October is one of my favorite months. It is never long enough, in my opinion, despite having thirty-one days. Happy Halloween, by the way 🎃! My birthday is in October and I officially turned the corner onto 34th Street this year. Maybe this will be a year for miracles. If so, I wonder what.
I have always loved the color and the crispiness we get here in the northeast during October, the briskness that’s not quite cold, the crunchy leaves underfoot, the spooky decorations haunting lawns and peering out of windows, and the general sense of festivity in the air. The holidays are upon us once more and soon it will be cold for real. October is for adjusting to the change in temperature, for settling in, for balancing the remaining sunny, warm afternoons with the early, chilly nights. October is nesting season. Usually, at least.
This October, we spent many of our weekends traveling up to New England. From Massachusetts to Rhode Island to Maine to New Hampshire, we earned new landmarks on the Merritt Parkway, 84, and 495. We learned what routes we preferred and which we didn’t between the options accessible by the GW Bridge and the new Tappan Zee and bypassed towns we planned to visit, but have still never really seen (cough– Hartford), in the spirit of making a greater dent in our journey onwards or home.
MOBA
Back in the summer of 2022, while on a trip in Quebec City, we saw promotional banners for a visiting exhibition of something called “MOBA”. MOBA, we learned, is an acronym that stands for The Museum of Bad Art. I remember sitting in the lobby of L’Observatoire de la Capitale scrolling MOBA’s Facebook page and trying to contain my snickering as we waited out a rainstorm. We looked up where the museum was and learned it was housed inside Dorchester Brewing Company in Dorchester, MA. We did not make it to the traveling exhibition in Quebec on that trip, but regretted it and planned to pay a visit to Massachusetts in the future to peruse the collection.
Fast forward to earlier this October when we pulled into the parking lot of Dorchester Brewing Co. It looked like your standard brewery tasting room from the outside, with the added bonus of upstairs, outdoor seating where patrons were enjoying some sunshine and brews. I still did not know exactly what to expect once we got inside. How prominently would the bad art be displayed? Had this pilgrimage to the industrial outskirts of Boston been worth the journey and the years spent building the place and the concept of its hilarity up in our minds?
In a word? Yes.
We ordered a beer flight from the bar once we got inside. As we waited for our beers, I could already see some masterpieces peeking out from the walls and the stairwell beyond. I was excited to read the little descriptions beside each piece, detailing how they were acquired by the museum.
Before perusing the collection, we enjoyed our drinks en plein air in the brewery’s outdoor tasting area, with a view of Boston. The bartenders came around and let us know that the area would soon be closing for a private event, so we made our way inside and got to spectating. We started in the stairwell and studied pieces such as Playing With Mommy’s Shoes, Fat Cat, and George and Jackie.
Downstairs, we delved deeper into the hallowed halls of Dorchester Brewing Co.’s priceless collection. Sure, you may have studied Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. You may have even marveled at Michelangelo’s famed Sistine Chapel ceiling in person; I certainly have. But I ask you, have you really lived if you have not come face to face with the frazzled muse forever captured in the mesmerizing Night in Crestwood? I think not, my friends. I think not.
We savored the weird and the over-valued on display, exactly the right clientele for this sort of establishment. We laughed at captions such as that for Baby Aladdin which stated that the piece was donated to the collection by someone who had found it in her apartment closet and for A Bird in the Hand which was purchased at a thrift store for $3, though the price on the back of the piece said $700 . In many ways, I enjoyed this museum a lot more than other museums I have visited. There’s a place and an audience for everything, I suppose. We were the audience for this place.
Casco Bay
If someone had told me last Saturday morning that I would eat my first oysters raw, fresh from an oyster farm in the Casco Bay and drive a boat for the first time on the same day– that day, in fact, I would not have believed them. While I usually like new things that I try, I err on the side of hesitancy in trying them. Still, I have some caged brevity that gets me to say a questioning “Yes?” to things that the rest of my brain is like, I don’t know; are you sure? In the words of Mike Birbiglia, “Why would I slide down the slide when I can walk down the steps?”
Our good friend, Stephen, is an avid boater who pursues adventure and fun better than many people we know. When he invited us to come out on his boat for a day exploring out on the water in the Casco Bay while we were all in town for a friend’s wedding last weekend, Mike and I were an enthusiastic we’re in! Stephen and his fiancée, Erika, picked up some lunch for us on the way and we all set out on a journey that would lead me to experience some new first-evers.
We clamped onto Stephen’s oyster farm in the Casco Bay and ate our lunch surrounded by the sparkling water and the multi-colored trees on the shores all around. The sky was a little overcast and the breeze carried on it a chill that nipped at our cheeks and noses. After lunch, Stephen proposed an unconventional dessert option.
“Anybody want to try an oyster?”
“No; that’s ok,” I said.
I don’t know about anybody else, but when I hear myself saying no to trying something new, it sparks an internal conflict spurred by something like disappointment. Live, says the little voice in my head.
“Actually,” I said, “I changed my mind!”
Stephen hauled an oyster basket from the bay into the back of the boat. As a rule, I don’t eat raw seafood, but this seemed like a right place, right time sort of situation and Stephen has the kind of enthusiasm for his hobbies and business endeavors that is a bit contagious. Stephen selected oysters from the basket for each of us to try and shucked them with a knife on the boat, right there in front of us. Mike explained how to eat oysters to me as I waited for everyone to have a shucked oyster in hand. We toasted with our shells and tossed back the muscles. Chewing on an oyster muscle was a completely new sensation for me. It was different than I expected it would be, never having tried one before, not slimy or gristly like I expected, but rather salty and smooth.
“What did you think?” said the others.
“It’s not what I thought it would be like,” I said, “I think I like it.”
“Want another one?” said Stephen.
“Ok!”
A while later, after exploring the bay with our enthusiastic, local guides, Stephen asked if I wanted to drive us home.
“Captain Beth?” he said.
“That’s ok,” I said.
“It’s really hard to crash the boat,” said Erika.
Oh c’mon, said the voice, Live.
“Ok. I’ll try it.”
I got behind the wheel and played Erika’s words over in my head as Stephen showed me how to bring the boat to a plane. Eep! Too fast! It took a little while to feel more comfortable with the throttle and soon I was steering somewhat comfortably as Stephen navigated the depth-finder, pointing out the reds and the greens to look out for in the distance.
Migis Lodge
I never went to sleepaway camp as a kid, but I had the pleasure of “going away to camp” this past weekend while we were up in Maine for our friends’ wedding. My own experience of camp up until last weekend was day camp. I went to day camps as a kid. I worked at a day camp right out of high school. I even met Mike while we were both summer camp counselors. In this particular way, in my own experience, camp and romance go together. So, really, what better venue for a wedding?
Migis Lodge is a beautiful camp-style event venue and hotel situated on the northeast shore of Sebago Lake in South Casco, ME. Our friends designated a few of the guests to be camp counselors and had them styled à la Michael Ian Black in Wet Hot American Summer to greet and announce the arrival of the “campers” to the property as we all waited for our cabins to be ready. We noshed on some lunch of sandwiches and cold salads while our hilariously dressed friend, Kay, abused the power of her little megaphone just the right amount.
Though Migis Lodge is definitely more of a camp for adults, it still tickled my sense of nostalgia spurred by movies I grew up with like The Parent Trap, Heavyweights, and Troop Beverley Hills. I was finally at sleepaway camp with my friends and our friends were getting married! Yay! The weather was only residually damp and a little chilly, but altogether pretty nice and we were in a really beautiful place. What more could you want out of a weekend? The seven plus hour drive from New Jersey was beyond worth it for this destination, wedding aside.
We’re back home in New Jersey for this beautiful Halloween, the calm after a surprisingly impactful storm yesterday that brought flooding, downed trees, power outages, and all-around traffic mayhem to our area. Today, there’s peace, a turquoise Atlantic, and a cerulean river. The sun is shining and there are clouds in the sky that would be worthy of adorning Andy’s bedroom walls in Toy Story. A speedboat planes on the waves, parallel to the shore, trailing a white tail in its wake and I am typing the last few words of this post with a fresh cup of tea in my very near future.
This October’s been one for the books and I’m looking forward to our next far-reaching adventure in November. In the meantime, I wish you all a happy Halloween! Have fun, be safe, and live well. Thanks for reading!
cozy does it 