Today at Mary's Farm

Puddings, puddings, puddings

I Come to Judge

November 1, 2009 at 6:21 AM | 2 Comments | Post a Comment

We sat sequestered in the Sunday School room of the Charlemont Federated Church, three of us, twenty-seven glorious puddings set on the Sunday School tables, which had been covered with bright red and yellow Provincial table cloths for the occasion. For almost two hours, the puddings had been carried in through a light rain, cradled like newborns, the dishes, which ranged from elegant to earthy, cloaked in dishcloths or tin foil or snugged into Tupperware.

The Metropolitan Opera in the Pines

From Aida to Applesauce

October 25, 2009 at 8:19 PM | 3 Comments | Post a Comment

I went to the opera on Saturday afternoon. The Met. Verdi's Aida. Around noon, I put on a pair of slacks and a sweater, gave the dogs a cookie and left the house. I turned left out of my driveway, headed down a paved road which soon turned to dirt. I was on my way. Rain was pelting the windshield. Along the roadside were trees, a pond, and more trees. Shortly, I turned down another dirt road, hardly marked. I had arrived at my destination: Peterborough Players, an old summer theater in the middle of tall pines. During the summer, venerable productions take place here in an old barn that once housed farm animals. Many years ago, the first production of Our Town was staged here, with Thornton Wilder in the audience. The play, after all, was based on the town of Peterborough, which hasn't changed so very much.

Of Sick Dogs, Of Mad Dogs

One Week in the Life of Mayday

October 16, 2009 at 1:32 PM | 2 Comments | Post a Comment

Here was my week:

Monday

When I got home in the afternoon, I found Mayday, my 13-year-old mini-schnauzer, sitting in the corner, staring at the floor and trembling. When I picked her up, she felt hot. A few months ago she had been in hospital for a week with a high fever. The cause was never found. So I took her back up to her beloved vet, Andrea, in Westminster, Vermont, where they discovered she is running a fever of 103. I had to leave her there. She was terrific yesterday and the day before! We went on a great walk and she trotted right along. It was so sudden, though. I'm worried. It's very quiet in the house tonight. Harriet subdued.

The Mystery of Marriage

Deciding to Stay

October 7, 2009 at 7:02 AM | 1 Comment | Post a Comment

This summer, I was set to attend five weddings and the last of them was last weekend. Lori and Dave, sweet young friends who met on match.com. So many weddings, all of them different. Only one took place in a church -- another was beside Buzzard's Bay, another in a chateau, another was at the bride's home, in an open field. This past weekend's wedding took place at an open air chapel, in the rain. All of the ceremonies were different, some longer, some more poetic, one even included a homily by the reverend. But all of them contained the words, I do. I noted that brides -- at least these brides -- no longer toss their bouquet and certainly don't do the silly thing with the garter, whatever that was all about. In spite of all that has transpired for women in the past few decades, all these young ladies were "given away" by their fathers. They all had stunning white wedding gowns just like their mother's and their grandmother's and all of them wore veils.(Lori's was fetching, a small veil, just over her eyes, at a tilt, like something out of the 1940s.) Many toasts were proposed, to clamorous applause and whoops, and frequent tapping of glasses, requesting the bride and groom kiss. Which they did. All the weddings ended the festivities with a big, high glamorous cake. And dancing. Overall I am surprised to observe how traditional weddings seem to have remained. White dresses? I thought they were destined for the history books but then I am a child of the 1960s.

What There Was Not to Tell

My Own War Story

September 28, 2009 at 2:45 PM | 10 Comments | Post a Comment

About ten years ago, I began the process of writing "What There Was Not to Tell," a book based on letters my parents exchanged during World War II. There were more than 2,000 letters and it took me a whole year just to read and organize the letters. These were not the usual letters of war, exchanges of love and longing, though there was some of that. Instead, these were about a man named Tom, who my mother had decided to marry instead of my father. My mother and father had known each other since childhood and it had always been my father's intention to marry my mother. My mother, however, liked to play the field. One summer while on vacation with her parents in the Adirondacks, my mother met a man named Tom. Tom fell for my mother rather hard and then came war. He asked my mother to marry him but she could not make up her mind between him and my father. Tom was the swashbuckler; my father was quiet and steady.