beachie chairs, a boathouse with electricity for a minifridge, a little ‘outhouse’ for #1’s only. And a lovely day of sitting around, eating, drinking (although it wasn’t the constant boozefest I remember from two years ago), and the braver souls going out on kayaks. Hot dogs were grilled. Some dancing happened. (The guy host, Matthew, is very extroverted and kept trying to ‘make stuff happen’. I could go quite a bit into my reaction to all that, but let’s just say that he was our host and I don’t want to be rude.) We went out on the little pleasure boat and puttered around the lake. Really nice afternoon, although I will say that there were a lot of enthusiastic conversations during the party about things that I was surprised anyone was even mildly interested in (say, the ratio of which kind of milk went into a certain type of cheese), let alone enthusiastic about. (I was like, ‘is this a straight person thing?’.) But as a perfect guest, I just smiled and nodded. I was very much a person enjoying others’ hospitality without bringing a lot to the party in any sense, although I did bring some store-bought brownies that looked a lot better than they tasted, oh well.
Finally, late afternoon, hauled our tired asses up the staircase again (with quite a few rests to ‘take in the view’, really to catch our breath). And drove back. We had dinner at a fun local restaurant with P&P’s son JJ and his fiancee, nice to get to see them.
Saturday was leisure, mostly. Patti and I went into town and poked around the shops. Best thing I bought was a guayabera shirt, handmade and very expensive, but quite handsome. I think it will be great as a party shirt.
Peter made us an early dinner, then we headed into the country to see the Columbia County Players perform A Comedy of Errors at the Churchtown Dairy barn. This annual Shakespeare production turns this round barn into a “Globe”-like theater. I’d never seen ACOE, I just vaguely knew the plot from The Boys from Syracuse. I worry about seeing Shakespeare I haven’t studied (will I understand it enough to enjoy it?), but had good luck with the actual London Globe’s Much Ado two summers ago, and did pretty well here. It was presented in 90 minutes with no intermission, and was a bunch of fun. There were musicians who gave us a pre-show, and a juggler and so on. The show moved along quickly and was quite funny, although the ‘humor’ in the poor Dromeos getting beaten all the time wasn’t something that modern day audiences find funny. The two sets of twins looked enough like each other that it worked fine. (The Dromeos were played by women.) It was super enjoyable and probably something I wouldn’t have booked by myself. (this is why I need to go out with friends. They expand horizons!)
Sunday was kind of a variation on Saturday – a lunchtime excursion (this time to Kingston) and an evening performance. This time it was at the Egg in Albany. (I have family in Albany and had seen the Egg, but never been in it.) I wore my new snazzy guayabera. We first had dinner across the river in Troy at Dinosaur Barbecue, excellent (blocks away from where Patti and Peter’s other progeny, Kal, lives, but they weren’t able to join us).
The concert was blues singer Ruthie Foster, with warm-up act Katie Martucci. I liked them both a lot! Martucci is a NYC-based singer-songwriter, whose music is more in the vein of the sort of thing I really love, very talented. Ruthie Foster is a grammy winner and P&P had seen her before. Both sang solo and accompanied themselves on guitar, but P&P said that Foster is great fun with a band. I don’t gravitate towards blues, but this was great and wasn’t pure blues anyway, if there is such a thing. This was an awesome evening, partially because this was another event to which I probably wouldn’t have taken myself, but very much enjoyed.
Long drive back to Rhinebeck, but not a problem.
Monday, all I had to do was wake up and pack. After a leisurely morning, Patti drove me to the train station, and I had an uneventful two-hour train ride back.
It was really a very enriching weekend, filled with great conversation and unusual experiences, exactly the sort of extended ‘artist date’ that fills your creativity well. And, of course, it’s just the latest pearl on a string of such visits I’ve been doing (with Charles, with Tessa and alone) for some thirty years. I’ve said it before, but Charles brought such lovely people into my life who I may have never met otherwise.
Coming up: a revolutionary act! (or acting revolutionary)
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