Due to their schedules, my niece and nephew joined me separately for our somewhat-annual end-of-summer weekend hangout, so while Noah’s adventures can be found here, here and here, we are just beginning to post Emi’s Magical Almost-Autumn Weekend adventures with her Uncle Al, starting with this post – the first entry of her trio of features to commemorate a whimsical weekend at the end of summer. I managed to cobble together an itinerary and we checked off every item on it – something that makes my Virgo heart sing.
Lola arrived with Emi on Friday afternoon, and we sat down to a dinner by Uncle Andy – Emi’s favorite chicken parm and a dessert of lemon meringue pie in honor of Dad’s birthday, which was his favorite. It felt wistfully poetic – Emiliana was named after my father, and as I see bits of my dad in both of the twins it’s reassuring to know he lives on in them.
We began with a brief attic moment of intentions, and a quick run-through of our witchy weekend, built around the new ‘Practical Magic 2’ movie that just came out. What is a magic spell but an intention cast into writing or incantation? They are wishes or desires or hopes for something to happen. Whether or not they manifest is up to myriad elements and forces, some of which are directly under control, most of which are not. As in many situations, harmful or hurtful intentions tend to double back on the person doing the casting – negativity and evil leading to more of the same – while happy and supportive spells tend to foster happiness and support for the person behind them. We kept everything on the positive, and wrote out what our hopes were for the weekend ahead.
Emi’s intentions were to be relaxed, stay calm, share fun memories, and have fun – and I couldn’t improve upon those items if I tried. Happily, that’s pretty much how the weekend would go, starting with a gift basket that had some chocolates and soap and a book of magic intentions for Emi to fill out in the days to come.
After dinner, we set up camp in the cellar for a viewing of the original ‘Practical Magic’ – had some popcorn and candy – then called it a night – as we had to get up early to secure a table at Manory’s in Troy on our way to Vermont.
Troy has its own magics, and its own mayhem. A very upset woman approached our car in the first place we parked, screaming at Emi before we even shut the engine off, so I drove around the block and found a more welcoming space before our breakfast at Troy’s oldest restaurant. There’s usually one bit of drama on every weekend with Uncle Al, so at least we got that out of the way early and could focus on fun and relaxation as originally intended. The breakfast was good and, fortified for the moment, we got back on the road to Vermont…
