A Trip Out West to Colorado

Recently TD and I went to visit my sister Cynthia and her partner Barb at their home in Monument, Colorado, which is near Colorado Springs. We have visited there before, and maybe it was because of the harsh dark winter we had here in New York this year, but I did not remember how big and spectacular the sky is in Colorado. It stretches from horizon to horizon, as far as the eye can see. And though this top picture is cloudy, it was mostly blue sunny skies for the duration of our visit. I'm telling you, it was a relief to take it in!
One day we headed into Colorado Springs to a cool spot called The Wild Goose Meeting House for lunch. I felt like I was in Brooklyn - exposed wooden beams, industrial lighting, hipsters on laptops wearing baseball caps and New Balance sneakers –

The food was great, and many locally crafted beers were proffered. Colorado is renowned for its craft breweries, with more than 140 craft breweries located in the state. Colorado is number one in the nation for volume of beer brewed nationally, and number two in volume of craft beer brewed annually. Lucky for me, because I love delicious beer –

After lunch we walked along the main street of Colorado Springs. Where ever you are, you can see mountains, like Pikes Peak in the distance – 

Pikes Peak happens to be the name of the girls' neighborhood brewery, where we stopped that night to enjoy some freshly brewed beer and meet some of their friends.
Ted, Cynthia, me, Barb - a little fuzzy but you get an idea of the ensuing merriment –

The brewery has a great selection of beers to choose from –

The next morning we went out for a run. The sky was blue and bright.

Sometimes visitors suffer from the high elevation in Colorado, but we felt fine. Thankfully the running path was flat.
TD running ahead and Cynthia with her dogs –

It was such a joy to be outside running in the sunshine.
Cynthia and I on the running path with her doggies –

In the afternoon we headed in the car for lunch to a school which has been converted into...wait for it...a brewery. The Bristol Brewing Co. is located in the former Ivywild School –

The interior has been lovingly retained, complete with the gymnasium and Principal's office -

We met with more friends and had a fun lunch. On the way home, we stopped at Garden of the Gods, a public park which features dramatic red rock formations which were shaped millions of years ago –

Garden of the Gods was a favorite place of my mother, who visited it many times, so it has sentimental meaning for us. It's a beautiful spot.

Echoing the dramatic shapes of the Garden of the Gods is the Denver Art Museum, designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, which we toured on Sunday –

It's a big museum with lots to offer for families and children. For instance, inside the museum, we happened upon an amusing opera performance for children. In the collection of Western art, I liked "Long Jakes, the Mountain Man" wearing a vivid red coat in this painting by Charles Deas from 1844.

For lunch in Denver, we went to the Vine Street Pub and Brewery, which had many more beers on tap!

After lunch we drove to visit our cousin Diane Noonan Obernesser and her husband Matt and three daughters Madison, Cheyenne and Corrina.
Family photo, Colorado branch – 

We had such a good time on our visit out west with Cynthia and Barb - lots of good things to eat and drink and fun outings and great company. Cynthia and Barb are coming to New York City this summer to get married! So proud of them. So proud of all my sibs. I'm lucky.

A Weekend in Southampton

(click on photos to enlarge)
TD and I went this past weekend to Southampton to visit my brother Thom, his wife Karen, and their son Aaron. We have been invited to their home before and it is always a treat to go there. Especially this past weekend it provided a relaxing respite as TD's beloved mother Edna Dawson passed away two weeks ago in southern New Jersey. They were good buddies and best friends. She was a strong and independent 91-year-old who went to the gym regularly almost until the end, and she will be greatly missed. The funeral was held last Wednesday. You might remember that my mother passed away on Labor Day. In May, my father's last sibling, my aunt Eleanor Noonan passed away in Utica, New York. My aunt Molly recently passed away in Rochester. It's been a lot in a year and a half...

So this excursion on Friday was good timing. Southampton is a beautiful town – all green trees and grey shingle houses and imported cars. On Saturday afternoon, Aaron said to me Let's go for a car ride. He drove the convertible. Stick shift. As we traveled over the back roads, we passed big farms and produce stands. We were heading north, up towards Sag Harbor. Green hills untouched by developers rolled away in the distance. I really didn't know that the Hamptons were so rural. We got up around Sag Harbor and I could view glimpses of blue water through the green trees. We turned around and headed back. As we sped over the country roads it felt like we were flying through heaven.

My clothes for the weekend: blue.

A walk along Main Street in Southampton with its crisp, clean facades.

A riot of Lacroix color exploded out of a flower planter on Main Street.

Real estate + pansies

After dinner at the house TD took a relaxing swim in the pool.

The next day TD and Aaron played kadima on the beach.

TD went swimming in the ocean which is kind of still cold in June but refreshing, and I went in too.

A proper straw hat for a day in the sun.

There was not a cloud in the sky - just fine wisps feathering peacefully past.

The beach is always a healing and restorative place to be.

Big big thanks to our hosts.

My Mother

My Dear Reader, in my last post I shared that mother was coming to the end of her long illness, and I am sad to say that she passed away at home in Connecticut around 9 am on Labor Day. I was with her for her last breath for which I am grateful, though it is not an easy thing to experience. A friend of mine said, "You accompanied her to the other side. You did some heavy lifting." Which is an accurate statement as I have been exhausted since then. Several years ago my mother was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a incurable disease of the lungs. For the last sixteen months, she has been pretty much confined to her bed where she was beautifully and lovingly cared for by my father. It was my wish to go with mother and my father too through this experience and help them as I could.

We had a memorial service, or Life Celebration as she wanted it to be called, this past Saturday at the Guilford Funeral Home. My mother was a spiritual person and talked a lot about what she wanted at the event which included a profusion of lush flowers in pink, purple and red, her ashes in an urn with fairies coming out the top of it, and overhead a festive chuppa, the kind of structure found at a Jewish wedding. We - my father, three siblings and in-laws - pulled it all off, and it was standing-room-only for my mother at the Guilford Funeral Home for her moving and beautiful service.
TD designed the wonderful program filled with my mother's favorite quotes and photos –

Working on that service and going through with it was the hardest thing I have done in my life so far. Every action felt like a Herculean task - every action, another good-bye. If you have lost a loved one perhaps you know how I felt. My family was so very grateful for everyone who was there with us in person and in spirit. I spoke at the service and talked about how much my mother influenced me growing up as she shared all of her interests with me – fashion, decorating, style and art. And speaking of that, she loved this blog. She was its biggest fan, sending me a quick email and telling how she liked practically every single post, which now number over 400. How I will miss my fan.

My mother holding me when I was six months old –

My mother and father at a wedding before they were married –

Later, in the 60s, at a cocktail party –

More recently –

Through her long illness, my mother had a wonderfully positive attitude. I never heard her once complain or whine about her condition. She had no regrets or resentments, and she was not afraid of death. She was an inspiration to all who visited her, and a fantastic role model for the final phase of life. When I visited, she kept me busy. She wanted everything to be in order when she left and so we went through a lot of possessions and papers, discarding things as we went. "I can't take that with me to fairyland," she would say with a shrug.

On summer vacation in the Adirondacks –

A wee child in the woods –

 A fairy in fairyland –

Life in 2012

A view of the Hudson River this summer at sunset
TD and I had a wonderful holiday season packed with many activities with family and friends. In the middle of it, my aunt Molly died. She had been sick for a long time but still it was a surprise to me when I received the news. I wrote about Molly here on the blog before, and we attended her birthday party. She was a larger-than-life figure in my childhood who was always taking us on adventures. Summertime was her strong suit and so she was often leading us to swimming pools, the beach at the lake or picnics in the park. She raised five children and she said to me once, "I loved children so. The 'terrible twos, the troublesome threes', I never experienced that. The children were like sponges and they absorbed everything up." TD and I drove up to her funeral service which was held on Friday in Rochester. At the end of the service, her son Peter, my cousin, delivered a great remembrance. He said, "What is the lesson of Molly's life? Have fun, play hard, spend time with your family, enjoy the present moment." Driving back from the funeral to New York City in the car we received an email from our friends April and Matt with the joyful news that their baby had just been born, and two beautiful pictures of little smiling Miles Perry. That made us so happy. Birth and death and everything in between – that is life. We embrace the happy and hope to avoid the sad though sometimes it must come. I am wishing you dear reader more happy this year. Have fun, play hard, enjoy the present moment.

A Trip to Rochester

The Erie Canal

We're celebrating Aunts and Cousins week here at Bart Boehlert's Beautiful Things. You may remember that the weekend before last, we attended the graduation party of my aunt Ellen, age 73. Last weekend TD and I went up to Rochester, New York, for my aunt Molly Boehlert, born Molly Gilroy from Utica, New York.

Molly married my father's brother Bob who was a widower with one child. Together the couple had four children. My uncle Bob sadly passed away twenty years ago. When we attended a Boehlert family reunion on Oneida Lake two years ago, I wrote about my aunt Molly so I won't repeat it here except to say that when I was growing up, I spent many summer and winter vacations with my cousin Peter, born the same year as I. Molly was always taking us off on some adventure – to a neighbor's swimming pool or to the beach at Lake Ontario or to a picnic in the park. Now Molly is seriously ill. To mark her eightieth birthday an invitation arrived in our mailbox for "a celebration of life." How could we resist?

We had the good fortune to stay with my cousin Peter and his wife Lorie in their great home in the charming village of Pittsford, founded outside of Rochester in 1789. Pittsford is well known for its historic district and beautiful houses.

The town has a lot of nineteenth century brick buildings which I love. This is the Phoenix Hotel, which was built in about 1812 to serve the Erie Canal and carriage trade. It was restored in 1967 and now houses local businesses.


Here is the town hall, built in 1890.

A picturesque brick house is now the Canal Lamp Inn bed and breakfast.

Gardens and flower boxes were in full bloom.

We took a walk along the Erie Canal, which was completed in 1825. This phenomenal feat of engineering and human toil was built to link the great Lake Erie with the Hudson River so that goods could flow from the Atlantic Ocean to the Midwest; it helped make New York City the chief U.S. port. The Erie Canal links the upstate cities of Albany, Utica (my hometown) and Rochester so it was always a presence in my childhood.

Peaceful, tranquil, and flat, the Eric Canal takes us back in time.

I'd like to take a boat ride on the Eric Canal.

This residential dock perched over the canal looked like a relaxing spot.

Lunch along the Erie Canal.

Later in the afternoon, we visited Artisan Works, a non-profit organization housed in a huge warehouse which supports local artists. There was miles of art everywhere, on the walls, on the ceilings, and on the roof.

We stopped at Molly's house which has been the family home for fifty years where I visited as a kid. Then we stopped at cousin Brian's who has just bought a big new house. That night we had a delicious dinner with Peter and Lorie and their adult daughters Maggie and Dottie and her fiance Bryce at Richardson's Canal House, the oldest original inn on the edge of the Eric Canal. The inn was first a farmhouse, built in 1818, and then a tavern which was popular with the rollicking canal builders. The building was restored in 1979 and placed on the National Register of Historic Buildings. We ate outside under a tent and when it started to pour rain we remained dry. An illuminated guide boat sped by on the dark canal.

The next day we went to visit a couple who are friends of Peter and Lorie's and own and live in the historic Strong mansion, which I read on the internet, "was perhaps the most lavish ever built in Monroe County except for the Eastman House," the home of George Eastman, a founder of Eastman Kodak. The beautiful Strong mansion had seven, I think, bedrooms on the second floor which reminded me of Winterthur, the DuPont house museum in Delaware. On the second floor Peter's friend built a two-storey library filled with rare books. On the ground floor was a full-size indoor swimming pool. On the way home we stopped at Wegman's, Rochester's rather stupendous grocery store chain. It really was impressive. If you're in Rochester, don't miss a trip to Wegman's; Cher doesn't.

On Sunday we were off to the main event at a nearby restaurant, Molly's party! It was great to be with her and all of my cousins and their children. One of the joys of these family parties is to see my cousins' children who are growing so fast that they are almost unrecognizable. Molly received a serious diagnosis but she is a very strong person and has rallied incredibly, defying expectations. She was trained as a nurse and I bet she was a resolute nurse, determined to make patients get well just as she was determined to entertain us when we were children.
A very happy birthday to my aunt Molly.