Author: stumberry

Greetings fellow travelers:

“I felt in need of a long pilgrimage, so I sat still for three days”…………………………………………………………………….KABIR

“BLT on toast-
the rabbi takes his first bite,
then……… the lightning bolt”…………………………………………………………………………………………………..Haikus for Jews

“ Long may you run, with your (chrome) heart shining in the sun, long may your run”……………………Neil Young (for Bob)

The Blog Man, The Blogster, the Blog-a Rama…is back. Were you wondering? Did you wake up on Sunday …and say “what the F….”? Well- no worries, just behind the eight ball after a busy week of leaf trippin’ and assorted mountain doings.

On the home stretch of our time in the mountains foe this year….three weeks and counting….and the mental fog is setting in. The leaves are tumbling off the trees, the nights are freezing (high of 45 yesterday), the POND is shrinking to nothingness….and the heartland harkens……

After the rumble of Cider Daze faded to a whisper last weekend, we spent a few days recovering- watching endless baseball post season (what happened to The Sox and The Tribe?)- and regaining Yankee-hating roots (Stu)…and finding a series of home improvement projects and pick up purchases to obsess about (Jenn).

But Tuesday dawned bright and weirdly hot….and off we set for the last of our Fall Outings- up to the Champlain Islands for our annual post peak sojourn. Despite thinking that we had peaked on colors (no tripping involved)- we were pleasantly shocked to see the peak in full regalia in many places on our journey (which has amazingly continued here in the mountains for yet another week-maybe we skip stick season this year? ) A benefit of the fake global warming?.

We have stayed in the same little cottage in Grand Isle for over ten years now….never making a reservation, but calling the man when we are sitting on the road by his sign (that is how we first found the place, and we hate to mes with Juju-(sort of like a ballplayer on a winning streak not changing his underwear for three weeks)…but this year to Alan’s amazement, we called on the way there- a FULL two hours in advance. So we got to the cottage, where it was almost 80 degrees in mid-October , and took off for an Island ramble. The Islands are a very different beast , even in northern climes, operating on some version of “Island time”….so we adapted…doing little or nothing for three days. Blue, cloudless skies, warm days, cool nights, sunsets and endless driving in circles around the four tiny interconnected islands that comprise the chain….best described as Scenic and Fragrant (did I mention the popularity of dairy farming in the area?). We once again hit the St. Anne Shrine for spiritual boosts, found a little BARBQ smoke house in the middle of nowhere to take out supper. ….and had a number of pack-naps (see Stu and Lucy Sprawl to oblivion)

We returned home on Thursday afternoon with a giant bag of unbelievably peak apples, a stinking Lucy (rolled in every pile of cowshit she could find) and bevy of photos (I apologize in advance for the deluge). Our friend Marianne stayed at the house while we were gone (“how much for the giant bed in the guest room”, she queried) and to our delight our neurotic cats had limited themselves to peeing in the litter box-after several recent trips away in which they decided that the laundry basket was preferable). Spent Friday catching up; me to the gym and errands/work, Jenn to look at an assortment of pickup trucks and attending to slight tweaking on home improvement projects.

Saturday morning again dawned with another heat wave (Donald?)..and we packed and set off down to the Woodstock area of New York to my very old friends Ed and Stephanie’s (interpret “very old” as you wish) for a weekend reunion of my childhood Bronx friends- several of whom I’ve known over 60 years from the cradling days. Out of the BIG TEN of our childhood gang (think Sharks and Jets), we had six of us and our significant others (one has passed on, one is ill, the other two semi-nuts) which included two of the guys wives, who were also part of childhood pack. We grew up as stickball legends on the streets of New York (typically achieving wining margins of 105 to 7 –or such) and morphed into a very young championship level traveling softball team on the asphalt playgrounds all over the city (THE HAWKS). In between, we managed to stay mostly out of jail through the grace of a higher power, our hardnosed parents and our late benefactor, Bob, who passed last spring. We raised many glasses to our two departed friends (Bob and Bobby G. ), and humored ourselves with many mean-streets story- legends (the wives retreated to the safety of the kitchen while we held forth on the deck on a beautiful Saturday afternoon). We laughed, we cried, we smoked Cubans and ate prodigious amounts of Italian deli spreads and sugared delights from the Bronx bakeries. It was kind of what happens when you start with …”two Wiseguys, two shanty Irish , a Cop and a Yid walk into a bar”…..). It had been 40 or so years since were in the same place, and a national holiday for us to re-gather in our semi-declining years. I heard tales that I had not thought of (for good reason) in many decades. On Sunday, my friend Eddie (who looked like Marlon Brando when we were kids and looks like a much later Brando now) led us in homegrown making of the Mozzarelle, which only cemented the total peculiarity of the experience (a total Bronx thing)

Frankly, how lucky can you be to get to do this? Suffice it say, I have undying love for Mikie, Eddie, Eddie, Ricky and Curry….an despite the distances, always will.

While there, Jenn and I fit in a trip to the all-night Diner (a classic) for late night breakfast and spent the night in FULL-SIZED bed in a BnB….which meant Jenn and I had half of the bed and Lucy the other half…so sleepless in Stone Ridge was our theme. We left to the chants of “same time next year”, which would be beyond amazing if it comes to pass.

Back on the ranch now, and preparing to spend a work day getting the property ready for exodus….what a week in the mountains….so be well, my friends and semi-friends…and pick up as many wooden nickels as you can.

Stubert

Obla- dee –obla-doh…..life goes on……….and Sunday greetings to all:

“I ain’t the kind who gives up, but I’m so tired of rain…Lord, I’m just an orphan of the storm”………………………………………Tom Petty

“There ain’t no answer. There ain’t gonna be no answer. There never has been an answer. There’s the answer.”……..Gertrude Stein

“Add cholesterol,
overcook, then serve with bread
recipe revealed”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

It’s been a busy, busy week in our hometown….and further abound in the mountains…..hence the volume of photographic narrative…Stu cannot resist snapping the mélange of colors.

We started last Sunday by taking a dirt road ride up to the hills of nearby Shrewsbury to the Reinbow Riding Center, for a BBQ to thank the volunteers and musicians who helped out at their fundraiser in August….lots of kids and horses and burgers (not related to horses ) and could not resist stalking and snapping all the kids for photos (I did not wear a raincoat for this). From there it was down to Belmont, to the community center, for the opening of the 2019 calendar contest (you may remember that Stu’s shot of the sunset shrouded bikers was featured on the back cover of the 2018 calendar (available for $20 American)…..my photo submission for this year is amongst 80 or so, and once again, was denied any prize at the ceremony…my strikingly absurd photo of a farmers’ Sunday day off apparently did not measure up to the prize winning shots of purple flowers and butterflies (no sore losing here)

Anyhow…I digress….the week has been a whirlwind since then, which is quite well chronicled in the abundance of photos….so I will once again promise (though not be held to it) to keep my narrative to highlight minimum…..

We took off on Tuesday, after a Monday day of mowing an recuperation, for the second week of Fall outings (read…leaf peeping)…off to the northern Adirondacks for an overnight…where we had the first evidence of a glistening autumn foliage..…complete with a night in at the Innsbruck Inn (not nearly as glamourous as it sounds) in Lake Placid and a visit to the fading Olympic splendor of that era. Unfortunately they would not allow us to join the practicing Jamaicans on the bobsled run. Part of our trip was absorbed with Jenn’s fascination with all things pick-up truck….so we analyzed every single truck we saw…..I am now learning that what we need to find is a non-garish, only slightly extended cab, 4×4 (not sure what that means yet) that has a shitload of payload…….

We returned Tuesday night to clean up cat shit and vomit and then spent a busy day on Thursday preparing for the BIG weekend, before heading up Route 100 to lovely quaint Randolph to see the legendary David Bromberg Band at the Chandler Center for the Arts. We discovered a quirky Thai restaurant in a big old house on the hill for quick dinner, and then had the great fortune to hear one of the greatly undervalued musicians of our time- back in the groove after 20 year hiatus to make violins…and it was Magic. The small theater was filed to capacity with stoned white-hairs ( I’m sure Jenn was the youngest person there) and the old times were BIG fans and you could hear a pin drop when the five piece band stood at the tip of the stage and played lovely soft acoustic songs. The drive up there was marked by astounding fall colors in the fading afternoon light….and the full moon- lit night provided deep shadowy hues coming home in the dark…..can you say Autumn in Vermont?

So, then came Friday….which meant the official start of our beloved Cider Daze weekend here in the little hamlet in the mountains…..when herds come to our little town green to see apples pressed into cider on our 200 year old cider press, and generally cavort and shop till they drop amongst the fallen leaves. We had a series of one night guests for the holiday weekend (Columbus Day weekend is the biggest holiday of the year in the mountains)…..all Boston emigres in search of color and quaint…and we have now become zealots of over commitment to the towns gala activities…Jenn has now accepted the role as the reigning QUEEN of the local community association…so I have not seen her in the last 72 hours, as she held court at the DAZE. Friday night was Festival set up and band practice for our set on Saturday. Saturday morning we sent the Bostonites back to the Hub, greeted new ones, cleaned the house, volunteered at the Green, played a set of music with a rag tag bunch of endlessly out of tune musician friends, then ran over to volunteer/ work the annual roast beef supper….where I spent the night unsuccessfully lobbying Jenn to get first dibs for my tables, as she controlled the distribution of the dripping red beef platters and fixins..…and eventually wandered home in a stupor after the final leaf peepers had gone back to their BandB domains. Once again, they have tried to exile me from serving at the dinner, because I wind up serving everyone else’s assigned tables, and can’t seem to pass up a plate that needs refilled or removed, while collecting free glasses of wine from my grateful patrons…which only leads me to more table hogging….

So, now it Sunday ..AGAIN, mind you…and Jenn is off again doing her Royal duties, while I lick my wounds, write this missive, and have exacting political conversations with our last exiting guests, a pair of 16 or 17 year olds it seems…but cute, in a nerdy, biotech sort of way….

So…I once again filled a bunch more pages with stuff you probably could not care less about…but who really cares, anyway…and now it is time to go check out the mostly empty POND…and prepare for another hectic week of travel, autumn leaves, watchin’ Lucy get humped by strange dogs, avoiding tourists…….an enjoying the glory of this season.

Peace out ma familia,

Father Stu

Greetings fellow travelers and happy Sunday:

“On the journey to myself I’ve been so many people”……………………………………………………..Indigo Williams

“Shine like the whole universe is yours”…………………………………………………………………………….RUMI

“The pure white lotus-
how rare to glimpse it parked in
my neighbor’s driveway”…………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

It’s been a wild week in the mountains- started out with classic Fall weather last weekend- leaves turning, blue skies, autumnal moon…and then had four straight days in the 90s, which I need to report to The Donald for his climate change consideration….then had an all-day soaker Saturday (first drop of rain in three weeks), which led to a high in the 40s and lows in the 20s this weekend…such is life in the mountains…..requires a lot of flexibility and changes of clothes……

We got the back barn roof finished last Sunday after many twist and turns, and it now matches the front barn roof…and MIGHT be our last home improvement project of the year, though I won’t hold my breath on that one………………..just as we were finishing that, we discovered our washer no longer washed- so began the process, which took a week, to find an appliance repair person who would venture up the mountain to overcharge us to get it running again- as “W” would say- “mission accomplished”…so now we are momentarily whole….except for acquiring the elusive pickup truck of Jenn’s dreams. After having our Tacoma offer rejected last week, we found a couple of Nissan Frontiers through the local Ford dealer, and they arranged to have one we liked brought down from a sister(never a brother?) dealer up north. We were on our way to pick it up for a visitation day, when we got texted that the northern dealer had come back and retrieved it and that it was sold. I personally took this as a sign from the Gods about pickup trucks, but Jenn is on to the Ford Ranger now…..there seem to be a lot more folk desirous of pickup trucks in the mountains than there are available payloads (whatever that is)

But…anyhow…home improvement chores completed, we took off for a Sunday drive in the hills of color up around Shrewsbury and found a short walk in the woods for Lucy to chase the wild beasts, and feel the beauty of the changing season (and maybe find a backwoods pickup for sale). From there- we headed down to Rutland for the traditional Sunday dinner at East, where it turned out our friend Beverly (from my beloved Java Baba’s) had arranged for us to have “a drink” on her the next time we came in. Now, we NEVER drink on our forays to East, but we wound up with some gallon size bowl of flaming fruit and spirits with foot long straws to slurp (most of which I slurped down while Jenn went out to the car to get her camera), which generally turned our sedate Sunday dinner upside down, and led to much confusion in our usual seamless ordering process.

So, Tuesday morning came bright and REALLY hot (82 at 10 am) and we took off or the first of three weeks of our usual “fall outings”- pointing ourselves up towards the remote Northeast Kingdom (Canada or bust- before they build the WALL to keep us out). Route 5 along the magnificent Connecticut River Valley was besieged with speckled misty morning light all along the river as we drifted north, with Lucy, happily ensconced in her fort in the back. We spent a directionless day meandering, finally settling ourselves in little Colebrook New Hampshire (we crossed over under camouflage) in a little old knotty pine motel. We had dinner at the only show in town, the infamous Wilderness Restaurant, which turned out to be much better than it looked, and then spent the day Wednesday drifting back across northern Vermont over to the shores of Lake Champlain. At that point, we had nowhere to stay and our prospects- so steered the ship down through the Greens and to the Stowe area, where there are countless places willing to take you to the cleaners. We eventually found an old ski lodge place, the Innsbruck Inn, that gave us a huge room, took Lucy and had an enormous breakfast buffet…..and a bunch of outdoor hot tubs….so we tubbed it at 10 pm (after a magnificent outdoor Italian bistro dinner) on an early October night, and waltzed around outside half naked (Donald- are you listening?) I the tropical mist..…we had to have tow AC on full belts to make it sleep manageable in October……

Which leads me to the title of today’s missive/sermon/rant….on our sunny and extremely warm drive, Jenn began to talk about herself in the third person (as in “no one messes with Jennifer Burrows”)…which led to a rambling monologue (while I drifted to the dog racing side of town) that culminated in her describing her own “Sunny Disposition”….. Agreed….and safe to say, that Stu Berry’s disposition is more likely partly cloudy with chance of rain…..

When we woke on Thursday, mother nature had regained her senses and it was in the 40s. We mosied our way back home through the day- stooping in mountainous Ripton for a hike on the Interfaith Peace Trail (we walked the Buddhist and the Druid trails this time…had enough of the Jews and Muslim last visit).

Friday was a chilly recovery day around the homestead and a quiet night and then the rains came Saturday (rising THE POND up a good inch, so it is now only eight feet down on water). After a day of Rutland cavorting and an afternoon nap, we went over to Claudine’s studio (she is the fearless leader of our local Folk Club and the founder of local legends Gypsy Reel), where she and partner Rod have a recording studio in their barn. This was for the opening of their “performance space” which featured a mountain hoedown with gads of local musicians and eccentrics gathered for a night of home grown music and frolicking. A classic slice of mountain life, where folk congregate to make their own entertainment in the most out of the way and intimate places. The music was exceptional and we made a bevy of really intriguing contacts to help out with the next Tie- Dye Fest next summer. The night ended with several combinations doing A Capella renditions of “One Toke Over the Line” (Sweet Jesus)………only in the Greens…..

So another Sunday is upon us- with a busy week ahead filled with aimless drives, an overnight to the Adirondacks, a house full of leaf peeper guests at the Inn and next weekends’ penultimate Fall event- Cider Daze- on the Green in Belmont…….and possibly a week without any major projects or life changing acquisitions…..but then again, who knows……..

That’s all she wrote……………Dear John……… I sent you saddle home (John Prine)…………….See ya……

Skippy Do

Ola my friends:

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear”………………………………………………….Jack Canfield

“Da Doo Run Run, Da Doo Run Run”……………………………………………………………………….Leonard Cohen

“Manhattan sidewalk-
a Hindu street vendor sells
potato knishes”………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

“We’ve all got wheels to take ourselves away,
We got telephones to say what we can’t say”…………………………………………………………Gram Parsons

Gram baby…..themes, themes, themes-….how I love themes……… Phones and Cars……Cars and phones….and HEAT….. ..that is the new mountain way…..but-all in good time, as we laconically say at the heights….Yep, Yep….Nope, Nope……

Phones- who loves phones? I mean cell phones? All of our phones went down for six days, as our little white box died –as it does annually…so a lot of trips to the mountain top to find the closest signal and do my work calls, and lot of conundrums…….but the new box arrived the day after we got back from the city…and varoom….can you hear me now?

And….it has been almost 85 degrees daily for a week now….a week…in late September!!!!!……Holy buckets…….we’d be swimming in THE POND every day, if we had any water left in there….but –really- even the old farmers are beginning to mumble about the damn global-schmobal warming…but not me- I’m not complaining….EVER….because I like the heat? Not really……Because I don’t want to be on The Tweet List…..

How about Black Cats? We seem to pass them regularly as we head across our little bridge to the Inn…and each time, I say to Jenn “ How many legs does it have?”……keep thinking our beloved three-legged Tripod (lost in action our first month in the mountains) is coming home five years later

Our last project of the season (maybe) is underway with a new roof on the back barn- to ostensibly match the roof we put on the front barn last year…..this after the roofer put on half a roof of the wrong un-matching shingles, while we were in the city last week, so we had to start over…ugghhh….but half done now , after Jenn and I hauled all the old corrugated metal to the dump yesterday in a massive dump truck and added this to the astounding pile of junk metal at the back of the junkyard…made us feel like real Vermonters to do that…even got some slight nods of approval from Kevin the Walrus Dump Maestro

Headed up magnificent Route 100 for two hours midweek –to Waterbury…the colors beginning to fill the clear autumn sky…had my monthly meeting of the Governors’ Council for displaced flatlanders that I sit on…..and used it as an excuse to escape to the closest Marriott for a night- ostensibly avoiding the pending roof project (which did not eventually start until I got back- Dang)…..

We had guests appear unexpectedly this weekend at the Inn- a nice couple from Boston fleeing from their two pre-teen children. Very pleasant set of nerdy folks, who came and went like shadows, but sat and watched us eat dinner late Saturday night after our full day out on the road…

Yesterday we spent the amazingly hot and gorgeous Fall day touring the mountains- along with ten thousand other leaf people- to do our civic duty and to enter into the confusing world of used car buying. We have our annual Cider Daze extravaganza coming in a few weeks in our scared abode of Mt. Holly, so we had volunteered to put up posters in the neighboring hamlets. AND, we had gone down to the local Toyota empire on Friday night to do a drive by and wound up looking at a Tacoma pick up, which Jenn decided to take for the day yesterday to see how much we could spend . So- we loaded Lucy into the “extended cab” (whatever that means ) and did a tour of Weston, Londonderry, Peru (that is in Vermont) and Wallingford— putting up our event posters wherever they would let us. And…..driving the back roads and mountains with the Tacoma..…stopping along the way at Mike and Tammy’s in Londonderry for a Creamees and fried chicken health food lunch. By the time, we returned the truck to the dealer in Rutland, we were totally stymied as to what to do, so made a very lowball offer, which they rejected – but very kindly. It was a quite impulsive act. So then we went across to the Ford dealer to compare the F-150,a vehicle for which we are severely short of farm supplies, payloads (whatever that is) and testosterone…… It seems apparent that the NEXT BIG project is underway in the form of becoming pick-up truck owners, which will undoubtedly fill me with self-loathing…..but…… allow us to easily transport the kayaks. We’re under the gun to decide –as we have to either pour money into Jenn’s’ little Dodge Caliber sieve……or get rid of it…tick-tock, tick-tock…..

But today is Sunday, and nothing is open in the mountains, so we have a reprieve from all that. The roofer just rolled in two hours late (MCT- mountain contractor time) and we are thinking of what to do on an 87 degree late-September day- may take the kayaks for a spin or find some shade to hike in. We’re off this week for the first of three weeks of annual Fall Outings- heading up to our former digs in the Northeast Kingdom and watching the Sox chase down the AL East pennant….and head for an October confrontation with our long beloved Tribe, which creates conundrums for us….

So methinks it is time to get busy- with something or other (phones, pick-ups, roofing….or maybe dealing with the broken washing machine)……it’s always something….

Hasta lue go, baby, Estuardo

BTW- having trouble with my web page- so not sure how it will look to you if you are of the type who likes to peruse this on line- rather than e-mail. Let me know if it does not work well..

Hello in there:

“Do not worry about what others may do to you. Strive only to know yourself completely. Then, you can move in the world like the wind. Who can command the wind?”……… Mooji (is that a name?)

Buying sliced nova,

I feel a whole smoked whitefish

giving me a look…………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

So- were you worried when you woke up at noon on Sunday…and there was NO BLOG?……C’mon be honest, did you think I deserted you? Went to an Ashram? Decided to write poetry instead?….Well, here I am- back from THE big city….only slightly (or a bit more) worse for the wear….., and HERE FOR YOU……..

But…one man can only say so much (you’d think!?!)…so I’m REALLY going to keep this one short…..mainly because every picture tells a story, story (the man with the great hair said)…and… there are an awful lot of them this week. So….make your own captions….

After I left off last Sunday , we took Sister Jane for a ride in the mountains amidst the glory of late afternoon, early autumn, sun-drenched mountain light (that’s a mouthful), made a visit to Farmer John for the fresh milk Jen insists on, and headed to town for the Sunday night ritual of dinner at the wonderful East and late night trip to the grocery. She left on Wednesday – to go back to the land locked heartlands, but not before we had a magnificent day of kayaking and a birthday dinner for the two birthday girls (sisters with the same birthday) at The Castle in Ludlow, which is designed to make you feel like you have stepped into 18th century Bavaria….and falls only slightly short. Jenn took Jane back to Manchester for her flight and I wandered of in search of normalcy, which led me up the mountain searching for a sign or something…no signs- but lots of color in the woods….

You have also, I’d  venture, wondered ,what the hell is going on with THE POND. Well, I can only say it is still very clean and tidy, but now about half full as the water seeps away into the earth and the frogs seek new and better accommodations. I’m settling for clean for this summer, and will seek more fullness another spring…but, still better than the strainer in any case…

And then there are the phones…..we have had our yearly breakdown of our modem based cell phone booster, which means no phone service of any kind at the Inn.…so have to make regular trips up the mountain and stick out a leg and arm in divining mode, to find a signal just to say hello…..we returned from being away late this afternoon to find all the little green lights on for the hated machine, so apparently the mountain phone fairies came while we were gone, and graced us with occasional dial tones………..so , better to write….

As for the voluminous pictures, we just spent a long weekend in New York with the kiddies. Stayed at their temp digs in Park Slope in Brooklyn, which in my day was somewhere only gangbangers went, but now is filled mostly with gay married woman with baby carriages. We walked, we ate, we walked, we ate, we walked , we ate…..we rode a lot of subways, saw a lot of strange people, checked out the wannabe mob guys at little Italy’s’ San Genaro festival, found a $20 per ticket OFF Broadway show (not too far off, at least in distance)………we walked, we ate…..and took pictures.

Sunday, we made like commuters and went out to Westchester County – to Tuckahoe (really!)- and met an army of my new found –long lost cousins for a family reunion kind of deal. Eighteen of us took over the Italian joint across from the metro station..…and reestablished connections we never had in the first place. It was a beautiful and moving day. I LOVE no longer being the Patriarch; having found even older relatives to pass that on to. Then we went back to the city and walked and ate some more.

So after a day that started with an hour and half subway ride from Brooklyn to The Bronx and ended with a four hour drive back home through the mountains………Done.

Go in Peace,

 

Father Stu

 

Good yontif my family and friends:

“There is after all a kind of happiness in unhappiness, if it’s the right unhappiness”………………………………Jonathan Franzen

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water”…………………………………………………Robindranath Tagare

“Now that Koreans

are the “New Jews”, the old Jews

can leave for Boca.”……………………………………………………………………………………………Haikus for Jews

 

So last Sunday, post-blog, we finished the last project standing (ya think?) and completed the basement flooring project…a floor on rollers…really!!!…..Twas a really rainy day, so heeded for afternoon naps, but with weather clearing, Jenn went out to mow with the tractor. She proceeded to totally flood the engine, called me to play Galahad, which I promptly made much worse- trying to start it so many times, that it eventually spouted geysers of both gas and oil. So – left it there bleeding fluids and turned attention to trying to fix Jenn’s car’s electrical problems with the expert assistance of the Jewish Fish Monger. Three hours later- we have pulled half the engine parts to get to headlights (there may indeed be two clips which would allow us to simply remove it from the front…)…with no success and a lots of parts to put back together. So- we left that too ..and went to eat Chinese and see a movie.

These are on my list for today, but beg the philosophical question of whether a Bronx- bred boy should really ever have a wrench in his hand?

With the various engine parts laying in the barn, Jenn’s’ new master planting project about to erupt, and the threat of a massive house cleaning project looming….it was clearly time for the Marriott, so I set out for the trek to Philadelphia (honestly, for work!) on Tuesday morning. Have I mentioned my belief about the incredible business acumen associated with loyalty programs? I’m a devout parishioner at the church of both Marriott and Southwest airlines..…which leads to some really bad decisions in travel in pursuit of being on their “A Lists”. This one involved not only driving the 2 ½ hours to Manchester (it is not an easy task to get out of Vermont), but then passing up a direct flight on the hated big-boy airlines in order to express my undying loyalty to Southwest- by taking a flight to Baltimore, a shuttle to the train station and then the Amtrak to the 30^th St. Station in Philly(go there, it’s a beauty). All of this took me around eight hours of planes, trains and automobiles…….but ultimately led to three quiet nights at the Marriott, some great walks, two good days of training,….and, of course, some major eating. With nose in the air, I meandered the streets of old city Philly, till the fragrance of the legendary Fourth Street Famous Jewish deli harkened. Ate there three times, before waddling home on Friday. Did I mention cheesesteaks in Philly? “Nuff’ said- go to Sonny’s on Market St.

After a harrowing Amtrak ride back to Baltimore (f__k the loyalty programs) and the resulting OJ like sprint to the airport gate, I arrived back in Manchester on a beautiful Fall day- so took the overland mountain route home- instead of the endless highway….and Fall is abounding in the mountains (already!) –especially around lovely Lake Sunapee…majestic……..

As a result of complicated planning, I drove home Friday afternoon, napped, ate, played with the Dog and the Jenn, watched the finale of Twin Peaks (most bizarre show ever to grace the small screen) and got up Saturday to drive back to Manchester for the Super-secret arrival of Sister Jane for Jenn’s birthday. This involved an elaborate hoax about my friend Phil coming for a visit on his way to vacation in Maine- ostensibly staying with us a few nights and then being picked up by wife, Maux, on her way back from painting icons in the Adirondacks (really was elaborate, no??). On the trip down to the airport, the magic of Facebook rears its ugly social media head, when Phil posts about being a in a café in Mass.- but quick thinking led to the ridiculous idea (which Jenn bought) that he must be flying from Philly through Boston (who would take such a route?). So- we managed to pick up Jane and absolutely shock a waiting Jenn- who immediately began to sob and whirl in circles.

Sister Jane loves the ocean (and is totally landlocked in the heartland)- so we slipped onto the 101 and hit the coast of New Hampshire beaches in in what may have been the finest day of the entire summer (72, sunny, no wind, cloudless sky). Many long walks across the sand, a shocking amount of surfers for NH (can you say hurricane effect waves), a fish shack lunch, Lucy befriending a dozen snarling beach dogs, Maple Creamees…and nine hours later..…we arrived back through the NH mountains to the little house on the hill. An elaborate, exhausting and wonderful surprise day.

So- now after a three hour tractor repair break, I’m back. You’ll be delighted (and probably shocked) to know the darn thing is actually running after taking the carburetor apart and replacing all the starting parts….and cleaning up a gallon of spilled oil and gas…followed by a dozen or so “Hail Marys”. . Is it possible that Yiddish- bred city boys can actually fix a tractor? Chests are puffing out here…..

Now – you may be wondering about the beginning and the title of this week’s missive? (maybe? did you notice?). So – Sister Jane tells me that she eagerly awaits each Sunday blog as it is like her church …and she considers me a Preacher of sorts, composing my little “Sermons “ in my closet of an office. I like that a lot…so heretofore –will consider myself composing not only a Blog, but a weekly sermon (from the closet)…(is that a metaphor?)…..

Well- have to go back and change the oil again, now that Jenn has gleefully ridden around the yard for an hour…keep our fingers crossed…and see you next week in church….

 

Monsignor Stuard