Just got back from the first real “road trip” I’ve taken in a while – and believe me, we were on the road a lot! I’m definitely a city boy. And it has been some time since I've been that far up North. I was in Pine Plains, New York, for a close friend’s wedding, which was one of the most beautiful I have ever attended, and Randolph, Vermont, for my grandmother’s memorial service. Along the way, I was able to reunite with some old pals, family and also meet some nice new friends, as well as encounter a few missteps.
I had booked my room some months at the Beekman Arms/Delamater Inn, in downtown Rhinebeck (which seemed like a million miles from the wedding site, but whatever – it was the number-one recommended accommodation for the guests). When I arrived to check in, during a rainstorm no less and having driven all day from DC, I was told by the front desk that some one had “cancelled” my reservation. I really didn’t see how that could be possible, and I was able to get a room for one night, but let me go on record and say the Beekman Arms/Delamater Inn has got have one of the screwiest managements ever. Book with caution, I’m serious. Other guests had problems too. I was not impressed at all.
In Rhinebeck, I was supposed to meet with various wedding guests at a nice joint called the Terrapin but most people were still on the road and did not get in until way early in the morning and the rehearsal dinner was a million miles away in Pine Plains and lasted late. So, all alone - and its remarkable how much my confidence boosts when I'm away from stoopid status-driven DC - I made do and befriended some locals, in particular this amazing young married couple, wife is a sculptor/metalworker and husband is studying at the culinary academy, and was up until the wee hours chatting with them at their awesome, huge Victorian house up the street. As they say... when in Rome… err, Rhinebeck.
On the morning of wedding, visited the FDR house/library in Hyde Park, which I had not been to since I was a kid, and where my father had worked as a dashing young ranger; went to a brunch another million miles away in another town; back to Rhinebeck to fetch my stuff from the dreaded Beekman Arms/Delamater Inn; up to Pine Plains to see the most beautiful and moving wedding ceremony ever; proceeded to over-indulge (a week-long of vistually starving myself to look slim for the event did not work in my favor) at the amazing reception; and solved my lack of accommodations by crashing on a couch there, to wake up, not quite fresh, for the morning after brunch. Then off to Randolph, Vermont!
I won’t go into the memorial service because its way too personal but I will say it was moving and allowed me a certain amount of closure. The family reunion was wonderful – so many relatives I had not seen in years assembled to pay tribute to my grandmother, who grew up in Randolph Center, Vermont, in the house where my great-uncle still lives. The familial assembly was not without its pratfalls on my behalf, but lets just say we have always been a quirky, idiosyncratic family and these get-togethers – especially funerals – are never quite easy. I’m just a mess these days, no?
I do want to give a shout out to the excellent Shady Maples Bed & Breakfast in charming downtown (?) Randolph. Wonderful hospitality especially after the Beekman Arms/Delamater Inn disaster; lovely, warm family-run place and they make an excellent breakfast!
So I’ve been back in DC a few days, surveying the damage and pushing forward with my next move. Jeez, its muggy today – I guess I missed Spring – and I’m spending the day looking for fresh employment. It is daunting to re-invent oneself professionally after four years, no matter how generally demoralizing the experience might have been.
As an escapist respite, and in the interim – like I always say, what is a post without some Feist love? Here is today's nugget from the New York Times; Feist discusses what she has been grooving to as of late. Of note, she mentions she listens to a lot of the Smithsonian Folkways field recordings and in fact, when I met her a few weeks back, she was convinced there was a museum in DC dedicated to the library and was determined to visit it between her Tower appearance and Black Cat performance. I sadly had to break the news to her that was no such fabled place in DC. Feist also mentions M.I.A., whose incendiary debut I have been grooving to in my wasted attempts to have a good time lately; Apostle of Hustle – fails to mentions she appears on their awesome Folkloric Feel; and my fave Lhasa, whom long time readers might know I exhibited a similar crush on some time ago.
Text version of NYT Feist piece after the jump:
Ay, back from the dead... or, rather back from the beach - went to the Beach House twice this month! There are some advantages of being recently unemployed and there's no better place to figure out one's next move than my home at Southern Shores.
Also, my buggy old laptop done finally crashed three weeks ago and any borrowed computer time has been well spent staking out my future.
June flew by - thank god - and I was blessed by the company of a dear friend from Manila staying in Casa Skunkeye for a week while she was attending an international PR conference up the street from me at the Hilton. I'm feeling very empty nest indeed right now. And, out of work, like a complete bum!
Some updates to follow, but in the interim, DC residents who missed the AMAZING Best of Youth, or La Meglio Gioventu, at AFI in June are well advised to catch the six+ hour epic affair at Landmark E Street starting Friday, July 15 and running through July 28 - two weeks only - and it is being screened in two parts (and for some odd reason there are more dates for part one). Don't miss any of it - the best cinematic experience I've enjoyed in a long time! Riveting.
Scusa for lack of links but I can't do niente on my housemate's Mac - Typead isn't simpatico with it.
