Waterfire Picnic with my Sweetie

 
What a totally fabulous time we had last night going again this year to experience Waterfire in Providence, RI.

For the first time that I remember… this year we planned to get there WAY early — took a huge picnic with us so that we could be there long before the crowds — to just relax and watch the daylight turn into dusk, as the crowd gathers and the anticipation mounts. We munched veggies and dip, a new Vermont brie that I totally love (with baguette), and ate chicken sandwiches with guacamole, taboule, tomatoes, and cheese.    Yumm !!    I'm hungry again just thinking about it. I also took my camera and posted this album (on Flickr) of the shots I took. Or just sit back and watch the Slide Show.

Another difference, this year, is that I decided to see what I could capture in video because so much of the Waterfire Experience has to do with action, sound, and ambiance. Check out my video clip (on Flickr) of this half-naked “Fire Dancer” (they get away with this stuff — being so close to RISD), or this longer video clip I really like (except for the background noise) of the Waterfire basin with a captivating soprano voice and ethereal music — totally typical of the omnipresent Waterfire Experience.

As always, the stroll along the quay to and from the Gargoyle stand at "the other end" from the basin — called “Providence Place”, where we started — was romantic and eventful. The Mermaid lady asked for my business card so that I could eMail her my pictures for her portfolio. There were many other friendly encounters… and lots more yummy things to eat.

So now we're thinking about going back for the mid-summer (July 17^th) extravaganza of Waterfire 2010. Be there !!!
 

Privileged to be Such a Happy Father

 
Today, on Father's Day, I feel so happy — honored, privileged, blessed, lucky, amazed — to be the Father that I am to my two sparkling young daughters, and the loving husband to "My Beloved and my Friend", my sweet wife — now for more than 3 decades. Wow! Talk about “Count Your Blessings” !!
On the left is the card that my youngest daughter skillfully made and presented to me today. It was from a picture that she took during a Mother's Day family outing we did to a local state park (Willard Brook in Ashby) for a picnic last May. And though it looks like I'm a happy and balanced "tight rope walker"… the truth is that that skinny log was very wobbly and were it not for the 10' balance pole that I had — and used to hold me up (more like a crutch) for most of the way across the river — I would have been in the drink about 5 seconds after I started. She managed to capture me in that space of confidence and control during the only 2 seconds that I was in that space during the entire "adventure". She also did an amazing job of enhancing the color contrasts and the "lights and dark greens" in the photo, which in its original form really wasn't that great a picture. All 'n all it was a very loving gesture.

After getting that card and others, I went off to sing with my UUC Groton choir — our last "official duty" before the congregation switches to "summer mode" until the Fall, and that was very enjoyable and satisfying — as it always is.

Following that we had a terrific picnic at our local lake / beach (Sargisson Beach — Knops Pond, Lost Lake) in Groton where my sweetie and I sat on canvas chairs with our feet in the cool lake water as the heat of the day took over and left us not wanting to be anywhere else imaginable.

And then as the day cooled off we all went into Boston to meet up with our other daughter and her beau at NEU. We ended up feasting — a seafood extravaganza — at a favorite, The Barking Crab, on the Boston waterfront… followed by a gleeful promenade from there to Faneuil Hall following The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway — my first real experience of the whole project, now that it (appears to be!?) finished. Can anything associated with The Big Dig ever actually be "completed"!?

Ah... such is life for me in the family that I have been truly blessed to be part of.