Having a wonderful time, wish you were...

Looks like rain. Too much rain is bad for crops.  Too little is bad, too.

So we made our annual pilgrimage to New England, which is mostly us sitting with the in laws. 

I know, big fun.

But it happens once a year. 

This time we ate well, but it was a wee bit rainy.

On our first day we made it to Weston, Connecticut, to see a beloved friend.  I miss her very much.  We were stunned that she's been in Connecticut for thirty years.   But she looks fabulous.  Moreover she seems happy, all good things with her children and husband, too.  And she deserves all of it and more.  You when you make friends with someone who is special? Audrey is all that and more.

On the second day we pushed on to Windsor, the first European settlement in Connecticut.  There we found the "Ship" monument to the towns first settlers and found the names of my forefathers.  Sadly, the foremothers were not on the list.  That seemed a wee bit unfair.

I take that back, that is horribly unfair. 

Women are really unvalued, and in "His"-story, even more so.

In many cases, before 1850, unless your courthouse hasn't been burned down, that woman in your past may never be found.  1850 was when the census in the United States began to record women.  Before that, if they were not heads of households, they were just hashmarks on a sheet of paper.  Not even shown as a wife, they were just a woman in a certain age-range.

Anyhow, we honored the women with a moment of thought and pushed on.

Next we headed to rural, Eastern Connecticut, which is very lovely!  Stops were made in Windham, Ashford and Chaplin. 

We went to one cemetery to view the graves of ancestors only to find out that Find A Grave had applied the wrong address to the cemetery we were searching for.   That was a major bother.   But we pushed on and eventually found ourselves in the bosom of the in-laws in Natick.

In Boston I got a respite t the unending merriment with the in-laws when I drove down to Newton - to Newton Center to be specific -  to visit my fourth cousin, Murial, and Murial's twin sister Miriam.  They are 86 and both are very sharp.  Having a conversation with them is fun.  They speak in partial sentences, each one finishing the others sentences.   Their cousin Mordecai was there and he was fascinated that I was married to a man.   

I was the youngest person there by 30 years.

There was lots of good food, a lot of laughs and a great deal of Yiddish.  We are all getting together in Cleveland at the end of July for the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conference. 

Then today, we drove home, got the dogs and settled back into our lives. 

I love going back there, but to be honest, I really hate the traffic. 

So that was our week.  A real rip-snorting time!