Somewhere in Penn's Woods
We had a lovely and pastoral weekend spent in the company of beautiful, creative people (and their dogs) in the vast, unknown, central region of this rather surprisingly large and wonderful state! My sense of Pennsylvania geography is pathetic -- if I'd grown up here, as I did in Wyoming, I'm sure I'd know every hedge and every cornfield... but, alas....
kylecassidy and I had planned to hop on the Megabus for a few pennies and visit carolynturgeon in her writing space, but darned if we didn't go and miss the morning bus by mere seconds! So, after enacting a scene from Phaedra, with much hair pulling and huge, convulsive sobs (aren't you sorry you missed such a moving scene???? My Tony is now sitting on our mantel piece!) Kyle saved the day, and some shred of my dignity, by appearing like a golden haired god behind the wheel of a magnificent Philly Carshare, and whisked me off to an area of PA that was far more beautiful than I could have imagined, and where we plan to go again, and perhaps spend the rest of our lives.
We spent the weekend in the company of Carolyn, who has just received the galleys for her next novel, Mermaid, out in March of next year. It seems like yesterday we hosted a reading for her book, Godmother, and I can't wait to host the next one in Philadelphia! She is such an incredible writer; her stories lure you in and refuse to let go, even after the final page has been read. I'm so lucky to know her and to have her as a friend.
One of the reasons we made this trip at this moment was to spend an evening with Carolyn (before her romantic, cross-Atlantic voyage on the Queen Mary II) at the fantastic Millbrook Playhouse Cabaret, where Cole Porter's "You Never Can Tell" was being performed. The cabaret is so much fun! There are about 12 long picnic tables set up around the indoor cabaret space and the audience supplies their own picnic dinner, so we brought our salads and tofu burritos and champagne and had the best repast I've ever had at a dinner theatre in my life! It was fun to see the gorgeous picnic baskets and cutlery some of the other tables sported, and Carolyn and our new friend Jill were perfect companions; if we'd thought about it, we all agreed we should have worn 1930's era ballgowns and feathers (although Kyle might have opted for a tux instead....)
The rest of the weekend was spent exploring the environs, spending time with some amazing people, like Max Spiegel, who introduced us to a group of WWII veterans and former fliers and played us some of his historic folk instruments and is just an all around fascinating person, and his amazing dog, Merle, and Carolyn's friend Barbara, who lives in a slanted house on a slanted street, with cookie-cutter shapes cut into the walls!!! And we ate at the Whistle Stop Cafe, where they had the exact phone that is hanging up in my uncle's cabin and on which I spent many hours as a child, making the bells ring by cranking the lever!
And after that, we went to this incredible, and wonderfully spooky tunnel dug into the rock mountain and had some adventures, which I will save for another day!
All in all, the weekend was over far too soon, and we made Carolyn miss her bus to NYC and drove her to Philadelphia and made her watch scary movies like "Sigaw" so she wouldn't be able to sleep... and then sadly bid her adieu early the next morning so she could really catch her bus to NYC and make it to her ship on time.
*sigh*
This is a mad rush of words, I know... but if I don't write it like this, it will never be written at all, and I want it set down that we had a lovely and very romantic and friend-filled weekend.
kylecassidy and I had planned to hop on the Megabus for a few pennies and visit carolynturgeon in her writing space, but darned if we didn't go and miss the morning bus by mere seconds! So, after enacting a scene from Phaedra, with much hair pulling and huge, convulsive sobs (aren't you sorry you missed such a moving scene???? My Tony is now sitting on our mantel piece!) Kyle saved the day, and some shred of my dignity, by appearing like a golden haired god behind the wheel of a magnificent Philly Carshare, and whisked me off to an area of PA that was far more beautiful than I could have imagined, and where we plan to go again, and perhaps spend the rest of our lives.
We spent the weekend in the company of Carolyn, who has just received the galleys for her next novel, Mermaid, out in March of next year. It seems like yesterday we hosted a reading for her book, Godmother, and I can't wait to host the next one in Philadelphia! She is such an incredible writer; her stories lure you in and refuse to let go, even after the final page has been read. I'm so lucky to know her and to have her as a friend.
One of the reasons we made this trip at this moment was to spend an evening with Carolyn (before her romantic, cross-Atlantic voyage on the Queen Mary II) at the fantastic Millbrook Playhouse Cabaret, where Cole Porter's "You Never Can Tell" was being performed. The cabaret is so much fun! There are about 12 long picnic tables set up around the indoor cabaret space and the audience supplies their own picnic dinner, so we brought our salads and tofu burritos and champagne and had the best repast I've ever had at a dinner theatre in my life! It was fun to see the gorgeous picnic baskets and cutlery some of the other tables sported, and Carolyn and our new friend Jill were perfect companions; if we'd thought about it, we all agreed we should have worn 1930's era ballgowns and feathers (although Kyle might have opted for a tux instead....)
The rest of the weekend was spent exploring the environs, spending time with some amazing people, like Max Spiegel, who introduced us to a group of WWII veterans and former fliers and played us some of his historic folk instruments and is just an all around fascinating person, and his amazing dog, Merle, and Carolyn's friend Barbara, who lives in a slanted house on a slanted street, with cookie-cutter shapes cut into the walls!!! And we ate at the Whistle Stop Cafe, where they had the exact phone that is hanging up in my uncle's cabin and on which I spent many hours as a child, making the bells ring by cranking the lever!
And after that, we went to this incredible, and wonderfully spooky tunnel dug into the rock mountain and had some adventures, which I will save for another day!
All in all, the weekend was over far too soon, and we made Carolyn miss her bus to NYC and drove her to Philadelphia and made her watch scary movies like "Sigaw" so she wouldn't be able to sleep... and then sadly bid her adieu early the next morning so she could really catch her bus to NYC and make it to her ship on time.
*sigh*
This is a mad rush of words, I know... but if I don't write it like this, it will never be written at all, and I want it set down that we had a lovely and very romantic and friend-filled weekend.