After checking out Nathan Hall’s Antique Center we still didn’t have enough for the day and were far enough from home to want to slip yet one more little exploration in there, so we ended up not too far away at Another Man’s Treasure which was our second pick after the first turned out to be an obsolete store… Anyway, it’s in a little plaza, in the corner store at the back.
And I must say the displays in this place were really nice. They even somehow made a couple jars of pickled god-knows-what from god-knows-when look amazing! And they somehow managed to make a couple closets into displays as well. All and all though this was a rather small shop and didn’t have much in the way of the usual things I am drawn too. It was all a bit… sanitized… but hey, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into check it out if you find yourself in the area!
OK, so this post has been sitting in my draft folder since December… Whoops. Time to let it see the light of day!
Middleboro Antique Co-op was another delightfully large mall adorned with a life size Betty Boop! And since it was the holidays she was surrounded by three big Ho Ho Ho’s. I’m sure nothing was meant by this. (Seriously though, I fucking love Betty Boop in all her salaciousness. You go girl!)
ANYWAY. This place does not look that big from the outside and initially when you walk in it still appears pretty small with a bunch of little rooms off to the side. It was very spacious once you got around some of the corners and everything was laid out very professionally. Being that it was right before Christmas there was also a surprising amount of people. We walked through looking for our usual taboo items but this all seemed pretty tame except one really odd book called “Pepe was the Saddest Bird” that ended with an ad to buy war bonds. Weird. Will have to look into that later.
Another absolutely bizarre find was what I am GUESSING was an ad for baby food where two toddlers were bareknuckle boxing??? Obviously, the bigger fatter baby was black and wearing a potato sack. You know, got to get that racism in over the initial shock of forcing babies to fight to the death or whatever.
At some point my travel companion went to the bathroom and then disappeared. No idea where he was. I walked back to the front where the bathrooms were and nope… no one. Turns out this place has a basement and it’s sprawling! And also has a lot more of the odd and cheaper stuff down there where I am guessing vendors pay less for less than prime real estate. And that’s where there were booths full of terrifying dolls and I was loving every second of this. I think there may have even been one there with actual human teeth which is something I just learned some dolls have. Isn’t that a comforting thought!
Anyway, this place took a couple hours to go through and we could have spent more time there if we weren’t both getting a smidge hangry by this point. We left after marveling at a decrepit Gothic pram.
Apologies this blog entry is two weeks late. I am trying to clean up my “haven’t actually posted” list. ANYWAY, it’s been a very long time since I have done anything athletic. I used to be very fit when I ran a farm but these days? Yeeeeeah. Between trying to stay put to avoid covid and not having a farm to run I’ve become quite “domesticated,” as my father once said about his overly rotund cat. It was time to change things up.
That’s why when my mother and myself were invited to join the Muddy Princess Mud Run we went for it. And then spent months not preparing. I was a little concerned because I’d done the Warrior Dash at the same location some years ago and that was proper hard. When I was way more muscular. I had learned I was afraid of heights that day – as I had one leg over a 17-foot A frame and the other on the opposing side – and that was anything but fun. My shitty ex balked and sighed in annoyance until two complete strangers helped me down. Bless those people. They were so nice it totally overrode the red flags my ex was waving so proudly. BUT ANYWAY…
Thankfully the Muddy Princess was not nearly so hardcore. At its heart it was a fundraising event for breast cancer. And a women-only space for the day. Which is good because the Warrior Dash sounded like something to accomplish but the Muddy Princess Mud Run just sounded like someone’s weird fetish. And with so many people in tutus I continued to ponder this even after arriving.
I’d been talked into a tutu too and was feeling ridiculous but I guess that’s part of the fun. My mother was already having a hard morning. Her stomach was upset even before we left. So imagine how happy I was to find the first few obstacles on this obstacle course were insanely easy – like walk through the bubbles! I breathed a sigh of relief. I was going to smoke this course.
Some of the obstacles got somewhat harder – go over the wall, climb the tires, that sort of thing, but I managed to do all of them except one which I’ll get to. We were probably a third of the way through the course when my mother started looking like absolute dogshit. I felt she was overheating but every time I asked her she insisted she wasn’t. But she was getting weak.
Halfway through the race I called out to the rest of the group to wait up. I’d found her some shade and she needed a good long rest. As we sat there one of our team members got a text alerting her that her partner who was fine just minutes ago was now being rushed to the hospital. It had nothing to do with the event but thank goodness it happened there where there were so many people to help! She was rocked. We all were. But there was nothing any of us could do so we continued on. My mother was doing better again and ready to go.
Then we came to the giant inflatable pink sofa wall. It was STUPID. Only two on my team even attempted it, one being me, and we both failed HARD. The damn obstacle was only halfway inflated making it impossible to grab ahold of and even more impossible for it to stand up long enough to allow people to climb over it. It rocked violently back and forth. People were flying through the air. The women who did go over seemed to accomplish this through pure luck and had to be pulled over from the other side by someone else as there was not a goddamn thing to hold onto at the top to hurl yourself over. We left this obstacle super annoyed. Later we’d be talking to the EMT’s on duty and they said this wall was killing them. That in two hours they’d attended to around ten injuries from this damn thing – mostly broken arms but also a few broken legs and a dislocated shoulder. None of these maimed people allowed for themselves to be driven to the hospital by ambulance. All wanted to drive themselves and only asked to be driven to their car and released. Why? Because ambulance rides are expensive!! If this doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the American healthcare system I don’t know what does.
We had gotten around 2/3rds of the way when my mother started to crash again. Fortunately, we were just outside a new obstacle that had to have participants go through one by one instead of by group so there was an obscenely long line. I left her in the only bit of shade I could find and she sat on a log recovering and waiting for us. She knew where I was in line by my crazy orange hair. My cousin kept her company. Eventually I noticed an event truck making it’s rounds and I ran back to my mom to ask if she needed me to hail them down and get her back to the beginning but she insisted she was feeling better. So I went through the obstacle – which was a 2-foot-deep puddle of “mud” water that I am sure just smelled like cow poop, which we had to go through on our back. A chain-link fence was above us to grab and propel us forward. It was fun! And I was soaked and cool. I wish my mother hadn’t skipped this obstacle. She might be cool too!
She joined us again after and we completed the rest of the course. When the last big obstacle came up my mother did try it. It was a tall adult sized inflatable slide that you had to climb up and slide down. It was easy. She should have been able to make it but I guess she lost her grip on the last rung and fell to the bottom. I was concerned but she didn’t try it again. The last obstacle was another climb under something kind of deal. There were a lot of those on that day and earlier on I happily hummed Bridge Over the River Kwi as we went. I thought it was funny. My cousin looked up like she was trying to figure out what that damn tune was. Just a stupid military reference, my little hint of joyful chaos.
And then we were gathering our medals at the finish line – so close to the air-conditioned car that I could stop worrying about my mother. But first we had to gather our things and go get a bottle of water and maybe something to eat. In full sun. Outside a food truck. Mother found shade next to the food truck in a tent but it wasn’t enough. After a few bites of fruit leather she was on the ground dry heaving. Weak and unable to say much we tried to give her water. The teenagers who were running the food truck were wide eyed and terrified of what was going down. This was beyond their pay grade but they gave her a cooler to sit on and so much free water.
And then before I had any idea what was going on word got out there was someone overheating over here and I was suddenly surrounded on all sides by off duty nurses who were putting water-soaked napkins on her neck and forehead and telling her to lie down on the ground with her feet elevated. They asked if she could get to the shower station not far away but she was too weak. Instead they took her T-shirt and soaked it and came back. One nurse in particular refused to leave her until she’d proved she could eat a whole hot dog bun given to us for free by those same freaked out teenagers. And a piece of candy which was manifested from the crowd. She struggled but got it down.
By then the EMTs arrived. Two who came in and tested her blood sugar and took her temperature. By now she was recovering but another member of our crew was down. Same reason. Heat stroke. Although she decided to stay in direct sunlight even when being attended to by the same nurses and EMTs. Why? Because the tent smelled weird. I shit you not. Mother on the other hand had gained enough stamina to be led to a golf cart and driven to the shower station where she was doused with ice cold water. The color came back to her face. She was speaking coherently again.
It took quite a while but eventually my mother was able to make it to another tent halfway between this one and the parking lot where she rested again before making it to the car. She spent most of this time lamenting how stupid and weak she was but we told her she was doing fine, it happens to the best of us. Even me. Heat stroke was so imminent during my trip to see Rhode Island’s only covered bridge that I had to send my travel companion out to bring the car back to me. It was either that or an ambulance. I knew I was teetering shockingly close to needing that.
But hey this whole experience gave me lots of tips on how to cool down should it happen again! Put cold on the back of the neck, the forehead, the armpits, and possibly even the crotch. Soak your clothing if you can. Lay down with your feet elevated. Drink. Drink some more.
Despite all the drama it was fun and I don’t regret the experience at all and quite frankly it was a nice way to kick my own ass as far as getting back into shape. It’s time. And hey, I’m sure the charity part of this event means something too. Anyway, if you find yourself thinking about doing one of these runs you should try it! And if you need encouragement here’s a few photos of me getting through the course with all the elegance of a drunk buffalo.
Today I decided to go on a little adventure and find the Rindge Town Forest. This resulted in me turning around after hitting a super sketchy and totally unnamed dirt road which had a “Posted – Private Property” sign to one side. I think the private property sign belonged to the neighbors but with no other signs leading the way and me in a Prius I decided not to take the dead end “primitive road” and get stuck on perhaps private property.
Instead I turned around and decided to check out a far more welcoming trail at the Converse Meadow Conservation Area just a few miles away. This place is also weirdly hard to find. It’s in a neighborhood and the parking lot doesn’t look like a parking lot until you’re in it. But once you’re in it there is a big bulletin board letting you know what’s up.
Today I went alone. I needed to have my moment of Zen with nature. I miscalculated how goddamn hot it was and how long the trail was but that being said it was exactly what my soul needed. There was a gentle breeze coming off the pond and big fluffy white clouds that eventually turned grey and threatening.
At the beginning of the trail there’s lots of memory benches, just super sweet places to sit and just mellow out. There are also a number of signs that let you know a little bit about the history and wildlife of the area. I guess a long time ago there was a mill here but there didn’t seem to be anything left of it. This was just… nature.
And the trail was lovely. One half of the loop gave access to different viewpoints of the pond, all absolutely luscious. Birds sang above my head as frogs, fish, and beavers splashed in the water. I even saw a bald eagle fly by! Didn’t get a photo as it was through the trees and happened really fast but there is no other giant white-headed bird in the area so I am certain it was a bald eagle. I sat at one point to cool down and to just melt into the scenery. Not a soul was out here besides me and it was just so amazing. I can’t believe I have lived in the area for almost my entire life and never knew about this place! Well now I do and so do you. So, if you’re looking for a gorgeous and surprisingly long (but easy) loop check it out.
The antique stores we had chosen earlier on in the day were kind of meh so we decided a change it up a little bit and check out another fish store. I’m still looking for places I can buy healthy plants and maybe more for my own freshwater tank. It’d be nice to be able to help support one of these little stores instead of continuing to buy plants online.
When we drove up I noticed their logo was a piece of coral and I wondered if we hadn’t accidentally ended up at another saltwater store. The storefront windows were all blocked with posters, I am sure to keep algae growth down, and DAMN were these some clean tanks! And quite a few of them! Every single one of them was fresh water so I have no idea what the logo was about. There was a pretty sweet collection of larger fish – cichlids, angels, discus, and an adorable catfish that was swimming upside-down for some reason. Everyone looked healthy and they even and some snails and freshwater shrimp! The range of nano fish was also decent. They even had some rainbow fish.
But what really made me smile was a big set of shelves full of various driftwood. You’d think a store with driftwood would have plants but alas no, every tank I noticed with plants had garish plastic ones. Oh well, at least now I know. Otherwise this place looks like a great place for fish or driftwood. They even had a little river tank that kept the fish on the move. It was sweet.
Another day, another antique store! On this particular outing we were heading into Swansea MA to see what they had to offer.The Emporium had an impressive sounding name so we decided to start there. This was another one of those places that seemed to have estate sale kind of items. I was hoping maybe something weird for a good price.
When we walked in it was a pretty cramped place. A lot of the usual antiques were spread around – you know the granny dishes and whatnot. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly special until we were near the back of the shop. It’s at that point several items showed us how absolutely random a place like this could be. It started with a dish of soap bars set out like Halloween candy. And a bunch of metal signs someone clearly printed for people with quirky decorating styles. Then we found a Hilary Clinton nutcracker (because why not) and a set of mammie jars half off. I couldn’t guess as to why. I also found a weird clock with an actual face on it for $13. It seemed to be the only moderately reasonable priced thing so far.
But the real fun was in the back room which was currently being guarded by a doll in a little baby bouncer which just looked… well, a bit like a dead baby. Probably shouldn’t put hyper realistic looking dolls in baby furniture. It’s unsettling. Doll was $40. I then found an awesome camping cat carrier – $50. Fun extra finds were a cat bed in the shape of a duck (pelican?) with an open mouth, several shelves worth of hand sanitizer, an old Easter Bunny head ($25) and a bag of Depends (which I guess you might need if you saw that Easter bunny coming at you.)
Honestly don’t know if this store was overpriced or just in a town that has high price values on things but either way I went home not terribly impressed. If you happen to be in the area doing other things by all means give it a good poke – you never know what you’ll find in a place like this – but I wouldn’t make it a destination.
Today started with delightful little detour. It’s not like we hadn’t already talked about going to check out the synagogue but it really wasn’t on the agenda until we started walking past it and realized tours were open today. They were $14 per adult and included a self-tour of their little museum which had some lovely audio/visual displays upstairs relating to the colonial history of the local Jewish community. I found them kind of cute in a way. A frail but intense child stood at each display soaking in every drop of information she could. I smiled. I used to be much like her.
We still had a few minutes before the tour began so we wandered around Patriot Park outside which was small but very well-manicured and full of gorgeous flowers. An oddly peaceful plot in the middle of so much traffic. In one corner there was two historical plaques – one was a letter written to George Washington from the Hebrew Congregation here at the time and the response of George Washington was on the other. In it he basically assured these people they’d be free from persecution here in this brand-new country.
The group before us had quite a few people. Our group was just us two and the intense child’s family. I think we were in there for about a half an hour but WOW, the lecture we received from the tour guide was VERY information dense. She didn’t just tell us about the synagogue she told us about the Jewish community who fled actual persecution, fleeing several countries in Europe, Africa, and South America before ending here in Newport, as well as who was around them – who were their allies, how many of them were here, who was their leader, what was the town’s response to them, what was their role in the revolutionary war? And the history of the building, its architecture, and history. We learned it was more or less built for free as someone went down to NYC on trade ships and requested free broken bricks to use as ballast which were then brought back to Newport and used to build the building. I loved the ingenuity of this!
I learned not just about the history of the Jewish community here but also about the entire political climate. I didn’t have any idea that the Pilgrims and Puritans were separate groups of people! Or that Baptists are American grown and came from the Puritans. It was explained Puritans were people who were formerly attendees of the Church of England who felt their religion needed to be tweaked to suit their standards while the pilgrims were former members of the Church of England who were like no, we can’t live with a little tweaking, we need to completely separate from the church, found our own and settle our new colony so we can ramp up the level of religious fervor to our content without the state (The Church of England) telling us no. So, the first people for a separation of church and state weren’t people looking for a place where people could practice any religion, they were looking for a place that people would only practice their religion by their far stricter rules. They sound like the most insufferable kind of know it alls… but whatever. This is America.
Then came this group of refugees that happened to be Jewish, around 200 of them, who settled in Newport and apparently impressed themselves upon the established population as not a threat. Somehow. Honestly don’t know how they managed but I guess they got along OKish by befriending Christian religious leaders at the time. Then the American Revolution came and Newport was so heavily occupied that British soldiers more or less destroyed the entire town – but the synagogue still stood because someone had suggested it should be used as a hospital for said soldiers in an attempt to keep it safe. The bid worked. But the congregation didn’t last much longer. Over time they dispersed or died off. It wasn’t until the modern era where it was reclaimed by a different Jewish population who still run it today as a synagogue.
Obviously, the lecture had a lot more details about specific people and their roles as well as more precise dates and whatnot but that was the gist of it. My brain was reeling, but that’s what I like about going to different places like these. This is a story I would have never known otherwise. I would highly recommend checking this place out if you’re into local history, colonial history, or Jewish history, it checks off all these boxes and was well worth the visit!
We had been meaning to check out the little aquarium in town but time has a funny way or eroding old ideas. However, today was the day we finally ventured to this little aquarium next to the bay. And it was so worth it!
We weren’t sure what the parking situation was but were happy to be told upon driving in and asking that part of the parking lot was sectioned off for the aquarium and free. So that was our first nice surprise. Admission was $9 for an adult and this place was… a little strange to figure out how to get in. We had to follow a bunch of signs through corridors before we found the ticket booth.
Inside we learned that this aquarium was basically an education center that housed various marine life and animals mostly from the bay but also in freshwater habitats nearby. The place was tiny but packed in every nook and corner with aquariums and displays. I was a little taken aback when the first thing I saw was a tank with three cowfish (labelled Buffalo Boxfish) in it. We have cowfish in New England?! Yes, but no, a guide answered. These were in one of several tropical fish tanks maintained at the aquarium where tropical fish dragged out of the bay found a refuge rather than freezing to death in the winter. Why are there random tropical fish in the bay? The answer was a bit hazy but basically, they’d got severely lost at some point in their life and washed up here in this cold gray hellscape where if they weren’t accidentally fished and then donated to the aquarium they’d just eventually freeze to death and die. There was quite a few of these “orphans” and I was surprised by the variety – they even had a puffer fish!
From here we were welcomed to the first touch tank. A guide handed us a periwinkle and told of about what sounds like the first issue we had with feral animals or rather non-native species. The little varmints apparently ate most of the plant life in the bay and left it permanently altered. We also got to hold a hermit crab and a welk. The welk was really weird. In the tank next to them there was an orange lobster whose life had been saved because he was such a bizarre color. He already looked cooked! Lobsters are generally brown.
As we made our way through the rest of the aquarium several guides gave us super in-depth information about their little section. We got to pet a stingray, a dog fish, a disabled horseshoe crab who was a permanent resident, and even a piece of seaweed which was rigid and not at all slimy. Blew my mind. We got to see their shark breeding program – so many baby sharks and developing eggs! We also met a series of octopuses who were REALLY good at hiding, some sea horses (we have sea horses in new England?! Apparently!) and a tank full of adorable shrimp. Later we’d get to the freshwater tanks and see several species of turtles and frogs. The snapping turtle was found wandering lost in the bay and I found his lack of direction just as endearing as his extra toes. You guys, there was a POLYDACTYL SNAPPING TURTLE. How great is that!
All and all we got QUITE the lesson from the various guides and learned that the center will be moving soon to a location 7 times the size. We will be back when they do! All and all it was a great little place to check out and my only lament is there were no lump suckers which are my favorite local marine fish but who knows maybe they’ll get some after they move! And hey, if you’re here in the winter the Save the Bay people also do seal tours.
I have been trying to set up my own heavily planted freshwater fish tank for a couple months now and it’s going well except I can’t find anyone local with live plants so I decided when we were at the Startford Antique Center that we should check out a fish store when we were in the area. Only problem was my phone was not reading my location correctly so I had to give this duty to my navigator and he had no idea the shop just a mile down the road was a saltwater store. I knew immediately when driving in as it’s called Max Reefs which… well there aren’t any reefs in freshwater are there.
Most saltwater fish stores are tiny, hidden, and only open for three random hours a week. They have far more in common with a speakeasy than a pet store but this place? YIKES. It was by far the biggest saltwater shop I’d ever been in. It was in an old warehouse building so the ceilings were high giving it an even more spacious look. And unlike the other stores I’ve been to the lighting was maxed out and everything was so bright!
I immediately was taken by a fish I’d never seen before – a spotted grouper – and his darling personality as he danced about trying to get my attention. There were rows and rows of fish here in little holding tanks. This facility looked far more like a distributor than a shop but the variety was crazy! They had fully grown clowns of every kind – even a pair of lightning maroons which just made my jaw drop. GORGEOUS. And all the fish were so healthy! And lively! They also had some really big starfish, some sea urchins, a few different kinds of shrimp, and an unfathomable array of corals and coral frags for every price range, both hard and soft.
They were light on supplies but did have a fridge/freezer of various foods and three sizable tubs of live rock (both brown and purple) as well as a pile of dead rock as well. I really delighted in checking out this store and am sorry I was in no position to buy anything (although seriously if I did have a big ass saltwater tank that spotted grouper would have come with me and maybe that pair of lightning maroon clows because MAN where they pretty!) If you live in the area or you’re just looking for variety I highly suggest giving this place a visit – and since some of you have requested I check out more fish stores both fresh and saltwater this won’t be the last blog entry on such places. Happy fish keeping!
Of course, I couldn’t go a week without checking out a different antique mall. This one was a two-hour drive and worth it because it was an unending Byzantine labyrinth of all sorts of oddness. That was 16,500 square feet and 200 dealers worth of strange. Loved every second!
As with any of these adventures the shop soon came out with the theme of the day: animals that should be featured on a meme reading, “You know what a *something* looks like, right?” Whether they were old folk art paintings, weird stylized sculptures, figurines, or random artifacts there was all sorts of bizarrely created animals – each and every one of them looking at least a little bit off. One of which neither one of us could identify read cryptically, “cat.” Sure. That’s what that was.
There was the usual assortment of dolls, clowns, and Old Timey racism but also a number of art pieces and various paintings and wall hangings that could satisfy any decor. There was even one of two babies “sleeping” with a doll that probably didn’t kill them. We spent a few hours picking through the isles, booths, and glass cabinets. It was a really decent spread! All sorts of things! Even a figurine of a black gentlemen dressed in the Victorian era’s finest to offset the other racist garbage. I love to see someone celebrating minorities that did succeed (and just because history has largely made sure that didn’t last and forgotten them doesn’t mean they didn’t exist at all.)
So that’s where I’ll end this blog entry. If you happen to be in the Stratford CT area or are looking for a big place to go picking this seems to be a good bet!
