The week in Cambridge with Matt’s family was a delight. The house, aptly named Hard to Leave, was huge complete with tennis courts, pool, dock and crab traps. Graham spent his time perfecting his pool (billiards) game, swimming and enjoying the Olympics which were on all week. Our nephew, Wes, came with his wife, Stacey, and her kids, Andrew, 15, and Maura, 12. Mary Gillman’s sister, Eileen, came with her two kids, Claire, 12, and Riley, 8. It was great fun for all the kids to be together. Sabrina, our niece, came the furthest – from the Dominican Republic, where she is working. Matt’s brother, Tim, and wife, Maricruz came from Seattle. Their son, Jacob, and his partner, Matt, came from Hollywood because they are very fabulous. Chris and Mary and Jim and Marilynn came from Alexandria and our honorary Gillman, Mary Howland, came from Arlington. We had fabulous food everynight including when Jacob and Matt made Smoked Gouda Mac-n-Cheese accompanied by meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting in pink, blue, green, orange, and yellow. Who’s more fun than them? No one.
Amy wiled away the hours preparing a Gillman Family trivia game to be played Wednesday night, Jeopardy style, complete with prizes from the thrift shop, pictures from younger days of all the contestants and research on the family far and wide. The contestants came in costume to the event, also furnished by the thrift shop – everything from taffeta to Harley Davidson.
On a couple of days Matt took people over to the boat – once to see it and the other time to sail. When I asked what they thought upon returning, a couple of people commented that it is small. I found myself surprised. Then I tried to remember what I thought of Troubadour the first time I had seen her. I think I remember wondering if I could live in such a confined space. It has felt for so long now like all the space we need. Just this morning I was wondering what it would be like to be in a room with a king size bed. I pictured a spacious room to accommodate the bed and other stuff around it; I immediately thought the stuff made the (imaginary) room messy and that we don’t need all that space. Interesting how the mind works.
On one evening, Claire and I gathered people for a séance as she owns a Oujia Board and is partial to ghosts. We had 6 people and 6 candles and we channeled Mocha, for whom there was a small tombstone in the backyard. After some failed attempts to make contact, we heard howling coming from the back of the house! Was it Mocha or the boys sitting by the pool? Claire diligently interviewed all possible suspects but they seemed to have alibis. ? I guess we’ll never know.