back to real life

This is the Inn at Stockbridge where we stayed over the weekend. Built in 1906 and absolutely elegant, on 12 acres. I was wondering how many servants they needed for this enormous house. It was built as a summer cottage (cottage???) for a lawyer and his family.

You can see that the leaves are pretty much gone from that big tree. And it was COLD. During wine and cheese hour on Friday afternoon, it started to snow. The flakes were so huge that we all ran out with our cameras, trying to capture them. These are stuck to my lens. A little bit stuck, but by Sat. morning it was gone. Marty and I took the day and went to North Adams, MA. North Adams is reinventing itself and turning some of their old mills into live/work artists' studios. We visited Mass MOCA to see the rather strange and interesting art. Some of it is interactive, and most of it is social commentary. Much of it is weird, and sometimes it helps if you have a docent - but we were there between docent tours, so we figured it out for ourselves. There was a couple there who told us they like to come and look at everything themselves and come back a second time with the docent. They don't like anybody telling them first time around what everything is or what they should think about it. I agree.

Since you are not permitted to take pictures in the galleries, I confined my picture-taking to the basement facilities. This is as much a piece of art as anything upstairs. Very Marcel Duchamp, dontcha think?

Enough for tonight. Tomorrow, it is back to work. Putting sleeves on pieces, getting slides out, etc. etc. etc. All in all, a wonderful weekend.