The Cafe Siren

Georgia eats a cupcake wrapper! Yuck!

We tried The Cafe Siren in Greenfield today and were pleased.

Here's why I was especially pleased.

Rob is addicted to Mocha Joe's coffee so most weekend mornings he finds a way to drag the whole family 20 minutes up to Vermont. There we go to Mocha Joe's where he can have a perfect cup of joe among sullen baristas and sometimes babbling schizophrenics on the couch.

The Cafe Siren is in Greenfield and serves Mocha Joe's coffee which he found "excellent". He is a severe coffee snob so for him to like coffee from anywhere other than his regular haunts is quite amazing. Now it means we can go North to Brat or South to Greenfield without him whining or withdrawing from caffeine.



The food was good, too. With nice bright salads and tasty Izze soda.

The people were nice and the sun was shining in the windows.
I have high hopes.

Tall Ships

Taking the train to Boston



We went to see the tall ships today in Boston. I was tired before we even began, but I remember going as a kid and looking up at the tall sails and rigging and being very impressed.





First we drove to 2 hours to Andover where my parents live and where my brother was visiting. We used the bathroom and grabbed a quick snack and then we took the commuter rail into North Station.

It was the girl's first time on a train. They ate grapes and rice cakes while my mother read them fairy tales from a book she brought with cool creepy drawings. My brother and father tried to nap.


We got to North Station and walked up to Charlestown Pier. Finally a gorgeous sunny day. It wasn't too crowded and there were plenty of porta-potties.


There were slow moving lines to board the big ships which was hard for Georgia who was starving even though she ate more snacks than a teenage boy. I was drained from working the night before and the long drive, but tried to take in the beauty of the ships and they were really beautiful. I had imagined them being in full sail, like the floating ship in Peter Pan, drifting in the moonlight or the glorious ships in Pirates of the Caribbean. But the ships were docked and their sails pulled in, of course. All the masses of people made it hard to focus on the shiny brass and gleaming golden wood, but I tried.
I tried to pack up all the visual images and save them for later when I could mull them over.



On Board the Coast Guard Eagle




This is Bluenose, a ship from Nova Scotia. A small clear jelly fish sighting was the highlight for both the girls. As my brother said, "Critters are always the best thing."

Rejection

I'm pulling it together to start sending out queries for a memoir and a children's book I've written. In the past I've have endured many rejections and no-replies, but it always takes me a day or two to recover. I endure processing and pondering and then finally carry on. Yesterday I mustered up organizational spirit and courage to send out my book to an interested agent and she nicely rejected me a few hours later.
So, after today's prompt rejection I thought I'd like to speed through the whole processing part and just move on without the anguish.

I went to The Goddess Oracle and asked for a card to help me move through it quicker.

http://www.kriswaldherr.com/decks/gid/index.html

The Japanese goddess Benzai-ten iis believed to bring happiness and wealth—appropriately, the middle syllable of her name, zai, means “talent” or “wealth” in Japanese. Sometimes the goddess is portrayed with eight arms bearing open hands, symbolizing her many talents and all-encompassing generosity.Benzai-ten’s realm lies beneath the beautiful waters of Lake Biwa. Water is a universal symbol for wealth, usually of the financial kind. To be able to share one’s talents with the world in exchange for personal wealth is the happiest of situations.

* * *

This Goddess Inspiration Oracle card was randomly chosen for you to reflect your day. It presents 80 goddesses from around the globe with inspiring messages and empowering stories of the Divine Feminine

All contents © Kris Waldherr 2008. All rights reserved.

Kris Waldherr, the artist who makes these cards said I could put them on my blog as long as I included this link to her facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/l/;KrisWaldherr.com.

Anyway, I really like this card I pulled and I am going to try to remind myself of her when I get downtrodden. Carry On!

Rained out

Here's all our gear packed up for a day at the Northfield Inn Pool. We got free passes for the day from the library, which can be a rather cutthroat process.

I was hoping to open the book sitting on top of all the stuff there. Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser.
It was a gift from my friend Miranda.
The UPS guy came the other day, as he often does. Since I'm not using my credit card or buying anything; it is NEVER for me. It's always some weird bike part that Rob bought on ebay or traded for another weird bike part he had in the basement.

When I looked at the label I was astonished when it was my name.
I opened it up and it was for me!
With a nice note!
How exciting.

I've enjoyed the introduction and am hoping to read more soon.



Here's Georgia at the pool. She has a pirate band-aid on her forehead because she has a headache and thought it might help. She also has one on her knee where there was an invisible wound.

We got there, Lily got in, and suddenly there was the ominous sound of rumbling thunder.
We were nicely asked to evacuate and that was the end of that. We took a photo of the rain on the golf course pond and then booked it home.

We got home and watched the rain pour down from the front porch, counting the seconds between lightening and thunder. The shortest time between was 3 seconds and then Lily wanted to stop counting. The thunder was getting shatteringly loud.





















We watched Tarzan in the room made dark by the storm.

Now it's sunny, but the pool is still closed.

Summer Day

Rob had the day off today so we went up to Brat. While he and the girls played on the playground I tried to meditate in the car for 20 minutes. Our new Pontiac Vibe is very cozy and clean because Rob, after experiencing the ruin of the interior of our 4 year old Honda CRV, has implemented some family rules like no eating and clean out the car each day! The rules are tedious, but the car doesn't smell like sour milk and actually feels somewhat serene. I was gazing at this view from the window, listening to the birds and the family playing in the distant playground.

Just as I was starting to relax and actually meditate Georgia must have sensed a disturbance in the force from across the parking lot. She came running for the car; "I need Mama!" I was supposed to be getting a work phone call that never came, which is why I was enjoying some delicious alone time in the car to begin with..

She and Lily found me out and they all came thundering into the car and we went to grocery shop.

It has been more difficult to steal those 10 or 20 minutes for meditation these days. Georgia will watch Dora or Diego for a few minutes and then come find me upstairs.
I remember an acquaintance, who had children long before I did, saying that whenever she started to have her own thoughts, the children would sense it and yell, "Mama Mama!" before she could descend into herself.

Oh well. I'll keep trying, while also appreciating the preciousness of those interrupting me, which can be a tricky balance. I got my Martha Beck thought of the day and it hit home.


So long as we keep our eyes on what is best about the world, as well as what is worst, we'll spend our lives enjoying the present, and awkwardly, clumsily, steadily creating a happy future.—Martha Beck

from http://www.marthabeck.com/



We stopped at a beautiful swimming hole on the way home. The water was freezing and Rob was the only one to jump in, but it was a summery dappled place to enjoy the river before running off to violin.

Fireworks at work!

I saw the fireworks from the third floor of the hospital at work tonight, which was fun.
There was quite a crowd out in the streets below.

I'm sleepy after working the weekend.
Now I'm just waiting for the dog to do her business outside and then I'll go to bed.
Ahhh bed.

At the last minute tonight, at 9pm, I called Rob and told him work was quiet and he should bring the girls in to see the fireworks with me. But they were already asleep...
Maybe next year.

The moon was big and beautiful in the quiet sky after the noisy fireworks.

So nice to have a clear night after so much rain.

Picadilly Farm on the 4th

Finally a sunny day! We went to the farm this morning and picked peas and flowers.

The previous two times we arrived on our weekly pick-up day, it had been starting to storm. Both times the girls and I made our way out to the field just as the thunder started to rumble and lightening sparked in the near distance.
Both times we all ran back to the car, soaking, with just a tiny harvest of pick-your-own (Picadilly does the bulk of the harvesting and have the veggies waiting in the dry barn for us)

Today it was warm and sunny and we took our time picking and eating peas and then gathering our first batch of flowers. Hooray for the fireworks of color from the seedlings on the farm!