Time again for my twice-monthly Pinnacle Report covering the Weston, MA real estate market.  And since I wrote this report while I was happily ensconced celebrating Memorial Day weekend with my family in Martha’s Vineyard, I thought I would share with you some beautiful Vineyard photos, which I am proud to say were taken by my Mom, depicting the busy hubbub of the Vineyard Haven Harbor (above) juxtaposed with the serene and tranquil Nashaquitsa Pond in Chilmark (below)….

And now, to the Weston real estate market….

We saw similar activity in these last two weeks in Weston as we did in the prior two weeks – 15 new listings came on the market, and six properties sold.* Once again, our inventory (123) has increased from the last report (116), mostly because of the high number of new listings, and we have surpassed our inventory number from the same time last year (117). We are also seeing the high-end inventory creep up – approximately 30% of our listings are above $2,500,000.

To fully enjoy all of the market stats, please click Weston Pinnacle Report 5-16-2011-5-29-2011 for the details.

* Sold means “pending/under agreement” and not yet closed.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!  This weekend traditionally marks the beginning of summer – can you believe it?  Though thankfully it has gone from cold weather to hot weather in the last two days.  And I promise, promise I am not going to complain about the heat this summer – no way, not after the winter we had….

Anyway, I digress…..  Back to the subject at hand.  When I was talking to the kids earlier this week about our Memorial Day weekend plans, my middle daughter said to me, “Mommy, what is Memorial Day?”  And I shamefully will admit that I had a hard time remembering the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day.  But now I do know, and I won’t forget.  Memorial Day honors those who have died in military service to our country, and Veteran’s Day honors the veterans or those who have served in the military service to our country.   And on that note, I would like to honor and say a prayer for my friend Chris Coffland with whom I grew up in Baltimore, MD and who died in Afghanistan in November 2009 trying to detonate IEDs.  I hadn’t seen him in many years, but he was a fun, nice and considerate boy when we were young, and he obviously grew into a brave, valiant and incredible man. Here’s to my friend, Chris, who heroically died while serving our country*….

xo….  Lisa

* And for more information on Chris and his life, please visit the Christopher Coffland Memorial Fund, dedicated to providing aid to returning wounded veterans where Government Agencies do not participate.

It is a big couple of days in the Williams household…not only are we in midst of the two-night Dancing with the Stars Finale (I think Mark and Chelsea will win) and the kick-off of the new Bachelorette Season starring Ashley Hebert as the Bachelorette aired last night, but it’s also time for the Surprise Oprah! A Farewell Spectacular, commemorating Oprah for her 25 years of daytime television.  The Surprise Spectacular, which was taped last week at Chicago’s United Center, aired yesterday afternoon and is just about to air this afternoon in a few minutes (at least where we live – 4 p.m. on ABC).  And then tomorrow is her final, final show.  No more new Oprah daytime talk shows after tomorrow.  As the promotions say, it’s the last Oprah Winfrey Show ever!

This is big news….Oprah was an institution even when I was young.  In fact, you may not know it, but in the 1970s Oprah Winfrey aired the 6 o’clock news and “People are Talking” in Baltimore, MD, which is where I grew up.  Furthermore, she came to my school, The Bryn Mawr School, to speak when I was about 11 years old; I remember it so clearly.  And I was a big fan of the Oprah Winfrey Show watching it through college, after entering the “real world” (remember that term?), while nursing my little ones, when sick with the flu and countless other times.

So on yesterday’s show, Tom Hanks was the master of ceremonies, and there was an all-star guest list including such celebs as Tom Cruise, Madonna, Jackie Envacho, Josh Groban, Patti Labelle, Dakota Fanning, Beyonce, John Legend, Halle Barre, Queen Latifa, Katie Holmes and Diane Sawyer.  It was quite an amazing show with tons of old clips of the show – everyday citizens who had shared their pain and joy over the years with Oprah – as well as announcements of book donations to those in need and rebuilding of school libraries across the country with thousands of Oprah Oak Trees being planted in front of those libraries.  The show certainly was spectacular….

I can’t wait to watch today’s show.  What about you?  Will you watch too?  It sounds like Usher, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and Jerry Seinfeld amongst others will make appearances??  But we don’t know for sure…not until the show airs.  And then what about Dancing with the Stars and the Bachelorette? Did you watch last night’s shows?  Who do you think will win the dance-off?  And who do you think will be the last Bachelor standing (more on that as the season progresses)?  I can’t wait to hear….  And in the meantime, enjoy all of the fun television today and tonight…..

Before I go into the subject of fun reading books, I wanted to share with you a little personal history.  I moved to Weston in 1998 just before getting married and while working full-time as an executive recruiter for Reebok International, Ltd.  It was until October 1999 that I had my first child, and at this point, I wasn’t very networked in the community.  In other words, I barely had any friends….  Once my daughter was born, and I had scaled down my work schedule significantly, I decided to attend every WCCA (Weston Community Children’s Association) event, Newcomers event, Wellesley Mother’s Forum event and more.  I was determined to build a life – and a group of close friends - for myself and my family in the burbs.  As part of this initiative, I started a book club in Weston with a group of good friends in 2001.  Sadly the book club has disbanded – I think we are all over-scheduled at this time in our lives – but we had an awesome 10-year run, and I wanted to share with you a list of some of our favorites over the years as well as some that I read outside of the book club as we were gearing down.  Here are the mostly fiction faves (in no particular order):

• The Help, by Kathryn Stockett – I’ve never run into a person who didn’t love this book about the intermingling and interconnectedness of the lives of white and black families in Jackson, Mississippi in the late 1960s.  This is currently #6 on the New York Times Best Sellers List.
• The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory – this was a unanimous favorite in our book club; a saucy, steamy historical non-fiction account of life in the time of Henry VIII from the perspective of Anne Boleyn’s sister, Mary.
• The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry - part of the reason I loved this was because it takes place in Salem, MA, and is filled with mind twists, intrigue and mystery surrounding a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace and who have a long-standing history of secrets that unravel during the course of the book.
• Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen – a tale of those in the circus life during the Great Depression.  This is currently #1 on the New York Times Best Sellers List and has also been made into a movie, featuring Robert Pattinson as Jacob, the protagonist, and Reese Witherspoon as Marlena, Jacob’s love interest
• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy – this is a disturbing book and hard to get through but it truly is a story of pure and unconditional love for one’s child.
• The Man Who Turned Into Himself, by David Ambrose – another story of mind twists, secrets and intrigue which leaves you unsure of what is real and not real.  Could a parallel universe really exist?
• The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak – once again, I have never met anyone who has read this book and didn’t love it.  The book is narrated by Death himself and set in Nazi Germany.
• In The Woods, by Tana French – this too is filled with mind twists, intrigue, mystery and secrets – can you tell that I love these themes?  The story starts with the murder of a 12-year-old girl and links to a disappearance of two children twenty years before in the same suburb of Dublin, Ireland.
• Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout – a series of short stories with Olive Kitteridge as the common character and link throughout all of the stories.
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford – I absolutely loved this book; it really was a bittersweet tale (hence the title) of a Chinese boy and Japanese girl who fall in love in Seattle at the time when the Japanese were being sent to the internment camps.
• A Stranger Like You, by Elizabeth Brundage – I found this in the ultra-cool Books & Books in South Beach, FL, and I loved it.  Set in Los Angeles, this story is a twisted tale of several very different people whose lives strangely and disastrously intersect.
• The Girl With The Dragon Tatto and The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson – #23 and #25, respectively, on the New York Times Best Seller List. I’ve read both of these, and I don’t know which I liked better.  Lisbeth Salander, a reclusive, computer hacker, and Mikael Blomkvist, a famed journalist, pair up to solve disappearances, murder mysteries and much more in the world of evil. I have not read the third book in the trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, which is currently #12 on the New York Times Best Seller List.
• The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee – the story of a piano teacher in Hong Kong in the 1950s who becomes involved with a man whose secretive past makes its way into her present day life.
• A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey – we all probably remember the “Oprah” controversy with this book about addiction and rehab, but I loved it whatever it was – truth, fiction or a mixture of both.
• Drowning Ruth, by Christina Schwarz – another book filled with mystery and deep family secrets that surround the tragic drowning of Ruth’s mother.
• The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger – in my opinion, the movie did not do justice to this book about a man who continually and consistently travels through time into and out of his wife’s life.

I must admit as I contemplate these favorite books of mine, I am having a bit of trouble remembering the whole story, all of the characters and some of the subtleties of the plot.  In fact, I’m thinking it may be time for a re-read of some of these.   But anyway, I digress….  Back to the subject at hand – do you have other favorites and/or have you read any of these?  I’m also curious to hear your thoughts on the electronic aspect of reading a book.  Many have made the switch from holding a tangible book to using a kindle.  What is your preference?  I can’t wait to hear….

Have you had a chance to try any of the dining options at Liberty Wharf, located in the heart of Boston’s Seaport District?  Well, as it turns out, I have been there three times in the last 2+ weeks, and I figured I would share my comments and thoughts with you so you could decide whether you wanted to give it a try too.

My first dining experience was about two weeks ago, when my beau Adam, my Dad and I went there for dinner.  As you may have guessed, it was a cloudy, foggy night, but still the views of the Boston Harbor and Logan Airport were beautiful.  It was a Tuesday night, and so it wasn’t mobbed, which is always a good thing in my book.  We ultimately decided to dine at Legal Harborside (see photo above), which boasts 20,000 square feet of restaurant dining space on three levels – though at this point, just the lower level is open.  The windows were all open, the breezes flowed in, and so the night air was perfect (with my coat on that is).

Just let me admit first, that I am not the biggest Legal Sea Foods fan…. And yet, the raw bar is reputed to be fabulous (and my gentlemen companions concurred with that), and the Lobster Roll that my Dad and I shared was good.  I didn’t overly love the Gorgonzola Fig Spread Bruschetta mostly because I was expecting a yummy, bready dish but instead got a toasted slice of french bread.  The overall evening was great, however, and I will definitely dine there again; and often it seems, since I returned to the restaurant just over a week later (more on that below).  On a final note, we parked at the lot across the street, and Legal’s validates these tickets so the parking is a bargain.

My second dining experience was the following Wednesday night when we ventured to Temazcal Tequila Cantina (see photo on right).  This is up-scale, Mexican fare which is still fairly reasonably-priced.  When we got to the bar, we noticed that the menu and drink selections were displayed in front of us on a Tablet.  Wow – this was a first-ever experience for me and a further testament to the fact that we are definitely in an electronic world.  And yet Adam and I agreed that we both prefer the traditional Menu; I guess we’re Menu kind of people.  Anyway, we ordered Guacamole Langosta (a.k.a. Lobster Guacamole) with chips and Enchiladas Verdes, and in doing so, we realized that we had completely over ordered – the lobster guacamole would have been plenty.  And so we ended up bringing the the Enchiladas home.  But it was a great night – though it was cold and rainy again and the Celtics suffered their final loss to the Miami Heat ending our run in the Playoffs that night.  Well, so, let me re-phrase…everything else about the night – the food, the setting, the views, the people-watching and the prices – were all fantastic.

My third experience was just this past Saturday night.  We were going out to dinner with another couple and trying to get to Liberty Wharf at 6:30 p.m., knowing it was going to be packed and trying to beat the crowds.  But alas we got there at 7 p.m., which as we all know is probably the worst time to arrive at a restaurant on a Saturday night.  We first tried Temazcal, and the wait there was 1 3/4 – 2 hours.  Ouch.  So we tried Legal’s, and because Legal’s has much more seating, its wait was only 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours.  We decided to wait it out at Legal’s because our chances of getting a table more quickly were much better.  Ultimately we only waited about 50 minutes, which wasn’t too bad considering we were having drinks with friends while taking in a beautiful harbor scene in front of us.  The food was better this time; I had the Scallop Linguine special.  And it was a fun evening for us all.

So this weekend my Mom and stepdad are coming into town, and guess where we’re going to dinner?  You got it…Liberty Wharf.  But this time, I think we will try Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House.  (I don’t think Mom would love the Jerry Remy’s Sports Bar and Grill.)

What about you?  Have you tried any of the Liberty Wharf restaurants?  If so, what are your thoughts?  And one of my head-scratching questions is whether Liberty Wharf will have the same kind of appeal in the winter when we are deluged with snow and ice (I still remember this past winter all too clearly).  What do you think?  I can’t wait to hear….