Hola:
“There comes a time when one asks of Shakespeare, even of Beethoven, “Is this all?” ………………………………………………………………………………. Aldous Huxley
“There will always be suffering, but we must not suffer over the suffering” …………………………………………………………………………………………………. Alan Watts
“Truth is something you stumble into when you think you are going someplace else” ……………………………………………………………………………………Jerry Garcia
Did you ever have to make up your ind? ……To pick up one and leave the other behind? It’s not often easy, it’s not often kind…did you ever have to make up your mind?…………………………..
Kids in Disney’s very hot summer universe pix attached for viewing….
Oh Queen, where art thou? The Queen (TQ) has re-established her court in The Mount….connecting with her volunteer efforts, her bone building, her posse and her rituals….out an about doing the deeds daily….developing new efforts to hand re-invent the land with the evisceration of our rear section of overgrowth; now housing a varietal of dug up and relocated saplings abducted from many trails and dirt roads…….and in her efforts to eradicate mowable space has now erected a tomato tent smack dab in the middle…she spends her days swathed in white fiber and black fly netting happily humming her way around the manse…dreaming up new and better projects…
Whilst, TQ engages in her efforts at yard eradication, social change and woman power, I search for lunch. I search near and I search far – and am befuddled by the utter lack of options regardless of direction….Since Covid, eating option losses include: beloved Sal’s in Wallingford, once beloved Sam’s Steakhouse (early bird deal of the century), the only locals place in tourist-bound Ludlow (Da café at DaLite), local legend Harrys , the local subway (only a slab now), and our closest grocery store and drug store-and of course, our local general store (closed two years now, and still under perpetual construction)….we are evaporating…..there is still lunch around- at about $13 a sandwich pop….which far. far exceeds my sensibilities and my allowable dally quota………where have all the flowers gone…where is the free lunch…where art the men that I used to sport with?………
Dirt road walks have resumed in earnest…with Lucy Lou far racing off into the woods to chase the very evasive “chippie” (any form of rodent that runs away) ……and …… to come back covered in a- animal shit, b- dead animal carcass, c- poison ivy or d- Lyme-bearing Ticks……………. it’s a dangerous world out there…….
Transitioning from suburban convenience to the rural mountain landscape always creates adjustments. But these have become increasingly challenging (post Covid-post floods) and represents daily exotic (NOT erotic!) puzzles to solve. Obtaining a jug of milk is akin to crossing the frontier in a covered wagon, sometimes amounting to an hour and a half of roundtrip journey. This week I continued my mountain auto and phone journeys; finding my way back to the original sin, car dealer dealership to resume my efforts at defeating the random, flashing error lights that haunt my vehicle- this all before my 100,000-mile warranty expires next week.
Even more challenging has been the amazing quest to secure a battery that might permit my medieval cell phone to take advantage of the newly spectacular availability of cell service at The Mount- with our switch to lovable Consumer Cellular. But alas, not a battery within a 2-hour drive and the online mavens take a full week plus to find us- and that, only by having the orders sent to a fake mailbox belonging to the Masseuse at the Trailer. Having finally been notified of delivery, I found her mailbox empty, then realizing that the benevolent, but not so competent, folks at the government’s mail dictatorship had kindly decided to not deliver to the proscribed address- but instead to lovingly hold this for me at my post office box- which had just closed for the next two days. In disbelief, we messaged our friendly former postmistress, who agreed to meet us at the boarded up facility, to allow us access the long sought forbidden fruit; only to discover we had been sent the wrong battery. Apparently, No phone for Bonzo- not yet, not today, maybe Tuesday….. Did I mention some things are more challenging in the mountains?
Has anyone watched “The Patient” on Hulu………. Role of a lifetime and show of the year……….. A rare piece of true small screen art……… Watch for coming review.
Is anybody watching the NBA playoffs? Hard to maintain interest in June for the 50 million dollar men………. It’s time for baseball, no?
Been trying to use speech recognition to offset constant stress of typing…. with mixed results. While dictating this I coincidentally passed gas, resulting in the computer asking me “what was that?”
On the upside of mountain transitions, there is a fine dirt road waiting around every bend, the wonderfully empty Spring house at Okemo as my personal exercise facility and trails in the woods directly outside my door to romp down for my jogs………… Not to mention the plethora of Creamee opps, shimmering lakes, regular jaunts to the one and only Ramuntos pizza, farmer’s markets ubiquitously placed and 85 degrees’ days with no humidity.
Our mountain milieu provides a comforting safe harbor after the fruitless search for something resembling free lunch and a half day spent going to town for provisions, like some Friday night’s farmer’s ritual ….and then cruising Rutland’s’ miracle mile, back and forth, for hours on end, searching for one good thing…. left de circle…………….…right de circle……
Today we will try to connect with the legendary Trout King-to get The Pond its annual burst of macrobiotic energy in the form of his magic $300 secret bucket of nutrients, then a possible visit to a cancer ailing friend and the wiling away of what looks like a rainy day- such is a Sunday in the Greens.
Until we meet again can-just try and reach me…. if you can …. good luck with that. Be well one and all.
Estuardo
