Greetings fellow travelers:
“I embrace emerging experience. I participate in discovery. I am a butterfly. I am not a butterfly collector. I want the experience of the butterfly”…………………….William Stafford
“The only people for me are the mad ones- mad to live, mad to talk….”……………………………..Jack Kerouac
“God invented THE Jewish Mother to increase his coverage”……………………..Jewish Proverb
It has rained….and THE POND is replenished…coming back to its faded glory…..small heartwarming in a time of melancholy closure…the tress are bare, the days grow shorter, our yard is shutting down and the house is filled with boxes of tchotchkes……it is nearing the very last dance.
Autumn ending always feels like a time of great transition, and another year in the mountains is fast approaching its terminus. I gazed at the beauty of the full autumnal moon this week, and pondered looking at the same moon back in May, and wondering about the progression of moons over the next six months……and now they have come and gone, along with the sweetness of the mountain summer and fall. And baseball…the everlasting celebration of American summer has once again come and gone. The World Series ends….we go home.
There are two words that always send me back to the long asphalt- green summers of my childhood….and came vividly back through a visage that appeared at the last Dodger home games of the fall classic….Sandy Koufax…did you see him? Still looking like the gawky- grown -elegant Jewish lad from Brooklyn, who gracefully curved his way through Brooklyn and LA seasons- in -the -sun all those years ago….
But…we’re not done yet…so here is the brief Sunday Sermon (In truth, that probably already was the Sunday Sermon, and now I will bore you with the Sunday Ramble).
The rains came in earnest last weekend- Sunday was an all-day drencher (Go, Pond, GO!!!)..and we did a blitz of Sunday town things….and then the new week came, with even more rain…and the November cold setting in. We met the JPF (remember your codes, dear) for Chinese on Tuesday night at the beloved East, where we ate enough for a family of nine
Car maintenance (like flossing) may be overrated….we took Jenn’s car to the five minute oil change place last Sunday (it was more like 30 minutes….which probably means don’t go on a Sunday when only the Dweebs are working)..and after the oil change all of her check engine codes came on and the next day the car would not start or even jump . I won’t bore you with all the gory details (well, maybe a few) but our pickup truck buying- infused plans to make it home without fixing the car’s electrical problems went up in smoke. By the next day, the car was dead…and then Stu went in search of the Marriott….heading up to Minnesota on assignment (too secret to tell about)..and leaving Jenn stranded on the mountain top. This has resulted in a wild goose chase to secure a new fuse box in a very sort amount of time…which has led to multiple consternations and a much lighter wallet….and STILL up in the air, as of today. Is it possible to get three unhappy animals, two unhappy humans, ..and a house full of shit, into one car to return to the heartland?…You’ll have to wait until a final report next week to find the answer to this and other life altering questions …..We’ll call this the great pickup distraction of 2017…..On the plus side, all of this gave the Project Queen uninterrupted space to obsess for the remainder of the week..
So…Minnesota -specifically St. Paul….in November….not a pretty sight….like the frozen tundra of Garrison Keillor’s dreams… but, I did get in a few good meals, made some new friends, and stayed in a nice suite-in between freezing my ass off and fretting about how we would get back to Ohio. I had to drive 2 ½ hours to Hartford to get a direct to Minneapolis, and spent most of the time both ways trying to negotiate the amazing system that are Cable Providers…..give me a gun with scope and put me outside the Time Warner headquarters and let me make the evening news.…they may have changed their name to fool us , but its same shit, different day…this may be the absolute worst part of living in two places….can’t we just have universal internet and not have to deal with these morons?
So-as you can tell my tolerance level is decreasing as the trees go bare…..I suppose it is time to leave…maybe….who knows…can we have some headlights? Are there squirrels in our other abode? How many Trumps does it take to speak Russian?
In essence –the week has been filled with good-byes and last this and last that…blah, blah, blah…..so we packed up Lucy Saturday morning and headed out for a full days of “Lasts”… you can see the photo display tour of a “down from the mountain -day in town” to all our usual haunts…..we try to save all our wants for one day a week when we live in the mountains, and it is always an extravaganza…just like the old pioneer farmers heading to town on Friday night- sans Saloon….
I need some Zen, please…any Zen will do..….we’re down to days of packing and obsessing about lists…..heading out today to deal with the prep of the remaining car, hoping to get the other dead piece of shit running…. and putting up our annual plastic invention to ward snow off the house…sounds like fun???!!???
I’ll let you know next week how it goes….and be deciding whether to shut down the Blog …or send you boring tails of Midwestern winter…as well as those of a new set of home improvement projects and Marriott visits
I was working in the lab late one night, when my eyes beheld and eerie sight….He did the Mash….It was a smash……………………..You go Boys and Girls……..
Stumberry
