Author: stumberry

Dear readers and sometimes friends:

“ It is only the empty mind that can see clarity”………………………………………………………………..Jiddu Krishnamurti

“ You can observe a lot by watching”………………………………………………………………………………..Yogi Berra

A middle aged married couple from New York go to Hawaii for the first time. The husband asks the wife on the flight if she thinks it is really supposed to be called Hawaii or Havaii- as he wants to not seem like a tourist, which she says she does not know. As they are getting their baggage claims in Honolulu, they see an elderly tanned man in a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, and the husband goes up to ask him whether the proper local pronunciation is Hawaii or Havaii to which he responds……” it is Havaii”. The relieved husband tells him thank you very much…to which he relies………”You’re Velcome.”

And that my friends, sums up our return to the heartland for the winter. Never an easy transition, this one was fraught with the usual sets of perils, with a variety of house related issues, the predictable cable company woes and trying to re-acclimate to the savage parkway lights outside out window all night long. But my home of 32 years, still feels like a sacred place with some comfort and appeal (probably only to me) in its familiarity.

So…THE BLOG…as you know I’m not really all that inclined to think that tales of life in Central Ohio have the same gravitas as those of the Mountain Greens ( as in, who really cares anyway)…but so many of you made the case for having some continued Sunday morning amusement (I know it’s a little late in the day, but I have been traveling a lot- so my times zones are confused) that I felt compelled to bore both you and myself with some form of diatribe.

So…brief it will be…but better than nothing…maybe……

The Selected Highlights of The Ups for living in the winter Heartland

• Spending time with Tess and Jake who are an hour away
• The new grand baby two hours away
• Seeing friends we’ve known since the 70s
• The hot tub on the deck
• The YMCA eight minutes away
• Take out Chinese five minutes away
• The airport 25 minutes away
• The Bunty Station boys playing the unique brand of Country and Eastern music every Monday night
• A plethora of accessible Ethnic restaurant
• A plethora of people of different colors
• Watching all the Cavs b-ball games on local TV
• Movies, movies, movies
• Grocery and Walmart five minutes away

The Highlights of The Downs of not being in the Greens

• Enough already with seeing our kids and grand kids
• Where are the mountains?
• Where is THE POND?
• The beloved inn at Scum Pond
• Sunday dinners at East
• Lunch at Java Baba
• Dirt roads and aimless drives and walks through them
• Sunshine more than once a week
• Darkness on the edge of town
• Community spirit
• Farmer’s markets
• Organic foods
• Our king size bed that we all three can fit in
• Walks in the woods everywhere you look
• The JPF, the JFM, the dump master, the masseuse in the trailer, the trout king…well, you get the picture

Have I mentioned that returning to the heartland seems to result in my making lots of lists?

So…we have much new bedding and nightly reports on available pickup trucks (some things are relatively the same wherever you are)

Since we have gotten back, I have been to Houston, Toledo, Minneapolis, Camden and Minneapolis again……all highlight destinations for winter travel

We had a lovely Thanksgiving at Jake’s grandparents with the whole extended family…. Grandpa is a retired Methodist minister so the celebration is in the re-assembled church basement in their house…..long folding tables, folding chairs, big coffee urns, industrial china…and prayerful chanting..…but we feel most welcome there….. and I believe they truly value having a token lapsed Jew in the mix

Lucy has adjusted to her other home and spends most of the frigid days perched on the top of the couch where she can stare out the window at the passing deer and motorists on the beloved parkway. She also seems to enjoy taking two thirds of the queen sized bed…effectively leaving Jenn and I to share a twin

So…life goes on…the holidays are approaching and Christmas cheer is everywhere (Have you been out shopping to experience the joy on people’s faces?)…and I think I have run dry…..got to go do some Bah Humbug bullshit as I am traveling next two weeks………and may talk to my children who are gathered together out in smoky San Diego…..and maybe see if we can get the house warmed over 65 degrees…

I might be back with Blogging at some point…but after this fiasco…who knows

Peace on you…..Preacher-Stu

Greetings kind readers:

“Until we find each other, we are alone”……………………………………………………………………………..Adrienne Rich

“ It’s not Vermont anymore, Dorothy”………………………………………………………………………………..Ferlin’ Norris

“ You call that a lining…..”…………………………………………………………………………………………………..Punch line to old Yiddish folk story (you’ll have to ask me to tell the story)

Where are the mountains? Where is my POND? Where is the Jewish Fish Monger?

It’s a long way, from a Zen perspective, from the mountains of Vermont to the amber fields of grain of the flatlands…but we have once again done our body/mind shifting thing. We picked up Jenn’s car last Sunday, and it was fully healed by Steve, the snowboard maestro- machine fixing- mountain-Zen mechanic. Though it set us back more than we’d like (for a car that was supposed to turn into the beloved pickup), it ran fine and our trip home was relatively uneventful. We packed the car in the snow on Tuesday (give me a break), with little Lucy ensconced in her perch in the back and ready to go 24 hours ahead of time….I thought she was going to spend the last night in the car, rather than run the risk of being left behind. Then we headed into town to take the overloaded Subaru on a test run and make some last goodbyes…it was shocking how many tears were shed all the way around at our leaving the homestead. After the requisite free lunch at Java-Baba, a mandatory Jenn trip to the laundromat to have all the bedding tidy and ready for when we come back in the spring….and last minute Stu jaunt to the Okemo fitness palace (one last hot tub, please) we arrived home to find Lucy had gone berserk with her anxiety that we had left her behind and taken off in the loaded car…..ripping most of the shit in my work book bag to shreds –including a whole bag of airline snacks of various persuasions, pencils, pens and a mini-calculator…I bet that was yummy. We reluctantly left her again to take the Last Supper with the JFM at East.. and then home to sleep one last night and await the plumbing crew…..who showed up at the crack of dawn and got us on our way earlier than usual.

Sunny day, beautiful late –Fall drive through the NY mountains and a night crammed into the hotel suite in Erie with the five of us sharing the queen bed. And….then… the fun started. Arrived home to water in the basement (faltering sump pump), no stove or oven and internet and phone problems…only made worse by the how- much -can –you- hate –one- company Time Warner tech guy coming out and screwing everything up-so that when he left we basically had no internet or phone service. Jenn had to talk me down from heading up to Waldo to the shotgun store to get my weapon of mass Cable company destruction.

But after two days of nonstop house fucking, we had everything working again and spent a full 32 degree day outside in the yard dealing with stuff people our age should have flunkies to deal with. By Saturday night we were essentially Zombies (the good kind) and went in search of Indian food, which left us exhausted and falling into bed by the time we came home…the Big City life is much more demanding than the mountains, apparently.

Sunday , we woke, wept –hit the chore list again, and then headed to the “Y” for Sunday service of the agnostic variety. After trying to get everything in order to be able to get there when they opened, Stu found himself with no gym shorts or bathing suit (we switched cars to give the old Jeep a little love)…but refusing to go back home, hit the lost and found and came away with a VERY young mans’ Speedo to work out in. Fortunately , my tee shirt was quite long which reduced the embarrassment quotient for Jenn. I suggested she take a photo, but she felt it better left to the imagination…so there you go.

Jenn has now done 28 loads of laundry and re-bedded the entire house and has reorganized everything in a wonderful way…so much so that I cannot find my underwear or skin cream…but all is good. I had dinner with my lovely Tessa last night at our Fave…The Cracker Barrel by the interstate-filled with Christmas shoppers at the checkout (who really goes there and buys shit? ) and then I left this morning for multi-city trip to Houston and Toledo, which involved a three hour drive to Detroit…don’t ask…but it was wonderfully reminiscent of driving to Hartford to catch a flight.

So- I think that is it…and may be for a while….still undecided about continuing the Blogging from the Midwest…..but feel free to chime in on that (assuming you’ve actually read this far down). As you can see, the narrative is not quite the same…but…who knows.

BGTEOALOARN….figure that one out all you master texters….

Love, Stu

Greetings fellow travelers:

“I embrace emerging experience. I participate in discovery. I am a butterfly. I am not a butterfly collector. I want the experience of the butterfly”…………………….William Stafford

“The only people for me are the mad ones- mad to live, mad to talk….”……………………………..Jack Kerouac

“God invented THE Jewish Mother to increase his coverage”……………………..Jewish Proverb

It has rained….and THE POND is replenished…coming back to its faded glory…..small heartwarming in a time of melancholy closure…the tress are bare, the days grow shorter, our yard is shutting down and the house is filled with boxes of tchotchkes……it is nearing the very last dance.

Autumn ending always feels like a time of great transition, and another year in the mountains is fast approaching its terminus. I gazed at the beauty of the full autumnal moon this week, and pondered looking at the same moon back in May, and wondering about the progression of moons over the next six months……and now they have come and gone, along with the sweetness of the mountain summer and fall. And baseball…the everlasting celebration of American summer has once again come and gone. The World Series ends….we go home.

There are two words that always send me back to the long asphalt- green summers of my childhood….and came vividly back through a visage that appeared at the last Dodger home games of the fall classic….Sandy Koufax…did you see him? Still looking like the gawky- grown -elegant Jewish lad from Brooklyn, who gracefully curved his way through Brooklyn and LA seasons- in -the -sun all those years ago….

But…we’re not done yet…so here is the brief Sunday Sermon (In truth, that probably already was the Sunday Sermon, and now I will bore you with the Sunday Ramble).

The rains came in earnest last weekend- Sunday was an all-day drencher (Go, Pond, GO!!!)..and we did a blitz of Sunday town things….and then the new week came, with even more rain…and the November cold setting in. We met the JPF (remember your codes, dear) for Chinese on Tuesday night at the beloved East, where we ate enough for a family of nine

Car maintenance (like flossing) may be overrated….we took Jenn’s car to the five minute oil change place last Sunday (it was more like 30 minutes….which probably means don’t go on a Sunday when only the Dweebs are working)..and after the oil change all of her check engine codes came on and the next day the car would not start or even jump . I won’t bore you with all the gory details (well, maybe a few) but our pickup truck buying- infused plans to make it home without fixing the car’s electrical problems went up in smoke. By the next day, the car was dead…and then Stu went in search of the Marriott….heading up to Minnesota on assignment (too secret to tell about)..and leaving Jenn stranded on the mountain top. This has resulted in a wild goose chase to secure a new fuse box in a very sort amount of time…which has led to multiple consternations and a much lighter wallet….and STILL up in the air, as of today. Is it possible to get three unhappy animals, two unhappy humans, ..and a house full of shit, into one car to return to the heartland?…You’ll have to wait until a final report next week to find the answer to this and other life altering questions …..We’ll call this the great pickup distraction of 2017…..On the plus side, all of this gave the Project Queen uninterrupted space to obsess for the remainder of the week..

So…Minnesota -specifically St. Paul….in November….not a pretty sight….like the frozen tundra of Garrison Keillor’s dreams… but, I did get in a few good meals, made some new friends, and stayed in a nice suite-in between freezing my ass off and fretting about how we would get back to Ohio. I had to drive 2 ½ hours to Hartford to get a direct to Minneapolis, and spent most of the time both ways trying to negotiate the amazing system that are Cable Providers…..give me a gun with scope and put me outside the Time Warner headquarters and let me make the evening news.…they may have changed their name to fool us , but its same shit, different day…this may be the absolute worst part of living in two places….can’t we just have universal internet and not have to deal with these morons?

So-as you can tell my tolerance level is decreasing as the trees go bare…..I suppose it is time to leave…maybe….who knows…can we have some headlights? Are there squirrels in our other abode? How many Trumps does it take to speak Russian?

In essence –the week has been filled with good-byes and last this and last that…blah, blah, blah…..so we packed up Lucy Saturday morning and headed out for a full days of “Lasts”… you can see the photo display tour of a “down from the mountain -day in town” to all our usual haunts…..we try to save all our wants for one day a week when we live in the mountains, and it is always an extravaganza…just like the old pioneer farmers heading to town on Friday night- sans Saloon….

I need some Zen, please…any Zen will do..….we’re down to days of packing and obsessing about lists…..heading out today to deal with the prep of the remaining car, hoping to get the other dead piece of shit running…. and putting up our annual plastic invention to ward snow off the house…sounds like fun???!!???

I’ll let you know next week how it goes….and be deciding whether to shut down the Blog …or send you boring tails of Midwestern winter…as well as those of a new set of home improvement projects and Marriott visits

I was working in the lab late one night, when my eyes beheld and eerie sight….He did the Mash….It was a smash……………………..You go Boys and Girls……..

Stumberry

My, My, Hey, Hey………..Autumn leaves won’t go away……

“Life is dance….and the dance goes on with or without us”…………………………………………………………………………OSHO

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Catskills hotel sign
President Johnson Slept Here
Haven’t changed a thing”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus For Jews

Rainy Sunday Blogsters…………Autumn closing, in the 40s after weeks in the 70s, the beauty of Autumn coming to a rapid close in the mountains and the dreaded Stick Season setting in (more sticks than leaves)…but we’re not done yet, though 11 days and counting until Exodus……… But, we get ahead of ourselves…….

Last Sunday was another God-like day and we did our morning chores and headed up to the hills of Shrewsbury to find another dirt road for the weekly WALK in the hills…this one a flat ridge line road with sweeping foliage vistas on both sides, horse barns, long winding rich -folk driveways…and lots of folk outside to greet Lucy as she romped through their yards and found rolling opportunities (almost always a bath coming for her after the walks….and then on to the couch for the night for her “I’m so tired”…..

Monday morning dawned warm and sunny and Jenn had her weekly coffee klatch visit from Robin Blue Skies, the trailer lady massage therapist…which is always one giant whirlwind of rambling ideas and folk remedies. I typically wander in and out of the animated “healing” conversation, which Robin calls the “Stu Dynamic Experience”. Robin almost never leaves the area, but we talked her into a Tuesday road trip, which seemed an unlikely bet at the time…but…..

Tuesday dawned warm but rainy and after a morning of dawdling, we picked up RoBS (you devoted texters should be able to figure that one out…LOL, TTYL, WTF…I’m practicing! )and headed across the mountains to the lovely Route 30 corridor which runs in a valley through two mountain ranges, with hawks and other flying predators circling on the cliffs on both sides, down through Wallingford, Poultney, Lake St Catherine and Wells to the hipster hamlet of Pawlet (stopping along the way for Lucy to have a Maple Creamee). Many years ago, we stopped at a jewelry artisan in Pawlet during the semi-annual Vermont Open Studio weekend. The jewelry was OK (how many jewelry artisans can there be in one small state?)- but her partner, Mark, created these whacked out homemade “Cigar- Box” guitars (just what they sound like). Like little Lucy, I store this stuff away- as she does with piles of shit to come back to roll in. When we went to the house concert a few weeks ago, we ran into Mark again, and I promised to come visit before we headed off into the wild blue yonder…..Ergo, the trip down to his fairy pixel workshop in Pawlet. This is an other worldly experience, where Mark talks non-stop for two hours and we get to try out everything he has made for the last six months; which included not only the usual Cigar-Box guitars, but resonator (Dobro-like) guitars, in which the metal centers are made from hubcaps, saw blades and BUNDT Pans!…..and I get to plug them in to his massive sound system and make enough noise to hear down in Albany…a rainy day well spent.

After leaving and several hours of the requisite driving around in circles, which took Robin a bit to acclimate to, but eventually she took to like the bear in our bird feeders, we met her partner, Mike, for a celebratory dinner at the Poets of Fish in Fair Haven, for the prodigious Prudential (read “early bird”) dinner…as Jenn likes to say “one of our faves”…..

Which was, for the most part, the extent of my mountain week, since Wednesday morning I hauled down to Boston to catch a flight to Kansas City to spent several days at a sex offender conference (I’ll leave you to figure that one out, talk amongst yourselves)….which led to a lot of discussion about (but nor any real) sex, multiple meals of KC BARBQ, a bit of jazz and a bunch of streetcars (emulating San Francisco, obviously). Friday night, I arrived back in Boston (an airport from hell) close to midnight and had decided not to make the almost four hour trip home, so booked a Marriott (so Jenn could fee free to project herself out) about a half hour up the I-93 corridor….which went fine until I got within five miles of the exit and encountered an electronic road sign that said “ Exit 44- four miles, 73 minutes”)…uh- oh….way to late to sit in traffic after midnight after a full day of travel…so bolted across four lanes to the beckoning exit and drove off into the absolute end of the world, middle of nowhere darkness of Massachusetts. After ten minutes of despair, I pulled over and found a cell signal….and with baited breath and prayer, called my own private Moses (the Prodigal in San Diego), who I actually found at home on a Friday night….and who then did his Moses thing and led me out of the wilderness on wild circles of back roads to the hotel in 17 minutes…..which , I believe , is why we have children…

Spent short noisy night in the Town Place Suites (can’t people just stay home and have sex?). I drove home Saturday morning through a wonderful autumn sunshiny day, with the bonus of getting the last of the Peak in central New Hampshire as I took the overland mountain route (like in the Himalayas)…finally arriving home mid- afternoon just in time for a nap and the world series..

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Jenn managed to get in four secret home improvement projects , which she thought I would not notice….and then spent three days obsessing in the gardens. By the time I came home, she was bent over and coughing up blood, but very self-satisfied …The Project Queen even managed to lure over The Jewish Pig Farmer on Saturday morning with some giant piece of Goyishe Farm Implement, to dig up a bunch of garden areas, since she is on to planning next year’s array of projects (I’m on the Marriott website booking nights as we speak)

While on the road this week I got to watch the video of the five living ex-Presidents at the storm fundraiser…..can we please have one of them, any one of them…BACK… now please? I will be more than satisfied with a Bush, if you don’t mind. The Trumpster had the good sense to stay away so as not to seem like the slow boy in the class, and to not get pummeled with organic carrots…but, I’m trying to stay away from anything overtly political as you know…

Ok…enough already…look at the pictures….I suppose I just could have sent them and left your brains alone on a quiet Sunday morning, but can’t seem to help myself (seems I never run out of things to say)……so wherever you are, enjoy your day, try to love on another right now, right, right now, right now………A-River-Der-She

The Wannabe Prophet

Autumn greetings my friends and near-friends:

“Our identity as a nation, unlike other nations, is not determined by geography or ethnicity, by soil or blood. … This means that people from every race, religion, ethnicity can be full and equally American. It means that bigotry and white supremacy, in any form, is blasphemy against the American creed”……………………………………………….George W. Bush

“A leaf falls from joy”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Virginia Woolf

“This you call poetry?”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Jewish Proverb

After three weeks, it has remained Peak-ish in the mountains, which is some sort of tantric gift from the leaf Gods…..I mean what could be better than Autumn in Vermont?

So-we are on serous countdown now, with takeoff just 2 ½ weeks way….which is both challenging and traumatizing. Our yard tchotchkes have been disappearing into the recesses of the barn, the gardens are being systematically cut into nubs by the Project Master, and the tedious planning list is underway as a daily chore (can you say “I hate Time-Warner”?). Tuesday-after recovering from our previous week’s adventures- we spent a chilly day cleansing the yard of personality and engaging in mortal battle with the kayak roof rack on the Subaru….someone designed that one as an alternative to water boarding…..Once completed, as a reward, we went to Rutland to shop at Walmart and Hannaford (oh, goody, goody..) and had dinner at a very local downtown place in the shadow of Walmart that we and never tried- Kelvans- which turned out to be a very homey Vermont dining experience (even though we were greeted at the door with the warning that their “fryolator” was out….whatever that means-some kind of mountain magic cooking device, I presume)

The trip led me to the perplexing question of whether all Walmarts universally attract the same lookalike customers (us excluded, of course) or whether the same people travel around from Mart to Mart?

And the other question of note-“ where do Vermonters go during Stick season”?….brought on by the fact that I find myself routinely these days being the only human being at the ski resort gym…which I’m not complaining about..…but it is a bit reminiscent of “The Shining…

Midweek, we had another in a long line of heat waves- going into the mid-70s AGAIN…….our plants are all uber- growing, flowers are coming back up in the yard, the Pond is almost a dry gulch, Jenn is wearing her bathing suit around the house and to the store….and Stu is wearing shorts daily in mid-late October….D-O-N-A-L-D…are you listening? In any case, this corresponded with my last dance up to Montpelier to meet with the Governors’ Council. My goodbyes, until the spring, punctuated with “oh- enjoy Florida” and “must be nice to winter in the tropics”….which begs asking if missed some important memo along the way?

By the way, are you sick yet of all of my foliage photos? ……Sorry…I can’t help myself…..mesmerized by the God-like colors popping up everywhere I look….so just riffle through them if you’ve had enough…..even though you may miss THE one image that will change your life forever….

On Friday, Jenn left to go play with various dogs and find inspirations for her secret projects for next year, so I had a “Stu hangs in Vermont day”….which starts by cavorting around the house in the morning, ostensibly doing some form of change–the- world work at my computer, while actually reading stories about the coming NBA season and the pending season premier of Shameless….then off to the Gym while, of course, taking many repetitive foliage pictures along the way…..spending two hours in the Shining-like facility……then to my regular post-gym lunch at Java Babas, where my latest mother surrogate, Beverly, sits with me while I eat and read the Rutland Herald, and then refuses to let me pay (I have not paid for lunch in months)…..Beverly and her accomplice daughter Kate have offered me free lurch for one year if we would stay here for the winter, which is quite the temptation…….then back up the mountain, stopping to snap a few more must-see leaf pix……then on to the post office, where the hippy-dippy post mistress, Nicki, is refusing to give me any packages because “you’re leaving anyway” (who do you love, who do you love?”)…..then a quick stop at the General Store, to hear owner-curmudgeon, Kevin’s, daily grunting about the weather (too damn cold…too damn hot….too wet…too dry…you get the picture)……and finally, home for a little reading and late afternoon required nap- followed by bit of the baseball playoffs to root against the hated Yankees, since that is all that is left to do for this post season…..and this….is my Vermont world in a nutshell….

Late Friday afternoon, in the beauteous twilight of an autumn day in the mountains, we headed up Bowlesville road for the lung -busting walk to the top and The view. We trudged and Lucy sprinted up- past the growling/howling mongrel dogs at the squatter/renter folk , the empty summer places, the vestiges of the famed Austria House and the abode of our currently Cape-bound friends John and Lydia (in other words no one there on the road)….up to the top and then up the logging road for ten minute to the log with THE VIEW. Quite warm and Indian summer like (do you know where that phrase comes from? I’ll drive readers over the edge if I espouse on it here, but you can contact me for personal and inexpensive consultation on this). At the view spot we noticed a newly mowed path into the woods and followed it along several ubiquitous stone walls (what are they doing here, who built them, what are they walling?) to a remote billion dollar view cabin in a clearing…..sitting on top of a mountain. No idea how long it has been there since it was previously not apparently accessible, but we think it is part of the two billion acres own by the son of Halidol (refer to Blog entry dated 9/14 for more on Halidol and Helen…just kidding, but I’ll leave you to use your imagination).

It’s been a quiet weekend since, with more yard cleanup, putting the yard equipment down for the winter, blowing leaves in circles (far-out) and making a trip down to have dinner at East with the JFM (refer to blog entry #___). Currently waiting for our overnight guests to head back to the Poughkeepsie burbs (I think they are lost up Bowlesville Rd. searching for the billion dollar view). A mother and daughter from Oaxaca, Mexico, who apparently made it over the wall with their little Chihuahua like dog yapping all the way (some border patrol types need firing, don’t you think?). Probably the last of our guests at the Inn for the year…but who knows.

I’m off this week to Kansas City (Kansas City, here I come) to present at a conference and have some Jazz and BARBQ……the trip will take me about 14 hours each way, culminating in sled dogs…..

See ya……

Stu-bert