Hipster Imposter

So tonight we are going to this gallery opening. Or is it called an art opening at a gallery? See? It’s clear I’m totally baffled about how to approach this. I’m not even sure what to call it.

The thing is, my friend John from RI sent me an email saying his friend, Josie, was going to be out here showing some of her paintings in this group show, wittily entitled Group Sects. We know Josie from our annual pilgrimages home for Forta July, and she’s a groovy gal.

So, I take to looking at her website, and it turns out she’s an amazing painter. Who knew? I mean, I knew she was a good heckler at the Bristol parade, and I was satisfied with that being the extent of her offerings to society. 

What’s more, she paints birds, which aligns quite nicely with my chicken obsession. (The topic for a whole other blog entry.) She and I send a few emails back and forth with me  saying things like, ‘Hey I heard about your show.’ And her saying, ‘Yeah you guys should come and where can I get the best burrito in SF?’ She also mentioned that she’d never been to the gallery before, but she’s seen it a bunch in “her art magazines.” She didn’t know what it’d be like but she’d be getting her hair cut just in case.

This from the platinum blond pixie with sleeve tattoos. Somehow I think she’ll pass fashion muster, even with her old haircut.

As for me, I’m anticipating someone suddenly pointing to me in my high-cut Costco mom jeans and shouting across the crowded room, “What’s she doing here?” Then a spotlight will move over to me, revealing me shamefully shoveling large chunks of orange cheese into my mouth and guzzling wine from a plastic cup.

What’s worse, we’re bringing Paige with us since, like her big sister did, she refuses to take a bottle despite Mark’s most valiant and ceaseless attempts.

So not only will I be outed for my lack of hipster-tude, I’ll also likely be trying to quiet/hide a squalling baby by breastfeeding–while balancing my cup of wine (yes, drinking and nursing–in public no less) and trying to not topple my paper plate of cubed cheese and crackers.

All this aside, the worst of it is I’m desperate to buy one of Josie’s paintings. So through this all I’ll be doing my best to convince Mark that despite the fact that I’ve just quit my job, we really should spent several thousand dollars on an immense 4×4 foot painting of a rooster. (Seriously.)

Thankfully, the one thing I am kidding about is owning jeans from Costco. I think I need to rack up a few more years at home with the kids before the nexus between value and fashion  that they afford me starts to make sense.

In the Pink

On Friday Kate had another x-ray related to this little ankle twist she performed while coming down the slide (on the nanny’s lap, no less!). And even though they couldn’t detect the actual fracture even two weeks and three x-rays after the event, they did see new bone growth, which means something was broken that was mending itself.

Even though she was walking on the leg again at this point–after 10 days of us using her stroller in the house like a wheelchair–she was limping. And they wanted to make sure the bone healed perfectly, and that she didn’t keep up the limp.

Yes, the poor lamb. But here I was, one eye closed still and trying to act/look normal, and having a Momentary Parental Responsibility Quandary (TM).

The thing was, a cast meant no swimming on our much-anticipated summer visit to RI. And what’s worse, we couldn’t even bring her to the beach and taunt her by swimming ourselves and not letting her in the water (my hastily hatched Mental Plan B). Nope. No sand could get anywhere near the cast. Just a couple grains in there could really be itchy/scrapey/hurty.

I actually whined to the doctor at one point. “But we’re going to Rhode Island. To the beach!”

I know, I know. Pathetic! Selfish!

But in short order I pulled myself together and went to the waiting room to wait for the “cast tech” (another job they never tell you about in school) to call us.

I happen to know you can get a variety of cast color options these days, since my nephew Rory did his fair share of bone-breaking in his younger days. When they asked me what color I wanted for Kate, my mental answer was, “Pink. Duh!” (I left the duh out when I said it out loud.)

My little Sweet Tart was so innocent and easygoing getting her cast on. There was a “big boy” of about 14 years in the same room getting a black cast. His was a skateboarding accident and I decided that was a much cooler story for Kate to use than having had a mishap on the playground slide.

In my best Kathy Lee Gifford cheerful Mom voice I cooed over the cast for Kate. “It’s pink, honey!” I said encouragingly, as I bid adieu to my Ocean State beach time. But really, she didn’t seem phased by the cast at all. She wasn’t fussing or crying. Of course, her naivete about it all made it all sadder, and made my childish summer fun lamentation that much more reproachable.

In fact, the only time she has mentioned the cast at all was that first day when Mark was putting her down for a nap. She looked at him pointing to the cast (head tilted for cuteness no doubt) and asked, “Dada, Pink off? Pink off?” Clearly all my talk about it being pink had her thinking that was the word for cast.

If I have one maternal regret aside from having asked if 14 layers of plastic bag might just make the whole beach thing workable, it’s that we went for the pink cast. As I pushed Kate out of Children’s Hospital in her stroller that day I realized the horrific mistake I’d made. We were on our way home for Fourth of July–Fourth of July!–and I got a pink cast? Pink?! What was I thinking that I didn’t request for a customized red, white, and blue number? My God, that would most certainly assure us photographic coverage in The Bristol Phoenix!

Well, perhaps I can work some miracles swaddling it in patriotic bunting. All hope for this vacation is not yet lost.

A Belated Thank You

I’m way behind on my thank you notes, and unfortunately there is one that I no longer have an opportunity to send.

The father of my great childhood–and adulthood–friends the Connerys died two weeks ago today. Mr. C was as good an egg as there is. I don’t know what all to say to describe him because when you describe someone you liked who has since died it all sounds so cheesy and trite. But Mr. Connery was this good-natured Irish American guy who looked a lot like Jimmy Stewart, always seemed to be wearing madras plaid, and had those kinda twinkly friendly eyes. (I told you it’d sound cheesy.) That said, he also was one to tell it like it was.

Mr. Connery was never afraid to ask the “What’d you pay for that?” or “What’d you do that for?” kind of questions. And it was never obnoxious. It was just refreshingly candid. A couple years ago when his son Matt broke up with a girlfriend who Mr. C had vehemently approved of, he called her himself to let her know she was still welcome to come by the house on 4th of July. Nothing like the dad of a 40-something reaching out with a my-son-might-have-dumped-you-but-I-think-he-was-crazy-to phone call. Oy!

Somehow we–okay, I–overlooked inviting Mr. Connery to our wedding. It’s something I still kick myself over sometimes. Thankfully he never let it become the uncomfortable unspoken thing between us. When Mark and I dropped by to visit the Christmas after the wedding, he greeted us at the door saying, “You know I would have loved to have gone to that wedding!” I laughed and went to the kitchen to find John–leaving Mark to stammer his way through a response.

Anyway, when you’ve got history with someone, it gives you license be that up-front. Mr. Connery and my mom were friends back when they both looked hot in bathing suits and hung out in gangs of fresh-faced sunglass-wearin’ kids on the beaches of some New England town or other. It’s weird to think Mr. Connery knew my mom when she was probably smoking cigarettes out the bathroom window so her mom couldn’t smell the smoke. I ended up hanging out with the Connery kids through the same years of our lives. But in that self-absorbed way one has as a child, I never thought much about that ancient history our families had. I was more focused on my own friendships with Ellen, John and Matt. The thought that Mr. C and my mom might well have made out once (eeew!) never crossed my mind until just now. (And now I must deeply repress it.)

“The Connery Kids” as they’re dubbed in Bristol parlance, are all 100% originals. They were especially cool friends to have during teendom when adopting a more follow-the-flock life approach seemed the path to least resistance. But the Connerys were somehow hard-wired to not roll that way. They had the confidence to do their own things, so being with them let me do that too. With the Connerys, I let my freak flag fly (such as it was). I’m not saying I pierced my nose or anything–just that I never felt I had to act, dress, and speak in some prescribed way. Wackiness was welcomed. So my friendship with them was somewhat liberating, I guess. Plus, they were super fun, creative, and as the locals’d say, “wicked smaht.”

Example: One summer when Ellen had her tonsils removed she sent them into David Letterman. We watched the Viewer Mail segment religiously thereafter, desperately hoping she’d get some airtime. (She didn’t.)

So this is all my long way of saying that, especially as a parent myself now, I realize that cool kids are made from cool parents. Or maybe I should word it as: Cool kids probably just don’t happen on their own. More likely they come from the diligent good intentions of their parents. So, big props are due to Mr. and Mrs. C.

One thing they did right for sure was Forta July. Even after Mrs. Connery died about 10 years ago, Mr. C still hosted the Forta July celebration at their prime parade-route Victorian on High Street. Those first years with Mrs. C gone felt palpably different to those of us who expected her to round the corner at any moment with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth and a tray of brownies. But even without Mrs. C’s physical presence, the spirit of the Connery’s celebration was so strong it was irrepressible. And thank God. Going to the Connery’s is what makes July 4th like Christmas for the rest of us. When you’ve put something like that out there for so many people for so many years, you just can’t let your fans down.

And their fan base is sizable. Literally hundreds of friends and families of every age and description make 123 High Street their Mecca. It’s not uncommon to see a 70-something woman sitting on the back deck next to a young guy with a pompadour and sleeve tattoos, both of them cooing over how good the chourico and peppers is this year. Mr. C walks around in his Keds and Bermuda shorts taking in the parade with his own brand of low-key bemused enthusiasm. One heat-wave year he really got hopped up and dragged the hose around from the backyard. He had a hell of a time spraying down sweating polyester-clad band members as they marched by.

The parade ends each year with the Bristol Police cars bringing up the rear, and like a six-year-old I feel instantly and suddenly deflated that it’s over. We lope home from the Connery’s to my dad’s house and all the onlookers that lined the streets are suddenly sucked into backyards for barbeques. One minute a marching band stops to play a command performance for you (a priviledge we’ve grown to expect in the past few years Chez Connery), then suddenly it’s all over.

Getting back to California after our July 4th pilgrimage to Bristol always is a big transition for me. I miss Rhode Island summer and the beach. I question why I live so far away from family and friends in a place where we can’t even afford a house. And I feel a deep sense of honeymoon’s-over loss that I’ll have to wait another whole year until I feel like a kid again on the Connery’s front porch.

Last summer when I was struggling to get back into my big-girl real-life routine I realized I should send a thank you note to Mr. Connery for hosting my favorite day of the year. In fact, I should have been sending him thank yous for nearly twenty years of Forta Julys. Of course, some little thing must have come up to distract me from the thought, and I never got around to it. And now, all those un-written thank you notes later, I won’t ever have a chance to do it.

So, in my too-little, too-late way, I send a thank you out to you now, Mr. Connery, wherever you may be. Thanks for making Matt, John, and Ellen the greatest friends a gal could have–from my foolish youth to my childish adulthood. And thank you thank you for years upon years of small-town family friendship, and for graciously and grandly hosting my favorite party on my favorite day of the year. I don’t know whether there will be a 4th of July throw-down at your house again this summer, but if there is, I can assure you there will be hundreds of people there making it one hell of a tribute to you, and I’ll be there on the front porch as always, waving my flag like a crazy lady.

Sending Love to Mrs. D, Wherever She Is

Amelia’s mother died today. I don’t think I’ve even begun to fathom that she is gone.

She was as good as a second mother to me. Someone who I leaned on when my mother was sick and then departed. I don’t know what it will be like to go to Bristol and not be able to visit her. Sit at her table in her bright kitchen with the fish wallpaper and the multi-colored chairs that Amelia painted in high school. Sit at the table and have a cup of tea or cocoa and maybe some Greek dessert Mr. D brought home from one of his restaurant-owner friends. And talk in that totally comfortable homey way that has no pretension or need for a can-I-come-over-now? call or even the need to be showered, social, or in a good mood.

The thing is that it’s not even the more recent visits to Mrs. D’s kitchen, centered around taking Kate to show her off, that are most fresh in my memory. I remember sitting there on freezing RI nights in high school like it was yesterday. I swear there were times when it was colder in their house than it was outside, and that’s with the wind coming off the water. (Mr. D was renowned for being cheap about turning up the heat.) I’ve also been there for countless Forth of July’s from childhood to adulthood. I can hear in my mind Mrs. D with her unique almost haughty-sounding accent. She’s holding me in front of her with her hands on my shoulders pointed at some Greek or Italian relative, and asking, “Do you know Kristen? Fred and Vicki Bruno’s youngest? Well really at this point she’s practically my daughter too.”

Once in high school when Amelia’s lose-a-few pounds diet had clearly gone beyond the point of healthiness, I confronted Mrs. Demopulos in that same kitchen. Somehow I’d managed to find a time when no one else was around and I screwed up my courage to get to the bottom of things. Why had she let Amelia get so thin, so sick? Why wasn’t she doing anything about it? How could she let this happen?

In my New England upbringing I’d never dream of calling an adult by their first name, never mind being so brazen and disrespectful as to confront them this way. But I was also driven by the passion of a teenager who knows they are doing the right thing. And by my love for Amelia, whose health and life I was suddenly scared shitless about.

God knows what I had said that day or how I said it, but Mrs. D in her proud manner and New England private way stiffened her back and brushed me off. It was the first (and only time) I felt a divide between us, and that fact alone made me even more scared about how catastrophic whatever was happening had the potential to be. In a clipped manner and with few words, she assured me they were dealing with it. She gave me no insight into what “it” even was, or what they were doing, or how I could help, and most of all she gave me no assurance that it would be okay. And eventually it was. But I never talked to Mrs. D about it again, and really never talked to Amelia about it either.

I always love going home to Rhode Island as anyone who knows me knows. It’s beautiful there. I’ve got family and friends who have known me since I toddled out of the bathroom at Sam’s Pizza with my pants and underwear around my legs asking for help. The food is good and familiar and practically all the places that I’ve liked eating at since I was a kid are still in business. And everywhere you go people, some who you don’t even recognize, know you. There’s something about that history that keeps a gal real and grounded.

So, in the time that I went off to Ohio for college, or to Paris to study, or moved to NYC, or finally away to San Francisco. In the time that I had small jobs that grew to bigger jobs, or boyfriends who I was crazy about, or brought home, or just talked about dreamily, or lamented that I’d been dumped by. In the time that I had bad asymmetrical haircuts, or gained my freshman 15, or thought I was Miss Thing for wearing a suit to my big-deal job, I always had home to touch down on to put everything in perspective.

And no matter how cool, or smart, or city-savvy, or in love, or engaged or pregnant you are, when you’re sitting at the table at the Demopulos’ house, you are still just Kristen. Still just Fred and Vicki’s youngest. There’s no air that you can put on that can’t be seen through in a second. What’s amazing was through it all I was never laughed out of the place. I was never called on my attitude or pretension or fashion-don’t of the moment. And I have no doubt there were many times when they had to stifle laughter or the desire to slap me back into reality. And sure, sometimes I did get brought down to earth. But mostly I was cheered on, questioned, inspected, embraced, and told to put on one of the many sweaters Mrs. D had made. “No we won’t turn the heat up.”

The last time I saw Mrs. Demopulos she gave Kate some books. She’d asked me what it was that Kate really needed and I’d turned her in that direction. Of all the special books Kate has gotten from family and friends, for some reason no one but Mrs. Demopulos has inscribed them, and I’ve often wished people had, since many of them are real keepers.

When I first introduced Kate to Mrs. D last Christmas I handed the baby to her and said, “This is Grandma Frances.” It was my little way of expressing the respect and special place that she held in my world, and by transference, Kate’s. At the time I didn’t even know that it had registered with her. But this summer, after she gave me the books and verified that we didn’t already own them, she grabbed a pen to inscribe them, and as she wrote she slowly said aloud, “To Kate, with love from Grandma Frances, July 2006,” and I was touched that she had clearly taken note of (and maybe even pride in) her special title.

What’s surreal about the fact that Mrs. Demopulos died today (a phrase it horrifies me to even type) is that it won’t even really hit me that she’s gone until the next time that I’m home and I have to fight the way my body is hard-wired to go to her house to see her.

But I don’t even pretend to suffer a millionth of what her family is going through now. Amelia is giving birth to what would be Frances’ first grandchild in two weeks.

California Re-Entry

Last night Kate and I returned from our nearly 3-week East Coast Tour. We didn’t have baseball-style t-shirts made to commemorate the event, but if we did the backs would read:

Bristol, RI
Harwich Port, MA
Westfield, MA
Chappaqua, NY

What’s great about going away for so long is that you don’t worry about not having time to do all the things you want to do. The down side is that gives you the “we’ve got plenty of time for that” attitude, which ultimately leaves you realizing that you didn’t do as many of the things that you wanted to do because you thought you had so much more time to do them.

For instance, we only got to the beach twice. For shame! (Some of this had to do with poor weather. For all the time I spend longing for East Coast summers, I forget that it rains there a lot, and there are also a lot of overcast days. RI really should consider having a rainy season as we do here. It sucks during it, but it gets it all over with in one fell swoop.) And we didn’t spend anywhere near enough time with friends like Ellen, John, and Story. Kate never had a play date with Danny’s daughter, Jekka. I’d wanted to call my mother’s Polish friend Sophie to introduce her to Kate, and that never happened. And I wanted to maybe visit my mother’s other friend Linda, but no.

I’m sad to report that I also only had Del’s Lemonade once. Tragic. For those of you who have never truly lived–i.e. never had a Del’s–it’s a delicious slushy lemonade that’s native to RI and sold at carts and some actual bricks and mortar Del’s establishments throughout the greatest little smallest state in the union. To be honest, if I’d never had one, and someone served me a Del’s on a cold winter day in South Dakota, I might not think it was The World’s Best Beverage, as I do. But there is something about having one on a hot humid day, combined with the fact that you can only get them at home, and of course the nostalgia/childhood taste memory factor, that make me a rabid Del’s fan. God they are good! We served them at our wedding, in fact–in martini glasses before the ceremony, not the traditional waxed cup.

Which leads me on this stream of consciousness to extol the supremely perfect wedding present my beloved friend John gave us when we were home–a framed Del’s cup. Not just framed though–it’s under this museum quality glass to preserve it, and it’s on maroon velvet. The frame is a thick dark wood, ornately carved. It’s fucking brilliant, and as much as I love owning it, I love that I’m lucky enough to have a friend cool enough to think of giving this to me as a wedding present.

At any rate, I’m happy to be home with Mark and to have our sweet nuclear family together again. But I feel the need to have some great why-I-love-living-in-California experiences quickly to help ease my re-entry into my usual world here. It’s just so damn charming and familiar and comfortable in RI. And the houses are all so old and cool, and the trees are big and shady and there is Dunkin Donuts at every turn and good spinach pies and Sam’s Pizza and funny childhood friends who I still like in their adult form, and of course my family. So you put all that in one hand, and then in the other hand you have our life here and our friends here and Mark’s rad job and the no crappy winter thing, but the expensive housing… It just seems like both ends of the scales weigh in pretty close sometimes.

But anyway, the long visit did give me a good dose of it all. And for all that I’ve complained that I didn’t get to do, I did do and see a lot. The Forta July Parade rocked our world, per usual. This year we were happy to have the Eberdave clan, now featuring Baby Henry, for their second year. And Dana (our wedding photographer) and her great hubby Joe joined in the fun. Words can’t describe how fantastic the parade is, nor how soul stirring it is to be part of the mayhem at the Connery’s. Kate was a trooper and wasn’t freaked out by the excessive people, noise, etc. And this year we boasted four high school bands that stopped marching, turned towards Casa Connery, and played a command performance for us. Four bands! Until you have a huge marching band with horns, drums, cymbals, and polyester-clad teens blast you with song, you won’t know how immensely thrilling it is. God it’s fun.

Post parade day Mark, Kate and I headed to Cape Cod where my sister Marie’s family has a house. We had one night there solo, in which Mark cooked excellent steak on the grill, and then Marie and cousin Nancy came to join in the fun. The beach there is like the Caribbean–blue and clear. It’s not super warm, but it’s no nut-shrinking Pacific Ocean. Ah summer.

After Mark left (sniff!) to return to CA and work, Kate and I went to Westfield to visit my dear dear Aunt Jenny, Mom’s sister, for a night. She is an act of nature. She’s almost 80, and works taking care of old people, if you can imagine such a thing. (To meet her, you wouldn’t be surprised one bit.) She had 18 relatives over for dinner when we were there. The woman makes a ham that could bring a grown man to tears, and she is scurrying around taking care of grandchildren, ironing her grown son’s shirts, and talking smack about the dozens of women who call her daily to chat. Don’t ever ask this woman to sit down and relax. She says she’ll die if she stops, and she’s happy going, so there’s nothing to do but stand back in amazement. At any rate, it was great catching up with her and having her meet Kate, with whom she was smitten.

Kate and I also spent a night in Chappaqua, NY visiting my friend Lauren who was at her parents for the month, but has been living in Hong Kong for nearly 5 years. So happy we decided to make this detour. Despite a hellish drive home to RI after it, our visit was deeply happy-making. Her children are dreamy and her mom is really interesting to talk to at the kitchen table. They live in this super-cool Frank Lloyd Wright community. If we’d stayed another night I would have had my bags sent for and moved in. Again, Kate made a splash. The neighbor came over one day and said she was told she had to see this baby “who is like a model.” Ha!

And for the record, Kate really was an angel for the whole trip. It is such a treat introducing her to people and sitting back and agreeing with the compliments about her cuteness and smartness and sweetness. I keep feeling like she and I have these bonding experiences and they just keep accumulating. I guess it’s that whole “I love you more to-day than yes-ter-day, bah dat da da daaah” thing.

For all the visits and lunches and dinners and gatherings one of the nicest things about our trip was the little routine we had at my Dad’s house. Kate would wake up early and I get her and go downstairs where my Dad was already awake with the dog and doing the crossword. Kate would greet Grandpa and Katie the Dog with a hearty “bye-bye”, then when Joan woke up we’d all go into the kitchen and Kate would sit in her booster seat and the four of us (or five when you count the dog) would each eat different breakfasts. The adults would take turns trying to convince Kate there was food beyond Cheerios she should eat, and Katie the Dog would happily eat any baby food that fell to the floor.

Sometimes with travel it’s about the museums that you went to and the sights that you saw, and sometimes it’s about the little things like finding that great place for breakfast that you go to every morning.

Familiarity Breeds Content

I’ve never been one for change, and after a few days in Rhode Island I’m starting to realize why. It turns out my people seek shelter in familiarity too.

Perhaps it’s just another way for New Englanders to boast about how long their families go back (stepping off the Mayflower onto Plymouth Rock has ungodly social cachet here), but these folks seem unable to enjoy the present without harkening back to the past.

One of the best examples of it is weather. In California you may have an unusually hot day in, say, February, and people take it for just that–unusual. In these parts, on a March day when there’s a 6-inch snowfall, the topic of chitchat at the grocery store is, “Last time we had this much snow on March 23rd was 1948.” People cling to these stats (be they real or constructed from creative memories) like boys and baseball trivia. And the stats also serve as a jumping off point for tale telling about whatever else (interesting or mundane) happened back then. “I remember I was working at the Pastime Theater. Movies were ten cents then, and when they went up to 11 cents I thought I’d never be able to see another movie again.” I wish I had ten cents for every time I heard that story…

So Thursday Ellen Connery came to Bristol to help her dad get ready for The Fourth. Kate and I walked over for a visit and from the second Ellen caught sight of me we were thrown in a time machine back to 1982. “Hey! Check this out,” she called from were she was crouching under their raised deck. “You ever seen an albino earwig?” Sure enough the thing was stark white. I love that Ellen didn’t need to be all precious about her first time meeting Kate. Much better that we reverted to a youthful bug-inspection mode.

Inside the house, Mr. Connery was also prepping for the festivities. I was proud to see the picture of John and I mugging for a self portrait on the fridge, along with photos and newspaper clips showing the Connery’s packed front porch on July 4th, and some heart-wrenching shots that include the late Mrs. C. There’s a smell memory that hits me when I go into that kitchen too. Everything is as it should be–with the exception of a new stove, which I’m willing to allow for–and I’m happy as a clam to be back home on the brink on my favorite holiday.

The Connerys have taken celebrating The Fourth to a stratospheric level. There’s a baseline you need to achieve as a Bristolian, and it’s much higher for folks who live on the parade route, as they do. But the Connerys bash is a party to be reckoned with. Family friends, former Bristolians in town visiting, relatives, and every friend the three Connery kids have ever had are welcomed (now with their kids, too). And I’ll tell you it’s like crack. Come to the Connerys for The Fourth once and try to go anywhere else that day. It can’t be done.

Since they were in prep mode, it made me wonder how they cook for the crowd they get. Do they have any way of knowing how many people are coming? “Nope. We never really know,” Jack (Mr. C) said. I’m terrible about assessing crowd sizes, so I guessed that they have around 80 folks. “No, no–much more than that.” He grabbed a calendar and flipped back some pages. “Last year: Temp was 87 degrees, parade lasted 3 hours and 20 minutes, and we had approximately 125 people,” he read. “Well, I think our numbers were low since it rained the year before and maybe people were afraid that was going to happen again.” I asked Mark last night how many people he thinks are there most years and his guess was 200.

But back to the topic of food. As tradition has it, Ellen does the house prep and John does the cooking. As Mr. Connery has gotten older and Mrs. C is gone, the kids have graciously jumped in to take over the work. Jack pulled out a yellowed and tattered 3×5 card–the chourico and peppers recipe (just one of the many food offerings that day). “How much do you make if you don’t know how many people are coming?” I asked. “Well, let’s see,” he said squinting down at the card. “Last year we made five pounds. Year before that, four–with the rain and all. But I see here we’ve made as much as 11 pounds some years.” I looked over his shoulder. Sure enough the card had each year and the amounts cooked neatly pencilled in on it. Amazing.

Not sure how far back it went, but now of course I want to go there and check that out. It would be kind of fun to know how many pounds they made on my first Fourth, so I can tell Kate some day how it compared to her first one.

Church Bells in Bristol

We have arrived. (Well, Monday, but our internet service has been down.) The flight, car rental, luggage lugging, etc. were all at times something I could have used another set of hands for, but I took pride in my hard work and Kate was a dream baby. She ended up charming half the passengers on the flight, and by the time we landed had learned to (finally) wave hello back at all her admirers. That baby is sometimes, okay often, too good to be true.

So here we are in Bristol. Funny that I can hear the house painter’s radio right now and there’s a John Mellencamp song on. I do declare I am the queen of Lovers of One’s Home Town. This lil’ New England town couldn’t be any more beautiful. And of course it’s packed with memories, and my nostalgia wells up along with my histamines as I saunter down the tree-canopied streets.

I’d promised Kate a morning walk downtown. Now that I stay with my Dad when I’m home downtown is in easy striking distance, and aside from the harbor, the ancient rippled sidewalks (nostalgia), the red, white, and blue lined streets (a Forta July tradition), and all the beautiful old homes I wish I’d bought when they were affordable, there’s also now a Dunkin’ Donuts downtown. So, we walk.

Lately when I’ve been walking around Oakland I’ve been thinking about what it’d be like if we lived in a small town. But that’s no surprise. I yearn to live in Bristol again every time I come home for the summer. You can set your fancy Swiss watch to it. And when I go home in the bleak winter months, I thank God for California.

Yesterday Kate had plenty of new things to admire on our walk. She was impressed with the myriad American flags out in front of nearly every home. Bristolians aren’t making any political support-our-boys or Bush-family-values commentaries by flying flags in front of their homes. These folks (okay, we) are just truly patriotic. It’s old school, and it charms the bejesus out of me. At any rate, there are some “wicked big” flags that people hang straight down sorta perpendicular to the sidewalks and as wide, so when you walk past them they skim your head and it’s like you’re passing through a gate of some sort. Why see the Cristo exhibit in Central Park when you can pass through the flags in Bristol? Kate loved it. (Good girl! Like what Mama likes!)

Kate and I lunched with Aunt Mary (87) and Mimi (92), and those sisters have it going on! Kate smiled and laughed and played the whole time and they adored her. And we came up with the term Great Godmother to refer to Kate’s relation to Mimi (who is my Godmother).

And if the whole scene–us eating chicken parm (read: pahhhm) at Leo’s sidewalk cafe and taking in a muggy Tuesday afternoon in Bristol–wasn’t enough to send me to heaven and back, noon struck and with it the church bells.

Give me a ding-dong every noon from the church bells and I’m thrilled, but this bell ringer was clearly an over-achiever. The first song–yes the first–was The Star Spangled Banner. Yes, some dude was in a belfry and busted out The Star Spangled Banner on church bells. And it was no Ronco Bell-amatic. This was clearly some guy reading some arcane type of sheet music in order to play this complex song in its entirety. Though everyone else was clearly unaware that you don’t get this kind of show in other towns at noon. I appeared to be the only one losing my mind and glaring at the diners who’d carried on with their conversations.

Next up for our listening pleasure was My Country Tis of Thee. At this point I’m practically letting down milk with joy. And when it got to tricky points in the songs (can you tell by my verbiage here how musically savvy I am?) I swear there must have been another person or two pulling ropes on other bells. At least I envisioned some team doing Quasimoto-style bell pulling.

The guy(s) finished off with a third song which Aunt Mary, Mimi and I couldn’t place. Perhaps it was an original score. Not my taste, but good for him for trying out something new.

So yes, this is just a wee bit of what small-town life has to offer. Just staggering. I’ve got to track down that bell-ringer’s manager and recommend the guy for a raise. Who am I kidding: “track down.” I’m sure my father knows the guy.