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2009 was not the best year. We won’t get into the details, but let’s just say the economy took a direct toll on our household(s). After many months, things appear to have stabilized, but we’re proceeding with caution. The passing not only of a calendar year, but an entire decade, helps us feel like we’re really starting afresh.
Before I launch into my list of non-resolutions for 2010, I thought I’d take a brief moment to recount some of the gifts the last decade has brought me. In no particular order:
1. My graduate school education.
2. The New York debut of two of my full length plays – with pretty sweet casts.
3. My sweet, spirited niece and nephew.
4. Our Harlem apartment with killer party terrace. It’s a rental they’ll have to drag us out of.
(that was our first summer when we were using the fold-up picnic table my grandmother made.)
5. Two amazing trips to parts of the world I never dreamed I’d visit and now dream of returning to: Japan and South Africa.
(pictures are on the computer that died last year. someday, we may scrape together the four figures we were quoted to resuscitate it.)
6. Meeting…
…then marrying
my husband Anuj, whom I love stubbornly, dramatically and emphatically.
Update: Anuj doesn’t understand what loving him ’stubbornly’ means and wants me to replace it with another word. Does anyone else understand what I mean by stubbornly or is it confusing? I stand by the word choice, but will happily add a fourth, more commonly used descriptor of my love: Deeply. And lest anyone mistake my love as common, I’ll throw the poetic Steadfastly into the mix. All good?
7. My family that continues to grow through marriages and births.
8. Our first real home and only true escape.
Discovering Columbia and Berkshire county has become an obsession of unmatched pleasure and excitement for both of us. Our friends and family can attest: we won’t shut up about it.
Now that I’ve just listed the most important people/events/moments of the last decade, I feel less crabby about the past year. In fact, my lip is quivering and I’m feeling downright sappy. Perspective, it’s a beautiful thing.
Happy New Year & Decade.
Oh, and as for what’s in store for 2010…I will post soon. Right now I’d like to ride out this glow.
Berkshire Eagle announced next year’s Tanglewood highlights on Friday:
July 3-4: James Taylor and Carole King perform as part of their world tour.
July 9: The eight-week BSO season opens with James Levine conducting Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony.
July 18: At the Shed, Arlo Guthrie and the Boston Pops under Keith Lockhart. At Ozawa Hall, Audra McDonald’s recital “The New American Songbook.”
June 26: Garrison Keillor and the “Prairie Home Companion” radio show.
July 16: Levine conducts a pairing of Mozart’s Requiem and Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms.”
July 23: The BSO and guest singers perform Mozart’s comic opera “The Abduction from the Seraglio” in concert form under Levine.
July 24: Seiji Ozawa returns to the BSO podium in a Brahms program.
Aug. 8: Yo-Yo Ma presents a program of Asian music with his Silk Road Project.
Aug. 15: Oliver Knussen’s “Where the Wild Things Are” opera given in concert form by TMC students.
Aug. 29: The BSO season closes with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, conducted by Kurt Masur.
We’re wondering if there will be any pop music this year…more programs to be announced in a few months.
Tickets go on sale Feb. 14. Information: www.tanglewood.org.
Here’s a quick tour inside the Beacon Cinema in Pittsfield, Mass. led by general manager John Valente. The Beacon opens tonight with a midnight showing of Twilight: New Moon.
Unless we somehow get sucked into the Twilight mania in the next week, I’m guessing our first film at the Beacon will be Fantasic Mr. Fox or The Yes Men Fix the World.
The Berkshire Eagle’s got some video footage of Pittsfield’s new Beacon Cinema.
Now that the opening’s only a few weeks away, I can start guessing what our first movie will be….that new Nancy Meyers film starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin as exes who fall back in love? (update: that comes out Christmas Day. Damn.) The Road? Precious?
What will we do if all they offer are movies like that John Cusack end-of-the-world thing? Or Twilight: New Moon? Go and enjoy our pastries regardless?
Apartment Therapy’s food site The Kitchn has a lovely feature on Berkshire County resident and gardener extraordinaire Margaret Roach’s kitchen. It’s cozy, homy (homey?) and filled with personal treasures.
I think I can smell the fresh tomato sauce coming through my monitor.
Check out her vegetable garden.
If you live in the area, you may have seen it yourself in August as part of this.
Marketplace Kitchen, a catering company and cafe based in Sheffield, Mass is opening a second cafe in Pittsfield. It will be located on the ground level of the new movie theater that’s coming to North Street in November, a month ahead of schedule.
This news has me very excited for several reasons:
1. Pittsfield needs more businesses dedicated to local talents and resources.
2. The website makes specific mention of wanting a place where food could be enjoyed with friends and good tunes. (italics mine)
3. The cafe uses local ingredients and green products whenever possible. They even take suggestions.
4. They have a philosophy that includes providing wholesome food with a smile, a passion for food and fun, and working toward a healthy palette and planet.
5. Having a place to pick up fresh baklava before a movie is never a bad thing.
6. Having a place to pick up tarts, eclairs and artisanal cheeses after a movie (or for that matter, whenever the hell you feel like it) is occasionally a bad thing, but never discouraged.
7. They even offer cooking classes.
Some things remain to be seen such as how expensive it will be, but I’m happy to welcome them to this part of the county and look forward to checking it out in November when they open.
