Guest Blogger

I can't believe they did this to me. Just when I had developed a really nice fragrance by rolling around in the backyard and stealing the Noxzema face cloths out of the wash. I had just gotten
my fur into condition. They took pictures of this abuse. Can you believe it? Someone call PETA.

My parents stink. They're abusive. I'm not speaking to either of them. Little Bit

J. P. Morgan Didn't have a Clue

We enjoyed our trip to New York City right up to the last minute. As we were checking out, our bellman noticed the Bibles we were carrying. Greg let us know that three Guttenberg Bibles were on display at the Pierpont Morgan Library. We checked our bags at the hotel and took a cab cross-town to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Johannes Guttenberg is the father of the movable printing press. Only 48 of the Bibles he produced in the 1400’s are currently in existence. Three very good copies are in the Pierpont Morgan Museum, two printed on paper and one on vellum. Printing Bibles was his life’s work. You can learn more about the Morgan here: http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=7

I was in awe of the three Guttenbergs on exhibit, the first ever mass-produced vs. copied by hand by scribes. I switch Bibles each year. I generally use paperback Bibles, because I write, highlight, underline, make notes and just make a mess of mine. That's a picture of my Bible up there with the page open to one of the Psalms I have a tooled leather cover with handles that I use to hide all the mess, since I don’t write all over that.

I held my Bible to my chest and tried not to cry as I contemplated the differences between my Bible and those that were displayed. The Bibles on display were exquisitely rendered with gorgeous type and initial capital letters. Each Bible was unmarked in any way. They were, however, also protected by glass, untouchable, terribly costly in their own time and priceless in ours.

My Bible, a paperback Amplified version, cost under $20, although it is priceless to me. Almost everyone can afford a Bible today. Any church would gladly provide a seeker with a free Bible. The Gideons give them away to motels. How thankful we should all be for the great availability of Bibles in our time. We have any number of direct translations, paraphrases, parallel Bibles with several versions in one, Bibles on CD and every kind of study aid imaginable. Many of us do not take advantage of these materials, but they are there for us to explore the Word of God in all of its richness and complexity.

I moved on to view J. P. Morgan, the financier’s, office. The Pierpont Morgan Library is his former residence. The office was vast and imposing with a soaring ceiling. The walls were covered in red flocked velvet. Treasures lined the walls and chair rails, from ancient Egypt to ancient China and the European Renaissance. It was breathtaking.

What do you imagine, in the midst of such treasure, that J.P. Morgan gazed upon as he sat at his desk working? The painting of Madonna and Child by a Medeival artist and monk? A priceless Chinese horse figure? A Renaissance tresure? J.P. Morgan looked at a very large portrait of himself over the fireplace in front of him.

J.P. Morgan apparently spent time looking at himself. He had many, treasures, but I think he might have valued them more for their monetary value than for their history or for what they represented. Let’s not make that mistake.

It is easy to make old J.P.'s error. The Bible talks about idols that are man made and have eyes that can’t see and ears that can’t hear. Our homes can become idols, our careers, our exercise time or anything else that comes before our time with God.

Let’s take our focus off making ourselves and our possessions our idols and seek us first the kingdom of God. Let’s look instead to the Author and Finisher of our faith.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lords glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord. Corinthians 3:18

The Bridge Thing, Part Deux

I told you all about my bridge phobia in my post about Mystic, CT. Ssssssh, don’t tell anyone, I’ll get embarrassed. My biggest bridge fear is walking across a really high one over water. Get ready for what comes next…

When I got to New York, I decided it was time to take positive action, so I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Really. You know me. I never do things half way.

We took the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge stop and walked back across the bridge to Manhattan. It would be difficult to convey how terrified I was, but FB said it was like holding on to a vise grip lined with a sponge. If you ever wanted to see me completely terrified, that is a picture of me holding on to the park bench for dear life about halfway across.

Just went I got past the midpoint, I was struck the beauty of seeing Lady Liberty to my left and the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings to my right. While I didn’t exactly relax, I was at least able to appreciate the wonder of what I was seeing.

Fear not, for lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the age or the Brooklyn Bridge,whichever comes first.

Black Point

Black Point. Just the sound of that name brings to mind the mingled summer smell of honeysuckle and brine in the air, with Long Island sound’s gentle waves touching the shore. When I think of it, I get an ache in my throat and the tears come for what had been and is no more. Osprey Street and a knotty-pine paneled beach cottage where ribbons won swimming were tacked to the walls and the ticka ticka sound of Taffy padding across the kitchen floor looking for a Milk Bone hand out echoed from the kitchen.

I was the first grandchild in the family, so I had not only loving grandparents, but doting great aunts and uncles who loved me like a grandchild, too. My beloved great aunt Kit was one of those surrogate grandparents. She and her husband, my godfather Lenny, were so very kind to me when I was little. Kit was slim and elegant and Lenny had a shaved head before it was cool. He’d get mahogany brown by mid-summer and hang out on the small beach with his friends.

I was a precocious child. I talked early and haven’t stopped since. Lenny liked to show off all the cute things I could do when I was two and three. One day, I’d had enough and remained mute while he coached me. “Annie, tell them how old you are.” “Annie, tell them your address.” I picked up my plastic bucket and headed toward the water shaking my head saying, “Poor Lenny.”

I dearly loved Kit and Lenny’s three daughters; Joan, Peg, and Claire. They were attractive girls who were in high school and college when I was little. Joan was the smart, acerbic one with a quit wit. Claire was the sweet one with a quirky smile. And Peg was the beautiful one.

To a pre-schooler, Joan, Peg, and Claire were the ultimate in cool and glamour. They had pretty hair and pretty clothes. They used Noxzema to wash their faces. I still use Noxzema just for that reason. I think of them every time I wear a hair band. I was the flower girl in Claire’s wedding when I was six. I still remember dancing with my father to Blood, Sweat and Tears’ “Spinning Wheel” at the reception.

Joan, my father’s cousin, met my mother’s brother, Jim, during my parent’s wedding. They married, making their children both my first cousins and also my second cousins. I would often stay with them when I was small. I’m sure I must have been annoying parading around in Joan’s shoes while singing “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round” 9,431 time, but they never let on.

I read “Hide and Seek Fog,” my favorite childhood book, at Black Point. I won a costume contest at the Black Point Beach Club once in a cool muumuu my mother made me. Black Point was blueberry muffins, stopping at farm stands for tomatoes and swimming out to the floating dock. It was putting my bathing suit through the old wringer washer, hanging it on the line and rinsing sand off my feet. Everyone in that place meant the world to me.

My parents divorced. I moved away from Connecticut. The girls all married and moved away. I’d see Joan from time to time and received news about the girls from my grandmother. I moved even further away to Hawaii. My grandmother died and even the news stopped. Due to a series of sad events outside my control, I lost touch with “the girls.”

I’ve been traveling lately with Farmer Boy and his work takes him to Groton, CT, about twenty minutes from Black Point. I finally summoned the courage to return there with him. I was unsure if the cottage on Osprey was still in my family at all or how I’d be received if it was. My longing to see it all again was too great, so I drove back.

I looked at the cottage from my car. It had been improved, but was still the cottage of my childhood. The character of Black Point has remained the same. Although there are a few newly-constructed, vinyl-sided summer rental monstrosities, the multi-generational family cottages with cedar-shake shingles and geranium-filled window boxes still predominate. Black Point has not become homogenized.

While drivng down to the beach for one quick look, I was amazed to see my cousin Peg. I was surprised at how young she looked. I felt tentative at first, but I was very warmly welcomed. She quickly invited me back to the cottage for drinks on the deck. It took Peg just a minute to recognize me, but her husband, Joe, recognized me immediately, even after 30 years.

I learned the sad news that my Aunt (and second cousin) Joan of those “wheels on the bus going round and round days” died last year. She had a hard life. Joan lost one son to crib death, one to suicide and my Uncle Jim when she was a little younger than I am now. She was a breast cancer survivor, but lost a long-term battle with smoking and emphysema when she died of MRSA last year. I know she is at peace now. I’m thankful for that, as well as her many kindnesses to me when was a child.

It is difficult to convey the rush of emotion that suffused me as I walked up those familiar steps. The living room was exactly as I had remembered, right down to the knotty-pine paneling and the red and blue swimming ribbons tacked up high near the ceiling. As I left that night, Peg said to me, “Come back anytime.” I’m not sure if she realized how much it meant to me to recapture a small bit of my childhood, but I wept all the way to dinner.

Peg always was the beautiful one. But can I tell you that I never saw her look as beautiful as she did when she was carefully tending to her disabled son in a wheel chair and welcoming back a wayfarer from a long time ago?

“Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned.” Proverbs 31:30.

Mystic Pizza

I guess you’ve figured that I’m not at the house at 256 right now, but sharing my view from the road. I’m traveling with Farmer Boy, who works for Really Big Defense Contractor. I’m from Connecticut, so I come with him when he drives up to review work completed. I get to drive around, visit with my family, study and enjoy myself. Thanks, Farmer Boy, for inviting me to come.

Last night we went to Mystic Pizza in Mystic, CT for dinner. Contrary as always, I had a roast beef grinder. For those of you who are not informed about correct terminology, a grinder is incorrectly referred to as the following in other parts of the country: hero, submarine sandwich, po’ boy or a hoagie. But it’s a grinder.

Mystic Pizza is also a favorite movie of mine. Released in 1988, it was Julia Robert’s first big break and has become something of a cult classic. It runs on a continuous loop at the restaurant while people are dining. The director was spending the summer in the area in the late 1980’s and decided to set the screenplay about the lives of three waitresses right in Mystic Pizza.

Farmer Boy was just saying to me, “Did anyone else in this movie become famous?” In the midst of saying “no,” I realized that my favorite Vincent Donofrio from Law and Order: Criminal Intent was right on the screen. Detective Robert Goren himself, but I never saw him. I’ve seen that movie many, many times and never noticed that he was in it. Which goes to show you that we are frequently not fully present in our lives and miss a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSbrULyuyAw

After dinner, we walked across the picturesque old draw bridge that runs through the center of Mystic. I have a bridge thing: they scare me. Really big, high bridges particularly scare me. I have nightmares about the George Washington Bride in New York and the Coronado Bridge in San Diego. This bridge is small and accessible, in addition to being not very far up off the water, so it didn’t bother me at all.

Just as we were crossing, a loud bell began to ring. A sailboat with a very tall mast was about to pass, so the bridge was opening. Danger, Will Robinson! I sprinted across; my nightmare horror of a bridge opening underneath me about to occur in real life.

Everyone had pretty much cleared the bridge when a couple, seemingly oblivious to the red lights, lowering bars as at a railroad crossing and the loud horn sounding, sauntered very slowly across the bridge, hand in hand, seconds before it opened.

What a metaphor for life! How many people are wandering into very dangerous territory, onto the shifting ground of sin, oblivious to the peril? How many warning bells and barricades are trying to alert us, but our focus is elsewhere? Get back to the solid ground on the other side as fast as you can!

On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.

Alexandra Stoddard and Noah's Restaurant

I have long read and admired author and lifestyle philosopher, Alexandra Stoddard. Twenty three years ago, my friend Deana lent me a book by Alexandra entitled, “Daring to be Yourself.” As someone who frequently pretended to be someone else, this was big stuff. Alexandra has written about her vacation home in Stonington Borough for many years. To learn more about Alexandra, read about her here: http://www.alexandrastoddard.com/.


Stonington Borough is absolutely charming, just as Alexandra has written. It was incorporated in the 1700’s, with the iconic New England village green. Water Street is the main thoroughfare, with eclectic shops, bistros, well-loved homes and exuberant geranium-filled white window boxes.

I walked to the old lighthouse by the sea and back up Water Street to find lunch. Alexandra Stoddard writes often about the importance of color in one’s life. As I passed by Noah’s Restaurant, I saw Alexandra and her husband, Peter Megargee Brown eating at one of the window tables. What I noticed was Mr. Brown’s very bright madras suit jacket. Talk about serendipity!

I sat at a table a short distance away and ordered a meal for myself, as well as a take-out meal for FB. He was busy with schematics and phone calls back at our hotel. I tucked into some really excellent bread and read, catching discrete peeps at the gracious Miss Stoddard and the dapper Mr. Brown.

Do you ever get that frisson of doubt in the pit of your stomach when you realize that you’ve made a mistake? I get that quite a bit because I make a lot of mistakes. One of my major malfunctions is misplacing my wallet, my cell phone, keys and/or my sun glasses.

Wouldn’t you know that the day that began with a flat tire would find me in the presence of Alexandra Stoddard, so at home in her own skin, cool and pretty in pink…totally flustered about my wallet? I left, telling my server, Judy, that my wallet was in the car parked two blocks away on Harmony Street. It wasn’t there. It was back at the hotel.

I decided that I’d maneuver my way out of the narrow streets which weren’t paved with cars in mind, head back to the hotel and call to advise I’d be longer than I thought. I was so rattled that I couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant and my cell phone was chirping low battery anyway. Then I remembered that it is illegal to converse on a cell phone while driving in the state of Connecticut.

I returned an hour later to the very gracious Judy, who accepted my apologies with good humor and served us the delicious bratwurst lunch I’d embarked on an hour before. I brought FB with me because I was too embarrassed to go back by myself. Alexandra was still there sipping white wine, looking elegant.

May I tell you that Alexandra Stoddard does not leave home without her wallet? She wouldn’t be flustered about it if she had and she certainly would not have forgotten the name of the restaurant. Alexandra does not get hot and bothered. She resonates at a zen frequency.

But I’m me. Alexandra is a friend and follower of His Holiness, the Dali Lama. I’m a follower of Jesus Christ. In my scattered and sometimes stupid ways, I fit right in with the apostles. This is not because of any great spiritual wisdom or holiness on my part, but because Jesus chose the foolish to spread his word. Not by might and not by power but by my spirit, says the Lord.

I am like Jesus’ follower Peter, impulsive and impetuous. I’d like to think that I wouldn’t deny Jesus three times, but sometimes I can deny him with my behavior without any threat of Roman power hanging over me at all. Do you sometimes feel like me? Flustered? Trivial? Silly? Out of control? Rejoice in knowing this truth: God’s power is made perfect in weakness. When we are the weakest, God shows himself mighty.

I’d highly recommend a trip to Stonington Borough WITH your wallet. Noah’s is a wonderful restaurant. Reservations will be helpful for you. The staff is quite understanding, but they’d really appreciate your letting them know if you have to leave for an hour to go back to your hotel.


Noah’s Restaurant
113 Water Street
Stonington Borough, CT
860-535-3925
http://www.noahsrestaurant.com/

The Old Shea House at 256

What can I say about my beloved Shea House at 256 on a street unnamed for blogging privacy? Think 256 Main Street, 256 Oak or Maple or 256 Independence Street and you will have the flavor of my street name.

The first time I saw Shea House was on line, six months prior to moving to Virginia. For years, I had driven with my dog from my apartment in the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego to the Mission Hills neighborhood to take walks. As I passed each historic home, I would dream of the home I would own and restore someday.

As I contemplated the move, I started looking at homes on line. There was one particular home in Portsmouth that tugged at my heart. I looked at it many times. Described as a “Four-Square American Colonial Revival,” it was everything I wanted. My dream home had to built prior to 1945, with a fireplace, in an established neighborhood with hardwood floors and enough distinguishing features that my home was different from all the others.

I rid myself of two real-estate agents who steered me toward developments with silly names like the “The Windmills at Chesapeake Hills” and street names like Bellechase Court and Leatherstocking Lane. My brother refers to such places as, “Pretensions at Broken Wind.” No, no…no arched windows for me, no fakey gas fireplace, no homeowner’s association rules that I can’t hang clothes on a line.

Finally I found Susan, my very dear realtor who led me to…guess where? My dream home was still on the market six months later! I walked up to the porch which extended the length of the front of the house, saw my built in bookcase with the glass doorknobs and the pilaster around the dining room chandelier. I knew I was home.

The Shea family experienced Black Tuesday and the Great Depression at my house. Flappers danced the Charleston, the Hindenburg exploded into horror, Pearl Harbor was bombed, FDR died in office, men left for the Korean War and 256 witnessed it all.

The house was divided into two units to support the war effort at Portsmouth’s Naval Yard, which worked three shifts to defend our country from Hitler. Men needed housing and Portsmouth met that need. The Korean War ran its course, JFK was assisinated and we lost our innocence.

The house stood as the school across the street was desegregated over the objections of many. It stood as men and women left for Vietnam. During the eighties, it was converted back to a one family house. 256 stood through the energy crisis of the seventies and still stands during our current energy crisis.

As I study the Bible and drink Earl Gray at the table in the corner of that old porch, shaded by a trumpet vine with ancient, gnarled roots and look over to the school which now houses the elderly; I think of those families who sat on the steps drinking sweet tea, waited for the kids to come in from school, rocked on a porch swing and caught fireflies right here where I am now.

It is 9 years that we’ve lived in the old Shea House at 256. It is a new roof, central air-conditioning, 30 new windows, two hurricanes, a cottage garden, many prayers and lot of dirt and sweat later. After many meals, lots of paint, jumping kids collapsing the plaster in the dining room…here I am.

As Psalm 16, verse 6 says, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” And 256 still stands and let’s me call her home.