Happy daylight savings time to all (bah-humbug….):
“It takes a long time to understand nothing”…………………………….Edward Dahlberg
“Follow your inner moonlight, don’t hide the madness”…..Allen Ginsberg
“How many sunsets can you watch?”…..Anonymous New Yorker
“ Mr. Johnson gets up early” (be careful with the interpretation on this one!)…………………..Jennifer Burrows
Behold the POND……..it rises, it shimmers, the meteor crater disappears…. a lot of rain and SNOW has us, unlike most of Vermont, out of drought…..and the springs are flowing…..check it out…may even be filled by the time we leave…my crowning life achievement…..we spent four hours last Sunday chopping, cutting, and cajoling the ancient apple tree to get it away from the POND…it took saws, ropes, ladders, loppers and a Larry to get it done…now we have water, no mas apples
Speaking of leaving….TEN DAYS until the return to the flatlands…back to our roots, our friends, our kids, the Bunty boys, a modern flight schedule, three minutes to shopping, Chinese delivery, our hot tub……AND……the parkway outside the kitchen window, all night lights on the roundabout, a house shared with wild life, traffic, traffic, traffic, noise, noise, noise, people, people, people,….guess you could call it a yin-yang…Cha-Cha- Changes…….
Power visiting-…I made a trip up to the Capitol this week to testify in front of a legislative committee on reforming juvenile justice..…sat in a hot hearing room for four hours waiting to speak, was then told I had five minutes, which evolved to me getting into it with the Senator who chairs the committee…..Him- “ I did this for 25 years, blah, blah, blah” Me- “Maybe you should have done something else”……probably my last invite to the statehouse
How about those Cubbies????- even us Tribe fans found ourselves rooting for the ever downtrodden……what a game…
Hitting the Apple- we went down for one last visit to the big city for an overnight this week. We counted more people of color in 15 minutes than we have seen in the last six months in Vermont. Jewish Deli. Italian Deli, NY Pizza. bagels and lox, and a Diner ……we had to crawl back home to the wheat grass and organic beets…..had a nice dinner with new found cousins…we have multiplied our family four-fold over last five years; we just keep getting bigger…soon we will be like the Bushs and need a compound in Kennebunkport…..who knew?…Jenn, Lucy and I got to spend a morning with my oldest friend, and first life mentor, Bob, at the nursing home in the east Bronx, which is both touching and so, so sad….he has some dementia and no family and nowhere else to live…..fucked over by a greedy system that casts away its old to sit staring in front of a wall..…but he gets three hots and a cot daily…..am still working with the appointed lawyer to sue the shit out of the mercenaries who screwed him over, though not sure it will help him much at this point…..after 48 hour trip to the Bronx, it was very good to return to the Sticks (though I did return with a satchel of corned beef and pastrami)
A Mountain roaming– since it finally got out of being in the md 30s every day- we took advantage of the high 40 degree warmth yesterday to make a full day of it. Hit the indoor Rutland farmers market for the last time (market loves Lucy), then did all the shopping things we tend to do on Saturdays, with the masses, for no good reason (Walmart loves Lucy), spent 40 minutes getting an “instant” oil change ( we probably disagree on the definition of “instant”) and hit our beloved Ramunto’s Pizza, to soak up the local ambiance and raise our cholesterol. Chores done, we headed out on a drive to capture the last of the fall colors and then sought out one of our favorite hikes up near Pittsford. We did our usual three miles or so, while Lucy did her usual ten miles running in circles and chasing all things walking and breathing. We took the back mountain roads back down to Mendon and to the Home Depot (a place I never enter, but Jenn qvells for). After that, we sat in the parking lot staring at our jones- feeding Chinese restaurant , East, trying to decide whether or not to eat dinner at 5 p.m. ,when we had already had two meals in the last five hours. Suddenly, we had a sign……sitting in the same parking lot was the Jewish Fish Monger, clearly also considering the merits of a very early Chinese feast…needless to say, we conferred and then spent the next two hours gobbling bok choy and Udon. By the time we got home it was dark and 25 degrees…..another fine day in the mountains.
So- will leave it at that for this entry into the ongoing adventures of mountain living. There are 4-5 yard machines waiting for my love and attentions and a shitload of stuff to put away for the winter….and maybe the tree guys will show up today, since they were due ten days ago…and one last POND cleaning is probable in order……… “Jenn, my strainer, please”….
The dark days are ahead. Keep your spirits up, and get out and vote, so we don’t have to move to Canada.
Bad-bada- bing,,,,,,…..Vito
