A Last Hurrah

We are getting ready to leave D.C. but in keeping with last year's precedent Dan, Josh and I went to Wolftrap before leaving. Last year was Les Miserables. Wonderful but THIS year was the Wolftrap Orchestra, Washington Chorus and and enormous screen showing:

Yes, we watched The Two Towers with LOTS of fans who love the movie, the characters, the music, anything that could induce applause.

These are only a few of the fans (dare I say nuts?) who sat IN THE RAIN FOR THREE HOURS to see this performance. You have to admire this kind of dedication. We, of course, were not crazy enough to sit outside in the rain, we paid extra to sit inside to see a movie we have seen countless times.


DO NOT GET ME WRONG. We (at least Josh and I) loved it! I had no idea that there was so much music in this movie. The orchestra played almost non-stop and it was wonderful. The soloists were great. One was a boy who looked to be about nine years old. He had an unbelievably pure voice. How many kids do you know who can stand up, in front of a full orchestra and 3,000 people and belt out lyrics in elvish?


What a great idea. We (at least Josh and I) would definitely be up for Return of the King!

Beantown Retreat

Following the quick trip to NYC we spent four days in Boston - a place we have not been for twenty years. How is that even possible that someone who lived so long on the east coast never went to such a great city?

We stayed at the Marriott Custom House, a beautiful old building in downtown Boston, right by the harbor. There are actually peregrine falcons that live at the top of the tower which we really wanted to see but since it is not nesting season they were rarely there.


That's the Custom House, the building with the pointy tower right in the middle and the falcons' nest is in the topmost window. The guest rooms are all in the tower and have wonderful views.

One of our favorite places was North Boston which is Little Italy where there are great restaurants, naturally, and bakeries and grocery stores that sell the same stuff you can buy in Italy. We did run into a hard rain storm while there and since Dan had not brought along his cap or raincoat he ran into a store and came out with this:

Yes, I walked around with a man wearing that hat.

Some of our favorite places:



Yep, that's a "Don't Tread On Me" flag on the right!

Mike's Pastry in Little Italy. You have to love a bakery with a picture of the Virgin Mary over the counter. The chocolate chip canolis are supposedly to die for. I wouldn't know because I was traveling with Dan.


The swan lake in Boston Common. That is a little boat in the distance which is propelled by. . .

the guy in the back sitting behind the swan. I have no idea how he is able to do that but since there are several of these boats on the lake apparently it works quite well!

Close by the swan lake is a special statue done in the 80s memorializing "Make Way For Ducklings:"
Boston Public Library is an amazing place:

Look closely and you can just make out Dan getting ready to pull a Mussolini pose. Who would not want to study here?

And, of course, no trip to Boston in the summer would be complete without a visit to the Mecca of all baseball:



Oh, and some of us have better "cap-fashion sense" than others:


What a great place, beauty and seemingly endless history.


The last day we were there I sat on a bench in The Common and enjoyed this view:

I looked down and this little brass plaque was set into the cement the bench was on:

You have to love a city like this!

A Quick Trip To NYC

We took a very quick trip to New York to meet Tracy and Sherrie Ann. (Trace is Dan's brother, the cardiologist from Nashville.)

I know it doesn't look it but we were having a wonderful time having a breakfast picnic on the walking/bike path that runs along the Hudson River from Battery Park up to the Irish Memorial at the financial district. This is what we were looking at:

Speaking of the Irish Memorial, it's one of our favorite places in Manhattan. It sits right on the River, between skyscrapers, at the western end of the financial district. All the stones, plants, rocks come from Ireland, including the stone cottage which was brought over and rebuilt there. It really is an amazing place.
Unfortunately I didn't get a great shot of the park, but this is the view looking east. Oh, I did get a good picture of Sherrie:
If she ever sees this, she will kill me. But hopefully she'll laugh first. Sherrie is a true Steele Magnolia and I love her to death!

The only bad part of the trip was that we were all the way to Boston when Dan realized that he had left his blazer, slacks and his best dress shirt (in my opinion) in the hotel closet. Six phone calls later the hotel staff insists they were never turned in. Curse Sheraton!

I Almost Forgot

Well, actually I did forget.

This one's for you, Aby.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Pig!

(You're going to have to stick with this to find out about "the pig.")

Of all things, a baby shower brought us to one of our favorite places after way too long a time.

One of the ladies who works in the Foundation office is expecting and a surprise shower was planned for her and her husband at Keswick Country Club in Charlottesville. So last Saturday found us winding our way through the beautiful countryside of central Virginia.

The thing is, Keswick was the home course for St. Anne's Belfield golf team when Rob played as their #1 player when he was a freshman in high school. What a treat to be there again. Keswick is an absolutely gorgeous hotel and club that used to be owned by Laura Ashley's son of all people. What a beautiful afternoon.

Following the baby shower, Dan, Josh and I drove from Charlottesville to Wintergreen for the first time since selling the house we used to have on the mountain. How many memeories can flood your mind in a one hour drive?

Wintergreen is where we had a vacation home for many years, used both in summer and winter. We also lived there for one full year following 9/11.

No, our house was on top of the mountain but Wintergreen includes both mountain and valley and the golf course in the valley is truly beautiful.

The house at 18 Coopers Vantage has been given lots of love and attention by its new owners, a new roof, new kitchen, new furniture and PAVED driveways. Can't say that I cared too much for that, after all it is supposed to be a mountain house! But it looks good.


OK, here's the deal. We ate two actual meals while at Wintergreen (the rest was just snacks at the golf course) and BOTH were at:

Yep, the Blue Ridge Pig. Nellysford, VA's own 4 star dining shack. Nobody does southern bar-be-que and dill potato salad like Strawberry at The Pig. (Yes, the owner's name is, in fact, Strawberry.) And it has not changed one bit.

Somewhere on one of those walls is Dan's old business card from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in DC. It smells just as wonderful when you walk through the door and the limeaids are just as refreshing as ever on a hot summer day and the dill potato salad is still to die for. Pictures were taken and immediately sent to Daniel and Rob who were suitably jealous (via email). We have all agreed that someday the Callister Clan will hold a family reunion in Nellysford and the only planned activity will be eating at The Pig.

Macleod AKA Mac

It has taken over two weeks to be able to write this post. Our dog, Mac, who has been with us for 16 years was struck by a rattlesnake in out backyard in La Quinta. Even though Spencer got him to the doctor right away and everything possible was done, Mac didn't make it. In the middle of the night, laying next to Spence, Mac stopped breathing and a very real part of our family was gone.

It's amazing how pets become so much more than animals. Mac was one of "the boys." He certainly considered himself one of the humans in the house and, at least to his way of thinking, he was in charge.

That's it. Maybe some day I'll write down more memories of the Best Dog Ever, but no-can-do now.

Start Spreading The News

This weekend I FINALLY made it to New York with my friend Lisa. We have been planning plans and changing plans all summer and this weekend we hopped in her car and drove to the Big Apple. Lisa is the most intrepid drive I know. Nothing scares her, not even New York cab drivers during rush hour!


First stop, The Cloisters. Built by Rockefeller to house his collection of early monastic art it is truly a beautiful place at the north end of the island. Of course, with a day as beautiful as last Saturday, it was a real treat.

It isn't all that often that the view of the Hudson River is this perfect, but this is the view from one of the courtyards at The Cloisters.

Then shopping in Chinatown and Little Italy then a walk I have never taken . . .

. . . yep, right across the Brooklyn Bridge. What a view! It was such a beautiful day that literally thousands of people were walking or biking from Manhattan to Brooklyn (or the other way around!). There is a level above the cars for walking or biking and it was full.

Final stop of the day was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is open late on Fridays and Saturdays during the summer. Lisa wanted to show me something special but wouldn't tell me what it was. We got there at about 8 p.m. and took an elevator hidden in the far recesses of the building to the roof and this is what we saw:
It is a very large metal sculpture titled Maelstrom and it is massive and wonderful. However, the truly amazing thing was the view:

It was a spectacular sunset and moonrise right there in the middle of Central Park.


In an effort to see some paintings that we are all familiar with, Christ in Gethsemane and Christ and the Rich Young Lord, we went to Riverside Church Sunday morning and found ourselves in the middle of a very unique service. They were saying goodbye to their senior pastor, "dissolving the covenant," according to the program notes.

We were told that the only time the paintings were on display were at the one and only tour offered after Sunday Service. However, this was a special Sunday. Long story short, the meeting went on for three hours and we were not allowed to see the painting about the rich young man. But it was a learning experience! I know this picture shows an empty nave but it was taken after everyone left, there were over two thousand people at this service!

Oh, we also walked to Columbia University campus which is right by Riverside Church, so that I could show Lisa where I worked when Dan was in law school.

Good old Low Library. Every time I am on that campus I hear Dan Akroyd telling Bill Murray that he knows "the public sector . . . they expect results."

One more notable stop:


I felt it my grandmotherly duty to go to the shrine of every girl (apparently) under the age of 12. Right there on Fifth Avenue, across the street from Rockefeller Center. I was amazed at the number of young girls and their moms who were there at 6:30 on a Sunday night. This business is definitely NOT suffering from a recession!


Capri, this one's for you!

A walk down Fifth to Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library, and a good long rest.

Next day, lots of shopping on Madison and 3rd Avenues and a late lunch at a wonderful little Italian restaurant before driving back to DC.

I LOVE NEW YORK ! ! !