Greetings from Scum Pond:
“But every so often something shatters like ice and we are in the river of our existence. We are aware.” …………………………………………………. Louise Erdrich
“It’s all a passing show…. Just watch it.” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Anagarika Munindra- Ji
“Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground. Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down” ………………………………………………………Neil Young
Wienie, Wienie Quarantinie,
Up the mountain, green-green scenery,
Big brown bear, at front door preening,
Inn’s a mess, we can’t stop cleaning,
Pandemic blues, the streets are teeming,
Houses, houses…fate careening,
Wienie, Wienie, Quarantinie.
Last two weeks a blur….too much even to Blog last Sunday………whirlwind of leaving the heartland…..Last supper with kids an Bebe filled with tears….saying goodbye to our lifeline after months of time together….and then ….The House (the old one)…trying to get it ready to sell without being there…..final burst of cleaning, fixing, removing all evince of rodents…..end of months of updating and purifying……and keep our fingers crossed……naturally, as soon as we left, got two offers as we were driving away…..so now IN Contractus…….with any luck will be down to two houses by end of July….and then, really time to say our goodbyes, which we have studiously avoided through constant work back at the farm, regular hot tubbing and doing laundry….but the soul must have its rest…and the end is not in sight….
Leaving the new abode tuned out more emotional than expected….maybe it is just that it has been the Corona safety zone for months…our own castle and moat from the storm…..but it is also a lot easier to get ready to leave a 40 year old house than a 175 year old house….bet on that…….In our curbside pickups last week at grocery and Walmart, kept count of people wearing masks inside the stores and it hit a bit less than 30%…which is frightening….too much too soon…..greed Trumps safety….think there’s gonna be hell to pay…..
We had last bursts of social discourse before we left…more than in months….had Zoom cocktails with Phil et Maux (a first for us), socially distanced drinks on the deck with our realtor and fiancé, hands off cookout with The Nave and Suba an a garage side visit from our King of lawn mowing neighbor, Roger, across the street…who left us with reams of wipes, sanitizers and gloves for our journey (medical supply business)…plus he turned to be the community Yenta, regaling us with tidbits of choice gossip for folks from each house in the neighborhood………………..
The leaving and the drive east were uneventful, which is a first……very, very hot drive days, but newly fixed AC worked and Lucy slept for nine straight hours…no doubt in preparation for her patrolling duties on the Mount. We bit the bullet and stayed at our usual Marriott in Binghamton, which astoundingly is following a policy of five days between guests in each room…. with contact-less check in and outside entry to our condo like unit…seemed pretty safe…. ardent readers will remember this as the place of the fiery explosion last year when Stu tried to boil water on the stovetop where Jenn had placed the fridge shelf she had taken out. Though the room has gotten over the smell …. hey still had not replaced the missing shelf whish we surreptitiously took with us to avoid hellfire and brimstone…
Had the good fortune to run into local radio station somewhere in the middle- of – nowhere NY….and learned that the next day was the start of “speed week” in New York…..which fortunately I understood did not mean you could speed without penalty….the next day the patrol was out in abundance, trying to match their 24,000 tickets issued during last years “Speed Week”….but we were ready for them and arrived without citation for the first time in many years…also had a chance to hear Governor Cuomo’s daily Corona briefing…..WOW……it’s like a sermon from the mount….can we just all decide to have him be our fearless leader?….
Arrival back at The Inn was as expected…only worse……………. after being gone for two extra months….had phone troubles, usual infestations, grass two feet high in places, no hot water, broken dishwasher and multiple leaks…..oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam….something tidy and small, with a housekeeping staff and just one of them, please….needless to say, we have been at it for days, and starting to feel a smidgen on top of the chaos…..Friday brought an onslaught of our local peeps…who we had to hold at bay with stun guns…..Jewish Pig Farmer an Ms. JPF showed Friday night to bring us dinner and stayed ten feet way…but it went downhill from there….the Masseuse in the Trailer burst into the house with arms wide open foe hugging , before I made her, at gunpoint, go get her mask and stay at the threshold……then an endless stream…… we tried shouting about our two week Quarantinie requirement (which may be lifted this week be Herr Guvnor) with only moderate success…….Our local grocery, Hannaford, offers on line ordering and pickup, but no curbside (Boo!)…so yours truly entered a store for the first time in over 3 moths, with my Hazmat suit on….vey impressed with over 90% of shoppers wearing masks…….clearly very low incidence in these parts and getting better quickly, but also getting ready to re-open in earnest…and we know what happens when that happens……
Very uncertain about the whole thing about Race is like in the mountains, since everyone is white…and we have no TV, so cutoff from the 24-hour mind bend of protests and police rioting, which is a relief and somewhat unsettling both…….
Woke Saturday morning to the wafting through the window sounds of Bob Marley, which signaled the return of the Jamaicans down the hill……Lucy immediately joined them for the day……and we had to tie her down when the aromas of roasted goat began to drift up the in the evening….while The Queen hauled endless wheelbarrows of grass clippings in circles around the yard, I rolled down the mount to Wallingford and picked up dinner at Sal’s’…which we ate on the porch in barely 50 degree weather……an adjustment to be back to 70 degree (if lucky and not this weekend) days and 40 degree nights….
The Yard is a mess, the house is overwhelming, The Queen is running round (unkempt/ uncut hair flying in the wind…we have neither had a cut in three mints, and reverting to late 70s-early 80s dos) in circles with a jug of vinegar in one hand and her phone in the other to listening to a podcast on why vaccines are bad, ….But…The Pond…..can you say PRISTINE?
Gotta get tromping through the weeds and ticks and try to get the old machines up and running and stop water from flowing in various house orifices……………. River deep…Mountain High…
In A Gotta Da VITA….Baby…………….Stu
