3 of 3: New England

Really quick: I want to apologize to those of you who read my blog, live in New England, and did not see me in December. We made a under-publicized trip up to NH to meet the newest baby in our lives, NJ, born on November 28, 2007. We made a conscious decision to keep a low profile on this last leg of our east-coast trip. Trying to see everyone we would want to see in the span of a very snowy weekend was not going to work out and we needed to keep things simple. Next time we're in town, you'll know it. Please understand.

And on to the post...

With an other nor'easter chasing us up the coast, Andy and I left in our rental Aveo on Saturday afternoon. We took our old route through Albany onto the Mass Pike up through Massachusetts. It was dark by the time we hit Nashua, but we couldn't hold back our curiosity about our old house. It was an odd feeling to hit Main Street. It felt like we knew where we were on a cellular level. We could easily fall into auto pilot hitting the lights on the hill up toward our old home. When we got there, we parked our car on the side of the road and looked down our old driveway. I felt an odd sense of familiarity and nostalgia. This was the first time we had laid eyes on the place since our names were on the deed. I seemed to forget that we have been parking our car on a different street in a different state on a different coast for a moment and I felt surprised to see new cars parked in our former driveway. But hell, life goes on for houses. That particular house has stood there since 1900. Despite how I once felt ownership of every blade of grass in the yard and every inch of the granite foundation, the truth is, our "ownership" was barely a blip in the existence of that place.

During the sale of the house, we never interacted with the buyer at all. We knew his name, and that was it.We stayed out here in California biting our fingernails, leaving the dirty work up to our realtors in New Hampshire. Being there that night was our only chance to see the buyer in person. We could tell by the lights in the living room that he was home. We trudged through the snow around to the front of the house and hopped through the unshoveled front path to the door. I held my breath and knocked. A girl our age opened the door and said, "Hey, what's up?" like we knew each other. This was a relief already. I told her who we were and she invited us in. We met her boyfriend, the owner of the house, and he was equally welcoming. They were cooking something on the stove and watching Lord of the Rings in our old TV room. They let us walk around and see the place, which felt as strange as the drive to the house. But, it wasn't sad. Just sort of a surreal feeling that things really have changed. The owner remodeled the kitchen entirely. He, or whoever he hired for the job, tore up the ceramic tile on the floor and replaced it with hardwood. He also changed a lot of the cabinetry. We felt fine telling them it all looked great; after all, we didn't toil over anything that we felt that strongly about. But I must point out, he did keep our crazy orange bathroom, because--no, I'm not joking, he really said this--he liked it! So there you have it HGTV, staging ain't always what you've got it cracked up to be.

Quick semi-related tangent: I found this image at thedetroiter.com. It turns out that Andy and I aren't the only fans of Tiggerific Orange (that bathroom color.) There is a group of artist activists in Detroit that are sick of seeing abandoned buildings dotting their city. Their project is called DDD. Here's what they do:

\

After our visit we made our way across the river to Adam and Mariah's house in Hudson. Adam, Mariah, Katelyn, J and their new baby Naomi Jain.

We hung around on Saturday night celebrating J's birthday. I must have been too worn out from the drive to remember to take a picture of his cake. (Does anyone else have one? The J on it was cute...) But I did remember to capture M&M master baker, Adam, hard at work.

The storm was forecasted to begin sometime overnight on Saturday, so we all stayed over as a plan to be snowed in on Sunday. It worked. We woke up to another winter wonderland just outside our walls.

And even some inside the walls...

It was so fun to stay inside all day with friends with no expectations of going outside. Of course we spent a lot of the day cooing over Naomi.

We also played some games in the kitchen. I was a Set champion for once in my life. I held onto Naomi that game and we were a team: she hypnotized my opponents while I swept the table of green squigglies and striped diamonds.

(I got this picture from the Wikipedia. I recommend checking out this game; it's awesomely simple.)

Then we played this game called Kill Dr. Lucky.

It's from this website: Cheap Ass Games. It's a really neat site that sells board games for next to nothing because the creators leave out all the unnecessary frill of a fancy board and pieces that typical boardgames have. In fact, in Kill Dr. Lucky we had to come up with our own pawns and one for Dr. Lucky himself.

I'm not going to divulge whose piece was whose for fear of offending a particular eastern religion that none of us had any intention of picking a fight with (not that they'd fight us...) The game was a lot of fun. I am definitely curious to try another game from the site soon.

I spent some of the afternoon writing my Endicott post in A&M's kitchen. After a while I started to feel logey from staying inside in my pajamas all day. That's the downside of being snowed in, I suppose. I couldn't even go outside to play in the snow that night because I failed to pack boots and dry clothing. It wouldn't be another 12 hours before I built up the desire to get my sneakers wet and drown in Adam's coat. The guys got to go out, however...

I think we can all agree that they had quite the jolly time playing in the snow like little boys who only happen to be old enough to drive.

While they were out driving out of their snow fort walls, I did a little picture-taking inside. Here is a little sampling of what I found interesting upstairs that afternoon...

We gave a pair of booties to Naomi. (If you are wondering, we don't know who knitted them. It certainly wasn't me.)

Mariah and Adam gave me a flowering Numi Tea set. A selection of teas and a clear glass teapot comes in this really neat bamboo box. Mariah has a set, too, so we used both of them to try out some flavors. They taste as nice as they look.

I also started taking some pictures of Sammi, the Leopard Gecko that lives with A & M. She was hungry when I spotted her, which was great for me because her hunger made her social. When she saw me and my camera coming she peaked out of her cave to see if I was bearing anything wriggling for her.

Initially I was not, but Adam came to her aid and we fed her some sort of worms.

Adam and Mariah have some living things from the plant kingdom in their house, too. They have an Aero Garden on the sill of their new kitchen-to-living room window. The window is an improvement to the house that our two newlywed friends put in together recently.

This garden grows herbs and spices like an electric bread maker bakes bread. You put in all the ingredients and make sure the thing is functioning, and in the end you've got a welcome addition to dinner. The plants grow hydroponically, and below the illuminated surface you can take a peak at their roots...

When Sunday evening rolled around, Katelyn and J packed their things up and headed out with Naomi back down to Massachusetts's where they live. I took one more photo shoot of the baby for good measure...

That night I fell asleep on the couch in the basement watching Adult Swim and didn't wake up until 10am on Monday morning. We never aligned with Eastern Standard Time. We stayed in what would be better described as Eastern Slacker Time. We went out for breakfast at Cookies Chuck Wagon, the best breakfast spot in Hudson. As usual, their menu did not disappoint. We carried on the slacker theme by watching Super Bad while we did a load of laundry and packed up our things. By the time we were ready to go out and meet the world for real, Mariah got home from school (she teaches math at a prep school in MA.) We all got dressed up in snow gear, Andy and I borrowing various pieces from our hosts. Then we drove a little ways to Benson's Animal Farm to do some exploring. Apparently this place was the place to go in southern NH back before the 80s. It was full of family-friendly fun with all kinds of things from caged lions to a roller coaster. Today, it's completely abandoned.

Until my camera battery died prematurely, I was able to capture a few shots of what the place is like...

We didn't explore much of the place at all, mostly because it took so much effort to get around. It would have been an ideal place for cross country skiing or snowshoeing, but all I had were gator covered socks and sneakers. The snow was more than a foot deep, and it was covered in about an inch of ice. Adam went home bleeding and Andy bruised from repeatedly crashing their shins into the crust. I think that I avoided injury because I had to practically leap like a deer just to make a path for myself in that stuff.

We found it fun to stomp on the snow and watch the pristine ice crack in long, spidery lines.

Adam decided he wanted to find out how the cracks would look if he crashed his entire body onto it.

This place is probably really cool on its own in a different season. It might even be spooky to see all the abandoned animal cages and odd, crumbling amusement park features. But this particular weekend it was made into a solemn winter playground. It was the perfect destination to get out and get our hearts pounding a bit in between long days of sitting inside.

We squeezed in one last, awesome meal with Adam and Mariah: Spicy sate udon noodles with mock chicken from the Vietnam Noodle House in Nashua. It was as good as we remembered and I stuffed myself so full of it that I could have gone days without eating afterwards. From there we made our way down to MA to stay our last night with Katelyn, J and Naomi. In the morning we drove J to the T and then took off to Logan to fly home. It was gorgeously sunny and cold, just like I remember Winter in Boston, sending us off on a happy note. It was great to see our friends and to meet our newest one, NJ. What a cutie.

Next time we're up there, we promise to spread ourselves a little more and make sure to see the rest of the people we love in New England. Thanks for understanding, guys.