Journal to a Muse

A week away from home can seem like another life.

After my $500 breakfast, I got to eat, sleep, rest, knit and read as much as I wanted. (Turns out reading and sleeping were what I wanted the most.)

When you are that far north, dawn comes at 4:30 am.

DD returned to the vicinity on Tuesday, looking refereshed and happy after a weekend of jet-skiing in Maryland. She and I shopped and shopped. For casual shoes. For furniture. For dishes and pots and pans. DH and I were glad to be able to help. She ordered chairs and an ottoman for her living room, and has some accessories, but before she buys anything else, she says she will wait for the furniture to arrive and be threaded up through the stairwell.

She lives on an unimaginably teensy "street". It is one block long and seems to only have three doors on it. I think that might mean 5 or 6 flats. You could call it an alley, but the cute salmon colored door at the end would never be found in a mere alley... so "lane" it is. I wish the landlord would paint the door to DD's building. Some doors have stained glass transoms, too. Hint. Hint

The Private Lane in need of plants that grow fast with only a couple hours of direct sunlight.


The North End


A North End Lion


Do you have a Jordan's near you? I can't believe there isn't one in Texas the shopping-test-center-of the world. We went to the one in Reading. Not only did it have loads of snazzy furniture, but there is an IMAX ( currently showing Batman), an ice cream store and a trapeze school! Between the ice cream shoppe and trapeze school are lots of sculptural decorations (Oscar the Grouch, a banana split that seems to resemble the Big Dig) which are all covered in jelly beans. Whoever thought New Englanders were all work and no play hadn't met these folks.

Jordan's trapeze set up.

The day we nearly bought out Bed, Bath and Beyond we also went to Salem.

Rigging in Salem

I liked seeing the boats and whimsical signs. This one is for a cocktail lounge and fish house called FINZ.


I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of the yarn shop there. Sadly, their web page doesn't have a photo, either. Drat! The store was spacious and had tons of samples made up. The proprietress was very sweet and had a darling baby sweater pattern that was fuzzy fuzzy fuzzy. When I remember the name of the yarn, I'll include it...

The next day was Newburyport day. I missed some of the galleries I wanted to see, but the ones we did visit were terrific.


We started off with a "little something" to keep us going since we'd both skipped breakfast. There was a Starbuck's across the street. But this seemed MUCH more interesting.


Pastries! Drat I forgot the name of the shop. It's on Middle Street almost at the corner. Maybe they're new, because I didn't find them at the chamber of commerce site, either.


Pansies and Magic (?) mushrooms in the flower box



Everybody eventually went to the Newburyport common.


Most everything had a brick facade. There were six over six and eight over eight sashed windows. Most every door had the fan windows.


The Book Rack deserves special mention because they're independent.
And they're having a big midnight madness Harry Potter Party on the 16th of July. Jody Picault's coming too, if you like more adult fiction.


1st church is crowded in between a snazzy little Montessori School and a brick alley.


Geraniums were everywhere.


We ate lunch at The Purple Onion

The way they combine flavors really IS special. I had sweet and sour tomato soup with some cheese on top. DD had a chicken sandwich on ciabatta bread with something tangy AND apricots. Yummy.

We sat outside.

Then we browsed seriously in The Child at Heart Gallery. Oh, and before that we found The Yarn Shop.

Three bags full




As you might imagine, there was another friendly worker there. I think she should run for school board. I had mixed feelings speaking with her... the good news (if you can call it that) was that apparently north Texas isn't the only place having a difficult time educating its children. The bad news was that even apparently wealthy suburbs in the heavily taxed, intellectually curious states are making fairly obvious gaffes... at least according to this mother.

Since our children aren't cookies, why do we expect to have cookie cutter education?

After lunch and the children's gallery we began to realize that it was getting on towards rush hour and that our feet were REALLY tired!! So after one quick stop in the Best of the British store, where DD picked up her favorite tea from her time in Ireland, we headed back towards the car. First we stopped on the Harbor side common and sat on a bench looking back toward the


Harbor Gallery and Restaurant.

That was the night DD was picking up her brother and his girlfriend LATE at Logan Airport.

In the morning, on their way to Maine to visit the rest of the family, I got
to see DS and meet his girlfriend. They were tired, I think, because they were much quieter than I expected them to be... Perhaps if we hadn't been in the motel they would have been a couple of degrees more spontaneous. It was good to get live hugs, though. And I do believe my boy was glad to see for himself that Thelma hadn't taken me on too wild a ride.