Rosemary's birthday
Rosemary's birthday was Sunday last week, and we spent all kinds of time together over a four-day weekend. The best part was that we were outside every day. We had tons of sunshine and beautiful fall foliage to walk through after a week of gray days and rain.
Saturday we went walking around Reservoir 6 in West Hartford up on the Avon side, seeing ducks on the water, Hueblein Tower peeking over the brown, red and green trees, and shafts of light falling amid the pines along the trails.
That night we had Mike, Virginia and baby Charlie over for dinner. I made the Italian sausage-ground beef meatloaf, and they brought garlic-chive mashed potatoes, glazed baby carrots and green beans with almonds and bacon in a vinaigrette. Mmmm! They even brought some delicious red wine, too. We followed dinner with Veuve-Cliquot champagne that Julia got us last Christmas (yes, it sat in our refrigerator almost 11 months) and a German chocolate cake I got from a local town market.
For Rosemary's actual birthday Sunday, we went to the apple harvest festival in Southington. Lots of food and craft vendors. We wanted the apple fritters, but the line was crazy-long so we bailed on that. But we did eat apple and pumpkin crisps, kielbasa and pierogies from the local Polish club, barbecued Thai chicken.
And we hung around for Driven, a local band billed as classic rock, after I saw the keyboardist had a dual deck of Korg synthesizers. How about some Yes or Journey, perhaps? We got "Working for the Weekend," with the bass player in an AC/DC shirt playing Loverboy. They played some Duran Duran, Cheap Trick, the one Journey song I detest (can't hear "Don't Stop Believin'" ever again!), and then into some '90s pop-punk and bro-jams. But the keyboardist rocked a mean keytar. They were good, even if I didn't dig most of the music and a baby slept through it. But you know who did? A gaggle of little girls dancing in front of the stage with uncontrollable glee.
Monday we drove out to the town of Kent, rated No. 1 for fall foliage in Connecticut by the local Yankee magazine, for a hike at Kent Falls State Park. We'd spent so much time in Torrington this past year, and it was time to explore more of the Litchfield Hills area in the deep western part of the state after reading about Kent in the In Touch with the Litchfield Hills blog. And we saw a lot of the county on the ride to the falls after riding past Torrington; great country, farms, and the awesome Action Wildlife animal park that we'll have to check out next.
We got some lunch from the Fife 'n Drum restaurant and ate it at the park before doing the hike. The falls are beautiful, and it was fun going up the steep rocks. They kept going up and up, so we kept walking until we got to the top, and Rosemary stewed in jealousy over the person who lives in the house we saw at the top of the falls. We checked out Kent some more, taking in a book sale at the library and eating handmade ice cream made with Belgian chocolate from Belgique. Afterward we tried to get dinner in Torrington but Bogey's was closed, so we did tacos at Husk in Collinsville instead.
Tuesday was pretty quiet since Rosemary had to work, so I just putted around the house. But that night we met up with Julia in Southington for a late-night drink at Wood-N-Tap, and Julia brought Rosemary a present! And speaking of presents, Rosemary got hers from me on Wednesday: a massage! She was a eucalyptus-covered pile of goo when I retrieved her.
Happy birthday, honey!