A Week in the Life of....

I've had a pretty good week. I started by taking last Thursday and Friday off work (and Monday too!). On Friday afternoon, I suddenly realized I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time. I definitely needed several days of unstructured chill time.

Friday night Bill, Tom and Tina and I went to the Demolition Derby at the Cummington Fair. I filled my belly with hand cut french fries and pulled pork before we made our way up the hill to watch the derby. It was awesome.After the first big crash, I was totally desensitized to automobile violence and loved every minute of it. Tina and I ran reconnaissance missions for mini-donuts, fried dough and cotton candy between heats. And a tiny little slip of a girl won the whole thing! I'm not sure why that felt so inspiring, but we celebrated with her as she danced a victory dance on the roof of her tattered car. Tina has more photos here.We wandered around the late night fair grounds a bit before going home.

And Bill ate Jack's Buns....The whole time we were at the fair we were all a bit twitchy because of the lack of cell phone reception. We waited with baited breath on the way home for signals to come back, expecting important text messages. We needn't have worried though. Early the next morning - 3:13am to be exact - I got the text message from the Obama campaign telling me he had wisely chosen Joe Biden as his running mate.


On Saturday, after a trip to the Northampton Farmer's Market for corn and lots of tomatoes, my parents arrived form Vermont to celebrate my birthday. There was champagne and Mom brought Red Cake. This is a family tradition. We always have Red Cake on our birthdays. It's an old recipe also known as Red Velvet Cake (anyone remember the armadillo groom's cake in Steel Magnolia's?). It's a big pain in the ass to make and my mother threatens that each one she makes will be her last. But we continue to demand them and she continues to make them. I have even demanded them on my brother's birthday on years when he couldn't make it home (I always call and tell him I have done so and that it tasted delicious....).

Sunday was beautiful. Several months ago, when the Tanglewood schedule was released, I mentioned to friends that the BSO was performing Beethovan's 9th symphony on my birthday. Darling GL offered to make the arrangements and planned a perfect picnic. It was great! Lots of friends and my folks. Pimm's cups, more champagne, cupcakes, tomatoes from Tom and Tina's garden and lots of other yummy stuff. My camera batteries died after I took one photo. But Traci has more.

From left to right, that's Pete, my dad in his vacation hat, Tom (who isn't really glaring I don't think), my mother and Andre's laptop (isn't that paper done yet Andre?).

Monday was another relaxing day of doing not much of anything. I made lots of tomato sauce from the case of bruised tomatoes I picked up cheap at the Farmer's Market. I make my Uncle Andy's recipe which is easy and yummy. In the midst of winter it tastes like summer. I froze some, but it didn't make as much as I would have hoped. Not enough to get me through the winter. So if anyone (and you know who you are) has excess tomatoes, I'm happy to take them off your hands.

GL came over for pasta Monday night. We interacted on the internets with Bill (who was streaming video of himself live from Denver) until it was time for him to head into the convention floor. (In fact, we all interacted lots with BillTV this week, but he wouldn't do the chicken dance for me.... I guess I can understand that he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of the rest of the important people in the media tent...) After a few glasses of left-over box wine from Tanglewood, Traci, GL and I all got misty-eyed during Michelle Obama's speech.

My evenings this week have been consumed by the Democratic Convention. The Clintons, the Bidens (Beau and Joe) and even John Kerry gave terrific speeches. The highlight, of course, was last night. Northampton Dems held a party at Paradise City Tavern. (Traci and I were delighted to find that they now have Blue Bird Bitter on tap. I adore this beer - I could drink it all day.)

Traci and Eleanor waiting for the show to start.

First there was Al:

And then Barack gave the amazing, inspiring speech we all needed.

There was happiness....

There were also photographers and reporters everywhere. See that guy behind Andre?

Yeah.....