SATURDAY. Takoma Park, Maryland. I arrived around noon, checked into the bed and breakfast, and went out to dinner with Marcia. |
|
| SUNDAY. Marcia and I met Sylvia and Carl for brunch at Theo's Cafe. | |
|
|
| At Marcia's house, the dog Sweetness was eager to pose for the camera. |
|
| We looked at photos for our geneology project on Marcia's laptop. |
|
|
|
|
That evening I took a walk through Takoma Park. |
|
| This is the Savory Cafe, across from Eden Park Guest House. You can see the Toyota Rav in the foreground, right. |
|
| Eden Park Guest House, where I stayed on the third floor (see top pair of windows). |
|
| A block away, the dress shop called Reruns favors retro-style clothing. |
|
| Polly Sue's creates a showcase for the Victorian. |
|
| A little further on, Summer Delights, an old fashioned ice cream stop, is open during summer only! |
|
| This is the Takoma Old Town center. |
|
| My self portrait. |
|
| Two popular places to eat: Mark's Kitchen and Middle East Cuisine. |
 |
| Geoffrey is working long hours as an auto mechanic for Honda. (Marcia took this photo after a snow storm last winter.) |
|
| Adam is taking a photography course at the community college. |
|
|
|
|
MONDAY. I went downtown to the National Gallery. I sat for a long time at the fountain in the Sculpture Garden before visiting the exhibits. |
|
| The perimeter of the fountain was a perfect place to spend a hot afternoon. I am standing with my back to the West Building. The building opposite is the National Archives. |  |
| Now I am facing the West Building, although off center.
I was fascinated by the changing shapes in the converging spouts of water. |
 |
 |
|
| I went to the National Gallery to see their collection of illuminated manuscripts.
I also enjoyed two shows on the Avant-Garde (S. W. Hayter: From Surrealism to Abstraction and J. Funke and
the Amateur Avant-Garde), which led me to believe that I finally understand what
that art movement is all about!
In the Gallery Sculpture Garden, this giant spider is the artist's tribute to her mother. I had to laugh, because I had seen it just a year ago with Kaelen at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art. Apparently, this is its new home! |
|
| The spider greets you and bids you farewell. She grazes in the hedges like a prehistoric animal. |
|
| View of the Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue. |
|
|
|
|
TUESDAY. I drove north to Pennsylvania, taking a long diversion through Chadds Ford, where we grew up. |
|
| On Smith Bridge Road, I stopped to take a snap shot of Granogue, the Dupont "castle." |  |
The round water tower on the hilltop (left of center) reminded me of the towers in the writings of Yeats and Joyce. |
Smith Bridge Road (far right) connects to Smith Bridge, one of the last covered bridges in the area. |
| Going the opposite direction on Smith Bridge Road, you can turn onto Ridge Road and drive past this Octagonal School House, where we used to wait for the school bus. |  |
|
|
|
TUESDAY, LATE AFTERNOON. AFter Chadds Ford, I drove to Oxford, Pennsylvania, where I stayed with my friends, Maren and Bob Ketcham. |
|
| Their daughter Molly just celebrated her graduation from the University of Delaware. |  |
| Molly with her father Bob and Dave Smith (left), a friend from the university. Bob is Laboratory Coordinator in the Department of Biological Sciences at University of Delaware. |  |
| WEDNESDAY. The next morning, I woke up to find Maren in her garden with a book and one of their cats. We have been best friends since our years together at Unionville High School. |
|
| Maren gave a tour of their gardens, which surround their house. They grow every kind of vegetable (except corn): brocoli, carrots, asparagus, tomatoes, peppers galore! And strawberries! The feathery herb is bronze fennel. |  |
 |
|
|
|
|
| Maren works as administrator at a birth center in nearby Georgetown, Pennsylvania. Their clientele is primarily from the surrounding Amish community. (In photo: Joyce, Molly, Maren) |  |
|
|
| I took the photos below quickly as the horse and buggy quickly trotted one way and then the other. You can almost see the driver in the right hand photo. | |
 |
|
| Last year I took these photos when I got lost on my way to the Ketcham's house. These breathtaking vistas are in towns called New Britain and Nottingham and seem to exist in another era. They exemplify the thrifty ways and hard work of the Amish. |  |
 |
|
|
|
|
WEDNESDAY. From Oxford, I drove to West Chester University, an hour away, where I attended the annual Conference on Poetic Form and Narrative for four busy days. |
|
| I only took a few photos at the conference. This one is at the last dinner.
I was drawn to Vicki (left) from Connecticut who reminded me of Aunt Allie. She is talking
with one of my favorite teachers, Timothy Steele (middle), who teaches at California State University
in Los Angeles. We were lucky enough to have Richard Wilbur, the featured poet of the evening,
sit with us. But I did not have the presence of mind to pull out my camera until after he had
left. (I don't know the identity of the conference participant on the right.)
Highlights of the conference: A reading by 80-year-old New Hampshire poet Donald Hall, a panel discussion with Annie Finch who was given an award for her work writing and criticizing formal poetry, a discussion with Christopher Ricks who teaches at BU and has published a book of criticism about Bob Dylan comparing his poetry against the great English poets. I took a workshop with Molly Peacock who focused on the structure of the triolet and the sonnet (we wrote at least one of each in class and then presented it to the group for criticism). |
 |
|
|
|
SUNDAY. Back in Scituate, I reviewed my gardens, which were thriving after many days of rain. |
|
This bouquet represents many surprises, flowers I forgot I had, or that have not bloomed because the conditions have not been so good for a few years: Peonies, mignonette, campanula (rear), penstemon (!), Sarastro bellflower (dark blue, right front). |
 | Vision of our vegetable garden and picnic table beyond another bouquet. The asparagus and rhubarb are in full production, as are mixed greens and sorrel. Peas are coming along. I have more planting to do: beans, squash, and corn. |  |
| Peonies, santolina, and chives make a nice array of pompoms around Russian Sage (middle), which will bloom later in the summer. |
|
| The front entrance to our house at 158 Hollet Street. (Everything is getting so overgrown!) |  |
| Sorry my camera didn't compensate better for the gray day. This is the back garden right after I got home, with the fading 150 irises (originally from 400 Hilltop Terrace in Virginia!) along our neighbor's fence, the fading Vulcan rhododendron (right), and the blooming penstemon (left front). |  |
| This is how the back garden looked after I weeded and trimmed it. Moving the blue pansies from the window box, where they were getting too much sun, to create a border in the front helped give the display a focus. It still needs MORE focus, doesn't it? The rocks help. |  |