Happy holiday to all:
It’s 4th of July weekend in the GM and the tourists are roaming about. We have been entertaining our first Airbnb guest this weekend- a young couple from Rhode Island up to do some hiking, which has led Jen to a frenzy of baking and preparation and Lucy to walk around all day with her pull toy in her mouth waiting for the guests to take up the challenge. Really nice kids and it seems like it has gone really well- so hopefully we will have our first positive on line review. The 4th itself was a rainy day here which dampened the festivities. We geared up for the parade in our local town of Belmont; got everything together and our chores done to be in front of the general store at the 11 a.m. start. A lot of buzz, our local state rep announcing on the loudspeaker, the store doing mega business…and then the parade began and lasted for six and half minutes…five floats and the firetrucks. After the excitement of that, it poured- so went spent the day in search of more and better of the elusive perfect bedding, venturing into tax free New Hampshire, where we eventually wound up on a secret trip to Walmart, where we got oil change and a bucket of chicken. Friday night, we went up to Jackson Gore with five hundred tourists visiting the ski resort to see the free concert featuring faux Beatles in faux Beatles suits and with faux Beatles’ accents. Lucy loves the Beatles (and the hundred or so dogs there who also love the Beatles apparently).
Leading up the weekend- we had our fist Weston Playhouse show of the season on Wednesday night- a folk musical called Pump Boys and Dinettes set in a rural southern gas station and diner. Well done, as usual. We did the pre theater dinner in the basement there- which has been taken over this year by the fine dining restaurant in our area, the Downtown Grocery. Quite the dinner, quite the price…next show we may have to go back to the early bird. Thursday we spent the day visiting with my cousin Joel who has been ill in hospital in Albany. It was a nice and easy 2 hour plus drive down and a good visit with my cousins and their two boys. On the way back, we hit the dreaded traffic snarl in Troy, that was so bad we had to stop at the Mart for a while to take a break. We then checked out the authentic British fish and chips place in Bennington (it is pretty authentic) and hit the Blue-Ben diner for take-out desert, a massive dish of chocolate cream pie which we then left in the car while going to the grocery. When I came out, Lucy, who hates being left in the car, seemed unusually docile and content, snoring an amazing sugar snore in the backseat. I licked the remains from the container….
We have been out and about a fair amount lately- in between an unusual amount of rain and thunderstorms- so we have been continuing our season long informal surveys, and have concluded there are more self-storage places in Vermont (23 so far) to people of color (21)- though we had a big day yesterday at the Fletcher Farms annual art festival- spotting an amazing 8 people of some color in 15 minutes. Conclusion: Vermont is lily white and people here have a lot of shit they can’t quite get rid of or need to hide.
Last weekend on one of the really rainy days, we decided we were in dire need of a film- so made the requisite journey up to Hanover, NH to the art house there, to see Love and Mercy, the Brian Wilson biopic (see my review). Very good film (see Paul Dano sing the Pet Smiles album parts, wow) and an amazing story of who I believe to be the pre-eminent popular music composer of our times. Genius and madness at its most poignant. Of course, there is a closer theater in Rutland, but I’m way to much of a movie snob to see Max, Ted or even Entourage (though tempted by that one); hence the two plus hour round trip. But we get to soak up the stuffy academic lure of Dartmouth and this time we found a wonderful Nepali eatery and discovered another in a long line of negro oriented art places , the Black Family Visual Arts Center (Jen stubbornly insists I am wrong and that this really is just the name of some family, but I prefer to think we are finding more “brothers’ art).
Summer in the Greens, aside from all the rain we have had of late, is really pretty amazing , with days on the mid 70’s and nights in the 50s. We don’t have AC anywhere and I’ve used my car AC twice this year. So…let me tell you about culture and weather shock. I went to Chicago for three days last week and it was brutal sticky, in and out of 90 degree heat/humidity, and freezing air conditioning…please, please take me back to the mountains. On the way there, I flew out of Hartford (shitty trip to make) and wound up on phone with the Nave and sailed right by the airport exit (not really in Hartford)- winding up 20 miles later in downtown Hartford. I only made my flight by illegally taking the HOV lane back at 90 mph and being lucky enough to have TSA pre-screen. Though I got to have dinner in chi town burbs with my other son- Jesse- which I always look forward to, still….The moral of story is to stay in Vermont…
When you come to visit here- be wary of totally relying on the GPS in Vermont, often goes haywire and leads you up the wrong dirt road. As soon as I finished my last tales of the mountains a few weeks ago, which was around 11 on a very rainy Sunday night, I heard unusual noise in our drive and went out to find three sets of state police with lights flashing and guns drawn approaching our door. After absorbing a few minutes of absolute paranoia, I was able to help them realize they wanted an address on the other side of Gates road which is not accessible from here due to the logging road. They left pissed off and made ruts in my yard since there is nowhere for three vehicles to simultaneously turn around. We need to put up a no outlet sign I think!
It’s dawned a beautiful sun drenched day here this Sunday morning, so things to do , dogs to see. Be well, stay in touch and do good work.
Love,
Estuardo
