Category: Green Mountain Blog

Ba-da-Boom….Ba-Da-Bing………

“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?”………………………………………………….Charles Bukowski

“Your singing and dancing is none other than the voice of the Dharma”……………………………………………………………………….Hakuin

“Chaos often breeds life when order breeds habit”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………Henry Adams

“Jewish triathlon-
gin rummy, then contract bridge,
followed by a nap”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

Duelin’ Schmattas: Quinn and Sloane

A Week in the Mountains

Sunday- Dry….into the 50s….picked up the remaining piles of tree detritus….got all yard machines running on first shot (a miracle), retrieved some of our winter- fostered house plants from the goniffs of Mt. Holly…..assessed the level of standing water on the property through which one can wade out in, stared at THE Pond, picked up The Jewish Fish Monger for the Sunday ritual of dinner at the fabulous East in Rutland (Roast Duck with Pine Nuts(, watched the dwindling magnificence of Game of Thrones

Monday- first sunshine in two weeks-almost 70 degrees….put on our bathing suits…..The Queen uses her fem wiles to re-grease the Bo-Bee and get town road crew to pick up all our dead tree piles and put them in the shredder….Stu hits the slopes of Okemo for first outside jogging of the season…Two people in the Spring House gym building today….which seems like a crowd…Blue skies comes for weekly coffee klatch visit and wonders why fireplace is not crackling in living room for her visit…catch up on local winter yenta-isms…. Java Baba week’s lunch visit # 1…..Folk club in the Library basement….fading Celtics lose again….

Tuesday- Raining and 43….don’t count your chickens, etc.….took morning nap….then headed to Rutland for massive Walmart shop….bought mower sparkplugs for under two dahla….what am I going to do when The Donald fucks up all trade with China (and the rest of the world)….on to Ernie’s Hand Carved, where I sneak off to when the Queen Mother is not along…massive corned beef and pastrami on imported NY rye in this tiny Rutland joint….carved by almost 90 year old Ernie is his big white carving hat….home for second nap of the day….Sox getting hot…..have you seen “Killing Eve” on Hulu?….one of great psychopath killers of all time….running out of heating oil….wearing coats at night in house…..Springtime in Vermont….

Wednesday- starting to all blend together…cannot remember anything that happened with all the mud surrounding us….rainy and 40s…again….blah, blah, blah….went to gym, went to Baba (#2)…took another nap…..Celtics lose again…Sox win again……must have done some work somewhere in there…really… I think I did..

Thursday- play day!!!!!!!spent morning allegedly working….in reality, booking various Marriott excursions to places where it is 70 and sunny…..got oil delivered for furnace so taking off winter coats in the house…..a little sun and into the 60s…..a heat wave……property is greening despite the arctic temps….so got first semi-mow (around the various flood plains) of season done…. The Queen in her yogic glory on the tractor….headed out midafternoon for Dartmouth for monthly dinner and adult movie….stopped halfway in Downers Corners at the newly re-opened Creamee place for state of the art burgers al fresco….on to the cultural wonder of Dartmouth for very dark indie move, “Little Woods”…then magnificent Thai food in a basement with Asian, Harvard-Dartmouth types ruminating over quantum physics…it’s another world when you cross the Connecticut River….arrived home at 10 to a very unhappy and unfed Lucy (let me dump out every garbage can in the house)….feels like Spring is right around the corner…by, say….July…

Friday- More or less the usual Friday in the mounts……back to rainy and 45…..piddled in the morning….off to the mountain Gym where had the building to myself…..Java Baba #3 for lunch….over the mountain on stately Healdville Road back to Belmont village, stopping at Plew Farm for natures best, free-range, organic, yoga practicing chicken’s, big brown eggs- for free as our reward for Green-Up day last week….down into Belmont, where our favorite post mistress, Nicky, was filling in (she is gone to greener postal service pastures in Windsor, and left us with a series of cantankerous fill ins)….walked in yelling for my daily prize (arrival of a one of many long lost UPS packages)..and Nicky coms storming out of her cage, jumps in my arms and yells …”I am your prize”….only in the mountains….Celtics done…Sox win again (are Yankee fans listening?)…

Saturday- Jen has committed to participate in training to be a horse whisperer, so I am tasked with the usual Saturday market chores…..almost sunny- 40 in morning, but soaring to 60 in the afternoon….Lucy and I make for the Dump, where the Dump-master, Kevin the Walrus, is flirting with a Jen substitute (“I’ve been thinking about you all week”), on to post office (closed by 11 am) and down into Rutland. We stop at the Deere dealer to check out the machine of my drams , whilst Lucy inspects the showroom and the lot, then on to the opening of the outside farmer’s market season where everyone greets Lcuy and she receives a dozen treats from different vendors and cavorts with a myriad of her kin. Ramuntos for the two slice special and finally the grocery, where the Queen has assigned me a list that amounts to a treasure hunt thru the store (organic possum meat?). We arrive home to find Jenn in her shit kicking boots and yard weapons in hand, as the sun has come out. After unpacking the grocery treasures, we work on getting the rest of our yard stuff out of the barn and bunkhouse….and then spend hours trying to clear a walking path through the back barn room…..culminating in the hernia- inducing moving of some 900 pound storage unit that the Queen decided we needed to have last fall… it is then assuredly nap time…awakened, shower, shaved and shined we run down the mountain to Ludlow for Tex-Me at the wildly popular Mojo Café….home late…Sox win again…limp off to bed….

And, that, my friend, was the week that was. Nine hours of sun….average temps: 48 day, 34 night….Spring is in the air…just got our second batch of returning house plants…and getting ready for Ry, Lauren and little Quinn to arrive his afternoon…Stu off to the Marriott this week in the Twin Cities, which is a lot more spring like than here. Sunday- Sunday….

Yeah Boy………Stu

Greeting and Salutations on this Sunday Morning:

“It takes a long time to understand nothing”…………………………………………………….Edward Dahlberg

“Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make clear”…………….Joseph Joubert

“Mom please, there is no need
to put that dinner roll
in your pocketbook”…………………………………………………………………………..Haikus for Jews

The SUN is ALMOST shining…for the first time since we returned. Yesterday was our first rain-less day after ten straight days of rain and never cracking 50 degrees. It is cause for joy….and celebration in the mountains….people are dancing naked in the running streams… We spent last night with our loco Bostonites friends, John and Lydia, up the hill. It is good thing it is 90 seconds away to get home after the usual debauchery…which means Stu is feeling it this morning, and thus The Ramble needs to be in shorthand………Ramble Riffing…

• Mud season brings no joy to the local folks. Half of local restaurants are closed until late May, the rivers and streams are overflowing, there is NO green anywhere yet, the grass is starting to grow in earnest but too wet to cut….and everyone’s car (and soul) is filthy…

• The Jamaicans are back…last two Sundays have found small family work group next door….can siding or painting be far behind? (see photo)…..No crew….No Goats…

• Monday night is still Folk Club night….still three hours of 12 people sitting in a circle singing variations of Kumbaya…they seemed to welcome my standing/roaming/circling frenzied return with bluegrass and Springsteen in tow…..

• The Gym at the Spring house at Okemo Ski Resort is still my personal training facility…went twice this week and I was the only person in the building (see Mud Season above)…

• Yesterday was Vermont Green-Up day…where every town and village in the state has volunteers running around with big, big very green bags to clean up the roads and waterways…..Where else but Vermont where we have now outlawed plastic bags along with Styrofoam…..our small enclave turns out en masse and we find ourselves a few out of the way, no-traffic roads to make pristine so Lucy can help….she and Stu wander around making friends while the Queen of Mt. Holly labors up and down the roadways to fill the Big Grin bags to capacity… (she wins!)

• Speaking of Lucy, she has discovered Jenn’s hidden compost pile… and comes home with her face covered in leftovers and smelling like the Dump……

• Wednesday was my Birthday…having reached an age too obscene to put in print…..we woke up to rain, gray and cold…went back to bed until midafternoon when we had our first “Portal” call with Max (excellent device to capture the prodigal’s wandering style of phone calling)….we finally got dressed in time for the evening news.. and drove down the Route 30 corridor where a beautiful valley runs between two mountain chains…to the hamlet of Pawlet….and had dinner at the 250 year old Barn Restaurant….then drove back and went back to bed…Fait accompli…Next year please…

• Speaking of the Portal experience, we had our first calls with Bebe this week….and she loves it ….touching Nana and Papi’s faces on her screen and giggling to the effects you can put on(Carmen Miranda head dress, Blues Brothers hats and glasses)…what could be better than Nana and Papi in 3D looking like Bugs Bunny?….

• And…..we are less than two weeks away from our ten days with Quinn…..we are doing daily workouts to prepare ourselves for 2 year old duty…

• Spent a rainy Thursday afternoon making the post –workout drive down to the Country Girl Diner in Chester to see my friend Beverly, who has been feeding me lunch at Java Baba’s for the last three years. She has moved on to the Diner…which is a pretty drive…but a midafternoon haul…and no more Free Lunch…but Beverly, who texted me every Friday this winter to ask “how many more days?”…was quite excited…and well…it IS a DINER….

• I got to be the keynote speaker this week at the Vermont Youth Summit in our glorious state capital of Montpelier (can you say Gold Dome)…and was charged with rousing 150 people toward embracing juvenile justice reform in Vermont…it was a horrendous rainy drive up on the interstate…but serendipitous (who loves “spell-check”) drive back on the fave of faves…Vt. Route 100….got the full Monty of flooding rivers and streams since the road goes through all the valleys splitting the mountains …and saw all the new entrepreneurial activity on the way (none!)…..the training evaluations featured a host of comments that sounded like “we want more Stu”…which made the haul of a day worthwhile….but….has anyone ever had a decent plate conference lunch?

• Birthday Party Vermont style-we headed over though the mud over to the local studio-in-a- barn for Claudine’s birthday bash Friday night(she is the founder of Folk Club and the leader of Vermont legends Gypsy Reel band) and got to see all our cronies in one place…cavorted with Margaritas, Jenn’s pigs in blanket with very oversized pigs, and hours of music circle of fiddlers and such playing Irish Reels…had spotting of The Jewish Fish Monger, The Alleged Russian Spy, the Misplaced French Chef and his Yiddish Wannabe Bride…our social reintegration to the mountains….

• And then came the holy-dry Saturday morning…after our Green-Up chores in the morning, we came home to four hours of chain sawing all the dead tree and limbs in the mud (was a windy winter)..isn’t there a village road crew to do this?…hobbled in for a late afternoon rest period with foot soaking and quinine taking…and then up the hill for the periodic debauchery…which centered on the running of the Kentucky Derby- replete with mint juleps…this was my first ever Derby watching (24 hours of build-up for a two minute race??)..and I understand it was the most controversial in history…John proclaimed he will “never –ever watch the Derby again” after the winner was shamed and disqualified due to a foul….after hours of animated conversations ,we stumbled down the hill to bed…

And so, another Sunday, another week…time to get the motors of the yard running, reclaim our house plants fostered over the winter…and the Queen is eying the muddy garden as the day is allegedly going stay dry and we may be approaching 60…..tonight a trip to the beloved East…and then….. we do it all again…

One year older and deeper in debt………in the mountains….

Papi

“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

Greeting fellow travelers:

She stands before you naked
you can see it, you can taste it,
and she comes to you light as the breeze.
Now you can drink it or you can nurse it,
it don’t matter how you worship
as long as you’re
down on your knees.
So I knelt there at the delta,
at the alpha and the omega,
at the cradle of the river and the seas.
And like a blessing come from heaven
for something like a second
I was healed and my heart
was at ease.

Long live Leonard!

Lots of requests for a small missive from the heartland mid-winter……….missing the Greens…loving the grandkids…….dark, gloomy skies each day in the land of flat….but Chinese only five minutes way…..movie theaters, ethnic restaurants take the place of dirt roads an glimmering mountain sunsets….holidays come and gone….respite for the weary…back to the road soon for work travel projects from airport easily in striking distance….Band in regular schedule in lieu of folk club….house sharing with rodents….boom, boom, chicka , chicka…….Spring will spring…..soon off to Cali and the Keys’…..put truck to bed, bought a Jeep….Jenn becoming the Queen of Ecological Center…. newest obsession: “country condo living”….traveled to Maryland to see the soaring Byrds reprise Sweetheart album in 50th year…..Sloane….Quinn….Sloane….Quinn…….

Enough……Happy New year…..

Papi

Oh boy…..it’s TIME!

“A good traveler has no fixed plans….and is not intent upon arriving” ………………………………………………………………………………………..Lao-Tzu

“Children, one earthly THING, truly experienced, even once, in ENOUGH for a lifetime”…………………………………………………………….Rainer Marie Rilke

“ Splish, Splash…I’m takin’ a bath”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Bobby Darin

Are you missing me, yet? Maybe you should be…as this is likely the last communique for a while….mountain time is coming to an end this week….and the heartland has not traditionally been Blog- inspirational…so what will your Sunday be like now?

Now that you made yourself love me, do you think I can change it in a day?

And…I’m late, I’m late, I’m late…countdown is in earnest- leaving on Wednesday…and SOOO much to do….bad start today-wiped out my entire file on Bunty Station Band memories on the computer…and then had to go DEEP in the bowels of my hard drive to re-crate it somewhat…..who knew?

Vee-Yis-Ga-Dahl….Vee- Yis-Ga Dash…….

And….how about them Sox….too good to be true (TGTBT)…..MAJIC………

Did you set clocks back this morning…..nice at the moment but will suck around 5 pm….who thinks this is a good idea…DARKER…….DARKER…..Uughh……

And Ba-bee Sloane is growing like a week- over nine pounds already (did that come out of me, says Tessala?)…Papi and Nana coming home soon to do some major holding….

Had our first of a number of Last Suppers last Sunday…Thanksgiving in October…with our A-list of cooking friends….was a wild soiree with lots of imbibing and laughing…had to throw people out the door late in the night…which only worked when I told them it was the night for our once monthly sexual event…that got ‘em going…

Are we ready for election day…is it safe to say all people running for office are nuts?…..will there be a De-Donalding movement on Tuesday? In Vermont , where there seems to be an effort at returning to some measure of civility…check out the video of two candidates running for state reps…who after their debate sat down and played a duet on guitar and cello….I’m trying to imagine The Donald and Hillary doing such…
http://river967.com/rival-political-candidates-end-debate-in-very-strange-way-video/

The leaves are gone, the leaves are gone….today is first day cracking 35 degrees in weeks and it’s been rainy and dreary to boot….the inevitable stick season that follows the wonder and glory of foliage…the roads are pretty empty as mountain folk hibernate until the first snow and ski season…good time to go out to eat….but a tad depressing….

Last night we had a celebration for the 10th anniversary of our beloved Folk Club in Mt. Holly…decked out the iconic local (circa 1825) library stage and filled it with current and past FC members…..played two sets of our catalog…it was a tossup whether there were more of us on stage or more audience folks show up to cheer us on…the Queen of all things mountain entertained the kids with hearty snacks and good cheer..

Speaking of whom….The Queen has been quite active all week…packing up a storm, hiding the spools of bedding she stores for a rainy day, plotting next year’s home renovation projects, trimming and more trimming of all the gardens…and making the rounds of her social network for fond so-longs….while the much more reclusive self-went off to Minneapolis for a work jaunt, complete with Marriott cribbing and fine French dining…I’m trying to say my own good byes through psychic mediums…

But tonight we have one last Last supper with the Jewish Fish Monger and the French Master Chef and his wife, the Princess of Strange Health Tools…..heading down the mountain to the beloved East for one last Fine Asian dining experience…

But first….miles to go…the yard machines are beckoning to be cleaned and stored, the house packed, and the property sanctified for the assault of winter….go a lot to do…SOOOOO…gotta go get at it…

Be too well, my friends and readers and such….stay healthy, eat good, make love not war….and….. stay …in…touch…

The Earthly Blogger….Estuardo

Greetings Fellow Travelers:

“Take one step away from yourself…and Behold…the Path!!……………………………………………………………………………………………………..Abu Sa’id

“Life, for eternal us… is….. Now”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………EE Cummings

“The point is to perform every activity, from playing ball to taking out the garbage, with precise attention, moment by moment”………………….Zen Master Phil Jackson

“Act the way you’d like to be…and soon you’ll be the way you act”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Leonard Cohen

So, did you miss me last week? What did you do on Sunday with no blog? Such a loss, no?

Stretch run now…..got back to the mountains on Tuesday for last two weeks…now at 12 days and counting…and it hasn’t cracked 35 degrees since we returned….. WINTER is in the hills….snow on the mountain tops all week…and then it SNOWED all day Saturday….Uughh….

But…this was a baby week in the flatlands. Spent six days back in the heartland with Tess, Jake and Baby Sloane…..what an experience…..Got there just in time for the new nuclear family to come hone from the hospital….spent six days cooking, cleaning, organizing, shopping and taking care of the three crazy dogs….and…holding Bebe….what a little darlin’…Bonus was a weekend visit from Ry and Lauren with our other little darlin’, Baby Quinn(now 17 months)…two precious granddaughters for one Papi….how can this be? ….You can see the complete extravaganza show in the abundance of enclosed pix. Every picture tells a story…

And Queen Jennifah spent six days commandeering the kitchen and preparing deluxe meals to be frozen for the next millennium…what a good Nana is emerging…….…

Which brought us to face the dread reality of the whole living-in –two- places thing….when you live in the mountain remoteness, a trip back to the heartland and the boom that is Central Ohio is quite the shock to the central nervous system….Oy, the traffic, the noise, the sheer number of people, the incessant development….some form of shell shock…and so a quick trip Monday out to the ancestral home to check on the order of things for our imminent return…which is predictably chaos…had us running back to the safety of the kids’ new Westerville house to hold Bebe and try to get our heads around the imminent changes…

And…how about them Sox??????? How are the Yankees feeling about this? Apparently The Donald is now a Dodgers fan and tweeting to the manger to tell him what an asshole he is…..

Speaking of The Donald…I don’t know about you…but I am considering heading down to the Wall and keep the evil hordes of Central American refugees from coming in and taking jobs away from Mexicans…

But…I seriously digress……so, back in the mountains for our last fling….flushing away a storm and trying to find a patch of sunshine to finish getting the property shut down for the winter……hard to be motivated to deal with things when wind and snow are blowing and the trees are losing all their luster….but push on we must……..did get in The Halloween festivities…where the Queen of Mt. Holly got dressed up and spent two frigid hours putting kids on hayrides (came home complaining of a bad back)…and we spent a very cold half hour at the dump on Saturday, receiving last minute instructions from the Walrus Dumpmaster….also made out first trip back to newly reopened (in its original location -eight minutes down the Mount) to the beloved local institution, Harry’s Café, where everybody knows your name….

Well truth be told…I am distracted ..and don’t really have much to say (now he says that, you are thinking)…..but some good visuals may be the saving grace …so take it or leave it…back traveling this week to the warmth of Minneapolis and then return in time for day and days of packing up…tonight we are hosting The Last Supper, an early thanksgiving dinner at the manse for our potluck supper group…so gotta go, cook, clean, chop wood, do some packing (or at least cheer the Queen on while she dos this stuff)….and get in my Sunday afternoon nap with Lucy ….

Be well, do good work and stay in touch……and…Go Sox!

Papi

Bon Jour Mes Amis:

“Squash Gossip….Lettuce Be Kind….Turnip to Church”………………………………………………………………………………Sign at the Belmont Village Church

“Looking into the old well, I see my own face….then another behind it”…………………………………………………..W.S. Merwin

“If I could define enlightenment briefly, I would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is”………………………Wayne Dyer

“The white bush clovers
Drop the dewdrops
Frequently”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Autumn Haiku

Big doins’ in the mountains his week…and afar……….foliage hit PEAK in all its glory….and is now turning downward towards the inevitable stick season hereabouts…….we have continued to be inundated with rain (see the POND brimming with clean water)…and bounced around from summer like weather to lows in the high 20s at night….and the baby no name is very likely arriving this week one way or another…..but…I get ahead of myself, no?…….

Sunday last saw The Queen once again presiding over the last of Cider Daze, while yours truly piddled round the house on a rainy day, flushing toilets and ruining water to his heart’s content….when she eventually arrived home, we headed out to find some supper on the busiest weekend of the year in the mounts….eventually finding sustenance at little Sal’s red gravy Italian joint down the mountain in Wallingford…..where we joined every other local in the area trying to avoid the leaf pepper crush happening at the more urbane hot spots……

After days of rain and cold, Monday dawned weirdly hot and humid….back to shorts and flip flops, for a last gasp…………..

We took great mountain pride in the moment of the vote for the absurdly twisted Kavanaugh confirmation …when our man, Bernie, had his turn and hurtled out of his seat…. shouting “No” at the top of his lungs….fightin’ the fight…

Monday night we were treated to a surprise video chat with The Prodigal Son, as he rode the rails from Tokyo to Kyoto, adventuring in Japan for three weeks…we watched as the entirely non-English speaking train attendant repeatedly tried to collect the train ticket that Max did not have. He had tried to use his railway pass to get his ticket but the office was closed at the station,….so each time the ticket man approached, Max would wave some kind of paper and yell ”Office, Office”….which seemed to work- at least on that segment of a five train journey he was taking , due to scheduling morass…..

And….The Sox down the demon spawn Yankees…making the sports year complete for New Englanders……

Overnightus-interuptus….we had planned on a tentative two night fall foliage outing this week if no-name’s arrival had not called us to the heartland…but it kept raining, so we stayed home flushing toilets…until the sun came out on Wednesday….which eventually became a legendary 85 and sunny day….so we rose early and took off for parts unknown…bags packed for an overnight adventure…..twelve hours of driving around, three wonderful hikes, seven crossings of the Connecticut River, three meals and two thousand peek foliage photo ops later…we wound up back home at nine pm….which is reflective of most of our Vermont driving trips…usually involving our commitment to either all right turns or all left turns…which seems to have predictable results…..

We arrived home after averting potential life altering trauma , when Lucy disappeared on a very remote dirt lane in New Hampshire- at the site of the Bedel Bridge State Park (really just a boat access point currently).. The property is the site of the former Bedell Covered Bridge, that was the second-longest covered bridge in the United States until its destruction by wind in 1979. The bridge had been the brainchild of an industrious Mr. Bedell, who ran a ferry across the Connecticut River from NH to Vermont, until he came up with the idea of the bridge in the mid-1800s. The bridge was closed in 1956…but after twenty years of fund raising and six years of repairs, it reopened in 1979….only to be destroyed three months later (for good)….but…I certainly digress….so we are in the middle of nowhere with dark descending and chasing the suddenly missing Lucy through woods and cornfields for a half hour or more…..eventually we wandered towards where we had left the car, not knowing what else to do…only to come upon her exhausted and laying down next to the car….don’t know where she went , but she proceeded to sleep through our car ride home, while we had Indian food in Dartmouth and until the next morning…truly, disaster averted….

Saturday provided another in a long line of rainy mornings, and we embarked for town and chore day, starting with the weekly trip to the town dump…where the lecherous, walrus Dumpmaster pulled me aside to wink at Jenn and inquire as to how many nights I had stayed warm this week…I will say that the nature of this relationship has provided us with free garbage disposal for the last two years…..then off to Rutland, where we had the once in a lifetime experience of finding the Walmart shut down (water line break)…so picture Saturday morning at the only Walmart within three hours….and a line of desperate shoppers being turned way and staring longingly through the windows at the shiny merchandise inside….

Riddle of the week………if you ever read Tom Robbins’ seminal “Another Roadside Attraction”….there is a story in the novel that ends with the line “Rudolph the Red knows rain dear”….I won’t try and give you the back story context of this…but I always thought that Robbins had come up with that line and then wrote the whole novel around it….so(where is this going?)……this morning I wake up with my own novel- creating line going through my head over and over …..”Chat in Uber, Tutu”…………so, can you figure out the reference, what question this answers and how to make a whole book out of it?

This whole obsession came about when we were suddenly awakened by the shattering- of- silence boom of the Jamaicans showing up and firing up their generator next door…which faces our bedroom windew….….it is quite cold this morning but the sun is coming out and Lucy is staring fixedly out the front door window trying to figure out how she can escape down to access some goat…..and we are destined for a day of battling yard machines in preparation for our exodus in four weeks…and..…waiting got for the no name arrival call….will see what the coming week brings and possibly (or not) sending out the update missive next Sunday……until then…….Darling, je vous aime beaucoup, Je ne sais pas what to do.

Papi

Bonjourno:

“I will walk by myself and cure myself in the sunshine and the wind”………………………………………………………………………………..Charles Reznikoff

“”A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he do it in a devout manner”……………………………………………………………Thomas Carlyle

“The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world”……………………………………………………………Leonard Cohen

“I’m the president of the United States. I’m not he emperor of the United States”……………………………………………………………Barack Obama

“She was all dressed up in costume, and wearing one of those little Jew things on her head”……………………………………………My eldest niece, raised in a very Jewish home, about her daughter’s wardrobe in her role in a college production of Cabaret

The Autumn leaves…………..abounding in the occasional bright sunshine of early October in the mountains….this is the full glory of Vermont…which leads to many, many absurdly similar photo ops…I did my best to cut the volume down….but still………………………..

It has continued to be a pretty wet autumn in the mountains….and now we have the added pleasure of nights in the 30s….but the shit system is fully functioning, THE POND is full, and fall activities are persistent. We had a rare sunny day last Sunday, and ventured a dirt road meander up to Wallingford Pond, where we had not previously been…took a long walk through the colors and sweeping mountain views of the season…which led to long naps for Lucy and I and more digging and rooting in the yard for the Queen…

Speaking of whom….she has given up the two year long treasure hunt for a pickup truck….and we have agreed to purchase Ryan and Laurens’ Jeep Renegade….which is currently residing in Cleveland…and will someday, somehow, make its way back to us..

And how about the Sox….in mortal post season combat with the demon spawn Yankees….

With a mostly rainy week, we have taken to even more serial TV watching at night….after years of avoidance we are taking on the full monte of Breaking Bad…which might be the strangest character transformation in big or little screen history…Walter, what-up?

With your faithful blogger bent over with a back tweak this week (can you put my shoes on for me, please)….not a lot happened, aside from counting rain drops, trying to deter Jenn from even more house projects, writing up a storm and watching baseball….but, Thursday, dawned with the promise of dry and sunny somewhere or other…so we took off in the early rain for points unknown ….more precisely consulting the Ouija board for the most likely place within a three hour drive for the sun to peak through……………

This led us west to the shores of Lake Champlain, and the rolling farm country…a moon like landscape surrounded by mountains every which way…and…sure enough, by midafternoon, we had a glorious fall day….for some dirt road hiking and views of the great lake…with Lucy in tow, we explored some old lakeside communities (called “camps” here in the mountains- home to the “Woodchuck Mafia” )…and generally trespassed all over the place….Jen communed with the various animals in the various pastures….. while Lucy steadfastly chased small critters through the woods..…and I limped along…

All the walking and driving led us to our destination for Jenn’s second (of five) birthday dinners…to the lovely Cafe Provence in Brandon…anther place we have be around for 20 years and never dined in…Can you say Cassoulet?……nothing hits the stomach and the wallet like a fine French repast…and after a mandatory cruise to Walmart in Rutland (we had not been in over two weeks and feeling a little jittery from the cold turkey of it)…we arrived safely back at home for baseball and carry out French chocolate decadence…….

And, now…we are in the midst of Columbus Day weekend…the holy grail holiday in New England…and that means the annual Cider Daze extravaganza in our lovely hamlet of Belmont/Mt. Holly….this is where two thousand tourists descend on our tiny village green (population 400) for a weekend of music, cider, shopping for tchotchkes and ooh-aahing at the changing leaves..…I spent the afternoon there yesterday playing a set of music and walking around with Lucy (who I regret to say is not really a chick magnet…but a very good old lady magnet)…came home briefly to greet our weekend Airbnb guests and then headed back to town for the infamous Oddfellows Hall to serve the annual roast beef community supper (two seatings, 200 belligerent eaters)…..luckily , my hobbling has receded…..meanwhile, have not seen hide nor hare of the Queen for two days, as she cavorts in her role at the Empress of Mt. Holly….she is undoubtedly out there somewhere making new friends, extolling the virtues of mountain living and generally helping people to appreciate Vermont life……I expect we will have a half dozen new dinner companions by the end of today………………………………..

And, that my friends….is as much (or little) as I have to say today (did he really say anything?) …still on baby watch…none yet…next scheduled flight to the heartland is on Tuesday……smoke ‘em if you got ‘em…

Happy , happy, happy…….. falling leaves……

Stubert

Gotten dag meine Freunde:

“Without a rope, people bind themselves”………………………………………………………………………………………………Zen Saying

“Perfectionism is slow death” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Hugh Prather

“If on earth there be a Paradise,
It is this, It is this, It is this.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Amir Khusrow

“amidst swollen moon
face of wicked witch smiling
bats fly in frenzy”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Halloween

Been a busy week here in the mountains….leaves are beginning to sparkle and alternating between warm, sunny days and cold overcast or rainy, with nights sometimes down in the 30s….we had expected to do a two night getaway to peep at leaves this week, but it turned out to be rainy and cold…..and then there is the issue of going places that have no phone service (half of Vermont) while on the baby watch…..speaking of which …still on hold and waiting, though the oven is bursting as apparent in the prego selfie. We have now cancelled two of our ridiculously scheduled eight flights in a row (every four days or so, booked on points with Southwest and therefore easily cancelled)..…next scheduled flight is this Wednesday the 3rd.

Sunday last turned out to be day long adventure of mountain cleanup…mostly from the shit hole excavating…but no complaints…we are now flushing fools- often flushing the toilets just because we can….the Queen of the Mount was in her glory…digging and planting….your chronicler schlepped all day and is still bent over from the weight of it all…and little Lucy found at least five piles of assorted aromatic matter to role in….she is often spending her full days banished to the outdoors now, until she is provided the icy hose bath ….Jen has some pretty strict standards about what can come in the house, though I rather enjoy the varied aromas….she also managed to get into my book bag this week while we were away….and consumed the contents of a gallon size Ziploc bag of airline snacks (sha has mastered how to open the zipper of the ancient vessel)…..when I came home and found the little pretzel bags all over the living room floor and Lucy in a carb/sugar induced coma… I yelled at her “just wait until your mother gets home”…….

Since we did not do the planned getaway this week, we settled on a couple of day adventures…so on Tuesday, in a full day downpour, we spent the day in Rutland going to a movie (see my review,-better left unmentioned) and dinner at the Victorian Inn in Wallingford, where we had been meaning to go for six years and proved worth the wait. The owners are from Switzerland and have run the place for almost 30 years….so, of course, Schnitzel was the order of the day. We were the only people there and wound up getting a personal tour of the bowels of the 10,000 square foot Inn.

Thursday turned out to be a beauty….70 degrees, blue skies, sunshine….so we headed out early for a day of wandering… we had planned to hit a couple of art exhibits in Central Vermont, but had failed to read the fine print and none of them was open…nor was the legendary Worthy Burger in South Royalton….so the day did not go quite as planned. But, we did a nice circuit through South Strafford, Chelsea, Tunbridge and South Royalton (four of Vermont’s most quaint villages), sat on every lovely town green, had lunch on the ground, looked for the brightest red maples and took a dirt road stroll. Really…..not much happened but it was a good day away anyway….and Lucy managed no rolling in her first day of roll-recovery….. Mid-morning we stopped in the tiny hamlet of South Strafford as there was an assemblage on the town green of what looked like most of the town. Turned out they were all out to watch a 150 foot crane and the accompanying ascent of two men in a lift to replace the weathervane on the 250 year old town meeting house up on the hill (one of the prettiest in Vermont)…watched for an hour at a snail’s pace….so we gave up craning our head’s once they got the old weathervane off…but no one else was budging from this riveting spectacle. Late in the day , on our dirt road walk, we came across this massive gathering of off raid vehicles coming together for an annual off- road bird watching safari (their word not mine)..which I can only describe as surreal……quite a boost to the camouflage gear market…

Theft in the mountains…..turns out our local General store in Belmont (which has recently had a shift to its sixth owner in last 15 years)…..has been robbed twice in last year…which was relayed to us by one of the local yentas, our on-site hair stylist from England)….the first guy was caught selling the cigarettes he boosted the next day on E-bay…the second guy was caught when he interrupted his pilfering to make himself a fried egg sandwich on the grill…..these guys are not keeping up with modern crime techniques apparently…

I received a DVD in the mail this week from good friend in Ohio, The Naven, who had taken a collection of super eight films of mine- dating from 1966 through 1974 to Costco to have them modernized….wow…is all I can say….the short film vignettes are Chaplinesque, whirring around at lightning speed…..and classic little glimpses of the times…..am hoping to put them up on line the near future for those of you who have been around that long…those were the days, my friends…

We had two overnight Airbnb guests this weekend….each unusual in their own way…..the first was a woman who had stayed with us before, who is here to spend a parents’ weekend with her son who is a nearby recovery center…he is with all the meth heads and heroin addicts, but he, himself, is a computer addict (Tess wants to know if that means he cannot have a phone)…..our guests last night were here for a wedding nearby with some people we know…and told us the wedding was “complicated”, as it as the joining of two women who had both become men…..figure that one out……..only in Vermont…

Yesterday was a brisk fall day, as the colors continue to bloom around us….so after our weekly dump visit (the Dumpmaster was advising me to catch and grill a up a few trout from our pond, which will make the little lady more frisky….this, an example of the weekly advice the sage provides) we took an afternoon hike up a nearby hill and got some good images…..then went down to Rutland to a German mecca for an under the big tent Oktoberfest….full German buffet and schooners of beer…..they had a nice three piece acoustic band who played folksy music…to the chagrin of the celebrants who came in their Tyrolean hats and lederhosen….and were wondering where the hell the polkas were…….

And that, my friends, is all she wrote…may or may not be a Blog edition next week…depending on the potential arrival of baby what’s’- her-name….but we’ll be back sooner or later…..Eat well and enjoy the autumn shift…………………

Papi

Many salutations ya’ll:

“Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately”……………………………………………………………………………………………Michel de Montaigne

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud!”………………………………………………………………………………………….Coco Chanel

“I’m so proud of beeeeeing……. loved by you” …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Curtis Mayfield

“After the warm rain,
the sweet scent of camellias.
Did you wipe your feet?”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

Sunday morning…..bright blue skies, steam coming off the roofs, after 35 degree frost last night………………heating the house up for the first time….leaves just beginning to pop in earnest….and the Shit Storm is over….but more on that later…

Was a busy week, mostly away for the mountains….made the trip last Sunday down the Route 7 mountain corridor –to the first municipal airport in America at Albany International (one flight a day to Canada)- for a surreal mid-summer trip back to Cowtown….how weird is to be a tourist in your hometown?……did the whole taxi, downtown hotel, exploring the city streets thing in Columbus for three days….two days of training at the majestic Ohio Supreme Court…… Caught dinner with the expecting couple…..my very ripe, busting- at-the- seems baby-bearer of a daughter and son-in –law, Jake, picked me up for dinner on Monday…with a trip to familiar and beloved Aab India in Grandview for an eventful taste of ethnic dining (see the photo of the feast)….Tess is day to day to drop and we are in on -call mode to scoot back to the heartland for a short week once L’Enfant arrives…she is in the late summer, overly pregnant heat doldrums of waiting for the blessed event…it was a major bonus to hang with the kids…

Headed back to the Mount on Tuesday night late for a quick night at home…had one flush and a dripping of precious water and repacked my bags…and headed off on Wednesday (with my grocery bag full of car lunch…Hi ho, Hi ho…off to work I go)) for my monthly overnight up in Waterbury for the Governor’s Council meeting…..having the good timing and privilege of involvement in a major renaissance in Vermont in work with kids and families (passed this year the most liberating juvenile justice legislation in the nation)….so the ersatz church lady (former Vermont s Chief Justice) and I are spearheading a committee on jurisdictional changes (you may have to google that one)..…a trip to Waterbury always means a reprieve from the rigors of mountain living (read: SEPTIC ISSUES) and includes a really nice stay at the presidential suite at the local Marriott, a jog through the lovely Vermont village and my favorite little out of the way Thai joint accessed by a life- in- your-hands sprint across the street on busy Route 100 (through the crazy Waterbury to Stowe traffic)…..

And, whilst the cat was away….the TRUE shit diggers came and dug up most of the back yard. After eight hours of occasional digging, five loads of gravel, two really bored mountain boys sitting around in between Dad’s rock loads, Jenn romping around in her shit kicker boots and a bunch of illegal piping…..we have launched…and have a restored septic system (Stu showed back up from the Marriott for the end of the festivities)…who knew what a privilege it is to be able to flush the toilet after a satisfying BM?….may never again take that for granted after six weeks of primeval living..…so now the yard is a total mess from schlepping the earth mover and gravel truck through it….but…. we can now wash dishes like normal people, and take an occasional shower…this is truly a revelation….We love the Shit-Men….though will see if we feel the same way once the invoices arrive….

And…have I mentioned, we are now on the very special all Carb- all the time diet?

Saturday was a chilly overcast day- so we bagged all our yard restoring, chore catch up, gutter cleaning plans…and after a semi-quick trip to the Dump, and requisite weekly consultation with The Dumpmaster, drove up to Dartmouth for a bit of culture and diversity……hard not to like Hanover, NH on an early autumn Saturday afternoon, which seems like a scene from Love Story..…speaking of which, we got to see Spike Lee’s new one …BlacKkKlansmen (check out my review)…which is mandatory viewing in The Age of The Donald…Mandatory!!!……..and were also rewarded with a Harry Belafonte sighting in the film (talk about an American treasure)……we had a lovely crepe brunch at Vermont’s iconic Skinny Pancake and après movie chocolate decadence from the local rich, kid-care package purveyor of kitty crack….a wonderful day away….and….came home to a guilt free BM…..what’s not to like?

So….the clock is running…and the avoided chore list awaits….so…. Hi ho, Hi ho……hoping to catch a two night getaway- fall outing this week if the creek don’t rise and the baby don’t come….so…… will wait and see…learn to be….free to pee….watch the colors on the tree, la-da-da and la-dee-dee……love to you from me……

Ferlin’/Papi/Stu, Chuck/Skippy