Spending My Tax Return, Part Two

Another very groovy thing that happened in April was getting my tax return before I left for Providence. Not only do I not consistently get money back, but I usually have some financial hole or other that the money must fill. Two years ago it was medical bills, for myself and Ben. This year, there was nothing pending, and so we enjoyed a full week of not checking the bank balance once or twice a day - or before we ordered dessert.

Not that I bought anything of note. Lots of good meals, some clothes for Ben, some tea at Tealuxe, a very cool pencil from RISD, and a new candy dish for my desk:

How cute is that! I'm sure it is meant for small children, but I reject conventional limits.

Speaking of RISD, I spent one morning at their museum while Ben was at work. Their galleries are spread over at least five floors, including a museum that was built to look like a wealthy merchant's Benefit Street home, and some niche spaces like gardens and terraces and bridges. The exhibits were beautifully curated and less pompous self-conscious than most museums. One exhibit, of "everyday" design, had five Little Black Dresses interspersed with more industrial objects.

Karl Lagerfeld upfront.

This exhibit also included a gorgeous Italian typewriter from the Sixties, which was a very early example of all lowercase design in the logo and name. The sample typewriter actually had no upper case letters to type with, but of course Olivetti added them to the models they sold.

The valentine.

But enough about my adventures. You want to see the Boy! Lets start with his mailbox.

I'm not sure why Ben is an elf in this drawing.

You don't want to see, or even hear me describe his apartment, so here he is on the shores of still-frozen Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondacks.

So handsome, working his Spike look. I keep telling him he should go platinum blonde.

A Real Vacation, Part One

This April, I spent a week visiting Ben in Providence, including a weekend jaunt up to Indian Lake to visit Mom, who just celebrated her 90th birthday. She says she is very wise now.

I left Des Plaines after an overnight drenching rain, which turned the area into a disaster area, as the already overfull Des Plaines river crested at a new record (over ten feet) and drowned every bit of land near its banks. I was lucky to get out at all, and ended up spending most of the day at the airport, and flying into Boston at 10PM instead of Providence at 5PM. I then caught the last Peter Pan (no lie) bus of the evening into Providence, and arrived about midnight downtown. THEN I took a cab to my hotel. I was so happy to be on vacation that none of this bothered me in the slightest. "Look, the bus has outlets at each seat! Awesome!" 

Providence was in full bloom.

It was 70 degrees on my first day there (it snowed back in Illinois, if only flurries). This is the view heading up the hill toward Brown's campus. At the park by my hotel, I noticed these pretty manhole covers:

Nautilus-shaped!

The day was so beautiful that we decided to rent a car early and drive down to Newport. There wasn't a car to be had because of the train stoppage to and from Boston (intended to prevent Tsarnaev's escape), so we waited an hour or so and were rewarded with a brand new Ford Escape! This was one of the cars on my shortlist to buy next year, so I was pretty thrilled to have such an extended test drive. More good travel karma.

A very scenic drive south to Newport, and over a bridge that rose 400 feet in the air and disappeared into a fog bank. It was beautiful and eerie and possibly full of leprous ghost sailors. Newport itself is wildly touristy on its main drag, but charming everywhere else. It was getting cooler and mistier so we ran to the Gap to get Ben a pullover, and drove down to the Cliff Walk.

You wander along a rugged shore, on the petticoats of grand mansions, and imagine the lives of their owners. Name a commoditiy, and these people owned it: railroads, coal, steel, whale oil, timber.

The Breakers, built by the Vanderbilts

I was going to Photoshop out the white van, but you know, it gives the picture SCALE.

It eventually got too rainy and cold for us to pretend any longer that we were hardy fisher folk, and we got back in our luxurious cockpit and drove back to Providence, where we had a fiery Korean hotpot stew that I had just seen on Anthony Bourdain the night before. Ben's pot was full of kimchi (I am not a fan) and mine had calamari and clams. After dinner we met Ben's pals at Trinity Brewhouse, where young Ben has his own tankard, and had some excellent Hefeweizen. THEN we moseyed across the street to a Providence Bruins game!

The game was fantastic fun; Skating! Fights! Goals! Sweet Caroline! in between periods they brought out Peewee hockey teams for mini-games. And then, about halfway through the second period, the game stopped abruptly, and the announcer came on to tell us "The Boston Police have captured the second bomber!" The crowd went nuts and I got chills. Providence is like Boston's little sister; the Providence Bruins are the feeder team to the Boston Bruins, and it was a full house of Boston fans. For many reasons, it was a special time to be in this lovely city.

And that was just the first day of my vacation.
 


 

What Cheer?

In 1636, Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island who left Salem, Massachusetts to seek religious freedom, landed at modern-day Providence and was greeted by Narragansett Native Americans with "What Cheer, Netop". Netop was the Narragansett word for friend, and What Cheer was an old English greeting brought to New England by English settlers.

Ben eats calamari and Clams Casino.

Providence was pretty fantastic, even and above seeing Ben, who I was forced to hug and kiss multiple times. As you can see, we ate well. At Hemenway's we ordered chowder and the giant seafood platter and couldn't finish it. We had bison quesadillas at Tortilla Flats and many good cups of coffee elsewhere. I said "what cheer" to several delicious local beers over the weekend.


Ben lives in spitting distance of RISD and Brown University on College Hill, so there were tons of cute (and head) shops, bars, arthouse theaters and good-looking coeds. Even a Tealuxe! Saturday afternoon we went to a complicated graphic design exhibit at one of the RISD galleries, and here is Ben in the gardens outside:

The exhibit was beautiful and meta and mostly over my head, but I was amused by this page from a deconstructed artist's book.

We had beautiful, crisp weather all weekend except for a bit of spitting drizzle on Sunday. Saturday night we went to a multimedia dance performance at RISD, very modern and interesting with atonal electronic music and multiple projections on the floor and the screen behind the dancers. At least I thought so; color Ben "a little bored."

Providence is enormously photogenic, even with my indifferent phone camera. Many of the houses by the waterfront (where my hotel was) have plaques identifying the builder and the date.

From 1882.

Four tasteful pumpkins adorn the lintel.

My hotel room overlooked lovely India Point Park.

We also visited the Providence Athanaeum, the fourth oldest library in the country. It is still a circulating library, and there were students studying in the quiet, cozy space, the silence broken occasionally by the hiss of the Keurig machine. They still have their card catalog out to browse, though they are online now, of course.

Catalog card from 1891.

Photos make it look kind of grand, but it is full of old wood and window seats. Both Ben and I immediately grabbed a magazine and sat down to read. It's that kind of place.

They had a financial crisis in 2005, and the board, after much deliberation, decided to sell their precious Audobon "elephant" folio - for $5 million. There was apparently a lawsuit in protest, but the sale went ahead, and now the library is thriving.  This is the Egyptian Cabinet on the main floor, built in 1838 to house their copy of Description de l'Egypte, now in their rare books room.

About as big as a coffin, cool manuscripts inside.

But enough about the library! We walked all over College Hill and downtown on Saturday, which eventually wore my feet out, and I had to sit down. In a shoe store.

Born Attila. They were $65 off!

Then I had to come home, only a few hours ahead of Hurricane Sandy. My flight was the last United flight out before they closed the airport. Ben got a lot of rain and wind, but never lost power, thankfully. He's coming here for Thanksgiving (yay!), but I plan to go back to Providence after Christmas. I'm so pleased he lives in such a wonderful city. What cheer, Ben!