My, My, Hey, Hey………..Autumn leaves won’t go away……
“Life is dance….and the dance goes on with or without us”…………………………………………………………………………OSHO
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“Catskills hotel sign
President Johnson Slept Here
Haven’t changed a thing”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus For Jews
Rainy Sunday Blogsters…………Autumn closing, in the 40s after weeks in the 70s, the beauty of Autumn coming to a rapid close in the mountains and the dreaded Stick Season setting in (more sticks than leaves)…but we’re not done yet, though 11 days and counting until Exodus……… But, we get ahead of ourselves…….
Last Sunday was another God-like day and we did our morning chores and headed up to the hills of Shrewsbury to find another dirt road for the weekly WALK in the hills…this one a flat ridge line road with sweeping foliage vistas on both sides, horse barns, long winding rich -folk driveways…and lots of folk outside to greet Lucy as she romped through their yards and found rolling opportunities (almost always a bath coming for her after the walks….and then on to the couch for the night for her “I’m so tired”…..
Monday morning dawned warm and sunny and Jenn had her weekly coffee klatch visit from Robin Blue Skies, the trailer lady massage therapist…which is always one giant whirlwind of rambling ideas and folk remedies. I typically wander in and out of the animated “healing” conversation, which Robin calls the “Stu Dynamic Experience”. Robin almost never leaves the area, but we talked her into a Tuesday road trip, which seemed an unlikely bet at the time…but…..
Tuesday dawned warm but rainy and after a morning of dawdling, we picked up RoBS (you devoted texters should be able to figure that one out…LOL, TTYL, WTF…I’m practicing! )and headed across the mountains to the lovely Route 30 corridor which runs in a valley through two mountain ranges, with hawks and other flying predators circling on the cliffs on both sides, down through Wallingford, Poultney, Lake St Catherine and Wells to the hipster hamlet of Pawlet (stopping along the way for Lucy to have a Maple Creamee). Many years ago, we stopped at a jewelry artisan in Pawlet during the semi-annual Vermont Open Studio weekend. The jewelry was OK (how many jewelry artisans can there be in one small state?)- but her partner, Mark, created these whacked out homemade “Cigar- Box” guitars (just what they sound like). Like little Lucy, I store this stuff away- as she does with piles of shit to come back to roll in. When we went to the house concert a few weeks ago, we ran into Mark again, and I promised to come visit before we headed off into the wild blue yonder…..Ergo, the trip down to his fairy pixel workshop in Pawlet. This is an other worldly experience, where Mark talks non-stop for two hours and we get to try out everything he has made for the last six months; which included not only the usual Cigar-Box guitars, but resonator (Dobro-like) guitars, in which the metal centers are made from hubcaps, saw blades and BUNDT Pans!…..and I get to plug them in to his massive sound system and make enough noise to hear down in Albany…a rainy day well spent.
After leaving and several hours of the requisite driving around in circles, which took Robin a bit to acclimate to, but eventually she took to like the bear in our bird feeders, we met her partner, Mike, for a celebratory dinner at the Poets of Fish in Fair Haven, for the prodigious Prudential (read “early bird”) dinner…as Jenn likes to say “one of our faves”…..
Which was, for the most part, the extent of my mountain week, since Wednesday morning I hauled down to Boston to catch a flight to Kansas City to spent several days at a sex offender conference (I’ll leave you to figure that one out, talk amongst yourselves)….which led to a lot of discussion about (but nor any real) sex, multiple meals of KC BARBQ, a bit of jazz and a bunch of streetcars (emulating San Francisco, obviously). Friday night, I arrived back in Boston (an airport from hell) close to midnight and had decided not to make the almost four hour trip home, so booked a Marriott (so Jenn could fee free to project herself out) about a half hour up the I-93 corridor….which went fine until I got within five miles of the exit and encountered an electronic road sign that said “ Exit 44- four miles, 73 minutes”)…uh- oh….way to late to sit in traffic after midnight after a full day of travel…so bolted across four lanes to the beckoning exit and drove off into the absolute end of the world, middle of nowhere darkness of Massachusetts. After ten minutes of despair, I pulled over and found a cell signal….and with baited breath and prayer, called my own private Moses (the Prodigal in San Diego), who I actually found at home on a Friday night….and who then did his Moses thing and led me out of the wilderness on wild circles of back roads to the hotel in 17 minutes…..which , I believe , is why we have children…
Spent short noisy night in the Town Place Suites (can’t people just stay home and have sex?). I drove home Saturday morning through a wonderful autumn sunshiny day, with the bonus of getting the last of the Peak in central New Hampshire as I took the overland mountain route (like in the Himalayas)…finally arriving home mid- afternoon just in time for a nap and the world series..
Meanwhile back at the ranch, Jenn managed to get in four secret home improvement projects , which she thought I would not notice….and then spent three days obsessing in the gardens. By the time I came home, she was bent over and coughing up blood, but very self-satisfied …The Project Queen even managed to lure over The Jewish Pig Farmer on Saturday morning with some giant piece of Goyishe Farm Implement, to dig up a bunch of garden areas, since she is on to planning next year’s array of projects (I’m on the Marriott website booking nights as we speak)
While on the road this week I got to watch the video of the five living ex-Presidents at the storm fundraiser…..can we please have one of them, any one of them…BACK… now please? I will be more than satisfied with a Bush, if you don’t mind. The Trumpster had the good sense to stay away so as not to seem like the slow boy in the class, and to not get pummeled with organic carrots…but, I’m trying to stay away from anything overtly political as you know…
Ok…enough already…look at the pictures….I suppose I just could have sent them and left your brains alone on a quiet Sunday morning, but can’t seem to help myself (seems I never run out of things to say)……so wherever you are, enjoy your day, try to love on another right now, right, right now, right now………A-River-Der-She
The Wannabe Prophet
