Category Archives for Local

Gas Leak

While we were away this weekend, an SUV ran into the convenience store that’s right across route 30 from the entrance to our street.  We saw them boarding up the hole and dealing with the gas leak when we came home, but most of the excitement was over.

Our friends who live around the corner saw the fire engines and other emergency vehicles but the street was blocked off so they couldn’t tell exactly what was going on.  Aliya’s friend Hannah worried that Norah might have found an errant lighter and started a fire.  Norah’s reputation is firmly established throughout the neighborhood.

Losing it with Jillian

Jillian Michaels was in town yesterday filming her new show which premiers on June 1st.  I saw her from afar when I was walking the loop around Cushing Park with my friend Cristina.  She’s teeny.  (Here’s the Metrowest Daily News coverage.)

In her new show, she lives with different families while trying to help them learn how to eat healthy and exercise.  I’ll bet that’s effective.  Last night while I was eating a chocolate chip cookie in bed I was imagining Jillian bursting into the bedroom to scream in my face that I wasn’t making good choices.

Maybe I need to sign up for the show.

If You Can’t Find it in Brimfield…

…You Don’t Need It!!!


Our camp (Vermont term for “lake house”) is about 15 minutes from Brimfield, MA, home of the Brimfield Antique Show. In May, July, and September, 6,000 antique dealers and 130,000 visitors swarm into Brimfield for the week-long show. The show is quite an economic boom for the local area – estimated between 40 and 50 million dollars annually. Along with the 23 people who rent out their yards and fields along the 1-mile stretch of Route 20, there are others who sell parking spaces, food and drinks, delivery services, and even access to their showers. It looks like quite the family affair for some of the dealers…like a camping trip where you’re hauling along a truckload of clutter you want to get rid of.

I love to go, preferably without kids, and this weekend I was able to escape for a couple of hours and go wander around. I wasn’t really in the market for anything in particular, so I made it my mission to take pictures of some of the weird stuff I saw for sale.

Along with lots of furniture and rugs, there were the usual booths of vintage clothing, jewelry, linens, and notions (that’s a fancy word for sewing stuff). The second picture shows stacks and stacks of cards full of buttons.

This guy had THE most amazing collection of musical instruments and sports equipment. The top photo is a pile of marching band helmets in the center, with several sets of bagpipes on the card table, and football pads to the right. Click on any photo to enlarge it…it’s like “Where’s Waldo?” except with junque.


There was a headless eagle:

A REALLY old military diving helmet and boots:

I have one of these green bottles (Can you imagine transporting all of this stuff to the show?!):

The window on the bottom was tempting (“Asylum for the Insane – Evaluation Center for Disturbed Men” – I think this belongs on my office door.):

These carved tusks were gorgeous but out of my league at $2,800 (not to mention that it’s against my personal rules to buy wild animal products):

Sometimes it was the juxtaposition of several items that made them interesting, like this multi-armed deity in the snowshoe section:

Bird (flamingo?) lawn ornament made from a propane tank:

My mother had the matching cookie jar to these:

Ugly giraffe, rocking chicken, and GIANT Frankenstein:


The Betty Boop collection:

Glove display forms?

And for my hardware friends, lots and lots of hardware (I met a member of the Antique Doorknob Collectors of America who loves doorknobs even more than I do.):

This giant bag of kettle corn was all I bought:


If you like banjo music, here’s a short video about one of the fields, May’s Antique Market.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrfmTbtMhBs&hl=en_US&fs=1]