Good Yontif to all:
Time has gotten away from me, and resulted in hundreds of ugly spam comments on my website, so thought I better take a few moments to quickly update the legions wondering what has become of their favorite blogger and The Queen…..from the top floor of a Baltimore Marriott, very late at night, after a whirlwind trip to St. Paul for one day and late and delayed flight on to Charm City …..the road has seemed to again be beckoning of late…..
“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today”…………………………………………………………………………James Dean
“Each day you say to yourself: Today I am going to begin”………………………………………………………………………..Jean Pierre De Caussade
“Boom, boom, boom, boom……..”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Muddy Waters
“Is one Nobel Prize
so much to ask from a child
after all I’ve done?”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Haikus for Jews
So….a quick recap……………………………
The Flatland visit……was a whirlwind three days of non-stop activity. We had three miracles in 12 days: our massive water leak got fixed by the big bad excavators in ONE HOUR on our first day back after months of endlessly running water; BOTH my guitar pickups got working for the first time in ten years, after one of them just fell off the guitar necessitating an emergency trip to the local luthier (just in time for the Bunty station boys to arrive in Vermont next week for a series of gigs)………and in the miracle of the decade…my car broke down mid-last week leaking out all my transmission fluid over the streets of Powell…with nowhere to take it, having only one car and needing to drive up to Toledo the next morning and then home to Vermont…a savior man-child Muslim- to- be showed up out of nowhere, doo-rag on his head, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other and absurdly talked me into letting him fix it……….four hours later he had replaced the radiator and fans and delivered it unexpectedly back to my house….he goes by the name of “Not Yet”….I’ll let you fill in the inferences…..but this was a true miracle and a possible path to sainthood……………….
THE SHOWER (baby, not bathing or weather)….went perfectly and was a moment of beautiful emotional out letting….we had people from Jake’s, Jenn’s and my family all entwined in a wonderful clubhouse setting off a golf course (courtesy of our dear friend, Nancy, who played bouncer at the door for three hours). My nieces and nephew showed up for three days of rural invasion to help out with the blessed event and lent the proceedings a certain level of ethic authenticity…..our granddaughter, baby Quinn (now 14 months) stole the show and everyone’s hearts (along with Tess’ bulging in vitro coming attraction)…and Jenn proved to be the queen of showerdom….how lucky can you be to be joined by five mid-80s or older elders attending? Jake is lucky enough to have three living grandparents….and my long tome friend and mentor, Don Clokey, once again, lent a stately blessing to the event, which he has done to every significant moment of our family’s life since he presided over my marriage in 1986…that’s been a lot of events, Don!………………………….
And then, the mid-summer empty house visit….which this year featured an invasion of Mickeys and Minnie’s , who left their liquid and solid gifts, in every corner of the house….The Queen of the Manse arrived, went to the bathroom and then spent 36 straight hours, cleaning out drawers, doing 30 loads of laundry, and setting traps…..we caught almost a dozen while we were there, and they seemed to have gone away….until we left, and I’m sure they emerged feeling like the house was theirs again………..now I have to point out that we are talking about The Queen of the Animal Kingdom here going Rambo with her wrath on these tiny, adorable creatures…..shamelessly slaughtering them one by one in a frenzy of extinctive behavior….you never really know someone, do you?…..
The return trip to Vermont….was 12 straight hours of mindless driving…broken up only by our little cat, Grace, diving out the car window when we stopped at a Tim Horton drive through….apparently she wanted a latte…and luckily we noticed her prowling the sidewalk before we drove away thinking she was hiding somehow in the back of the car….got to the Mount at 10:30 Sunday night, and had the car unpacked and the house re-settled by midnight…………..like we never left….
I spent this week going back to my road warrior ways with an over the top two day trip to St. Paul and then on to Baltimore…can I mention how much I love airports? Off tomorrow to Philly area for second annual reunion of my child hood Bronx posse (oh, the stories)….and the Band will be here most of next week….…..so, it’s late, it’s late…must go to meet my faith…will try and remount the horse again soon…
Ob-la dee, Ob-la da,
Papi
