I never anticipate travel delays. But lately, I’ve taken to relishing where they will take me. What adventures lie ahead if you’re willing to take the risk, and just go with what happens? I went to get my reservation for my train trip to Coimbra, Portugal and when I finally […]
New Century Theatre’s latest production, Other Desert Cities, hits hard. It’s like the worst of awkward family Christmas reunions, and from the very beginning it’s clear that Mom’s claws are still sharp and they can scratch you at any moment. Brooke Wyeth (Cate Damon) is out in Palm Springs, visiting […]
Around the country, many transit agencies are becoming land developers because every time they build a commuter rail system, the houses along the route and especially at the terminus become way more valuable. In a WSJ story yesterday, I read a story by Chelsey Dulaney about how land development is […]
I watched this giant logging machine chew small sticks and move big logs around by the railroad tracks. The current project adding continuous rail track includes lots of tree removal. This guy had just finished his work and he swung the big six-wheeler right up over the tracks, the 3′ […]
I’ve been looking forward to seeing the new movie Chef since it first came out. But the reasons I liked the film so much were different than I had expected them to be. I love the inner workings of a restaurant, the people who together, figure out how to get […]
We are still a little rolling and rocking after our seven-day voyage on the M/V Grande Caribe up the New England coast. We can’t say enough good things about the company, Blount Small Ship Adventures, or our wonderful cast of fellow cruisers. To a person they were fun, well-educated, eager […]
On whaling ships in the 1800s, captain’s wives often accompanied their husbands on the years-long journeys around Cape Horn, and there was a special flag that was flown to indicate a woman was aboard the ship. When another whaling ship passed, if they too were flying this pennant, the ships […]
We have been at sea since Friday afternoon, and as I sit here we are docked at Vineyard Haven. It’s just about four am, and as has become my shipboard custom, I’m awake and in the big salon of the Grand Caribe after a bout of insomnia. Sleeping on a […]
Today my travels brought me down to Northampton and as I drove down King St on my way home, I swung into Foster-Farrar so I could get a better look at the demolition taking place at the former Northampton Honda. There have been so many times we drove past this […]
We’re in the thick of summer, but thankfully, we haven’t gotten into the mugginess and terrible sleeping weather that lies ahead of all of us. I just watched my neighbors walking by, holding a leash and being pulled along by their black mongrel. One of the middle-aged men was shirtless, […]
Another Green River Festival is in the history books, and this one was a great one, different in some ways, but the same in how it captured the essense of summer in the Pioneer Valley. Monte from WRSI said that from the stage, so much of what we all love […]
Tonight I went to see the latest New Century Theatre production at Smith College, “The How and the Why,” by Sarah Treem. It’s a serious play about a mother and daughter who come together for a biology conference and find similarities in their adult lives after the mom gave her […]