My Perfect Weekend (Brought to You By My Imagination)

 Considering it was such a good day, I think my perfect weekend started on the Friday morning. I decided to get a little treat for breakfast at Cafécito.

It's up on Main Street, so on my bike route to work. The decision between a guava and cream cheese pastry versus Ashton's egg and cheese sandwich is always a tough one, and I hedged my bets by just getting both. No regrets. I drank a coffee while I waited for my sandwich and then Pina, working the counter, told me to just go ahead and take a refill to go. "I'll pay for it next time I'm in," I called over my shoulder as I headed out the door. "Don't even worry about it!" She shouted.

I biked carefully the rest of the way to work, balancing the full cup of hot liquid. Going so slowly let me spot some neighbours going in the opposite direction, and they waved and rang their bike bells at me; I hope they weren't offended that I didn't wave back, but, well, the coffee...

My day at work was fine, everyone was out enjoying the marvelous weather; sunshine is indeed a tonic. So I didn't see many people, didn't talk to anyone much, beyond exchanging weekend plans with my office mate. He takes the train from Beacon, then the streetcar from the station and he spends the commute time scrolling through his phone, finding all the events planned for the weekend. 

Late in the afternoon, around 3:30, bored, and antsy, I decided to take a walk to Cupcake studio and treat myself to a little pastry tart. It felt a bit decadent, given my pastry-rific breakfast, but boy howdy was it delicious!

On my way home in the afternoon I saw some friends coming out of the Pride Center. Their teenager zigzagged laps up and down the block on his scooter as we chatted, clearly impatient to get going. "Should we just go to the bistro and get a glass of wine?" Andy suggested. "Jake can get himself home no problem."

"Love that idea!" I replied.

"Sure! Okay, Jake, we're going to the bistro! See you at home!" Andy said to Jake, and he zoomed off.  

We caught up over a few glasses of rosé, enjoying the last few days of rosé weather. So, of course, that meant we had to get an app to split, I mean, may as well. 

When we were ready to head home we rode together until they turned off on Grand and I kept going to Innis Ave. Dan was on the front porch and I gave him a smooch once I finished hauling my bike up the steps. I love my Gala, but she's not light as a feather.

"There's a music and poetry open mic tonight at Darkside," Dan told me at dinner. "I was thinking of taking the streetcar after we're done here and checking it out."

Two trolley cars on Raymond Ave in front of Vassar College - LH Collections

So after I finished loading the dishwasher I put on a little mascara and a little lipstain. "Oooh so pretty!" Dan said, and I blushed.  

I love the streetcar; sometimes in the winter on a dull and dreary Sunday afternoon I hop on just to get out of the house. It's funny because a lot of kids have the same idea and clusters of school kids will grow with each stop. They huddle around someone's phone watching something all together; then, one by one, they peel off at each stop until it's back to the one kid. 

Dan brought his guitar and we walked to the streetcar stop on Main Street. You could tell who else was going to the open mic: a couple of Vassar students with the same shade of blue hair, a few of them with instruments, and one reading from a marble composition notebook, silently mouthing the words. It made me so nostalgic. As for the open mic itself. Well...

Everyone was really brave. Certainly more brave than me, so I really shouldn't be so judgy.  Once Dan did his set, and he listened to a few others he leaned over to me.

"Do you want to leave and get some ice cream?" He whispered in my ear. Having had two pastries I wasn't super into ice cream, but I did want to leave, so I nodded. 

I've always imagined this building, on the corner of Academy and Main, as perfect for an ice cream shop in the summer/hot chocolate in the winter.

At the ice cream shop Dan got a cone with cookies and cream, and even though I knew I'd feel a little unwell, I got a scoop of strawberry in a cup. We ate in the park with a slight chill in the night air, soon it will be time for cups of hot chocolate, then hopped back on the streetcar heading East to home.

Saturday morning Dan made raspberry pancakes and we ate on the backyard patio. My flowers are in their grand finalé of blooming, and now I'm on the lookout for their seeds. The birds are also keeping an eye on those seeds, and when we kept still and quiet goldfinches perched on the stems of the anise hyssop, pecking away at the spent flower heads. Loren and I had made plans to make habanero jelly with her unexpected bounty of habanero peppers. So I packed up my canning pot, and an apron to take on the train to Hyde Park. I got on my beloved streetcar (standing room only!) to the train station, and then waited for the northbound Hudson Flyer regional train to Hyde Park. It was running late, and I took the unexpected time to have a coffee in the station café. Their sandwiches were really tempting and I reminded myself Loren was probably going to feed me. I capitulated to the visual display in the station candy store and got small bag of pick-n-mix candies for Lucas. The train ride was nice and short and I walked from the station up the hill to Loren's house, trying to justify the carb-bonanza of last night!

Considering it was the first time making habanero jelly for the both of us, I think it came out really well! Lucas loved his bag of candy and I realized I maybe had created a situation when Loren rationed him 3 pieces and then put the rest in the cupboard above the fridge. She did indeed feed me, a really satisfying charcuterie/snack board. Lucas wanted to ride his bike to see me back off to the station, though I didn't have my bike to keep him company. This didn't seem to bother him, and I'm pretty sure he biked at least quadruple the distance the way he kept biking circles around me as I walked. When I got on the South bound train back to Poughkeepsie I texted Loren to say Lucas should be on his way back home.

On Sunday, after his Tai Chi, Dan and I rode our bikes to the Cannon street farmer's market with empty milkcrates strapped to the back. 

A farmer's market in this parking lot across from 40 Cannon is a no-brainer!

We got a light lunch, and then picked up some veggies and other groceries for the week. It's always a bit of a slog biking back up when the crates are full! The international students were coming from Vassar for a late Sunday lunch so I was busy in the kitchen, putting the chicken into roast before meeting them at the streetcar stop. It was a really nice get together; they really enjoyed the food, leaving no leftovers! Some of them were going to see a movie at the Juliet, nothing I'd heard of but it sounded interesting.

 

And that was my perfect weekend!

...In my imagination. And the thing is, the café's, the streetcars, the ice cream shop, the concert venue, the movie theater, the train to Hyde Park; this all used to exist in Poughkeepsie and Dutchess County!

Tracks for the trolley connecting the Poughkeepsie river front and train station with Vassar College, and Wappingers Falls were laid in 1894. The last trolley operated in 1935.

In 1897 bicycles number around 4,000 in the city of Poughkeepsie, which had a population of only around 25,000

The first train station of Hyde Park was a wee wooden building built in 1851, and service was suspended 100 years later in 1953.

The Chance Theater first opened in 1912 as the Carolls Players Playhouse, then changed to The Playhouse Theater in 1928. In 1970 it reopened as Frivolous Sal's Last Chance Saloon, a venue for live music, and then in 1980 as The Chance. Its last show was in 2023, and currently the only venue I know of for live music in Poughkeepsie is Reason and Ruckus on Main Street. Darkside Records moved into the former Mason Hall on Cannon Street, with the intent of hosting live shows in addition to selling records, cds, and other media; so far this has come in the form of listening parties.

In 1902 the Schrauth brothers transformed their father's bakery on Main Street into one of the most beautiful interiors on the Hudson river; an ice cream parlor and soda fountain. In 1950 they sold the ice cream factory on Bridge St, which made up to 1500 gallons of ice cream per day, and the parlor soon closed afterwards.

Juliet's Movie Theater opened in 1935 in Arlington and closed in 1990. The idea of it returning to a movie theater is a long cherished hope of the nearby community.

Through a combination of Urban Renewal, and shopping malls in the Town of Poughkeepsie hoovering up Street front businesses, we've lost so much: The ability to connect, not just geographically, but socially, simply by being on the same street car together; the ability to share spontaneous moments just by the ability to satisfy impulses like going to an open mic, and getting ice cream; the ability to connect communities; the ability for young people to explore their communities with ease and security. 

And I just wonder, with all the people who refer to Europe, or Japan, or other places they've travelled as being amazing because they have all the things we used to have: Don't we also deserve nice things?