New England

People don’t look good

~ MaryG ~ 23 Comments

I don’t know if this is just a New England thing or what, but people do not look well to me. It’s been a looooong winter here in New England (currently 42 degrees with light snow in Nashua, NH), but it’s like this every year. We know this. March is a winter month and it’s foolish to expect anything else, even with global warming. You can easily get snow on Easter Sunday. Hell, I’ve seen snow on Mother’s Day.

But this is different. A lot of people look miserable to me. An older woman with a walker was my cashier at Marshall’s yesterday. At age 65+, she has a job that requires her to stand up—for hours. Can she not retire? Is she one of the millions of Americans whose retirement plan is “work til I die.”

I have no idea of the political affiliation of strangers, so maybe this has nothing to do with the erosion of democracy or ascendent authoritarianism, but it does remind me a bit of my trip to the Soviet Union in 1987. Nobody smiled there. Everyone looked…grey (for lack of a better word). If they did smile, you could see that their teeth were horrible. They did not have American smiles.

I have done a fair bit of traveling and I can tell you that we tend be the warmest smilers in the world. And as a rule, we have fantastic teeth. (Maybe it was the fluoride and all the other public health initiatives we benefited from as kids.) But I’m seeing far fewer smiles lately. And more people are missing teeth.

An older woman sitting in a museum in Suzdal (Russia/USSR) in 1987 – “smiling” without showing her teeth
A couple struggling their way through a Nashua mall today in search of a free wheelchair for her to use

Winterlights

~ MaryG ~ 14 Comments
Stevens Coolidge House & Gardens in North Andover, Massachusetts
You gotta love a polar bear
I want to get some of these sphere lights for a tree near my driveway.
Shooting in 0.5x (ultra-wide lens) mode on iPhone gives a wider field of view but is available on the rear camera only, so you have to take a blind selfie (with the back of your phone facing you). It gives the photographer a very long arm.
It was in the low 20s last night on my son’s birthday, but we were dressed for it because we know how this works. It’s all about having the correct outerwear!
We added our wishes to a wishing tree. “Learn Italian without Trying” was my son’s.
Mine was the same as many others: 🌍☮️

All in all, a fun outing, but the lights were not quite as impressive as I’d hoped.

For some truly impressive winterlights, check out Brian’s post from Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.

Product review

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

I like indoor fairy lights, but get tired of constantly changing the AAA batteries, so I took a chance and ordered some solar-powered ones from Amazon (even though Jeff Bezos is totally on my shit list). Where else can you search and compare tons of cheap electronic crap from China and have it delivered within 2 days? Amazon stands alone!

And seeing as the price of cheap, electronic crap from China is about to go up, I thought I’d share the link:

https://a.co/d/5oLLUI4

The lights come with small stakes for using outdoors, but they also work well in interior windows that get sun. You just have to face the little solar power packs south. They charge during the day and come on automatically after dark. You can set them to steady or flashing/twinkling mode.

It’s one way to ward off the doom and gloom of early darkness. The sun sets here by 4:30pm now…

Image by ChatGPT

Stranger Danger

~ MaryG ~ 15 Comments

I’m making a sincere attempt to leave my political anger behind for the weekend…there will be no F bombs in this post.

I’m from Massachusetts. We don’t say “y’all,” except when it rhymes. Well, it’s fall y’all and it’s absolutely gorgeous here. If you’ve never been to New England in the fall, you should add it to your bucket list.

After a few days of true sweater weather in the 50s, it’s going to be back in the 70s today.

A view of a pond along the rail trail I walk daily
A skeleton seated on a tractor beside the rail trail
Late afternoon sun shining through some greenery along the rail trail

Speaking of “my” rail trail, there is an empty field that runs alongside it:

Interestingly, this field was used as a shooting location three years ago for “Salem’s Lot,” which is now streaming on Max. The movie is based on a book by Stephen King, the prolific horror writer from Maine.

Back in the fall of 2021 on my daily walk, I watched Hollywood transform this field into a 1970s drive-in, complete with numerous cars from the era.

This is the Salem’s Lot set under construction in October 2021. The blue building on the right is the projection booth for the drive-in.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of gawking by walkers and cyclists along the rail trail. It was still peak COVID, so many people were working remotely and there wasn’t much else going on. This was fascinating! By the time the filming actually started, there were production assistants keeping people off the field. But you could still see a lot of the activity from the rail trail. One day I saw what I thought were zombies crossing the field.

Well, last night we watched Salem’s Lot on Max and I discovered they weren’t zombies—they were vampires! As you might imagine, I paused the TV several times during the drive-in movie scenes to orient myself.

The beginning of one of the drive-in movie scenes in Salem’s Lot on Max. The blue projection booth building is on the left.

I’m sorry to report that it’s not a very good film, BUT if it’s free to you, it might be fun to watch it on Halloween night while you answer the doorbell for trick or treaters.

If you’re a GenXer like me, it might also bring back some bits of your childhood you’d forgotten. The story is set in 1975 and the kids in the film are about the same age I was then…10.

As a ten-year old, “Stranger Danger” was constantly lurking. Adults were always warning us about the possibility of somebody with a puppy or a candy bar luring us into their car. I never worried one bit about school shootings, but I did worry a lot about getting kidnapped!

When that first little kid gets snatched in the film, I thought to myself “stranger danger.”

The Northern Lights

~ MaryG ~ 36 Comments

I think a lot of people in the Northeast (including me!) checked off “See the Northern Lights” from their buckets lists last night. This was especially rewarding for those of us who missed seeing them in May. Who knew our once-in-a-lifetime chance would come twice in one year?

The Northern Lights from my very own neighborhood last night around 7:15pm. I was on my way to choir practice and happened to look up.

This feels like a lot of things.

Remembrance

The lights and colors in the sky last night reminded me of my close friend from college, Carla, who died in 2022. She had brain cancer. She really wanted to see the Northern Lights before she died, but was too sick to travel, so her friends and family found a way to project them onto the ceiling in her bedroom in Santa Fe. It was beautiful.

A Sign

I know I’m not alone in feeling a lot of anxiety about the state of the country and the way it feels like we’re never going to go back to “normal” — no matter who wins the election. I’ve never in my life been afraid of a US election, but I’m afraid of this one.

Similarly, I never once saw the Northern Lights as a kid growing up in Massachusetts, but this year, many New Englanders saw them twice! A little girl standing near me last night said, “this is God.” Maybe so. Or maybe it’s a sign of transition to a new era—an era where completely new things happen.

Unknown new things are scary and I have a strong urge to “circle the wagons” and try to protect the ones I love. (I think to myself, “please stay in Massachusetts where you’ll maybe be a bit safer from gun violence, flooding, dangerous reproductive care, crappy public schools, etc.)

But I know that’s not really possible.

My new granddaughter will hopefully live into the next century. She will live out most of her life in this new era, whatever it may be. I want her to feel free, adventurous, and safe to explore the world beyond her home state.

Living in the transitional time

An activist friend of mine left for New Zealand yesterday. She’s staying until the end of the month. She said she just needed to get out of the country for these last few weeks before the election. I can relate. In some ways, it’s all just too much.

Maybe seeing the aurora borealis is the reminder some of us needed to center ourselves and live in the moment. Humans have been around a long time and have accomplished many great things and many terrible things. Even though it sometimes feels like end times are upon us, there’s a decent chance that something great is just around the corner too.

Final thought: just breathe

Related post:

Northern Lights II

Thankful Thursday (sorry, vegans)

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

I’m thankful that I got to have lobster (“lob-stah” – if you’re from around here) last night. I typically have one lobster dinner per summer, so I’m glad I got this one in before Labor Day—the unofficial end of summer.

Growing up in New England, I’ve eaten many, many lobsters. And yes, as a kid, I was extremely concerned about the seemingly cruel manner of death – by boiling. But once I had that delicious claw meat dipped in hot, melted butter, I got over it.

For those who have never had a lobster, the best ones are from the cold New England waters, especially Maine. (I made the mistake of ordering a lobster in Hawaii once. It was a totally different experience.) In my opinion, boiled lobster is best accompanied by a baked potato and either fresh corn or good coleslaw.

And if you’re a GenXer like me, you must recall a certain song, whenever lobster is served. (You know the one.)

Five more days of summer!