Category: Massachusetts

Moogy’s – Brighton Massachusetts

Sadly, I have fallen WAY behind on writing these entries. This was 15 of 17 I had let pile up and as such I don’t remember why I was here. All I remember is it was a hot day and we’d already done our adventuring and were looking for good grub before driving home. So, I did the usual dance of trying to find parallel parking (BOO!) and then walking half a block to see what we had chosen.

This place… it was a trip. You would not be wrong in thinking it was closed based on the fact there was no light in this place, not via windows or electricity. Did we just walk into a swinger’s club? I couldn’t be certain. The only lights were fairy lights and I…. am not a bat. So, even though the menu was on the wall in huge font I was still having a hard time reading it! Though I admit I was deeply amused that one of the options was a grilled Fluffernutter. How very New England! I was overheating at the time so I knew my stomach was going to reject basically anything I tried putting in it. A Fluffernutter would have ended up painting the walls if I tried it. None the less I got The Tomboy which was loaded grilled cheese with heaps of fried chicken thrown in. Funny, this was the first autistically coded menu I’d come across but I’d bet money based on the fact this choice was named after gender variance and contained a pile of common “safe” foods that whoever it was named after was most likely autistic. We have an obscene amount of gender variance and love of over processed food in the community. It made it an easy decision. We also ordered fries as potatoes are my “safe” food (something I won’t hurl up even when my stomach’s being an ass, like today.)

We wandered into the back room and sat down. It had this delightful 20-watt chandelier which I wanted to bring home with me. And the music? It was wild. Literally anything that had been popular in the last hundred years would play at random. Ella Fitzgerald followed by some random 90’s garage band? Check. Also some Bob Dylan which luckily didn’t trigger me like the last time I’d heard a Bob Dylan song by surprise. Nothing quite like sobbing alone at a Panera! (To be fair it was a BAD point in my life and I think it was triggering because it reminded me of all the parts of myself I’d lost while in long term relationship with a narcissist including listening to 60’s folk all the time like I did in my teens. It’s a story as old as time and I wish so many women [and others] didn’t have to go through it.) This time I found myself singing along to Tangled Up in Blue and thinking to myself, “Jesus Christ, that’s insane, it makes me happy I’m not still 20.” Funny how things hit differently when you age..

This is when the food came out and I ate it quietly in the dark. Actually, the dark was very calming after having spent a few hours being active in the outside world. My autistic ass thrives in the dark, even if my eyes no longer adjust to it. And the grub was good! Perfect stoner food if that’s your thing, the sort of faire that goes straight from your mouth to your arteries. Good times.

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Holyhood Cemetery, Brookline MA

It was another gorgeous spring day so we decided to spend it outside. In a cemetery. Because that’s what normal people do. I left the choice of which cemetery to my travel companion who chose the Holyhood Cemetery because it was said to be haunted. Aren’t all cemeteries haunted? Probably, but this one seems to be mostly ghost children running between the stones and in the 1920’s people claimed to hear Gaelic lullabies in the wind.

But the cemetery’s real claim to fame was the fact it was the burial grounds that contained the Kennedys. Specifically, the mom and pop of the never forgotten former president John F Kennedy. And his sister… the one who at 23 had too salacious a lifestyle for her parents to handle so they had her lobotomized, then institutionalized, and no one ever spoke about her again. Shame, I think she seemed like the sort of live wire I would have loved to have read about if she weren’t turned into a human vegetable for the convenience of her rich family. I pondered for a moment what they must think of their legacy now being carried by RFK Jr, their nephew, who is currently succeeding at killing dozens of children through his campaign against measles vaccinations. He also thinks germs aren’t’ real and was recently stopped from starting a non-voluntary register for autistic people for… reasons. Oh Rosemary, you were the only sane one in this whole family weren’t you? I am so sorry you were robbed of becoming way better than any of your male family members. Also, at the risk of making a political statement on a blog which is not… Fuck you RFK Jr, go back to the rock you crawled under and die. We do not need or want you.

BUT BACK TO THE CEMETERY! It was well spaced out and pretty large making for a nice little amble. The majority of the stones were very typical but there was enough more individualistic ones to make it worthwhile. My favorite ended up being a woman angel made in bronze who was just… dramatic.

We spent maybe an hour or so walking around here. I can’t say I saw any ghost children or heard any Gaelic lullabies but it was still enjoyable. Perhaps worth it if you’re in the area.

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Mead Art Museum – Amherst Massachusetts

After enjoying the Beneski’s Natural History Museum it was only a short walk across campus to the Mead Art Museum which was also free.

I noticed the tower out front before we got there and realized it was part of the art museum and I enjoyed taking photos of different angles.

Inside the art museum there was one woman at the check-in and a few other visitors wandering around. The art museum was pretty small and had a very disjointed collection that seemed to be a completely random sampling of different unrelated topics from ancient Etruscan engravings, to recreations of destroyed funeral art, to a room decorated more like a medieval castle than a college, to a visiting black art exhibit, to a painting of a woman being harassed by a cherub weilding a knitting needle. The latter was my favorite because of the expression on the woman’s face that seemed to say, “It’s back again isn’t it?! I can feel it’s sticky hands over my shoulder!”

My other favorite part was the visiting black art exhibit which unlike the rest had a unifying theme making it seem more approachable and less neurotic and all over the place. We had seen everything in maybe 20 minutes. And that included a lot of dawdling.

I’ve certainly been to more impressive art museums but it was free and near the Natural History Museum so why not visit anyway?

From here we attempted to go to the Emily Dickinson Museum also on campus but that museum charges entry and apparently has the sketchy hours of a salt water fish store. As such we found out it was closed when we drove up.

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Beneski Natural History Museum – Amherst Massachussetts

You know with the economy crashing as badly as it has been I have a feeling more of y’all will be joining me in finding the best FREE entertainment New England has to offer! On this particular day it was the Beneski Natural History Museum attached to the university in Amherst Massachusetts.

This is one of the things I love about New England is their colleges and universities are usually quite proud to share their discoveries and collections with people, even people who do not attend said institutions, which is great because even though I was once academically inclined I now do not have a cent to give towards such lofty endeavors but that doesn’t mean my love for the sciences has waned.

The Natural History Museum is attached to an active science building. There are classes going on in the back but there’s pretty rocks in the hallway just outside said classrooms to enjoy if you’re quiet. I was hoping to eavesdrop on a paleontology lecture as I was surrounded by the aforementioned pretty rocks but instead my eyes glassed over at the sound of someone trying to make unsolvable math problems exciting in two different classrooms. Math. It’s never liked me and I never liked it. But the rocks were cool… there was even a display on rocks and minerals found here in New England and I had NO IDEA were here but now I’ll be looking! And the variety… my god, I’d never heard of most of these little earth treasures.

However I didnt swing by today to tell you about hallways, the main part of the museum was probaly more notable! It had more fossils than anything. Most of the big displays were brought back during one exhibition the college hosted in the 1920’s when all you needed was a $100 car, a pick ax, and a vague destination out west somewhere. The colorful details if this story were everywhere to be read and enjoyed.

But there were also drawers, so many drawers! Each just asking to be opened with all sorts of fun stuff… everything from trilobites to turtle fossils. My favorite displays included an Irish elk, two beautiful archapteryx complete with fossilized feathers, and a sea scorpion which is the state fossil of New York. Also the basement which had dinosaur tracks and dinosaur skin imprints lining all the walls.

And since I seem to be writing this entry backwards I will say the exhibits in the entry were very well displayed and even included a cute little dinosaur I’d never heard of and the school’s mascot: the mighty mastodon. A very excitable student greeted us and told us to ask any questions we had. I didn’t ask anything but I did learn the US used to have tiny camels running around and there’s a rock called wulfinite that’s is a gorgeous orange…

I guess that’s where I’ll leave you until tomorrow when I’ll tell you where we walked from here.

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Noodles – Northampton Massachusetts

So after our two days trekking through Vermont it was time to go back to Rhode Island but first there was an issue at hand – we needed something in our bellies. My companion was insistent on noodles but as much as I also could go for a steaming bowl of Ramon I knew Vermont was not going to have such faire. Noodle bars haven’t even really made it into rural areas, they’re basically just found in cities and some college towns at this moment in time.

My phone seemed to agree. There were no noodle bars showing up anywhere in Vermont but there was one vaguelly on the route home in Northampton Massachusetts which is both a city and a college town, hosting one of the US’s most esteemed all female universities – Smith’s University. We actually drove by the campus and I was hilariously caught off guard because I honestly had no idea what town it was in.

But anyway, we found a place to eat simply called Noodles. You know with a title that straight to the point you were going to get what’s advertised.

As usual it was a small space clearly run by immigrants gifting their delicious food to this country. It was FULL but they were nice enough to set up another spot to sit next to the bathroom. Interestingly the bathroom door had a note asking customers to use hand sanitizer before going into it.

The menu was fairly simple and allowed for a choice of several types of noodles or a plate of rice with the toppings of your choice. To my joy they had little peppers 🌶 next to the spicy items on the menu which means I didn’t have to ask! Woohoo!

I ordered some sort of seafood special served with udon noodles which I was trying for the first time. My companion picked a less adventurous option but both were delicious! Granted I had no idea udon have the same basic shape and feel as wet earth worms which… is really not my thing. But hey at least now I know! The sea food was nice though. We got to play “what is it?” With one particular item that was sliced up in a pretty grid pattern. I thought it was some sort of vegetable and popped the whole thing in my mouth. Oh no… not a vegetable. Chewy. Mildly fishy. I think it was probably squid. Today was not a great day for texture surprises! But I regained my composure and ate it. I actually do like calamari… just… not so much surprise calamari. All jokes aside it was piping hot and delicious with very large chunks of crab meat and mystery seafood. It was totally worth the five hours it took me to figure out chop sticks which I’m as bad at as parallel parking. Fortunately I’ve found going rogue and stabbing things with the aforementioned sticks usually suffice when fine motor skills are lacking. We both had literally a whole meal worth of noodles to bring home as leftovers. This was definitely worth the detour.

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Jeffries Antique Mall

Alas, I have found another antique store I feel like I should have already known about. This one appeared from the outside to be a metal warehouse. On the inside it was aisle after aisle of antiques from dozens of different vendors. This reminded me a lot of my first antiquing adventures in Maine.

Most of the merchandise here was relatively new and nostalgic (and you have to know how damn old it makes me feel to pick up a VHS tape, a rotary phone, or cassette player and know not only are these things now considered antiques but kids these days HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE.) As an elder millennial I’m not immune to the odd Ninja Turtle or particularly weird beanie baby. And this is the sort of place one finds these things, guarded by a swarm of haunted dolls as is tradition.

I was also happy to find lots of vendors were selling affordable vinyl records, most of the classic rock of the 60’s/70’s/80’s variety. These weren’t pristine by any means, most the covers looked very well loved but this is these are the sort of bins you can start a collection of your own with or perhaps find a diamond in the rough. My companion gave a nervous laugh at the fact Bill Cosby’s stand up was still in one of them. Yep, funny thing he’s been everywhere since we learned what a massive twatwaffle he is. And judging by the prices people aren’t really buying it.

Unfortuneately the melting snow outside was staring a puddle in front of what used to be a garage sized door. My companion made sure to tell the staff who seemed less than thrilled with this discovery, though still thanked us for pointing it out.

I may be back to this place for some more rummaging. It’s large enough that there’s a good possibility of finding something interesting with every visit.

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Delaney Antiques [Clocks] – West Townsend Massachusetts

After going to the Hobart Antique Mall we realized that directly across from it there was another sign reading Antiques across the road. We decided to explore this further having no idea what it was. The sign out front seemed even older and more worn out than the Hobart Village Antiques but there was cars in the lot so we held on for the ride. The entrance was a little weird but we found it and then walked into one of the bizzarest places we’ve been yet. Suddenly we were surrounded on all sides by antique clocks, all ticking. At the risk of dating myself I felt like I was walking into a scene from Hook but unlike the kid in that movie I didn’t have a baseball bat and a bad influence instead I had an immediate panic attack. Ticking is one of my triggers that brings me right back to grade school when some teacher thought it was a great idea to teach children math through timed tests. So we all sat with our multiplication tables and and who got to sit next to the loudly ticking egg timer? You guessed it! Me! I never did learn my multiplication tables and to this day I find timed tests to be child torture. Recently I’ve gone back to learn my math with DuoLingo and was more than horrified to find part of its lessons are again, timed tests. No ticking but still as anxiety inducing.

I swallowed hard and walked in anyway knowing I was being neurotic, these are grandfather clocks, not Acme bombs, and no one’s asking me math questions. Just put on your big kid pants and deal with it.

This place was a two level post and beam barn filled in every corner with grandfather clocks against every wall and in the middle of the room? Tables with smaller mantle clocks. All in pristine condition, all ticking, all reading a different time! So now not only was I sweating hard from panic I was also struggling not to twitch from the chaos of none of them being set right. This is an autistic person’s nightmare, honestly, so much so I noticed I wasn’t taking any photos of individual clocks so I closed my eyes, breathed a moment, and allowed my instinct to drag me to the most interesting looking clock. It had an elaborate wood inlay pattern, the likes I’d never seen before. I took a moment to take a picture of that before walking up the stairs which was decorated with clock faces, so many clock faces.

By the time we made it to the second floor my companion was quietly talking. These clocks are neat but expensive he lamented. He looked at the price tag on one which was over a grand. I blinked, happy to be focusing on something other than the ticking, and said well yeah, the one you picked has a mahogany inlay. By now the shop keep had come up and started talking to us. Ask any questions, he welcomed. So my companion asked about Newport Rhode Island and apparently back in the day they had a few famous clock makers and he pointed out those clocks as we riffed about what an odd place colonial Newport was. One of these clocks was made of solid walnut, I nodded and said, “When we still had walnut trees” which seemed to delight the shop keep who confirmed the sentiment. Black walnut still exist in the United States but are near extinct due to diseases and pests that thrived in the pine forests we planted after cutting down every old forest hardwood tree that existed here. There are conservation efforts going on right now to grow more and the public can help. This is one of the reasons I want to own land – to be a custodian of some of these precious trees, grown from nuts acquired through these programs.

We also got to see a reproduction piece of furniture from the John Brown house that was the most expensive piece of American furniture to be sold at auction. It was indeed beautiful.

I asked what the oldest clock was and he showed us a grandfather clock built in 1610. It was English and spent most of its life in England and France. Strangely enough it was the one clock I took a singular photo of with the ornate wood inlays. I’d been drawn to it for a reason!

We thanked the owner for the history lesson and said we’d refer anyone looking for an antique clock here! Hell, if we ever end up with the old farm house of my dreams I’m not guaranteeing that won’t be us someday. You know if this blog ever goes viral and we end up with clock money!

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Hobart Village Mall Antiques – West Townsend Massachusetts

This week it was time to amble around a few places a little closer to home than usual. I had no idea this one even existed but it sounded promising, I mean when you put village and mall in the title it implies something of decent size. It closed at 5PM though so we went to this one first after waking from a stress-induced coma. This would be the perfect little outing to take our minds off of *vaguely gestures at everything.*

When we got there the sign was very beaten and battered, clearly well aged, and almost covered by a mud-spattered snowbank. Tis the season! The parking lot was confusing and seemed to go right past someone’s driveway. And the building? Just as decrepit looking as their sign. I muttered, “We’re about to be serial killed, aren’t we?” To which my companion tried to lighten the mood by pointing out we weren’t the only car there. THANK GOD.

I was expecting the worse. Really, like another Cookie’s. But low and behold as we walked in the change in scenery was stark! Inside the rooms were well lit, perfectly painted, and all sorts of well thought out displays. Lots of room for each object to really shine and mixed among them all were these “replica” furniture made from what I can only assume was local trees and branches. You know, perfect if you’re going for that rustic look.

I didn’t even look at the price tags on this place because everything looked so clean and proper I knew it’d be out of my budget. And the things we found were very unique! One was a cast iron horse from a child-size carousel made in the 1920’s. It had lost all its coloration over the years and looked just as desperate and wanting as the old cast iron pans you see everywhere. But if you were looking for carousels of better quality there was a whole room of them! We also found a gorgeous French bronze clock depicting a naked Promethius in chains, I guess being punished for that whole giving fire to humanity scandal, a series of French posters, a series of signed prints from artists I wasn’t familiar with, some old probably haunted portraits, the customary smattering of possessed dolls, and a Victrola with a wooden horn! I’ve seen lots of phonographs in my day, some with horns, but never wooden. MY GOODNESS.

We left without buying anything but hey, if you’re in the area and happen to be monied and love purchasing some very unique antiques this place is well worth a little lookie-loo.

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Fab Finds – Foxboro Massachusetts

On yet another jaunt into the great blue yonder we happened by Fab Finds listed as an antique store. Though quaint and charming I wouldn’t have personally categorized it as such. It was more a country decore kinda of place with well arranged displays highlighting a number of quirky babbles, folk art, wall hangings, and a smattering of furniture. The place had a deffinate vibe. Think country chic meets grandma core with a few degrees of fairly moneyed queer kitch. Lots of bedazzled things, lots of little ponderous objects that seemed their own statements of confused wonder. I took a photo of a cherub head looking ominously from the center of the room. One of my companions took a close up photo of the same cherub and it looked… innocent. It was a fun and spontaneous game of Perspective!

Would I suggest this place? If you happen to be in or near Foxboro and this is the vibe of your abode sure! Check it out. Otherwise maybe not. It was VERY niche.

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Oak Grove Cemetery – Lizzie Borden’s Grave- Fall River Massachusetts

Why not follow up a ghost hunt at the Lizzie Broden Inn with a stroll through the cemetery she was buried in a few days later? That’s absolutely what we, two lovably morbid history buffs, did today.

I had Oak Grove Cemetery on my big list of cemeteries to check out but I had long forgotten why until I was reminded this morning. Ooooh yeeeah, it’s where the Bordens are buried!

I was expecting another sprawling garden cemetery oozing personality in the form of varied monuments and when I drove up to the gate of this place I really felt this what it must be. Big iron castle-looking gates, an actual parking lot beyond with several cars, and an information center inviting you to check out their cemetery tour QR code. But that wasn’t necessary because there were giant white arrows on the pavement leading to Lizzie’s grave. This place certainly knew who to cater to! This is the first time in all my cemetery jaunts that I have seen a grave so well marked for tourists. And it was only a very short walk which was great because it was cold as a witch’s tit today.

Curiously Lizzie is buried in the same plot as the father and step mother she likely ax murdered. She was found innocent at the time and lived a long life afterwards but there’s proof here she never quite got away from the stigma of the crime in the form of her name – changed from Elizabeth to Lizbeth. I don’t think dropping the E helped much to be honest. She’d eventually move from the family home to her own mansion across town where instead of socializing with an entire town that was giving her the cold shoulder she prefered instead to host theater actrices from afar, more than a few of which she likely courted. In those days she would have been known as a spinster, today we probably would say something more along the lines of lesbian.

Lizzie Borden to me stands as a bit of a tragic figure. Forever memorialized by a children’s jump roping rhyme forever naming her as a killer and she probably was but I think if she were tried today she’d be seen in a little more sympathetic light. There’s quite a few historians who give her father more than a little side eye for potentially being not just a miser and all around horrible person but also one who may have been grooming his own daughters. I saw the crime scene photos – there is nothing left of the Borden’s faces, to me that suggest some serious pent up rage, built up from decades of abuse and held back only by the strings of a corset. Lizzie may still see her time as we grow as a society to have a better understanding of criminal psychology. We could recast her as a folk hero of the Me Too Movement for taking charge of her own destiny in a time when that was near impossible for a woman.

But back to the cemetery, would I suggest it to my readers here? Maybe, if you are into the Lizzie Borden story. Otherwise probably not. Although the cemetery was sprawling there were remarkably few monuments that looked unique enough to get my attention – less than a handful of statues, a couple masoliums, a single Celtic cross. I will note however there was a rather large murder of crows watching us from creepy bare trees the whole time which seemed fitting.

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