“How long have I been waitin’ for you,
How long have you been on your way.
How long have I been waitin’ for you,
Only forever…yes forever and a day”……………………………………………………………………..Jonathan Edwards
“You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.”……………………………………….Pema Chodron
“The day is coming when a single original carrot will give birth to a revolution”……Paul Cezanne
“Left the door open
for the Prophet Elijah,
Now the cat is gone.”………………………………………………………………………………Haikus for Jews
Good Yontif fellow Wanderers:
Have you been monitoring your Sunday calendars? Counting the days? Ant….tici…pa…tion…….Well….it’s time. Am going to do my best to keep this on this short (doubtful) intro side, since the Queen of Mt. Holly has begun excavating our buried-for-the winter treasures from the basement…and is probably wondering where I am hiding ….but…here we go…
Little Darlin’…its ben a long and lonely winter….cold and wet in the heartland and many delayed and cancelled work trips (who in their right mind takes on a project in St. Paul in the winter?). We did get off to see the prodigal in Paradise (SD) in January and then to annual Keys pilgrimage in March. The Bunty Band played every week this winter with our ridiculously ambitious project to recreate, note by note, the Byrds seminal 1968 Sweetheart of the Rodeo album…to honor the 50th anniversary of its groundbreaking release…..it’s been quite the challenge, and we will be performing it and studio recording in August here in the Greens (3rd annual summer band-visit extravaganza). Jenn did Yoga fourteen times a week all winter and developed a new set of codger cronies at the nearby ecological center.
But….what got us through the winter (and will be keeping us as snowbirds to Ohio) is the two grand babies. We lunched with little Sloane (heretofore spoke of a “Bebe”) and her parents (that would be Tess and Jake) _ every Sunday and got to baby sit and gather many times. We watched Bebe grow from a veritable bump on a log to a six month work of nature. As we left, she had begun to eat food other than mother’s milk- which is quite the adventure in naked debauchery. Missing the next three months of her rapid aging has made the mountain return bittersweet….she may be dating by the time we see her again in July.
We also made near monthly trips and holiday get togethers with our older granddaughter, sweet and precocious Quinnly, who is the trip to end all trips. She will be two in a few weeks and has recently focused her impressive language skills on two words at the moment..…No….and Myself….as in when you are trying to help her put the little boot on the right foot ,and she pushes you away with “No…Myself”…..we are going to have the amazing privilege of having her here with us in the mountains for ten days in May while Ry and Lauren go off to Greece…which will be incredibly exciting and adventurous….and may require a visit to the rehab center for both of us once she goes home.
And …now… we are back in the saddle…arrived mid-day Friday to a high of 38 and snow flurries…apparently skipping Spring altogether here…and have spent the last 48 hours trying to find everything we hid away from the mice and bears. Going pretty well….we have heat (and need it), water, internet, TV and phones….so not complaining …as I sit and type this missive wearing hat, coat and gloves….while Jenn hangs out in the warm basement….…
We did a quick shopping trip to town yesterday, visiting the usual haunts (can you say Ramuntos Pizza?). Stopped at the post office in search of our first lost Amazon delivery of the season (they can’t find us on our mountain dirt road)..and then on to the Dump, where Lucy went berserk with garbage-joy- and where Stu received the gift of a winter parka from Kevin the Walrus Dump Master from his Belmont trading shack. Did I mention that we unloaded our cars in cold , pouring rain for hours…and that I failed to bring any form of winter wear with me (I do have my snorkel gear though, pending my new work assignment in the Caribbean…but more on that in a later missive).
So… I’ll close with a travel anecdote and a survey: Every year we have some unbelievable last minute adventure getting back here (exploding shaving cream, no keys for our house here with us, etc.)-but this year our journey went exceedingly well with no mishaps….until…we reach our overnight stay in lovely Binghamton, NY at the nice little Residence Inn we usually stay at. If you’ve stayed at this Marriott chain, you know they have a nice kitchen for longer term stays. So….as we are unpacking, Jenn brings in our small cooler, and rather than unpack into the refrigerator, she takes out a shelf and puts in the whole cooler …and… places the solid glass – encased- in- plastic rim shelf on the top the black glass- top electric stove (yeah, yeah…I’m getting to it). She then takes Lucy for a walk and I decide to boil us some tea water (foreshadowing?), and place the pot of water on what appears to me to be a special stove top covering . While I then am waiting for the water to boil and e- mailings the Nave to let him know we had avoided any travel- drama, I smell smoke and the plastic casing around the glass fridge shelf that- has been placed on top of the stove…is up in major flames. I keep my wits about me and douse it with the pot of water…which immediately explodes the entire glass shelf into flying shrapnel across the entire suite.
Once I emerge from under the kitchen table and Jen returns, we begin the laborious two hour process of picking up a thousand shards of glass and then making a trip to Walmart to buy scrubbers and scrapers to get the melted plastic off the expensive and brand new stove.
But, really it was a drama –free trip………………………….
So…here is the survey question. Remember the Saturday Night Live routine that posed the question “Qui es moy macho”?….Fernando Lamas or Riccardo Montalban? So I’d like to pose the new question….Qui es moy loco?…….
Queen Jennifah- for putting a glass shelf on top of the stove and not mentioning it…or…
Estuardo…for deciding that this was special stove covering and then boiling water on top of a glass shelf
Choose one only…and good luck with this contest.
Time to get off to the basement and prepare to have our first socialization- going to a 21st birthday party tonight for our sometime yard-boy, Ian…
But.. there will be more…you can count on it.
Love and kisses,
Estuardo
