Still in the window

We have two cats, Pepper and Daisy, just as we did when Laura was alive.  But there is another cat in the house, a cat that Laura left us, drawn on a window in Susan's room.  It's been there at least 3 years now.  Laura's cat has got a vantage point with a view around the front and up the road.  It's weathered well and we hope it will remain for many years to come.

Blue Mist shrub

A sure sign of September days, a blue mist shrub in bloom on Pepperidge Road

September 11, 2009

In Laura's hometown of Boonton Township, this morning on the eighth anniversary of Sept 11, a solitary fireman stood at attention, keeping a vigil outside the firehouse.

Settling in

Susan has been at BU two weeks now. We drove her up to Boston with a small mountain of belongings and helped her get situated in her dorm room. The first week she joined the 20th annual "Freshman Year Student Outreach Program (or FYSOP) and did a bunch of interesting things like working in a food pantry, helping at the Red Cross, and visiting city facilities on one of the Boston Harbor islands. Classes started Aug 31 and Susan reports by email and "in person" on Skype how interesting her courses are and how much she likes it at BU!

Photos: These bins made moving in a lot easier! The world map is a tip-off to the interest in a possible major in International Relations.

Schooner without its skipper

Laura saw Ted Kennedy's boat once. Here it is a blue-hulled schooner named Mya as seen from our tour boat out of Hyannis on a 2001 trip to Cape Cod. Her skipper now will return no more.
As I watched the wake on Friday evening and the funeral and burial on Saturday I couldn't help thinking of my parents and my Aunt Agnes. Somehow I had the feeling I was watching it for them as well as for me.
At some point, it popped into my head that we had actually seen Teddy Kennedy's boat once and that I might have a picture. A quick search of the near morass of boxes upon boxes of old film camera prints turned up the photo in short order with a bit of luck.
Laura was six and half then. We stayed in a lovely and memorable house, the "Quivett Creek House" in East Dennis. Most of my pictures of Laura from that trip are of her darting away up a path or whirling out of view in the house.
Photos: Mya resting on her mooring in 2001 near the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport; this beautiful view of the marsh awaited every morning in the Quivett Creek House; Laura (in orange shirt) runs up the steps of the Province Lands visitors center of CCNS; Laura outside the Brewster Store (click on any picture to get enlarged view.)

In loving memory...on Cape Cod

As we mentioned on the Caringbridge site, just wanted to share with you the memorial brick for Laura at the new Education Center of the Thornton Burgess Society in Sandwich, Cape Cod, Mass.

With Hurricane Bill to pass by the Cape this weekend, the waves should be picking up. Cape lovers may want to keep an eye on the beach cam by clicking here periodically over the weekend.

Giverny

Another long ago thread of interest was picked up when I spent first an afternoon in the musee d'Orsay in Paris to see the Impressionist paintings there and then made the day trip to Giverny, Claude Monet's home, about an hour away by train. The gardens at Giverny were more lovely than I imagined; the plantings were dense with many colors and varieties of flowers. At the water lily pond there actually was a line to take a picture at one of the most photogenic vantage points. In Monet's house I especially enjoyed the bright yellow dining room with the traditional wheatback chairs. They were very strict in the house - absolutely no photos - quite a curious contrast to the Musee d'Orsay where in addition to the famous paintings being in much natural light flooding in from high windows, lines of tourists were continually snapping away at them with flash. Go figure.

At home we had a little print of the Monet scene of the child in the path between the sunflowers, emblematic to me of an idlyllic summer day in a child's life. It alway hung in Susan's room but somehow it always belonged to Susan and Laura both. I was determined to find the vantage point in Monet's garden for that very scene. Soon had it narrowed down. There were trees now in the way but they could have easily grown up over the years. I thought. Well, the roof didn't look exactly right but they must have changed the roofline, hmm. It had to be right-everything else looked just right-I told myself (ignoring even the stairs that can be spyed on closer inspection.) I must have had a nagging doubt though because I decided to ask. Oh no, I learned, that scene was painted at Monet's earlier house at Vetheuil, about 20 miles away! I guess that is what I like about impressionist paintings-you can see your own dream in them!

Photos: Monet's Garden in Vetheuil, 1881; the scene at Giverny that had me fooled; the dining room in Monet's house (remember absolutely no photos-this is a picture of a postcard taken on my deck at home!); children in front of Monet paintings in Musee d'Orsay drawing with instructor-I was taken with the energy these children applied to their drawing. The most popular Monet prints are commonplace but if you are trying to get a handle on a less common one, this site might help.

Go figure runner-up: Did I see the original Monet's Garden at Vetheuil? No, the original is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. And where is that American icon "Whistler's Mother?" Yes, it's in the Musee d'Orsay!