Today is Sunday, January 18, 2026. Elliot and I have successfully gotten back from Arlington, Massachusetts, after spending a weekend with Elliot’s daughter “Jody,” her husband “Norbert,” and their almost-11-year-old daughter, “Sadie.” As for weekend stayovers, this was the perfect number of days to be with immediate family, in my humble opinion. Just the correct number of days before you get exasperated with members of the family. Anyway, this only represented the second time we have bedded down with Jody and her family since they bought their house in Arlington, Massachusetts, about two years ago.

We certainly packed a lot of action in just about two days. We didn’t arrive at Jody’s house until around 5:30 on Friday, even though we set out quite early in the morning. We drove to Larchmont where we had breakfast at the Harbour House coffee shop. From there, we drove straight to Massachusetts. We did stop one more time in Cromwell, Connecticut, at the Cromwell Diner for lunch. The ride to this leafy, suburban community still took us close to 5 hours of driving.

When we arrived, we were greeted very warmly by Jody, Norbert, and Sadie. Since it was already dark by the time we arrived, we stayed with Elliot’s daughter and family inside their two-level house. Here Jody treated us to a home cooked meal, consisting of spaghetti and a simple, green salad. She also offered up Trader Joe’s French rolls.

Then we spent some time in the living room where we began watching episodes of Abbott Elementary and a cartoon show called Bob’s Burgers to suit the viewing needs of Sadie.

The next day, Saturday, was a full day, marked by Elliot, Jody, and I browsing a great used bookstore in Arlington, on Medford Street. We all found the store a hidden gem: shelves filled with discounted novels, nonfiction, fantasies, science fiction, mysteries, and so on. I had intended to visit the store before arriving at our destination, but Elliot discouraged me because of the waning time. So I’m glad we found some time to visit it on Saturday. Jody bought two books herself – they were for Sadie’s 11th birthday on Wednesday, the 21st. I couldn’t resist the siren call of a fascinating memoir called Filthy Beasts by Kirkland Hamill, which is a 2020 book “detailing his childhood split between extreme wealth and poverty, following his mother’s divorce and move from New York’s elite to Bermuda, where she struggled with alcoholism,” this from the Goggle citation for the book. My, how utterly banal my childhood was; it would certainly not be the subject of a book written by me anytime soon.

From the bookstore, Jody drove us to Wilson Farms, a historic family-owned farm located in Lexington, Massachusetts. It’s known for its locally grown produce, baked goods, and gourmet foods. We thought it resembled a cross from a Trader Joe’s and a Whole Foods. We were so enamored of what we saw in the place that we grabbed some great items to bring home like a banana cream pie, a mini-apple crumb pie, and a chicken pot pie. Plus some apple cider donuts.

After this expensive visit to the farm, we then made our way to a local middle school where we sat in seats in a gym to watch Sadie play soccer with her team. The game was played for two 20-minute halves – not forty-five minutes – and it was one of the first times I ever did something like this. What was exciting was that Sadie scored a goal herself and we all saw the moment it happened. However, my son never took up the game, so I didn’t find myself watching him at meets. There weren’t that many parents in the bleachers watching their precious ones play, from what I could see.

When the game ended, with Sadie’s team losing to the opposing team, 7-2, we drove home and lingered for a little while before going out to a local restaurant called Menotomy, which Norbert informed me was the original word for Arlington, Massachusetts. It’s an Algonquin word for a village within Cambridge, before it came West Cambridge, in 1807 and was renamed Arlington in 1867 to honor soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. A brief history lesson I didn’t expect to have this weekend, but I did. The name “Menotomy” allegedly meant “swift running water,” though some dispute the translation.

The restaurant was a large gastropub, known for its comfort food, a full bar, many television sets tuned to sporting events like football, and a fireplace. It was 6:30 on a Saturday night, and the restaurant was quite packed. We had a reservation, so we were seated quickly.

When we settled down to view the menu, I ordered the French onion soup and the pan-seared Faroe Island salmon that had oven-roasted potato wedges, Brussels sprouts, and lemon miso brown butter sauce. Elliot started off with a Greek salad and had fish and chips.

From Menotomy, we made our way to town, where we all had ice cream at New City Microcreamery. I silently whispered it was too cold for ice cream, but that didn’t matter. Sadie wanted it and her parents complied.

We all had cones of various flavors and sat in the store to delight in them. I had mint chip ice cream.

Now it was time to drive home in the dark. But first, Norbert drove us to a grocery store where Jody purchased a few items for breakfast on Sunday.

It was sometime after 9 when we got home, but it seemed later. Jody said she was tired, so she went upstairs – she took Sadie with her – to bed and the three men folk remained downstairs. We started to watch episodes of The Chair Company on HBO Max since Norbert hadn’t seen it – nor Elliot. I didn’t mind watching it again since it was a wacky series and the episodes were short.

Then Robert said he was going up to bed, and Elliot and I watched another episode of The Beast in Me starring Claire Danes. From there, we began watching Guillermo del Toro’s new Frankenstein on Netflix. Elliot had watched some of it without me, but not me. This time I delved into this umpteenth version of Mary Shelley’s iconic 1818 gothic horror story.

Actually, over dinner, Jody and I had a passioned discussion over Shelley’s original idea for the tale that would immortalize her for over 200 years. Jody is an English middle school private teacher and she has taught the novel to her students. It was her thesis that the “monster,” as it was, is in the mind of his creator, Victor Frankenstein. She mentioned some “proof” for this theory, but I couldn’t hear everything because of the chattering and television clatter heard in the background. She mentioned that this latest version of the tale is not an overall faithful adaptation of the novel.

This lush, glamorous, and gothic production boasts a hammy performance by Oscar Isaac in the principal character of Victor Frankenstein, the brilliant doctor, who plays God creating Jacob Elordi as the unnamed “monster.” Mia Goth plays Frankenstein’s brother’s fiancee, Elizabeth, who is not enamored of Frankenstein’s rogue, arrogant manner. Elordi does evoke sympathy as the childlike, gentle creature, bewildered by the very violent world he’s thrust in by his creator. He certainly doesn’t have the same revolting makeup as employed in the classic Frankenstein movies starring Boris Karloff and other horror actors much later on. His sinewy, muscular frame is shown to great effect earlier on before he throws on some outer garments to walk around in. What distinguishes this Frankenstein from so many other versions preceding it is that this creature has the power of speech that mirrors the novel. Now I’m curious about rereading the novel at some point in the future to compare this cinematic retelling of it to the printed story.

Anyway, I haven’t seen the entire film; I’ve seen at least 2 hours of it. It’s about 2 hours, thirty-seven minutes long. But it’s totally amazing that Shelley was only 18 when she came up with the idea of her patched-up creature designed from various body parts.

Today we woke up close to 9:35 a.m. and had a breakfast consisting of a sunny-side up egg, French rolls, and coffee. We took some selfies in the kitchen area and left our hosts close to 11:30. We got home around 4:30 after stopping at Reins Deli, in Vernon, Connecticut.

Have a good week.

And so it went!

Here’s the snowy scenery from the passenger side on the way down from Arlington.

Here is more of the same snowy landscape.