Dog Daze: June 2009

There's a line in the song "Molasses to Rum" in the musical 1776 that I just love. Edward Rutledge from South Carolina has finished his explanation of why Northerners are hypocrites on the question of slavery. Thomas Jefferson had included a clause in his earlier version of the Declaration of Independence that slavery must be abolished. Rutledge and the entire contingent from the South threatened to walk out unless the clause was removed. He describes the Triangle Trade, in my favorite song from this wonderful musical. The line at the end goes, "Hail Boston, Hail Charleston...who stinketh the most."

Well, nothing stinketh about Charleston, South Carolina these days. Okay, on occasion you might get a whiff of fish from the wharves, but more often - in fact, most often - you will find tantalizing aromas wafting onto the sidewalks from one of the many glorious eating establishments. Charleston must have more great places to eat than any city its size. And more great places to eat than many large cities. Charleston's charm can be found in so many different directions: the food, the history, the architecture, the locale, the climate. The people, from the natives, many of whom I have been lucky enough to call friends now for many years, but especially from the transplants, those many folks who fell in love with the city enough to make it their own. It's easy to see why they would. But all of these combined with the wonder that is Spoleto Festival USA makes for a magical, unbelievable experience. I have been many times now to enjoy Spoleto Festival and its sister event, Piccolo Spoleto. I can never imagine a time when I will tire of going. And I encourage you to make plans to go, too. Go next year!

My sisters and I met there for four and a half days of festivities this year, beginning the Friday before Memorial Day. We started our day with lunch at Basil, a terrific Thai restaurant on King Street. We got a look at the location of one of our future eating destinations on this trip, Paolo's Gelato, on the way there. Lunch was great, and then we headed to the Craft Fair.

There's Diane (with her Vera Bradley bag!) behind the, um, ostrich, in the first booth at the craft show:

Next are Deb and Dana shopping in one of the many booths with custom-designed clothing. Deb and I each bought a blouse.

Another shopper at the craft fair.

More pretties at the craft fair.

Our first Spoleto performance event was "Trombones!" It was a concert of 30-some trombone players, accompanied on a few numbers by some other instrumentalists. They were fantastic. They played on the steps of the U.S. Customs House, and they did some familiar works, and some wonderful unexpected fare. It was a great setting:

It was great staying with Cindi and Kevin, too, on Daniel Island, and having dinner with them and Paul our first night. I would say, however, that the best way to enjoy Spoleto Festival is to stay in town. You will pay for the luxury, but the convenience of bopping into your hotel room whenever you need to is worth the jacked up hotel prices. Also, Charleston is a nice, compact town...generally speaking, you should not need to rent a car, unless there is a venue you need to visit that is beyond Charleston proper. There are lots of other things to see and do in the Charleston area, but insofar as Spoleto Festival is concerned, if you're staying in town, I wouldn't waste the money on a rental car.

We went to Cindi's favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner that first night, and had a blast. It was a great way to spend our first night - we had a lot of laughs. Paul is a crazy funny guy, and Kevin and Cindi are an adorable couple:

Our first full day started at the Farmers Market and the Juried Art Show at Marion Square. We had breakfast there from the assortment of stands. Diane and Dana started slow - their food wasn't edible - but we all, ultimately, ended up happy with our crepes. It's a festive atmosphere on Saturdays during Spoleto:

An art installation (the cover laying on the ground is part of the piece):

One of the artists in competition.

A beautiful blossom from
a magnolia tree in the square:

I'm sure you're getting the idea here. Spoleto is just moment after moment of wonderful cultural opportunities. My sisters and I are big fans of choral music, and the Piccolo Spoleto festival is the schedule to see for these wonderful concerts. Our first choral concert was the the First (Scots) Presbyterian Church Kirk Choir. This concert consisted mostly of settings of psalms from Rennaisance and contemporary composers. This was an amazing choir, and this church's members are very lucky to have this group sing for them every Sunday.

Our next concert was not our favorite, and Deb and I need to remember this as we had seen them at a previous Piccolo Spoleto concert but neither one of us remembered that. They were missing four singers this time, too, and it showed.
Here are Deb, Diane and Dana in the entryway of one of the many historic homes that you can tour while in Charleston. We didn't tour any this time, though we have seen some on previous visits. You can tour one of the houses that was used as George Hazard's Lehigh Station (Pennsylvania) home in the miniseries "North and South"!

Most of the venues for the choral concerts are in the many Charleston churches. These churches have beautiful, old graveyards and equally old trees:

This particular graveyard is at one of our favorite buildings in Charleston, the Circular Congregational Church. It's a gorgeous brick building, and yes, it is circular:

Saturday evening was dinner on Deb at the magnificent Peninsula Grill. This restaurant is reknowned for its many-layered coconut cake, but it is a great restaurant in every possible way. The service was just fantastic, ourt waiter was fun and attentive. The servers seem to come from nowhere with the offerings. Quite amazing to experience. And the food was wonderful. We will go there again. Deb treated all of us to dinner here for our birthdays. Ain't she the best?

Sunday started with the church service at Saint Matthew's Lutheran Church. Their Gallery Choir performed Johann Sebastian Bach's Cantata #172, "Erchallet, ihr Lieder" with full orchestra and soloists. One of the soloists was the Pastor! As church services go, it was pretty great.

We had lunch at Saint Matthew's Afternoon Tea. It was great, nice atmosphere, very nice tea, perfect for lunch.

One of the things I love about Charleston is that you never know what you'll come across. It's a very sophisticated city. We found this guy on a balcony on Church Street on the way to one of the concerts:

The two best concerts of our visit, in my opinion, came later on Sunday. The William Baker Festival Singers from Atlanta were terrific. They performed at the Circular Congregational Church, which is just a great venue for concerts. I enjoyed this concert, though a couple of the selections seemed odd and weren't my favorites. They had a really nice sound.

In between concerts we would stroll the streets of Charleston. This town is so beautiful. Lots of wrought iron...

...window boxes, each one more beautiful than the next, all of them making making us ooh and aah...

...hidden cobblestone treasures...

Our favorite concert by far was the College of Charleston Concert Choir. Wow. A truly amazing choir. College undergrads and graduate students who clearly are passionate about singing. Not all of these singers are majoring in music. It's hard to believe. Robert Taylor is their director and my how he gets the sound from these singers. The most perfect enunciation, the crystal clear tone, the unison; that moment when someone holds a note too long...does not happen with this choir. They were beautiful. The program was challenging and interesting from start to finish. Some of the repertoire:

Zadok the Priest by George Frederic Handel
Hear My Prayer, O Lord by Henry Purcell
Valiant-for-truth by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Suite de Lorca by Einojuhani Rautavaara
St. Louis Blues by W.C. Handy

We had more concerts to see, and a mix-up in the schedule. When the concert we wanted to see turned out not to be happening, the sisters did split up for a while. Diane and Dana took a carriage ride - here's Diane getting up close and personal with one of the horses:

They went to a restaurant, the name escapes me, where they enjoyed ribs and chicken for lunch. Deb and I headed to the ballet, which, save for one especially awkward coupling of a mature young woman with an obviously far-too-young man in a romantic pairing, was quite good. For lunch, we split a Caprese salad and then had hearth-baked pizzas at Blossom.

Dinner Sunday night was not our best moment. We ate at Il Cortile del Re, a restaurant that Deb and I had eaten at a couple of times on our last trip to Spoleto Festival. We loved it then. She and I both loved our meals this time, too. But Dana was indifferent about hers, and Diane hated hers. I thought Diane's tasted good, but, to each his own, eh? The problem with the restaurant this time was the dreadful service and the price for the house wine - $30 for a small pitcher. Ridiculous. I'm not sure I'll be going back.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Joseph's. It's my favorite place for breakfast in Charleston. They have interesting fare, everything is wonderfully fresh, including the fresh squeezed orange juice, and great coffee. Not to be missed.

We went back and forth from Daniel Island to Charleston each day. They have a wonderful new bridge, and we experienced some great waterfront and marsh viewing:

I spent a goodly amount of time watching this little girl keep her daddy busy at this fountain. It was a wonderful way to spend my time while waiting for Deb to finish up her shopping.

Cindi made us dinner on our last night in South Carolina. She is a wonderful girl, and her husband Kevin is just a great guy and great raconteur. They are a fun couple and gracious hosts. I had a chance to get over to see Paul and Nancy and their kids, Alex, Andie, and Molly the Beagle. That was so great, too. I have great memories of working in Charleston with these people who I am so lucky to call my friends, and with other fine people from my time with Mikasa.

One thing, though. Deb and I did find it, how shall I say...interesting, that Cindi and Kevin didn't mention this guy until our second or third day pulling in to their place - in the dark. Curious, no?

I recognize that on my blog you might not be able to make this out. I encourage you to download the photo so that you can zoom in on it. That's right, your eyes do not deceive you. That is an alligator. Somehow I think it might have been nice to know about it before we landed at the Hux homestead. Two days later just seems somehow, oh, I guess the word is reckless. See, I told you Cindi and Kevin were a fun couple! I suspect that I was more likely to get bit by Cindi's Dachshund Taz than I was by that alligator.

I miss Charleston. :(

I also think that anyone reading this post should schedule a visit down there, and I encourage you to schedule it during Spoleto Festival. Maybe I'll see you at a concert sometime!

Certainly one of the greatest finales in musical theater is the song "Make Our Garden Grow" that thrillingly and beautifully closes Leonard Bernstein's "Candide". This operetta of Voltaire's novella is far more popular and appreciated now than when it first premiered in 1956. It's smart and funny and has an amazing score by Bernstein. He was such a genius.

I think of this song now every day when I go out to my garden. I started modestly this year with the vegetables, and have not gone crazy with the flowers because I want to do justice to the vegetables. I started many of the plants in my four raised beds from seed down in the basement, so I feel intimately invested in this effort. Also, Dana and Darryl and I built the beds, and I put in a lot of back-breaking work filling them up with a rich soil mix. And I am the queen of weeding, at least so far this growing season. We'll see how long that lasts.

So, following are some photos from the garden. I'll post more as the growing season continues.

Yes, my garden ornaments tend to be dog-related. ;-)

As we looked at the four finished beds, Darryl commented about how nice it would be to have benches linking the beds together. A grand idea, come to fruition:

With Fred and Homer zooming through the garden, and under those benches, I'm going to need to put another inch or two of mulch down!

I couldn't resist...a new photo of the new boy, Homer:

You might have noticed about 12 inches of plastic chicken wire around the tops of the beds. I made them 16 inches high to keep the big Bailey dog from peeing all over my vegetables. The chicken wire is to keep the dogs from eating my rich, and apparently delicious, soil. Fred was perfectly happy eating the dirt on the ground before. Now, he likes to take a mouthful from the garden. And he has taught Bailey about the glories of eating fine soil. Grrrr.

Happy gardening!