For the fourth of July we went up to see Harvey and Alice in a Garfield Lake lakehouse they rented in the Berkshires. The trip included a good deal of talk while sitting on the water, a guided tour of Santarella, a unique house being refurbished, Tanglewood and the music of Diana Krall. It was a fine get together. Opening for her was Frederico Aubele whose soft, sexy, Latin sounds with a hint of Bolero romance were just wonderful. I'll need to buy some of his music soon. The Spanish was clear and easy enough as well.
Afterward we saw some fireworks over the Tanglewood lawn. Very nice show.


The rented lake house is not pictured here but was comfortable and interesting with plenty of old, interesting things scattered about and a view of the lake from the balcony. The also had these round porthole like overhead sunwindows that amplified the sunlight and worked to brighten up the rooms. In the bathroom I kept trying to turn one off as it was so bright.
Up early I got a fine taste of their books and actually have ordered the ones I enjoyed starting. I am always drawn to books at cottages.

Some quotes:

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
William James
"everyone comes from the same source. If you hate another human being, you're hating yourself." Elvis Presley

(before traveling) "I had not known that People in the world believe they are the People and their language is the Word, and strangers are not fully human--at least not human in the way the People are--nor is the stranger's language anything but the gabbing of incoherent and inspissated felicites."
Paul Theroux

note: inspissated means made thick especially by evaporation. However, I sense here the author conotatively playing with both insipid and piss.

Our food was a collection of things we brought from Guido's near Lee, Mass and things harvey and Alice had. We are good at making a buffet of cheese and olives and creamed herring and such. Alice made the main course, a fine chicken salad. We had all the tastes on the lawn at Tanglewood and the next day for lunch.

On the way up Elizabeth and I stopped in Lee at Salmon Run for some great lunch at one of our favorite eating spots. I had the Buffalo salmon, salmon done with a Buffalo wing sauce. Yum.

Wonderful tiger lily near the cottage.

Hiking down the trail to the lake.


Alice at the lake.

Talking by the water.


Lake and sweet little boathouse.





The deck and the tree growing through it.

Alice and Harvey discussing the issues of seeing or missing movie previews.


Elizabeth trying to the be the head of the conversation.

Malards and their ducklings swimming a wide circle around us to avoid the conversation.



The trail back up to the cottage.

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Later we went down to the public beach and watched a few cold braving swimmers and talked more.

Shapes of fencepost




Shapes of harvey wrapped about fenceposts and listening to poker stories.





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We drove up to the Santarella house and had our interesting tour and an explanation of how the fellow is refurbishing this interesting old building.



Door knocker

Silo shapes
Interesting shapes of the front.









Cointemplative pond in the rear of the property.










We had a fine time. I had some trouble with my sleeping machine and did not do so well overnight, but I survived and everyone was nice not to slap me when I yawned.