Caning The Gigging Chair

Raising Cane! Hardly. Just weaving it. Alas my gigging chair is ready for some upcoming summer gigs. Thank you Billiam!








The binding.


Finished!

Meetings....Many Many Meetings.

So Nick completed his 30 days in Conifer Park Rehab. Its the best thing he's ever done for himself. And his journey has just begun. So far Nick has gone to 5 meetings in the last two weeks since he returned home. He loves them and the support they give him. I keep my fingers crossed and worry like crazy he's gonna fall off the wagon and return to his old ways. Tonight is court. We will get past this whole thing one way or another. I shouldn't even be blogging this as there are so many people in this world with problems ten times worse than ours.
I have faith
Today, March 7th, the temps are in the high sixties. My lilacs buds are about to explode and the dead brown grasses from last year are glowing from underneath with that gorgeous spring color green of new grass pushing upwards. It's the kind of weather that makes you wanna make potato salad, put your gardening glove on, grill and have a camp fire!
I had a GREAT gig last night at the Colgate Inn that was well attended and well payed! I was a tad rusty from my usual winter semi retirement I do each year...but all in all it was a good time. I hope to play there again and so does my checking account.

Home He Comes

Today Nick came home from rehab. He's back. The good Nick. The Nick I haven't known in several months. He actually loved Connifer park and didn't want to leave once he got out of detox. He met many characters and is full of many stories about his month. He was diagnosed with a form of fibromyalgia which probably was result of the accident he had about 4 years ago when he was back ended by some kid on the outside of Earlville. Because he had a seatbelt on the impact has caused him to suffer from his lung collapsing on many occasions. He's been in pain ever since. It's gonna be a long haul but Nick is determined to stay drug free and to go to narcotic meetings. All I can do is feed him, keep a roof over his head, and support him as much as possible and pray he doesn't fall back into his old ways. He's twenty two and an adult. I have no control. Nick has always been a free spirit. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. So, now I will hold my breath until his court date on March 7th. That aught to be interesting.
The Colgate Inn job is going well! I'm gigging there next Tuesday for some NICE money!!! I'm hoping this is the beginning of many more happy, healing healthy times ahead!

Dark Times

So I'm sitting here drinking purple hibiscus tea at the Barge Canal Coffee house the day after the most dysfunctional, lazy Saturday I've had in complete ages. I'm damaged goods after the whole Nick drama nightmare. Tonight is the super bowl, not that I care about foot ball in the least. Madonna should be entertaining at half time and the commercials are always fun. I'm trying hard to fight the darkness that creeps into my soul when ever I think back to all the troubles Nick has gone through and all the trouble's I'm scared of yet to come. I'm so ever thankful of my husband, and family for their support. I never thought I'd be living in fear like I have the last several months. Nick did call on Friday morning and was still downstairs in detox. He was calling from a phone booth and the connection was kinda choppy. He did say he was looking forward to getting upstairs to be able to use the gym, the food was descent and he spent the past two nights with a older drunk man. Just what you want to hear from your son. Nick is where he needs to be and I'm so relieved. It's really a blessing no one was hurt or injured. The DWI will hopefully be reduced to and AI and will be cheaper than a funeral. Now to figure out where he's gonna get the money to pay for his tickets. I don't have it.
The picture on this post I just recently found on my laptop desktop downloaded by Nick, and it just so symbolizes Nick breaking out and growing upward. I hope he gets the counseling he so desperately needs.
Maybe I should get a little counseling too.
I picked up two extra shifts this week at the Colgate Inn and my trusty, old white Kitchen Aid mixer has inspired me to make shrimp scampi with home made pasta for tonights feast for the super bowl. I'll make myself stay busy to get through the dark times. A good old fashioned blizzard would work wonders for me as well in all it's cleansing whiteness.

He Said He Wanted Rehab I Said Yes Yes Yes!

I have to blog about this. As hard and bad and dirty this nightmare has been, I know I'm not alone in this drug infected world.
Nick is at last in rehab and getting the help he so badly needs. His whole life has been on a down ward spiral since he was 15 Now at the age of 22 the problems have gotten much worse. In all my life I have never seen a kid with the luck Nick has. The trouble has gone on and on and on. I'm just a bug in a wind tunnel with no power to control it. My words have meant nothing all these years and Nick has pretty much fucked up everything he has touched. Then came last summer. He was doing so well working for the Reverend. He had a lovely girlfriend and was productive and happy. For three months he was in a mentally great place and I thought there might be a light at the end of his shit hole of a tunnel. Then the job ended and the girlfriend dumped him and its been all down hill from there. He got a DWI two Saturdays ago landing him in Madison County Jail. Luckily his father was in town and together we bailed him out and got him to the hospital to detox. A very scary long day. But, it brought him and I and Nick's father closer together. There was a lot of love seeping out of the destruction.
I can't even begin to go into detail of everything that has gone down this last week as my head is spinning and I have a lot of healing myself to do. A woman by the name of Janet Gillette at the medicaid office has pushed his application for medicaid through allowing Nick to enter rehab and will cover his medical expenses. And the bills are coming in. Oh my god. I'm thinking Janet is distantly related to good ole Chester, and Chester is working his magic helping my hoodlum kid out. It's crazy I know but I totally believe in coincidences.
So, the back boy bedroom from hell has been once again shoveled out and cleaned. All Nick's clothing and bedding, laundered and all his stuff organized. He will not be returning from rehab to live at 1038 Williams Road. He goes to Maine with his father. I've done all I can do and I'm done. Its a new beginning for the both of us. And about time.

Days Like This

At last. We are getting dumped on with all Father Winter's whiteness and I couldn't be more content! The wood box is stacked, the Vermont Casting is stoked and the house is warm and cozy. I'm getting a lot of little jobs out of the way in the ten year kitchen like filling my olive oil bottles, cleaning out the 'fridge and a few drawers. Bill brought in his knife sharpener toy and sharpened all my knives which could be a scary thing as the roads are terrible and my luck today would be the day I cut myself on one of them. It's happened before. The bird feeders are a buzz with chickadees, finches, blue jays and a female red headed woodpecker. And speaking of birds, I've got a turkey breast oiled and herbed and ready to roast, the stuffing is made and dinner will be awesome tonight. It's Friday and I'm not going no-where! The year has started off much better than last year ended. I got a job at the Colgate Inn and it will be like returning home to a long lost friend as I worked there back in the early 80's and off and on when my children were little. I'll start training next week.
Yesterday I had an hour gig for the elderly down at the Norwich Hospital. They enjoy the music so much and are always eager to tell their stories before they get wheeled away down the senior highway halls of the hospital back to their rooms. I can't even think of the day when I'll be navigating in one my self. I guess it all goes with the territory.
Bill and I are heading up to the Blue Mountain Museum for Craig Brandon's lecture so I'm boning up on my Chester Gillette and Grace Brown saga. I've reserved a room at Clarks Beach House in Old Forge for Sunday night and I've very much looking forward an night in the mountains!

Craig Brandon LINKED me!

What a great way to start the New Year!
I was in complete boredom yesterday and in surfing the net, I ended up at the Adirondack Museum's website where I learned that Craig Brandon was scheduled for a lecture on January 15th. Craig Brandon is the author of many fine books, three being, Murder In The Adirondacks, The Love Letters of Grace Brown and The Prison Diary and Letters of Chester Gillette. I've got them all. The last book I mentioned, Brandon co-wrote with Jack Sherman who had the book signing of the Prison Diary book on the 100th year anniversary of Chester's electrocution. The presentation started out in a small room upstairs and had to be moved downstairs to a larger room as it was a huge turnout, in a museum in Auburn NY as Auburn was the city in which Gillette was incarcerated for the drowning death of Grace Brown back in 1906. Bill and I went to this packed house book signing and very much enjoyed the presentation from Mr. Sherman, him being a lawyer who has studied the case, written the books and even went as far as to write murder mystery dinner theaters! I bought the book which I eagerly read. I'm always giving people the benefit of the doubt but after reading the book, I was totally convinced of Gillette's guilt thus my song Boom Town was written. I recorded the song with Reyna Stagnaro and Steven Skollar on mandolin and Jimmy Wunderlich on guitar in Jimmy's studio and Colgate University's studio.
So! After going to Craig Brandon's website and obtaining his contact info, I emailed him with a link to my website where my song Boom Town could be played in its entirety and told him about my obsession with the Grace Brown/Chester Gillette saga having played at the Big Moose Inn for a few summers and reading all the newspaper articles about the case framed and hung on the walls through out the Inn. Reading the old articles thrust me into the purchase of any book I could get my hands on. Bob Hankey the owner of The Big Moose Inn at the time, would put me up at his camp when the Inn was full. His camp, the most beautiful camp in the world just happened to be across the lake where Grace Brown's body was found in her water lily grave. One night after playing at the Inn and purchasing the book, The Love Letters of Grace Brown. I drove the twisty, moonlit mountain road to Bob',s camp, curled up in my Indian Princess, log cabin room with the book and read, filling my head with Grace's painful, lamenting letters to Chester begging him to come and take her away, saving the reputation of her and her family as she was pregnant with his child. Something you just didn't do back in the early 1900's. Chester took her away alright. They hopped a train in Deruyter, and after learning of no wayward homes in Utica for unwed and pregnant mothers to be, they headed north to the remote, Big Moose Lake, where He put her in a skiff, with camera and a suitcase with a tennis racket tied to it, rowed her out to the South Bay and conked her over the head. He then swam to shore and hoofed it back to Eagle Bay village to later go hiking up Black Bear Mountain with friends the little f--ker! Had he gone back to the Glenmore where he rented the skiff and reported the whole thing as an accident. He would of gotten away with murder. So Chester got what he most definitely deserved.
The next morning at Bob's camp, the strangest thing that ever happened to me…did. I awoke to the cry's of a loon and a crow. All I could think was that the crow was attacking the loon's chic and the loon was at war with the crow trying to save her baby. I jumped out of bed like a woman possessed and in my pajamas ran down to the shore where my kayak was, pushed off and paddled out to the middle of the lake. By then the crying of the birds stopped and there I was, on this strangely peacefully morning lake with the steam rising out of the water. Suddenly. pop, pop, swoosh, pop, at least 10 loons came up out of the black water and just floated all around me and my yellow boat. It was the most beautiful sight and experience I'll never forget.
It was as if the crow was Chester and the loon was Grace and she was calling to me to save her.
"Chester Gillette it was a tragic mistake, leaving two hearts broken at the bottom of this lake, Grace's Ghost, Grace's Ghost." A line from my song Grace's Ghost.
Once you read the books and know Chester and Grace's story. It never lets you go.
And now with a new feather in my hat because thankfully Mr. Brandon linked my website with my song Boom Town to his. He liked it! And I will never forget the cries of that loon and crow.