“Mom, Mackenzie-Childs is having a Barn Sale, July 14th – 16th. Aurora, New York”.
For those of you who may never have heard of Aurora, New York, it sits on the Eastern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. For those of you who may never have heard of Mackenzie-Childs, it is fair to say that it is reflective of a particular design state of mind. It is a lifestyle emporium; a world where checkerboard black and white patterns collide with multi-colored swirled fabrics that then cozy up to polka-dots and plaids painted onto ceramic furniture legs. Oh and tassels, we can't forget tassels that stand on their own merits or are used as trimming on ottomans ...and the fish-motif wooden chairs alongside the four poster bed wherein each post is adorned with a rooster?! Or maybe it's a hen...I don't know. I'm a city gal who is not well-versed when it comes to barnyard animals.
It is also fair to say that most items at Mackenzie-Childs are way out of my price range – just one tassel can set a person back $50.00. But when my 50th Birthday came around and people started asking what I wanted for my birthday...well, the formerly unattainable items at Mackenzie-Childs came to mind. $4,000 for a bench?! That is a tenth of my annual salary ...in a good year. However, at the Barn Sale...everything.....absolutely everything....is 50 % off....and since the studio/inventory mecca is off in the midst of rural America, I'll certainly have the whole place to myself and can just shop until I drop.
“Road trip!!! We have to do a road trip,” I say to Mom. It turns out that friends were nice enough to contribute toward a Group Birthday Gift so I could pick out a dream item at the Barn Sale....maybe, dare I say it...something more than a tassel...and actually be able to pay for it. With our fold-up map of New York State (no GPS in my 27 year-old Mercedes-Benz 500 SEL but we have MMPS -Mom with Map Positioning System...By the way, if it is possible to love an inanimate object I love this car... ) with a map in extra-large print because we are both women of a certain age and beyond, off we go. Destination: Aurora, NY and the Mackenzie-Childs Barn Sale.
The drive to Lake Cayuga is relatively uneventful. We stick to the major interstate roads en route because we figure we will meander on the way home.
"Home” upon our arrival is the Lakefront Inn which sits overlooking the shores of Cayuga Lake. Mom and I each have our own bedroom that faces the lake. Yes, if I had the choice between waking up to birds chirping and a panoramic vista of a lake or hearing Middle Eastern music blaring out of a boom box put in an apartment window in the building which faces mine in Brooklyn, I would pick the former. It was a treat to wake up to Mother Nature's palette.
Before I even tell you about breakfast the next morning, I have to tell you about dinner. Of course, we got a little lost the last 3 miles or so and couldn't find our ' home away from home" without some help from the locals. We pulled into a restaurant parking lot, the Lake Shore Restaurant. I came back from the restaurant with not only accurate directions but a menu.
“Maybe once we get settled in, we should come back here,” I tell Mom as it is right about 8p.m...dinner-time or as I sometimes affectionately refer to it as it applies to me, “Feeding Time” because when I am hungry, well, lions at the zoo during their feeding time have nothing on me!
After dropping off our luggage and getting the lay of the land so we will be able to make our way back once it's dark, we head back to the restaurant. Tired and hungry, we aren't talking a lot which gives me the perfect opportunity to eavesdrop on the table beside us...a conversation sprinkled with heavy NYC accents and some pretty funny comments about local drivers, what passes for a traffic jam outside of NYC (more than 5 cars), etc...I finally can't help myself and say, “Guys, excuse me. Yes, I have been eavesdropping. Sorry but I just have to ask, are you from NYC because you really do not sound like you are from around here”. It turns out the 3 guys...one is from Staten Island, one from New Jersey and one is from Brooklyn.
“Oh, Mom and I live in Bay Ridge. Same building, different apartments”.
One of the guys, Sal, I think, said, “ Oh, I know Bay Ridge. I have an aunt that lives in Bay Ridge”.
"Where about?”, I ask.
Let me cut to the chase on this. Mom and I live in the same building as Sal's aunt. My mother has his aunt's number in her cell phone so of course we call her and say, “We are in a restaurant in the Finger Lakes area and someone you know would like to talk to you”....
….and wait for it, the neighbor's other nephew? He is the chef cooking out dinner!
Cue: Soundtrack of It's A Small World....after all.
We make our way back to our bed and breakfast with the full moon illuminating the way. Pretty spectacular.
Wake up in the morning very well-rested but those birds are soooo noisy. I stumble into the kitchen area for some coffee....and maybe we should have stopped at the coffee because I am still not exactly sure what breakfast was. Waffles were recognizable but the secret sauce that came along with it was just lost on me. I guess when all is said and done, I am a creamery butter and syrup person.
...besides, none of this much mattered (or “battered” if we are still stuck on the waffles topic) because all I knew is that we were one step closer to Mackenzie-Childs and my dream tuffet. Oh, I may have forgotten to mention; that is what I decided to get...a tuffet ...which is so much more than a mere ottoman :)
I also had to make sure we had a place to stay through the weekend...for some reason every place in town seemed to be booked solid. Mom and I had a contingency plan of sorts. Our contingency plan consisted of accommodations that took on different names depending on who I was talking with. One conversation went something like this...
“Diane, I loved staying at the LakeFront Inn – it's so luxurious. The bathroom alone is bigger than my apartment. The terrace outside my room where I could just sit and enjoy the full moon illuminate the lake...the linens, the king size bed...our not 1 but 2 chaise lounges....it is perfect. I was hoping maybe you have a cancellation for the weekend?” Keeping my fingers crossed whilst talking on a cell phone is not as easy as you may think...
“Sadly.no,” Diane tells me. “But I do know of another property. It's in between where you are and Mackenzie-Childs (remember that is why Mom and I are here: it is also the reason every room in town is booked but we don't know this...yet), it has 3 bedrooms and is just a few feet from the lakeshore. It has its own propane tank for grilling. It's a cottage but with a funky feel to it”.
“That sounds promising,” I tell her, “although 3 bedrooms is more than we would need and I dislike the thought of putting Mom to work to make breakfast (I have to admit it is nice to wake up to coffee already made and available courtesy of someone else's efforts)”.
“Where is this cottage exactly...maybe we can go check it out”, I say.
“Oh, you would never find it on your own. I would have to take you there,” Diane tells me.
“Just out of curiousity, how much is the cottage?”
“Two hundred a night”, she tells me.
I think to myself. Wow that's a bargain in comparison to what we are paying at the Inn...out loud I say, “That's pretty reasonable for a 3-bedroom cottage, lakeside, fully appointed and available on a weekend when nothing else is...sounds great".... but I have to admit it doesn't quite add up to me.
“Well, we call it a cottage but actually it is a trailer so make sure your Mom understands it is a trailer”.
After I pick myself up off the floor...I do not think I have ever used the word "trailer" in a sentence :) I think, My Mom?!
I'm thinking my Mom is not the one who would have a problem with this. Hello??!! I am the person who has driven 400 miles to buy a tuffet with tassels all over it. The thought of my new tuffet starting its new life with a brief visit in a trailer makes me cringe. I can't do it.
To be continued.....
For those of you who may never have heard of Aurora, New York, it sits on the Eastern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. For those of you who may never have heard of Mackenzie-Childs, it is fair to say that it is reflective of a particular design state of mind. It is a lifestyle emporium; a world where checkerboard black and white patterns collide with multi-colored swirled fabrics that then cozy up to polka-dots and plaids painted onto ceramic furniture legs. Oh and tassels, we can't forget tassels that stand on their own merits or are used as trimming on ottomans ...and the fish-motif wooden chairs alongside the four poster bed wherein each post is adorned with a rooster?! Or maybe it's a hen...I don't know. I'm a city gal who is not well-versed when it comes to barnyard animals.
It is also fair to say that most items at Mackenzie-Childs are way out of my price range – just one tassel can set a person back $50.00. But when my 50th Birthday came around and people started asking what I wanted for my birthday...well, the formerly unattainable items at Mackenzie-Childs came to mind. $4,000 for a bench?! That is a tenth of my annual salary ...in a good year. However, at the Barn Sale...everything.....absolutely everything....is 50 % off....and since the studio/inventory mecca is off in the midst of rural America, I'll certainly have the whole place to myself and can just shop until I drop.
“Road trip!!! We have to do a road trip,” I say to Mom. It turns out that friends were nice enough to contribute toward a Group Birthday Gift so I could pick out a dream item at the Barn Sale....maybe, dare I say it...something more than a tassel...and actually be able to pay for it. With our fold-up map of New York State (no GPS in my 27 year-old Mercedes-Benz 500 SEL but we have MMPS -Mom with Map Positioning System...By the way, if it is possible to love an inanimate object I love this car... ) with a map in extra-large print because we are both women of a certain age and beyond, off we go. Destination: Aurora, NY and the Mackenzie-Childs Barn Sale.
The drive to Lake Cayuga is relatively uneventful. We stick to the major interstate roads en route because we figure we will meander on the way home.
"Home” upon our arrival is the Lakefront Inn which sits overlooking the shores of Cayuga Lake. Mom and I each have our own bedroom that faces the lake. Yes, if I had the choice between waking up to birds chirping and a panoramic vista of a lake or hearing Middle Eastern music blaring out of a boom box put in an apartment window in the building which faces mine in Brooklyn, I would pick the former. It was a treat to wake up to Mother Nature's palette.
Before I even tell you about breakfast the next morning, I have to tell you about dinner. Of course, we got a little lost the last 3 miles or so and couldn't find our ' home away from home" without some help from the locals. We pulled into a restaurant parking lot, the Lake Shore Restaurant. I came back from the restaurant with not only accurate directions but a menu.
“Maybe once we get settled in, we should come back here,” I tell Mom as it is right about 8p.m...dinner-time or as I sometimes affectionately refer to it as it applies to me, “Feeding Time” because when I am hungry, well, lions at the zoo during their feeding time have nothing on me!
After dropping off our luggage and getting the lay of the land so we will be able to make our way back once it's dark, we head back to the restaurant. Tired and hungry, we aren't talking a lot which gives me the perfect opportunity to eavesdrop on the table beside us...a conversation sprinkled with heavy NYC accents and some pretty funny comments about local drivers, what passes for a traffic jam outside of NYC (more than 5 cars), etc...I finally can't help myself and say, “Guys, excuse me. Yes, I have been eavesdropping. Sorry but I just have to ask, are you from NYC because you really do not sound like you are from around here”. It turns out the 3 guys...one is from Staten Island, one from New Jersey and one is from Brooklyn.
“Oh, Mom and I live in Bay Ridge. Same building, different apartments”.
One of the guys, Sal, I think, said, “ Oh, I know Bay Ridge. I have an aunt that lives in Bay Ridge”.
"Where about?”, I ask.
Let me cut to the chase on this. Mom and I live in the same building as Sal's aunt. My mother has his aunt's number in her cell phone so of course we call her and say, “We are in a restaurant in the Finger Lakes area and someone you know would like to talk to you”....
….and wait for it, the neighbor's other nephew? He is the chef cooking out dinner!
Cue: Soundtrack of It's A Small World....after all.
We make our way back to our bed and breakfast with the full moon illuminating the way. Pretty spectacular.
Wake up in the morning very well-rested but those birds are soooo noisy. I stumble into the kitchen area for some coffee....and maybe we should have stopped at the coffee because I am still not exactly sure what breakfast was. Waffles were recognizable but the secret sauce that came along with it was just lost on me. I guess when all is said and done, I am a creamery butter and syrup person.
...besides, none of this much mattered (or “battered” if we are still stuck on the waffles topic) because all I knew is that we were one step closer to Mackenzie-Childs and my dream tuffet. Oh, I may have forgotten to mention; that is what I decided to get...a tuffet ...which is so much more than a mere ottoman :)
I also had to make sure we had a place to stay through the weekend...for some reason every place in town seemed to be booked solid. Mom and I had a contingency plan of sorts. Our contingency plan consisted of accommodations that took on different names depending on who I was talking with. One conversation went something like this...
“Diane, I loved staying at the LakeFront Inn – it's so luxurious. The bathroom alone is bigger than my apartment. The terrace outside my room where I could just sit and enjoy the full moon illuminate the lake...the linens, the king size bed...our not 1 but 2 chaise lounges....it is perfect. I was hoping maybe you have a cancellation for the weekend?” Keeping my fingers crossed whilst talking on a cell phone is not as easy as you may think...
“Sadly.no,” Diane tells me. “But I do know of another property. It's in between where you are and Mackenzie-Childs (remember that is why Mom and I are here: it is also the reason every room in town is booked but we don't know this...yet), it has 3 bedrooms and is just a few feet from the lakeshore. It has its own propane tank for grilling. It's a cottage but with a funky feel to it”.
“That sounds promising,” I tell her, “although 3 bedrooms is more than we would need and I dislike the thought of putting Mom to work to make breakfast (I have to admit it is nice to wake up to coffee already made and available courtesy of someone else's efforts)”.
“Where is this cottage exactly...maybe we can go check it out”, I say.
“Oh, you would never find it on your own. I would have to take you there,” Diane tells me.
“Just out of curiousity, how much is the cottage?”
“Two hundred a night”, she tells me.
I think to myself. Wow that's a bargain in comparison to what we are paying at the Inn...out loud I say, “That's pretty reasonable for a 3-bedroom cottage, lakeside, fully appointed and available on a weekend when nothing else is...sounds great".... but I have to admit it doesn't quite add up to me.
“Well, we call it a cottage but actually it is a trailer so make sure your Mom understands it is a trailer”.
After I pick myself up off the floor...I do not think I have ever used the word "trailer" in a sentence :) I think, My Mom?!
I'm thinking my Mom is not the one who would have a problem with this. Hello??!! I am the person who has driven 400 miles to buy a tuffet with tassels all over it. The thought of my new tuffet starting its new life with a brief visit in a trailer makes me cringe. I can't do it.
To be continued.....
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