You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Brian and I had a lovely shortened week at the beach and then wonderful concerts at Tanglewood in Massachusetts. On our last night there, we had a lovely French meal at Zin.c in Le.nox, We walk a bit and see red light emitting from what appeared to be an underground dwelling, an establishment called Ru.mpies. Hmmm, you have to walk down the dimly red lit stairs to enter this pub dug below the bed and breakfast. Brian looks at me and says, "Well, it would be an adventure." And so I laugh, and we quickly discover that you can't make this stuff up.

The pub is lit with only red lights, except the numbers from the cash register emitting a faint mocking greenish glow. Red Christmas lights wind around what appear to be snarled twigs in the windows situated just above the ground. Lava lamps with red ooze sit on the L-shaped bar, and red lights shine over a corner area for musicians. We settle into seats at the corner of the L, and watch as the hosts of "Open Mic Night," Robbie and Lefty get set up. The bartender finishes opening a bottle of red to pour a full glass of wine for a women who disappears through a door marked with an exit sign--red--of course.

We sit down and Troy with a wide smile says "Welcome, to a place you never thought you'd come to."
Weird, how did he know?
"What'll you have?"
"What was that you just poured?" I ask.
"Cabernet"
"I'll have that."
"Me, too," Brian echos.

We toast and settle in as our adventure continues. We listen to Lefty say nothing and Robbie quip jokes with Troy, like a warm-up for his stand-up act. Another couple enters confidently, sits at the bar, orders a beer and mixed drink, and checks the magic eight balls on the bar. The plastic advice-giving spheres are conveniently placed, likely for those who can't decide what to drink, who to hit on, or whether to pick another day to quit smoking. Joe and Jan (not their real names) can't read the eight balls in the thick red light, despite the red lamplight that seeps through the windows from the outside door, so they reach the mini-flashlights attached to the bar with cords (apparently drunk people have sticky fingers), for just such a purpose.
"It is decidedly so."
So, Jan asks Troy for the lighter, one of those gas grill ones with a flint, and goes outside with a cig in the other hand.

Just after she returns to continue the eight ball fortune-seeking fun, a 60-something man (I'll call him Bob.) escorts a short stocky blind guy from the red exit-sign door and gives us a wary look.
"Here's your seat, Jack."
He shoots another look to Troy, who takes a bottle of Bailey's from the bar and pours a healthy glass.
"Here's your drink, Jack."
Troy pours an ice-tea-sized glass with B&B and walks it over to Bob, who has taken a seat on one of the church pews that now serves a different kind of parishioner. On the way back from serving Bob's drink, Troy reaches above my head and turns on a light with a focused bright, though red, beam for the Robbie and Lefty Show.
"Whoa, that's quite a spotlight, and red too." I exclaim.
(Yup, in real life, one actually discovers that one exclaims when experiencing a "Where's Waldo's red light moment.")

The canned circa 1930s music is turned off and the strange red Ru.mpie bar is quiet for close to ten minutes. We watch quiet Leffy set up his drums. Robbie Robbie tunes, delivering another stand-up line.
"Where we care enough to tune."
Robby and Lefty's playlist includes some Billy Joel, John Mayer, and Beatles to name a few, and following the applause Robbie launches into full comedy mode with "yadda, yadda" and plenty of self-deprecating Yiddish humor. We applaud and laugh, and the cast of characters grows.

In walks, single white blondish girl with bad teeth, no need for the magic eight ball to tell her to go out for a smoke, and no need to ask Troy to pour a glass of something red. Jennifer, the instigator of the uncorking of the bottle of red reappears. Entering from the exit door, I swear there is no light from behind that door. It's as though she emerged from Muggleland to the sister bar to Ha.rry Po.tter's pub, The Three Br.oom Sti.cks. With an announcement of "What a effin' week," she grabs an already poured B&B on ice at the bar, and takes her place in a proper bar chair across the table from parishioner Bob.

"Tanglewood, Schmanglewood. Who needs it when you got us!" Robbie declaims.

All laugh, and I think, "If he plays 'That Old Black Magic' I'll know I'm in some Bershire Bus Stop reality-play."
Their next song is interrupted by a ring tone. Troy surveys the cast--not the misplaced tourists, not the magic eight-ball couple, not other white girl or B&B Bob and Jen or . . .
"Hello . . . yeah . . . It's OK, I'm playin' . . . "
"Lefty, is that you!" Robbie strums what might have been a chord, abruptly halting the tune and turns to look at his partner.
"It's Chenelle."
"What?!! Whose Chenelle?"
"My girlfriend . . . yeah, that's fine . . . OK, see ya then."
We laugh and applaud. Robbie groans.
"She's French," Lefty explains.
"OH!" we all respond as if the script had called for it, and the playwright had included the instructions, "with jovial laughter and exuberant applause."
Robbie strums randomly, and Jennifer lets us know that the registers were down for the lunch rush upstairs in Mugg.leland Bed and Breakfast.
"Sing a song, Jen. You'll feel better," Troy yells as he comes from the bar with the bottle of B&B to refill their glasses.
"Nah."
Blonde girl with waiting unlit cigarette in hand adjusts her long face enough to smile and chime, "Yeah, come on, Jen, sing."
Troy flashes us a smile as he lifts the bar "gate" and I catch the bumper sticker slapped onto the underside. It reads, 'If anything good can happen, it will."
Bob plays guitar and Jen sings "You got a Friend." Jen, it turns out carries a master's degree in vocal performance from a known New England school. Jack, it turns out has been visiting this same Inn and bar for over 10 years. He finishes the bottle of Bailey's, and Troy lists his other drinking options.
"The first time I met, Jack," Jen explains, "He asked if he could have an orange juice."
"Oh, yeah," Jack nods in agreement tapping his fingers in excitement on the bar.
"I told him, he could have it, but I wasn't going to tell him where I put it."
Jack and Jen roar with laughter at their well-worn joke. This opens a series of blind jokes from Jack and Jen, with a few thrown in from Troy for good measure.
The music resumes, and we applaud graciously for our excellent adventure.

Brian orders a beer and I choose water. I don't want to miss a thing, after all, if anything good can happen, it will. And you can't make this stuff up.

Some "Goodbyes"

More Whea.tland Tour Pics

Ah, Vi.mbos, that lovely restaurant where many breakfast buffets were eaten and lunches shared. i lasted a week as a bus girl---ha!!! My favorite memory was when a big family gathering occurred and the coffee was so bad many of us poured it in the plant in the corner and asked for another pot!



Always loved the light through this stained glass, beautiful work. Another moment when the door was open.



Spent lots of time here. Lots of singing, some good, some questionable! Like many parishioners the parental units outlasted many priests. And they were on the planning committee for this building.


Got nothing to say about the bigA, 'cept it's been there since we moved there. Weird sinking into the ground architecture.


Went here once when I was "of age," and saw some old HS classmates. That's it, nothing else.



Ah Dr.ubes, so many trips . . . to and fro--fro and to.

The Adventure Home

Brian and I left Wheatland with hopes of getting lots of miles behind us, but we were hungry. So, we stopped at Greg's Grub for a burger. There we were served burgers by Gregg with full Michael Jackson CNN coverage on the telly--punctuated by Nebraska Greg's commentary. NICE.

We get back in the car and get going, only to notice a pretty nasty dark sky ahead. Tuning the radio to 1630 on AM we hear that in at mile marker 419 (not actual number), there is a tornado warning. Funnel clouds cited and likely some baseball-sized hail. Our windshield is getting pitted, and Hmmmm, we are at mile marker 414 and counting. UGH, so we turn around and drive a few miles outside of the storm and land in the only patch of near blue sky. We hung out with our new Nebraskan bar-keep friend, we'll call her Lana. Lana at the Linger Longer Bar lamented, "now, no one's gonna pay attention to Farrah Faucett. And she was much better than Michael Jackson." We ordered a Bud and Michelob Ultra and waited out the storm.


Brian plays "Avoid cutting your fingers off" and Texas Hold 'Em on the video game console, and because the machine gets shut off every night we win a lot, so we enter the coolest name we know.









The weather clears a bit, and we take off. We are now sandwiched between storms, and I have to say that listening to AM radio for hours is not fun. We at last arrive in North Platte, where the tornado weather catches up with us. During dinner the electricity goes out. Though dining in the dark with 100 or so strangers, we were glad our meals were already cooked and at our table. Back in our room, hotel management kindly warns of us of black bugs, little rolly polly kinds the note says, that they sprayed for so we shouldn't see them. But not to worry, they won't refund our money if we do.

The next day we are off, and Brian caves to my request to stop at a vineyard in Iowa. Yup. Iowa has vineyards. What a highlight. They seemed genuinely impressed that we were from RI, and that we traveled so far. It worked; we bought four bottles.

The next night we're in Gary, Indiana (Insert song here). And the car takes us into the getto to the Budget Motel, that I had entered. We took a U-turn at the gang-members' corner store as they swaggered across the street. We do at last find a better looking, though, smokey room in Gary. Pizza and some of our wine was in order.

The next day, we go HOME. No matter what, but not without Pennsylvania, kicking our butts. We took some back roads to avoid the 2 mile an hour road-work enforced speed limit. We drove by a drive-in movie theatre, but Brian said, "NO." Alas, we eventually make it home and wake up in our house the same morning we arrived! And it's clear we had been gone too long.

Yup, that's no tree top peeking out from behind our house, that's a TREE growing in our gutter. NICE

Helen's Cooking Channel

Touring Wheeterville

360 of the Gym. Why? Because the door was open.

Gems

Leaving the House