For more than a decade we have rented a beach house on W Street in Hull, MA on Nantasket Beach. A long standing component of this is one evening that features a lobster fest. It has always been my role to cook the steamers and lobsters along with the corn. This year, when the discussion turned to lobsters, I was stunned by a proposal from my brother Ed, quickly seconded by sister-in-law Meredith, and voted into action before I could even raise some question of my traditional role that we simply call up Stop & Shop and order the lobsters all cooked!
So, in one thoughtless moment, without even acknowledgment that I had served as chef de lobsters for over a decade, and leaving me bereft of any function other than just being Mr. Wonderful, I had been relegated to the dust bin, made redundant, generally caste off.
Well, I have thought further about how to achieve revenge next year….. just wait.

Happy Maggie
Niece Maggie has taken thousands of self-portraits. Here are two of her latest efforts.

Sad Maggie
At the end of a whirlwind day in Cambridge and Framingham (client visit), Karen and I barely made it to an opening for a show of black and white photographs by Frank Tadley of the Community Garden at Edgerton Park (New Haven CT) (more here about the park) and color drawings of flowers and plants by his sister Betty. The art was great and we caught up with a number of friends. Frank has the whole series on display at his website.

Most parades, like the Hudson Flag Day (6/12/10) (noted earlier here)are at best droll affairs with a somewhat cookie cutter format, content, and purpose. The Hudson Pride Parade, Rally and Tea Dance was quite different. It was a fun event. Along with the recent Prom King and Queen election at the high school (reported on here in the Register Star) it is clearly a marker of a maturing public acceptance and engagement with a wider range of people as they are, not as some might wish or imagine them to be. 
We were a sponsor of this event through the gallery. And so we had our Hudson Pride flag out along with our usual BeLo3rd Open flag.
Karen was not available to take pictures and make movies, so you have to settle for my photographic efforts.
The parade was notable for its many groups of people with simple banners, paucity of floats, and almost complete avoidance of the usual herds of fire trucks and rescue vehicles. I admit to only being surprised at the large contingent from the Capital Area Pride Bowlers.



I particularly liked the crowd that gathered at the end of Warren and up onto Promenade Hill. Right size space and right size crowd. Still in Hudson instead of visually cut off down in Henry Hudson Park.
You should visit the website for the event, HudsonPride.com, and note the endless list of sponsors.
We had a 4th of July and Birthday Party for Andrea yesterday in Claverack. These pictures of Hudson Brown, aged 2+, at the cake and ice cream sum it up.

