Week 28 - Headed Back East

I’m here in RI trying to remember what last week was all about and, at this point, it’s a blur. I spent the week cleaning up from my 4th of July cookout and preparing to leave for RI. My flight was leaving at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday so every night had to be a model of productivity. I went to bed at 9:30 on Friday, all prepared to hit the road by 4:00 the next morning.

It was blazing hot Saturday morning – 76 degrees and humid at 4:00 a.m. I made it to the airport in good time and all went well. It was a teeny, tiny jet (the kind where the middle arm rests are up in the entire plane because the airlines know even skinny people can’t fit comfortably in those seats) but took off on time so it was all good. But then it was pouring rain in Detroit so we couldn’t get to our gate so just sat on the tarmac. Once we got in and I made my way from one end of one terminal, through the underground connector (what’s with the music and light shows they play down there?) and to the extreme other end of the 2nd terminal, my flight was already boarding. After a brief potty stop, I got on that plane. They kept announcing it was a nearly full flight but it appeared half empty to me. They shut the doors right on time and announced that there’d be plenty of room because there were lots of missed connections because of the weather but they weren’t waiting for them. While this meant I had an empty seat next to me, which was nice, how pissed would I have been had I been 10 minutes later? Big time! Especially because we pulled 20 feet away from the gate and then sat there for an hour and a half because a line of storms had shut down eastern airspace. Why didn’t they wait at the gate and make all those late arrivals happy? Only Northwest knows.

It was a very bumpy flight but I still arrived in time, albeit 1.5 hours late, for the planned Ikea excursion to Stoughton, Mass. John and his friend Eileen picked me up at the airport, we stopped to get Carolyn and offload my luggage and then headed out for a lunch of Swedish meatballs and lingonberry sauce. Ikea was fun, as always, and I managed to fill a bag with stuff – about half gifts and half for me. It felt good to finally start my stocking shopping.

Now I had noticed an exit for Taunton on the way up route 24 and so made my case for going home that way so I could stop and see the soon to be demolished Taunton State Hospital. My friends humored me and we took the exit. While the hospital was surrounded by the densest, black coated chain link fence I’d ever seen, it was totally cool. There had been a fire in the admin section of the Kirkbride but there was still plenty left to see. We drove around the perimeter and then I got out and took some pictures. I was happy to get to see it before they knocked it down, which had been delayed so I called myself lucky to have seen it at all.

After our scenic ride home, we headed to Oakland Beach for take out clam cakes and chowder from Iggy’s. It was so chilly by the water that I had to take shelter in the car or risk goose bumps. Quite a change from 76 degrees at 4:00 a.m.! After we ate our RI eats, John headed to Aaron’s room to put the armoir together while Eileen and I polished off a bottle of wine (Carolyn doesn’t do wine.) The conversation was fun and a great way to end a full day.

I had made arrangements to meet Deanne on Sunday morning since it was the only free time she had my whole trip. We started at Starbucks in Garden City and then went to brunch at NYLO, a fancy new hotel in an old converted mill in Warwick. The atmosphere and conversation were great but the food, which looked so fun – cheddared polenta with poached eggs and apple wood smoked bacon – was only so so.

When I left Deanne, I stopped at the market for fresh fruit and headed home for the Cuban themed dinner party Carolyn and I were throwing at 4:00 for all our friends. Carolyn had done the lion’s share of the work – shopping, cooking and cleaning – so my only contribution other than funds was buying and prepping berries. Sheesh! We had twelve people over, including Carolyn’s friend Peter whom I’d heard so much about but had never met. It was great to hang with everyone and the food, as usual, was great – cilantro lime pork, black beans and rice, grilled veggies and flan and berries for dessert. What’s not to like? And what a great way to end my week with anticipation of more fun to come. Life is good!