Bonjour:
“Bad pennies don’t tell you their motivation, until they wear a hole in your britches” …James Lee Burke
“A traveler. Let my name be thus known, This autumnal shower …………………………Basho
“The days re growing shorter, the nights are getting colder. Got to get myself back home, put my head back on your shoulder” ……………. Jesse Winchester
Oh my, my…..been a frolicking two week and last week got away from me living I your five –year-old manna…..had a last blast of warmth this week, but won’t see 55 again for the duration….12 days and counting till takeoff……71 years of American Dreams…… the world is a stinker these days…too much hate….but I am pressing on with hope and Elam in spite of…..
So back to the beginning….weekend before last we gathered via invitation from The Mountain Activist and The Retired Czar of the Postal Service for a Sunday date on a fine fall afternoon….made our annual trek up to Redding, and the flood ravaged-now reopened , and most unusual Hall foundation, for the Warhol extravaganza and a slightly less compelling Susan Rothenburg (are those really all vaginas?) exhibits…all in meticulously restored 200 year-old barn/ galleries…..after which we drifted back to Ludlow to the Hometown Hotel for the areas classic family style, farm to table feast in a private dining room…what is not to like?
That day saw the return after a week or so absence of Lucy’s Pitty suitor, Ivy……who has been wandering into the house at times but is deathly afraid of the fearsome Saffron, who reared up at her once like the Queen of Sheba…. Ivy typically drifts down twice a day (escaping the clutches of Dennis the Menace and Proud but Silent Mary, up the hill), to kick on our door and request Lucy’s company…. should we just take her back with us on the QT?
Monday, we strode out bright and early for the required yearly pilgrimage to the Champlain islands…where Cozy-Cottage Alan (whom we have now visited for 20 years running)….put us in the Big-Ass family deluxe cottage right on the Big Lake…with three bedrooms and FIVE couches…gas woodstove and very large TV….enough for the whole miscpachah……I managed to nap on each of the couches over our three days….along with rollin’ and driftin around the deserted Islands…finding the brilliance of autumn colors we have missed this year near home….the whole thing is a homely wanderlust for us….with our annual stops at The Apple Man and the Happy Bird, and dreamy hikes at all the ghost-town like state parks…we don’t even go out to eat when there any more…lazy and hangin’ at the very non-tropical islands…it’s not Jamaica, after all…..
Made day long drive back thru several of the mid-state mountain gaps on way home and worked on putting our proverbial house in order for the arrival of the post nuclear family on Thursday….TQ stayed home to fanatically clean, whilst I buzzed down the i-91 corridor to The Hartford, the pickup Tess, Sloanie and great niece, Lena, Lena, Bo-Beena at the Big (for us) airport….made a stop to dawdle with Dr. Seuss and lunch at the surprisingly hip Springfield , Mass and then bore a mostly cold and wet four days with jaunts to the Sparkle Barn, charming Woodstock shop (T and L only), hunting for late-season Creamees, multiple meal negotiations, mounds of wet leaves to jump in, Ramuntos, the Vermont Country Store, Ramuntos, and a quaint trunk or treat event in Rutland..…either we kept Sloanie very busy or she kept us hopping-in-place…not sure which one….the birthday fairy (she just turned FIVE) visited daily (initially leaving her gifts for wake-up time- bur adjusting to only while we were out eventually- after Sloane demonstrated her intent to be up at 6 am daily to greet the fairy) and NanaPapi also produced brand new pair of flashing, noise-making roller skates that portend many calamities to come…..shuttled them back down to Albany on Monday, with Diner stop and finding a park to minimally rid the energy…though might have found one of the worlds’ great playgrounds with every kind of climbing apparatus, super-sized swinging devices and a zip line……all of it attracting the young and youngish adults as well as the kiddo…the post-airport drive home was VERY quiet….and led to significant lie-downs once arrived….could say a lot more, but every picture tells a story, story….
Have I mentioned I got my ghost-symptom car back for the fourth time……after dealer had it four weeks and consulted with the striking Detroit experts..…pronounced cured….again….and next day all the error lights came back on and created the usual associated multiple problems…..scheduled to try again this week and get my Ferlin-dedicated loaner, but having my doubts and thinking maybe I can live with the flashing lights and related chaos…or need to visit the big boys in the Heartland….…trying to decide how to respond to the Jeep survey on my dealer experience,…they’ve TRIED….
No sooner had they all left, then I bore back down the mountains to Albany for a quick two-nighter in lovely Baltimore (85 degrees) for my re-invigorated Casey efforts at changing the world..…back in the saddle again…..very bad at retirement…..stayed at the very chic Hotel Indigo in the wonderful Mt. Vernon area, with nations of diversity and associated restaurants, and had a god daylong meeting with an age group ranging from 22 to early 70s (guess who), and including our own rainbow……dinner at a grand Ethiopian joint with my great nephew and budding sports magnate, Matthew…and then at the legendary afghan Helmand’s, owned by the self- lf proclaimed Brother of Karzai….it’s not Vermont anymore, Dorothy….am I really re-he re-entering the consulting world?
Got back late Friday and spent Saturday doing ready-to-bolt chores and then a dinner party (really, like in the movies) hosted by The Mad Scientist and the Self Proclaimed Trophy Wife…and featuring eight pieces of silverware at each setting……all under the protection of the biggest Harvest –Moon is recent memory…. signaling it’s time to leave?
Nuked our planned trip to Maine for this week…enough is enough……and now in the arrangin’, fixin’, plannin’ mode…walk a mile in our shoes, if you please….25 miles to go now…it’s late, it’s late…. gotta go, before the snow…
Enjoy the Autumn dwindle wherever you are….and make good hay…
Estuardo
