Weekend Update

It's leaf peeping season on the East Coast, and Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter decided to pack our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly into the big BMW and head on up to upstate New York to partake in the russet colored turning of the seasons. Last time we took our pussycat Sugar in the big BMW, she managed to puke, defecate and shred her carrier and since Your Mama was unwilling to take on that feline drama once again, poor Sugar had to stay home alone. So, along with every other urbanite looking for a weekend of autumnal beauty and freshly picked apples, off we flew up the Hudson, over the Shawangunks and to the pastoral spread of our pals Flower and Grandma Bunny, who just completed a magazine spread worthy renovation of their 1940s honeymoon cottage.

Most people outside of New York City might imagine that all rich and famous folks spend their big bucks buying shingled behemoths in the Hamptons. But in truth, the hills, dales and valleys of upstate New York are positively littered with the bucolic retreats of those with household names. While Your Mama is too tired and too bizzy to give y'all a complete run down of every celebrity we know of with a house north of New Paltz, we thought you might be interested to see a few snaps of a couple celebrity weekend getaways that happen to be near the rural residence of our pals Flower and Grandma Bunny.

The photo above is a lovely autumnal vista taken from just behind the home of an actual celebrity, an actress whose name Your Mama feels compelled to keep in our vault. See children, this is a celebrity with whom we are friendly, and if we ever want to be invited back to her lovely house to see the goats, we'd better keep her name to our self.

Just up the road from our mystery celeb's pastoral farmlette is a stunning 160+ acre property just outside of Accord, NY that is rumored to belong to wonky toothed folk singing sensation Jewel (two photos above). Did the children hear Your Mama? RUMORED. Property records reflect the pretty and freshly renovated stone house is actually owned by a woman who lives in New York City, but there are upstate realtors who specialize in this area who commonly tell people that the property belongs to Jewel. Our pal Grandma Bunny also SWEARS she has seen Jewel on the property. So it's a little bit of a conundrum, because the local scuttlebutt is that it belongs to Jewel, but we can't find any evidence of her owing the property.

We complete our upstate celebrity home tour with the strange and unusual house near Kripplebush that is owned by the peculiar and Academy Award nominated actor Willem Dafoe (two pictures above). The children will note that Mister Dafoe's 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom house, which sits on a 6.8 acre piece of property, is a dark and modern confection of mis-matched shapes and angles. Contemporary architecture is certainly no stranger in the upstate vernacular of weekend houses, however, Mister Dafoe's house is most unconventional in that the black exterior cladding is neoprene. Yes puppies, Your Mama said neoprene, the very material that is used to make wet suits. The unexpected material does give the house a hostile and wicked presence on the property, but also, because of the non reflective and "soft" nature of neoprene, the house feels much warmer and more inviting than you might imagine from the photos.

Your Mama is back in New York City–for the moment anyway–the Dr. Cooter is back to fixing the crazy people, our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly are sleeping the sleep of the worn out pooch, and Sugar, well...y'all prolly know how angry pussycats can get when they're left alone...Sugar won't so much as look at Your Mama or the Dr. Cooter.