GREAT BARRINGTON, AND...

A FAMILY GATHERING

Starting in good time and delayed only by a long wait at the car rental counter at the airport, we set off on the Massachusetts Turnpike and crossed the entire state, east to west, in two and a half hours.  As Californians unused to this luxury, we enjoyed the lush green on either side of the highway for the entire trip, but I find that I am weary of movement, long for stillness...

We arrived in Great Barrington in time to check in to our unusual and very nice hotel, appropriately named The Barrington.  It occupies the third floor only of an old three-story building...

.... along the main street, the first floor being commercial, storefront space, and the second floor newly converted to residential.  The proprietors of The Barrington have done a great job redesigning and redecorating the high-ceilinged spaces on the top floor to comfortable and attractive hotel rooms.

Lunch at a "French patisserie" on Main Street...

... followed by a short walk (for me) and a longer one for Ellie around town.  I took the opportunity to complete the blog entry for our day on the North Coast... and to take something of a rest before dressing for the evening's main event: the "rehearsal dinner" for the wedding we have come here to celebrate.

The "Cork & Hearth" is in a beautiful location, a few miles north from our hotel, overlooking a lake surrounded by woods, now in the full, brilliant green of summer.  The dining room was already lively and crowded by the time we arrived, mostly with guests from this side of the country with whom we were unfamiliar.  The groom-to be was there, of course, our nephew Danny and his bride-to-be, Rachel...

... along with his relatives from the
West Coast.  Besides our two selves, there were Danny's mother, Susie, his older sister, Yardena...

.... and his twin brother, Naftali, who is to be best man at tomorrow's ceremony.  We were surprised--and delighted!--to find our good friend of many years, Vicky Traube...

... up from New York.  We had not been aware that she is also a friend of the bride's mother, Abby, who also sat with us at our table.

A convivial evening.  Dinner was good--though delayed by the confusion caused by the fact that most of us had forgotten what we had ordered, long ago, at the couple's online weeding site!  Once sorted out, we dined well on a variety of dishes... and talked!  There was, of course, a good deal of catching up to do: most of us had not seen each other in a good long while, and it was a pleasure to hear the family updates--the children, the grandchildren and, for Susie now, the great-grandchildren!  Interspersed with conversation and food, there were the speeches.  Rachel seems to have a good number of cousins, one of whom gave her a cheerful, very funny roast as we ate.  Danny's stepmother, Joyce, spoke warmly of the pride his father, Shimon, who died only recently, would have felt; his step-brother recalled the early days of the combined family of children--six of them--growing up, first in Israel, then in San Diego.

It was a great occasion, filled with warmth and humor, and with the love of two different families joining together in celebration.  Hardly surprising that the noise level rose throughout the evening, reaching such intensity that eventually we could hardly hear each other speak.  Time, then, to leave.  We drove Susie and Yardena back with us to our hotel, where they are also staying; and got to bed with the adrenalin still flowing.  I slept fitfully, woke much too early, and sit here with my laptop trying to recollect it all...