what do you do when mel gibson invades your little town to film “edge of darkness“?

look, it’s jaz! going about her townie business on her bike. (as seen on masslive.)

you fire up plen aire and the fire pit for some s’mores, hot chocolate and a viewing of state and main, of course.

why? watch this:

as it turns out, people will show up for a mamet-fest after all.

last night we had our second back yard movie night. this reminded me that i never mentioned our first back yard movie night!

canvas + pipe + tie-downs = movie screen:

nominations were made, votes were cast, a film choice was made.

as everyone arrived, the concession stand (our kitchen, filled with delicious audience contributions) opened:

with goodies in-hand, sweatshirts on, and the fire blazing, we got settled in for the first show:

raising arizona

the boston symphony orchestra just happened to decide to perform beethovan’s 9th symphony at tanglewood on katy’s birthday last week. so, of course, we all packed a picnic and made a day of it.

the weather was amazing. it was possibly the most perfect day of the summer.

(l to r: tom, me, gl, andre, eleanor)

get us all together and you are likely to find:
pimm’s cups

(the birthday girl enjoying the tasty beverage)

lots of food

(clockwise beginning upper left: tom, me, gl, eleanor, chris, molly, josh, pete)

yarn

technology

(andre)

and laughing

(l to r: traci, audrey, pete)

not a bad way to spend a day.

need more picnic-action? go here or here.

thanks, jaz, for filling in some of the pictures

uh huh. interesting…

what did i do? oh, thanks for asking. well, i went to the demolition derby!

it was crazy fun. in fact, it was way more fun than it should have been.

the initial crash was disconcerting, but after that, it was just hysterical.
and inspiring to all the little girl derby fans in the crowd (the girl sitting in front of me was super into it):

a young woman came from behind and won the derby! yay!

the demolition derby was actually part of the cummington fair. so, tom, me and some friends spent the evening having a grand ol’ time wandering around before and after the derby.

the fair was pretty nice, and there was lots to be seen. totally worth an evening out. (sorry, jeffy and eileen, apparently we took you to completely the wrong fair! next time we’ll time it a week sooner and go to this one instead.)

but there was something slightly…off…about the whole thing. there were lots of ride and game knock-offs. for example, instead of whack-a-mole, there was:

instead of the scrambler, there was:

and instead of skee ball, there was:

the examples were everywhere!

another thing that was everywhere - super tasty carnival food.
among many other things, bill partook of jack’s buns:

snicker, snicker

as it turns out, you only need some cars being crushed, a cool summer evening, good friends and fried dough to have a fabulous friday night. who knew?

(i need to hog the blog for a moment to send out a group letter to someone. i apologize. regular blogging will resume tomorrow-ish.)

dear bill:
we apologize for leaving you at the brewery tonight. but it was so hot and stuffy. and it smelled like feet. we couldn’t take it.

but we made an important discovery and fell in love. that’s right, we’ll say it, - we love PCT and think we should move the group there.

we had one of the best restaurant veggie burgers ever, there were grapes on the pizza and the wings were made of real chicken:

we chowed down:


and our waitress was super wonderful.

so, we are thinking we should go there again next tuesday.
everyone is welcome! look, there’s even a tv:

and a long table:

so what do you think?
pretty please, with s’mores on top?

it’s warming up a bit around here and the outdoors are calling.

seen in our front yard recently, a bright shot of purple:

some deep greens:

and some black:

we got a grill on freecycle today! it works great and just needed a little cleaning.

i’m a person who loves winter, but i have to say, even i am excited for spring.

in knitting news, i finally finished all of the seaming on the toy i knit for my knit group’s charity project:

the pieces were each super quick to make, but there was soooo much finishing. being sick and having pink eye didn’t help the sewing get done at all. but after it was all done up, i fell in love! this little dinosaur is so cute and the perfect size to hug. it’s hard to give it up, but i know a little kid in need will love it more than me.