Category: Green Mountain Blog

Good Yontif to all:

Time has gotten away from me, and resulted in hundreds of ugly spam comments on my website, so thought I better take a few moments to quickly update the legions wondering what has become of their favorite blogger and The Queen…..from the top floor of a Baltimore Marriott, very late at night, after a whirlwind trip to St. Paul for one day and late and delayed flight on to Charm City …..the road has seemed to again be beckoning of late…..

“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today”…………………………………………………………………………James Dean

“Each day you say to yourself: Today I am going to begin”………………………………………………………………………..Jean Pierre De Caussade

“Boom, boom, boom, boom……..”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Muddy Waters

“Is one Nobel Prize
so much to ask from a child
after all I’ve done?”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Haikus for Jews

So….a quick recap……………………………

The Flatland visit……was a whirlwind three days of non-stop activity. We had three miracles in 12 days: our massive water leak got fixed by the big bad excavators in ONE HOUR on our first day back after months of endlessly running water; BOTH my guitar pickups got working for the first time in ten years, after one of them just fell off the guitar necessitating an emergency trip to the local luthier (just in time for the Bunty station boys to arrive in Vermont next week for a series of gigs)………and in the miracle of the decade…my car broke down mid-last week leaking out all my transmission fluid over the streets of Powell…with nowhere to take it, having only one car and needing to drive up to Toledo the next morning and then home to Vermont…a savior man-child Muslim- to- be showed up out of nowhere, doo-rag on his head, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other and absurdly talked me into letting him fix it……….four hours later he had replaced the radiator and fans and delivered it unexpectedly back to my house….he goes by the name of “Not Yet”….I’ll let you fill in the inferences…..but this was a true miracle and a possible path to sainthood……………….

THE SHOWER (baby, not bathing or weather)….went perfectly and was a moment of beautiful emotional out letting….we had people from Jake’s, Jenn’s and my family all entwined in a wonderful clubhouse setting off a golf course (courtesy of our dear friend, Nancy, who played bouncer at the door for three hours). My nieces and nephew showed up for three days of rural invasion to help out with the blessed event and lent the proceedings a certain level of ethic authenticity…..our granddaughter, baby Quinn (now 14 months) stole the show and everyone’s hearts (along with Tess’ bulging in vitro coming attraction)…and Jenn proved to be the queen of showerdom….how lucky can you be to be joined by five mid-80s or older elders attending? Jake is lucky enough to have three living grandparents….and my long tome friend and mentor, Don Clokey, once again, lent a stately blessing to the event, which he has done to every significant moment of our family’s life since he presided over my marriage in 1986…that’s been a lot of events, Don!………………………….

And then, the mid-summer empty house visit….which this year featured an invasion of Mickeys and Minnie’s , who left their liquid and solid gifts, in every corner of the house….The Queen of the Manse arrived, went to the bathroom and then spent 36 straight hours, cleaning out drawers, doing 30 loads of laundry, and setting traps…..we caught almost a dozen while we were there, and they seemed to have gone away….until we left, and I’m sure they emerged feeling like the house was theirs again………..now I have to point out that we are talking about The Queen of the Animal Kingdom here going Rambo with her wrath on these tiny, adorable creatures…..shamelessly slaughtering them one by one in a frenzy of extinctive behavior….you never really know someone, do you?…..

The return trip to Vermont….was 12 straight hours of mindless driving…broken up only by our little cat, Grace, diving out the car window when we stopped at a Tim Horton drive through….apparently she wanted a latte…and luckily we noticed her prowling the sidewalk before we drove away thinking she was hiding somehow in the back of the car….got to the Mount at 10:30 Sunday night, and had the car unpacked and the house re-settled by midnight…………..like we never left….

I spent this week going back to my road warrior ways with an over the top two day trip to St. Paul and then on to Baltimore…can I mention how much I love airports? Off tomorrow to Philly area for second annual reunion of my child hood Bronx posse (oh, the stories)….and the Band will be here most of next week….…..so, it’s late, it’s late…must go to meet my faith…will try and remount the horse again soon…

Ob-la dee, Ob-la da,

Papi

Mid-summer greetings to all:

“We can’t avoid pain,- but we can transform our response to it”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Sharon Salzburg

“Dahling…Is there anything more boring than being banged at The Ritz”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Unknown European Bourgeois

“We were lying in post-coital bliss when he came crawling in through the hotel window….while the package of meat thawed in the bathtub”………..You’ll have to guess this one

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

Well, its ben an eventful week in the mountains….and now…Sunday rainy day, after a week of magnificent mountain weather….time to sit and ponder. Spoiler alert!…off to the flatlands for a two week mid-summer visit on Tuesday, so chances are no blogging for next couple of weeks…unless the Midwestern spirit unexpectedly strikes…..

The week kicked of last Sunday with our goodbyes to the Dutch and Duchess…sending them off to Fenway Park to see the Sox, where they scored cheap scalped tix after the second inning and texted us their glee…Sox won on a walk off homer by who may be the only Dutch born player in the big leagues…what serendipity…..we then headed over to Belmont village for annual MT. Holly Daze celebration, where Jenn presided over the festivities in her role as the Queen of Mt. Holly, while Stu slaved over the blazing hot grill, cooking dead animals to perfection for three hours in 90 degree heat…and got dragged (literally) into community tug of war….which later required icing of all major joint and muscle groups…….

And, while we were away, the Jamaican clan showed up next door for their continued assault on rehabbing the condemned property….. this was a record turnout with at least a dozen burly Rasta’s working on the house and yard while the woman folk roasted what appeared to be goats (had to check for Lucy’s whereabouts momentarily) in the front year….Mt. Holly is going to be a lot more multi-cultural in the near future…….

Made my monthly excursion up to Waterbury-Stowe area this week for the governors ‘council meeting….and an unnecessary, but welcome, night at the only Marriott within a hundred miles…..Driving up last stretch on way there on I-89 you glide from the mountains down into the valley of God surrounding the state capitol of Montpelier and all of a sudden you have Greens to the right, Adirondacks to the left and Canadian Laurentians straight ahead….on a drop dead gorgeous summer day, it leaves you speechless…..this month’s meeting was in the old section of state office complex, where the 18th century state hospital used to be….filled with tumultuous ghosts…..my co-chair on the Jurisdiction committee is a retired Vermont Supreme Court justice, who is the second coming of The Church Lady from Saturday Night Live…which is hard to ignore…..preettttty uptight…..but in the midst of our meeting this week, she told a story of seeing the first live performance of The Band is 1968 at Winterland in San Francisco and rattled off all their entire set list from that date 50 years ago…which has led me to reevaluate my perceptions of Vermonters…..not always quite what they seem…………………

Thursday night, my old friend Feel (that’s Phil to you flatlanders)showed up for a weekend visit from Jersey…which set us off into a maelstrom of activity until this morning. Within minutes of his arrival, we regressed to our 1970s ways and were downing full glasses of 30 year old scotch….and buzz in tow , headed into Belmont for our first music on the green of this summer, which featured the Jewish Fish Monger’s duet group….then on to Ludlow for a three hour supper at the Homestyle Hostel…after some more wine, we just had them bring us the first five things on the menu…and then late night catharsis back home….

Friday dawned bright an beautiful, and we left the Garden Queen for her last day preparations for THE Garden Tour ..and set off to Lake Nineveh for kayak with Lucy, who refused to stay in either craft and spent two solid hours swimming the circumference of the 600 acre lake and whining the whole time in between snorting water out of her mouth….home for short crash, quick dinner prepared by the Queen on Garden break, and off to Weston Playhouse for an absolutely incredible rendering of West Side Story…..27 actors/singers/ dancers on the small stage and voluminous orchestra sequestered in the basement…..simply awe inspiring…when you’re a jet, you’re a jet all the way………

Saturday arrived with a another God-like day, and Phil, Lucy and I managed to get up and out of the house before the Garden Tourists descended on us…leaving Jenn once again covered in mulch (since 6 am!)…. we hit the Dump for Saturday drop off where the Walrus Dump King, Kevin, embraced me and told Phil how much he loved me……he queried about why Jenn was not there, so I told him I had traded her in for my new husband, Phil, and he quit embracing me…though he indicated if we are going to be gone all day, be could pay Jenn a conjugal visit…..after a trip to the post office (everyone in MH is either at the dump or the PO on Saturday morning) we went down to Ludlow to the Café Delight for an hour and a half breakfast (it’s cheap and EVERYONE was there), then off to Weston for Phil to buy his wife, Mo, birthday tchotchkes at the Vermont Country Store….two hours of dirt road driving and then a hike down to the magnificent Ice Caves, where it goes from 80 to 50 degrees in minutes….Creamees in Wallingford and then home to crash….

We finished the night with our monthly debauchery with our favorite Shanty Irish friends , John and Lydia, up at their mountain estate….which was…well…unfit for description in family friendly writing , as usual…..you just have to be there to grasp the experience….. we brought them a dinner Jenn made of brisket and all the fixings plus Rhubarb cake for dessert ….which was a total assault on my purported low-yeast/low carb/low sugar diet….my answer to the mad scientist Doctor for the last three days is “Worse, Worse and Worse”…..but I do plan to get back on the wagon by day’s end…..

Put Phil in the car and on the way to New Jersey this morning….and will be working on recovery….

It has been e beautiful week here in the mountains….and now that the guests, friends and Garden Tourists have come and gone….. it is time to listen to the frogs and contemplate the slow way of life that rainy days bring….

Hallelujah to all,

Papi

Greetings Fellow Travelers:

“Take thou also unto thee wheat and barley and beans, and lentils and millet and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof etc.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………From label of Ezekiel 4:9 yeast free bread (or from The Bible-your choice)

“ Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings- always darker, emptier, and simpler”…………………………………………..Friedrich Nietzsche

“How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me?”……………………………………………………………………………..Leonard Cohen

“Lovely nose ring –
excuse me while I put my
head in the oven.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

A week of “Quoting” in the mountains…………………………………………………………………….

“We gotta get outta dis place”…… After a few days of working the land and THE POND…..we decided it was time for a Sunday drive ….and set out to deliver and hang the posters for the MT. Holly Daze celebration today….so we chased summer around the Quaint mountain towns of region; circling through East Wallingford, Weston, Londonderry, Landgrove and Peru (Vermont, that is) ……….stopping for short walks along the way and emulating Lucy as she stopped to literally smell the roses…we call this the “Quaint village tour”….”Quaint” may be an understatement…………

“Look at the size of that F____r”………….we have inherited a bull-goose size “House Toad”, who has emigrated from The Pond, apparently seeking asylum from Pond oppression, outside our front door……we welcome immigrants here and believe they enhance our community…..and Lucy has failed to notice he/she as of yet……………………………

“What happened to all the women”…..on Monday Folk Club was a boys night only……apparently a memo circulated amongst the folkie woman to stay away en masse (a “Me-Too” move?)….with only the men there it becomes decidedly testosterone-ish…..and the volume goes up several decibels….plus we have a new folkie member-an acquaintance of mine from the Gym on the mountain, who is an interesting guitar virtuoso, brain- damaged surgeon, who claims to have played with Richard Thompson????….really???….

“How depressing was that?”……we went to our second play of the season at the Weston Playhouse, “Fun House” …and our first in the sparkling new “Weston Playhouse at Walker Mountain”- a year round arts facility built last year after a ten year campaign to extort money from theater goers…..the play was very well done, but they should have handed out Zoloft at the door….the venue is quite the upgrade over the former Weston ”second theater” , which was housed at the local Rod and Gun Club (really)…………………………….

“I think I made a FOPA”…………..Jenn describing a mistake in what she believed to be the French phrase spelling…..(I think she did, no????)………

“I’ll have whatever she’s having”………….The gym at Okemo ski area has been getting a lot busier since the summer people arrived en masse, I think there were as many as 6-7 people at a time there this week (I often have the building to myself)….I was working out on the bench press one day this week, when I started hearing this moaning and groaning, which began to increase in volume, frequency and intensity……eventually culminating in a crescendo of orgasmic screams…..needless to say I perked up and scanned around to find the source- a young woman in purple spandex from whence this emanated……she continued to express herself this way as she moved on to stretching (quite limber) and weight lifting (really strong)……all of which was pretty distracting my working out……I finally gave up and went outside to jog five miles in 90 degree heat and take an hour long cold shower……..

“We gotta get outta dis place #2”-……We decided we needed to have an overnight away- so Thursday, which was a God-day in the mountains (72, sunny, no humidity)…we loaded the car with food and gear for all eventualities and set out to parts unknown….and spent 13 hours driving around southern Vermont and then on to the Hudson River byway…..in search of a gourmet meal and quaint lodging………by 6 pm, we had decided we did not like any of the lodging offerings since the tourista were out in full force, and circled back hone arriving around ten pm…..we also stopped for a meal of burnt meat loaf and something resembling roast pork at a little “trading post” underneath the Champlain Bridge (connecting NY and Vermont)…..since we were gone 13 hours, used a full tank of gas, hit two states and took four walks…this apparently adds up to an overnight in the mountains……

“Better, worse or the same” … I have to call in dally to the mad scientist- doctor (Frasier’s brother Niles) up at Dartmouth, who I am seeing for some unknown condition that may be Rheumatic/Lyme- related/Yeast-induced). When I call and try to tell him how I am doing , what symptoms I have, what is the progress….he reminds me of “the rules”…..”Better, same or worse than the day before”….nothing more, nothing less…the cure may be worse than the condition….

“Ve like to zee the Red Zox”…..we had our third Airbnb guests of the season this weekend – a lovely young couple from Holland (Utrecht), who are avid baseball fans…..Jakob and Annemieke ( I called her Anne Marie for short)…..they already had plans to see the Yankees in New York and wanted to see the Sox today in Boston…so we sent them down to wait until the second inning and scalp tickets when the scalpers get desperate (one hopes)…they left us a cookie and a love note….gotta love the Dutch……

And, finally………………………………..

“I need another bush and I’m not sure we really need a pickup”…….The Garden and Bedding Queen as she prepares for the annual Mt. Holly Garden Tour showing next week (after spending 430 hours in garden preparation) and after seeing a Subaru Impressa and Kia Seoul listed on line…. we do keep busy in our heads in the mountains……

And, that, my friends, is about it….gotta go get ready to man the fiery grill at MH Daze…an decide whether I am better, same or worse for tomorrow’s call….See ya…….

Stu

Greetings Patriots of all ilks:

“Better you should close the club soda”………………………………………………………………………………..Stu in response to Jenn offering a beer after she did not put the top back on the now flat club soda bottle

“ I live, which is the main point”…………………………………………………………………………………………….Heinrich Heine

“A flower dos not think about competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms”…………..Zen Master

“Hard to tell under
the lights–white Yarmulke or
male-pattern baldness?”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………Haikus for Jews..

Pens Pals in the mountains……………….I received a beautiful book of poetry this past week form my pen pal, Sherilyn, who lives in Winnipeg (north of the wall). I met Sherilyn in 1978 when Phil and I were traipsing around the country and we spent a few weeks together in the Pacific Northwest….though I have never seen her since, we have exchanged letters for more than 40 years, with astonishing regularity (I have hundreds of letters hidden away in a box, which my kids will someday come upon as some extraordinary panorama of our times)..….even now , we continue to exercise this somewhat archaic art form and have not resorted to e-mail….40+ years, and still poetry!

Birthdays in the mountains….we spent last Sunday in the 95 degree heat at a birthday party for our friend, Linda Miller…..which meant hours floating in their pond in rafts with little drink holders, while Lucy ran around the pond in circles barking at us…..this is apparently how one deals with heat with no air conditioning

Kayaking in the mountains…..we got out this week, to escape the seven straight days of 90 degree plus heat, to lovely Lake Nineveh, for our first Kayak trip of the season….. we often try to stay apart so Lucy will stay in one boat, but eagle eye fleagel spotted me from all the way across a pretty big lake…and dove in from Jenn’s craft …..swimming after me for the better part of two hours, with her little life vest and her little legs churning and her snout barely above water – snorting the whole time…..a few other kayakers seemed amazed, though I’m not sure if they were impressed or suspected puppy- abuse…..Of course, on the way back, we had to make dirt road, over-mountain detour , to find Cremees….before all crashing back at home (Lucy slept for six hours!)

Fresh Milk in the mountains…..Jenn has struck up a relationship with nearby Farmer Johnson, where she leaves her own personal jug to be filed with newly milked cow stuff a few times a week…since she was busy with the town yenta-ing job, she asked me to pick up the filled up milk jug for her….which created quite a stir amongst the group of farm-wives (how many does he have?) when I drove in with my foreigner plates to pick up the milk…..after a quick cavorting with their baby heifers, I was able to locate the milk shed and the storage fridge …..and return home with the anointed milk…..though, apparently, I had forgotten my glasses ( and it is DARK in the milk shed), since the next day we realized I had someone named “Gerber’s” milk and jug….which looked pretty close to reading “Jennifer” to me…and does the Gerber get some kind of special milk, anyway?

Sunday morning visits in the mountains…..The Jewish Pig Famers’ wife just showed up with her dogs for a visit, and Jenn was telling her about The Blog, as I was mid-composing…she asked to be on the list, but Jenn was dissuading – her describing the nature of my stereotypical descriptions….using herself as an example of being the object of my stereotyping…to which the JPFW responded…” men just have to give us shit about what they don’t understand”….this is apparently Vermont pig farmer wisdom….

Fourth of July in the mountains……We braved the 96 degree heat to head into Belmont for the infamous eight minutes of Parade….with Queen Jenn on her community association float..…After the first vehicle, with the “Grand Marshall”, who is our local state senator..…came the wandering donkey, who proceeded to shit all over the parade route…which the state senator hastily cleaned up with a shovel…which I believe is a real example of government at its best…..From there, we went in to REALLY hot Rutland to check out the “Giant” flea market at the state fairgrounds…..which turned out to have four tables of fish wives hawking semi-voodoo dolls and other Vermont relevant tchotchkes..….then on to find shade for a walk up a dirt road at White Rocks Recreation area, and after much debate over a picnic lunch, a decision to take our first trail walk of the summer…so despite the tick-hysteria, we put on the Off (what a sentence, no?) and did a two mile walk straight up….then back home where Lucy slept another six hours….

And…Gardening in the mountains…my Garden Queen had another three yards of mulch delivered for her garden overhaul project ( more mulch than it might seem…BIG pile) …..and we are on a trimming, lopping, edging, digging whirlwind leading up the Mt. Holly Garden Tour in few weeks…Lucy and I find places in the barn to hide while this activity is going on…and I just booked a few Marriott nights in anticipation of the Tour preparation heating up……

Dining in the mountains…..this week had us meeting the King and Queen of Java Baba-land at the legendary Country Girl Diner in Chester for their Friday dinner special menu ..…open until eight (usually closes at 3), eight specials on a chalkboard (only five choices left when we arrived at 6:30) and cash only ( we had bills rather than change this time)…….it’s a wonderful experience……mostly gravy-based, in a classic 1939 Mountain View Dining Car (you can look it up)…..then on Sunday night, we made the pilgrimage to Rutland, to our beloved shrine, East, for the traditional Sunday supper…..we now have a permanent table reserved for us there…

Conflict in the mountains….THE POND is once again dissipating as the heat of summer goes on…with little in the way of feeder water supply, so we are again considering tapping into the old spring up the mountain and running 1500 feet of pipe down to the Pond…..which the diaper cleaning people who owned our place for 50 years did……A Connecticut mensch bought the adjoining zillion acres a few years ago and is building his pleasure dome up there, and the spring is on his land….when I mentioned the idea to him last Fall, he immediately pointed out that it was HIS LAND…….but we have now found that the deed to our property includes a right of way for the springs up there….so there, Mr. Connecticut…..you go back to the burbs….The process would still involve all kinds of piping, gravity, coupling , heating and dowsing…..so we may just pay the fire department to come with truckloads of water for THE Pond..…stay tuned on this one…has the potential to be Hatfield and McCoy like………

And…finally… though there is much more I could illuminate you with….Pet-acquisition in the mountains….So, our friend, Linda, the French Master Chef’s betrothed, decided it was time for another cat (I think she already had 14) and cat procurement is tricky in the mountains, as most of them seem to be going to Chinese restaurants (remember the recently closed-by-the health – department Chin-Some -Young Guy in Bellows Falls) so she found one being deported from the Deep South to NYC…and on Saturday, drove 5 ½ hours to midtown Manhattan to pick up the little ball of fur, and then 5 1/2 hours back (we declined to accompany her despite repeated pleas)…..we clearly love our pets in the mountains…..

And……that…my friends…is clearly more than enough…..

Papi

Happy Summer Ya’ll:

“You must learn to wait properly”………………………………………………………………Shoji Yamada

“He’s more Kasich than Kasich”…………………………………………………………………. Stu responding to Jenn about Vermont’s Governor Phil Scott, who is hard to pin down on political leanings and quite unpredictable

“Everyone should have themselves regularly overwhelmed by nature”……..George Harrison

“Left the door open.
for the Prophet Elijah.
Now our cat is gone.”………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

“I’ve really been spending time in my head”………………………………………………..Big Papi in mulling about this week’s Blog style

Off the teletype……………………………………………….Dateline: Mt. Holly………………………………….Sunday July 1st ……………………………….Rat-ta- ta …..Ra- ta- ta ……………………………….Vrrrooommmmmm………..

HOT………….95 yesterday in the Mount……………………………..no end in sight…………no AC around……..what you gonna do?……..3 hours in The Pond Saturday…………four buckets of Algae…..VEEY CLEAN….Very cool……

Shade…………………..first walk of the summer up the Gates Trail……Spring Cistern found….how to get water down the mountain into The Pond….possible Hatfield and McCoy showdown with Connecticut mansion builder on adjoining land, whose spring is it?….black flies go nuts…ooh-aahh……..Lucy finds BIG dogs (horses) and thinks “life-mates”…………………….

“Greasin’ the Bowbee”…………making nice with the Mount road crew supervisor (Mr. Bowbee) to get them to build a temporary bridge replacement over the stream from Rt. 103 to our house…rather than make our road a thru road for egress…and us wind up with another house next to a “parkway” for the Belmont crowd shortcut to Rutland….Jenn working on skimpy outfits and sweet talkin’ skills with “The Bowbee”

De-shitting the place…….How many A-1 Septic services can there be in the small mountain hamlets…more than you would think….

Music in the Greens…..summer lawn music starts….Castleton College mountain setting picnic night….”The Hot Club of Saratoga” (really, Saratoga!!)….like 1930s Paris Hot Club with Django Reinhart and Stefan Grapelli…..very ambitious….all bands love Lucy……

Cell phone plans are a sham – how can you pay hundreds of dollars and run out of minutes? …..five conference calls in one day must do it…along with children buying houses and having babies……………………….and what about the daily dropped calls?

POT….legal as of today in Vermont…but you cannot buy it or sell it….get out the garden hoe, mama….

GOLIATH………..Billy Bob Thornton…. Amazon……check it out……….quite the ride

Jenn- many friends now in the Mount…..pulling organic weds, remodeling bathrooms, building Fourth of July floats…..many home visits for wine tasting…taking over the community building…thinking about a run for the House District……..Jenta-Yenta………..the queen of Mulch…………………………..

Stu- on the anti-social side….no friends to speak of except those who cannot ever make any plans…..boo-hoo….BUT….many daily acquaintances….. my “Circle of Care”…..……one day last week: mingling with the Gym matrons at Okemo…….my free lunch mama bear at Java-Baba……the inside contact at the General store leaking all the secret news of the Mount…… the postmistress who gives me daily prizes…. and the librarian who gets books for me from all over New England and leaves them out for me to let myself in to the library for 24 hour a day pickup……..who needs friends-with needs anyway?….though why is clearly a complex psychological question??????

Tessa-Bear…..six months down and three to go…might make baby-date yet…….

AIRBNB- had a last minute hang-gliding guest this week…..was here for 12 hours and I saw him for five minutes of gliding regalia…..he left and now we have two baby chicks, that The Mulch Queen is fostering, living in the guest room..…which is keeping Lucy up and vigilant most of the night…….

More Music…More Heat….Friday night – at ski hill – free concert series……young bands playing 80’s hits……bad expensive Bar-B-Que……..visiting Jerseyites with wine spritzers…..two zillion dogs searching for ground scraps…..sunset on the hillside………………….

Weston Playhouse….first show of season……….Our Town….New Hampshire’s Thornton Wilder’s 1937 gem which was the first show presented at the new Weston theater that year……unannounced lead role of The Stage Manager done by Christopher Lloyd (Jenn: “don’t we know this guy from somewhere?”)

Sunday-Sunday…….Tasks for the day: spread Mulch before it is 90 degrees…. get all our weekly laundry done because electric rates are lowest on the day of the Lord (why is that?)…. jump in the Pond…find air conditioning….finish the endless Blog….

Blah, blah, blah, blah…..I need the remedy……Feliz Naveda………………all that glitters isn’t gold……..it’s all right mama…….Buenos Diaz……

Papi

Aloha:

“Let yourself become the space that welcomes any experience without judgment”……………………………………………..Tsoknyi Rinpoche

“Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down…….and they all led me straight back home to you”………………Gram Parsons

“I closed the box and put it in the closet. There is no real way to deal with all that we lose”…………………………………..Joan Didion

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

I’ve been thinking about “sound bites” this week….which seem to be ubiquitous in our culture……for instance “ Make America great again”, “We will build a wall to keep them out”, “I always look out for the little guy”, “No new taxes”, “I’m also honored to have the greatest temperament that anybody has.” ….well, you get the picture….so here are my own annotated sound bites for our week in the mountains…..

“I’ll bring the gefilte fish”………The Jewish Fish Monger in preparation for our dinner party last weekend, that featured all of our mountain chums, including the Jewish Pig Farmers, the German intellectuals (German was actually spoken at the event), the trippy Organic Farmers, The Boston Shanty Irish Southies, The Russian spy….and a few new ringers thrown in…the food was great, the whiskey was flowing and the conversation was titillating and bizarre…a good time was had by all…..and we were exhausted by the time they all left near midnight

“This belt will work fine”………Famous last words of the parts guy at the mower repair shop when we got a new belt for the tractor last fall, which took three peoples’ strength to stretch and get on… and which had the mower blades running even when not engaged…and which snapped early into our new season…which led to us doing it all over again…well, we’re not really farm people, ya know…

“Boredom is the lack of quality relationships”……after staying at home with no work travel for 6-7 weeks and Jenn and I hovering over each other 24/7)…..was thinking some Marriott stays were a dire necessity…and then the phone started ringing and the e-mails started coming….and now I am suddenly trying to decide who to answer…..and whether air travel is all that desirable…famine and feast

“I really need a snack”….our newest yard boy, Ian, after about ten minutes of weed whacking, most of which was spent kicking and screaming at the whacker……apparently Jenn had set the dangerous precedent of feeding him at regular intervals when I am not here. I asked him if he could use some bread and water……a bit of a difference from the hearty Midwest farm-yard boy types we are accustomed to

“We have the Presidential suite ready for you”……The Marriott front desk at my arrival at the Fairfield Inn in Waterbury (Vt.) this week, for my monthly meeting of the Governor’s Council for Children….apparently the ongoing perks of being a “Titanium” rewards member (Platinum actually, but Jenn can’t remember that and thinks I am Titanium) ……it was pretty nice with a fireplace and such….though I kept wondering which presidents might have stayed there, but was reassured to consider that the Donald would never stay at a Fairfield inn……It was a beautiful drive- day up there on glorious Route 100… a little nap…a little workout…a little jog…a little Thai food…a little hot tub….the complete Stu gets away package

“Take a load off, Fannie”………..Left Waterbury after my meeting Thursday morning and hooked up with Jenn in the mountains of New Hampshire for a drive down to the Boston area(Shirley, MA) to the Bull Run- a 200 year old stagecoach inn that has unbelievable music seven nights a week. We caught up with The Weight Band—who are a band that does The Band, and has five guys who at one time or another actually played with The Band…….. including the great jim Weider on guitar, who replaced Robbie Robertson in 1983 when The Band resumed touring after the finale of the Last Waltz in in 1976. . The food was shockingly good at this erstwhile traditional supper club, we had great table mates (very, very Southie , indeed) and you could close your eyes and hear Levon and Rick Danko singing the great Band catalog. We stayed at a nearby Springhill Suites (two Marriotts in a row……got my fix) and shared the hotel with a huge wedding party, which meant we were up most of the night listening to drunken conversations and squeaking bed springs…but who is complaining….

“Here comes the sun”…..Last night we went over to the “Mount Hollywood” barn studios to hear a barn concert featuring Walter Parks- who is generally regarded as the King of the swamp guitar, and spent many years as a sideman for Richie Havens. We and the Mt. Holly stoners were treated to the very eccentric guitar and vocal ramblings of this very tall, very aesthetic, very temperamental NYC- via Florida swamp- player, who truly channeled Haven’s voice in the lower register and then sang other worldly in the higher registers. Maybe 50 people there to hear the trio which featured local blues guitar legend , Rick Reddington, on bass. When Walter did “Freedom”, Haven’s Woodstock anthem, it seemed like having the late great Richie in the room. This is music in the mountains…………………

“All the news that fits”….and that is where we are….for now…..

Happy trails to you….

The Chuckster

Bonjourno:

“It is June. I am tired of being brave.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………….Anne Sexton

“May my heart be kind, my mind fierce and my spirit brave”……………………………………………………………….Kate Forsyth

“I’m Hangry!!!!!!!!!”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Berry Family vacation mantra between meals

“Beyond Valium,
Peace is knowing one’s child
Is an internist.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

We hear from our friends that it has been sultry and steamy in the Midwest and down East this week, but it’s mainly been a steady mid 70s in the Greens- rainy and cold early in the week and very nice last 4-5 days….but Monday is a scheduled high of 49 degrees….go figure. The wet/cold to warm/sunny has produced the desired greening effect and all is now in full bloom across the valleys and foothills and the snow is gone from the ridges…well, hell, it is June.

This has all led to a burst in gardening activity- often from dawn to dusk- for our master gardener. Plants, mulch and assorted yard tchotchkes have become our bread and butter. Apparently ,we are signed up once again for the Mt. Holly Annual Garden Tour, which will lead to a frenzy in July ….culminating with a host of gabardine clad folk traipsing across our property with cameras and comments. We also had to mow and trim twice this week- what is up with that….maybe there can be too much Green?

The new dishwasher is now in and and running after our experiment in learning hard-wiring…only resulted in several minor jolts…none requiring the defibrillator….

It was a pretty slow week, overall, with the only things moving pretty much the grass…while we hung about and considered home improvements, pickup trucks, garden tools and baskets and what to eat three time a day that does not have carbs or sugars… I think chocolate counts ok?

We went out to The Chop House in Ludlow for the early bird dinner special, which has a very giant salad bar that is very nice…but the real treat was that the mains came with either rice pilaf or garlic mashed….oh man, oh man….how good is that shit?

And, we went to dinner mid-week at our friends’ Beverly and Rick’s down in Chester. They are my mama and papa folks who feed me three times a week at Java Babas for my post gym lunch (limited these days to small plates of vegetables and scoops of meat salad). We drank too much and we certainly ate too much, ending with key lime pie and chocolate cake…which led to ‘Jen passing out on the way home from sudden toxic carb/sugar overload. I was fine but gaily stayed up until four in the morning, prowling the house in search of projects to accomplish (let me just rewire that dishwasher). We were early for dinner so took a short drive into Chester, where we hit a stalled traffic construction zone (really) and so headed north up some dirt road. This led us to an area we had not seen before, which appeared to be primarily inhabited by some brand of survivalists (one house boasted eight cameras in blood red Charles Manson writing on the barn). We did not get lost and made it to dinner on time.

Friday, our first guest of the Airbnb season arrived…a nice woman computer nerd from Boston visiting her son for parent weekend at our local neighborhood treatment center. Which led us to genuinely clean the house for the first time this year, since we have been mostly living in three rooms. Since we have to appear to be straight out of better homes and gardens, this required a full day of cleansing and hosing…. which I guess gives us more rooms now to hang out in and consider carbs. Our guest coming seemed to throw us off schedule kilter, and we were up and ready to go at six am on Saturday morning. So, we headed up the next mountain to Shrewsbury to make out annual pilgrimage to the Throne of the Trout King. The King now has 28 trout ponds and three buildings of holding tanks. We had been trying to pin him down for weeks to get our Pond Bacteria in before I have to get out in the kayak with my strainer…..but he is quite busy and pretty wired to boot. Check out the pond foxes at his estate…and harken whilst he regales us with a half hour of enchantment on his pending colonoscopy. This is what I’m talking about when I mention the fun times in the mountains.

We also came home with a bucket of crawfish and 20 brown trout…so Ya’ll are welcome to come up and fish and have us a N’Awlins boil……that is, if the 40 year old snapping turtle (who reappeared last week) does not eat them all first…

After the Tout King extravaganza, and the fish deposited back in our lovely Pond….we drove down to Rutland for farmers’ market day. The Market is back in full swing…and many of the vendors were thrilled to see their friend, Lucy, again…..who thinks this is the best place in the world, with dogs of every size and persuasion and scraps of food under all the market stalls…..and then she gets to go to her second favorite place, the next door Walmart, to sniff out the bottom shelves and make the yellow vested staff’s days…never knew a dog who loves shopping as much as she does. Loaded down with a trunk full of yet more plants, we returned home to more planting and more searching the fridge for something sugar free to eat…

And that is all she wrote….Dear John…I’ll send your saddle home…

Go Cavs….happy June….take a whiff….

Stu-ber

Happy Memorial Day weekend to all, and humblest thanks to those who have given their lives for our freedom:

“I am anti- war, not anti-warrior”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Bernie Sanders

“America will not be cheated any longer, and especially will not be cheated by foreign countries charging people much lower prices for medicines”………………………..Donald Trump

“People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”……………………………………………………………………..Geoffrey Chaucer

“What I am, I am: and let it be enough”……………………………………………………………………………………………………..D.H. Lawrence

“Jews on safari —
Map, compass, elephant gun,
Hard sucking candies.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Haikus for Jews

Ah, life in the mountains. Yesterday was a hot and sticky mid to high 80s-summr in blooming….this morning is in the mid 40s and going to just crack 50 later….ya just never know.

This week was a sad week for us. After months of downward spiral, injections and forced pill taking, we had to put our beloved old kitty, Niko, to sleep. She had quit eating and was basically living under the bed. Once a robust 15 pounds, she was down to five and half. So, we took her on Wednesday, and had her put gently to the next kitty world. The house feels a lot emptier without her prowling around, talking nonstop to us. Niko was originally Jenn’s mom’s cat, but we have had her since she passed ten years ago, and it always felt like a little bit of grandma Pat was with us in the house. A very sad moment, as we hovered over her on the table, dripping tears down, as she drifted off to sleep. She was one of a kind.

But it wasn’t all sad, as life rarely is.

I am in the process of having the full Monte Vermont medical experience. Having had some pretty debilitating muscle and joint problems for several months, and not finding an exact reason, have been exploring some alternatives to try and deal with it, apart from taking steroids and walking around in a perpetual state of road rage. This has led to some interesting experiences. I found an eccentric doctor with non-traditional methods at Dartmouth, who I spoke with several times this week. Let’s just say the man is precise and quite unequivocal in his view of his own magical cures. When dealing with him, it feels very much like talking to Frazier’s’ bother, Niles , on the old TV show, if you know what I mean. I cannot get in to see him for three months (apparently quite the demand for the magic bullet), but he emphasized (at least five times) that I have “express, consent permissions” (he really said that) to call him daily to see if he has had a cancellation. This may be quite an experience . I also have at least six different mountain folks offering to make me potions guaranteed to rid my joints of all toxins…and our friend, Linda, made a trip down from the lake, to offer her healing in the form of a large suitcase filled with some kind of hydro-electric, ultrasonic, photon-enhanced electronic device with wands that light up blue (like in Star Wars) that you wave around your body parts for ten minutes and ostensibly clears out all the bad juju. Once we warmed up the device, I immediately got a jolt of electric shock for unknown reasons before having the wand miracle for the allotted ten minutes. All of this to be able to get out of bed a little easier in the morning……

As a result of the joint issues, I sometimes cannot find a comfortable sleep position, and one night this week, after lots of tossing and turning, headed off to one of the other bedrooms to try and sleep without mowing Jenn or Lucy down. I went to one of the small dark bedrooms and snuggled in for few hours of sleep, only to wake to find I had been lying in a vast pile of mouse turds that had been gifted over the winter. Apparently, we had not gotten to cleaning out this room yet. Jenn was horrified….but I wondered if there was not some possible healing component to this?

Thursday, we had young Ian over to work with us on some outdoor projects. Ian is the son of our friends John and Linda, and maybe gets a bit fuzzy at times from a slight overuse of psycho active substances. Initially, he showed up the day before for his Thursday appointment time, and then, once here, fought with our old weed Wacker for about an hour to get it started. I had left him to it and was in the house finishing a work project, and could hear him screaming at the machine, so went out to check and found him circling it and periodically kicking at it, while lashing out with various creative epithets. I gave him some Gatorade and got the machine started for him, which seemed to go well until he ran out of line, and shut it down to re-string it. At which point, the screaming and pacing began again. I again went out to assist and coach him to get it started without beating it to a pulp, which he did, and went out to resume whacking, which seemed to be going very poorly. So I again went out to help him and found that he had no string line on the whacker to make it work, which he had apparently forgotten was why he had had shut it off in the first place. Ian is a nice kid, but good help is hard to find in the mountains.

While he was in mortal struggle with the Wacker, I managed to get out the chainsaw and cut down and cut up a tree…mountain work is never done…..

Wednesday night, after putting Niko down, we were blessed to have the Jewish Fish Monger offer to have us come over and watch the Cavs- Celtics game 5 with him and have him feed us. So- went over to his classic bachelor shack (we cleared the couch of piles of dirty clothes to sit down) and had a totally Yiddish inspired version of Italian food and then had to endure his whooping as the Celtics trounced the Cavs. It was a good distraction and only required four or five Tums apiece after the ethnically challenged meal.

Thursday night, we continued our mission at home- remedying our broken dishwasher. We went to Home Depot in Rutland after talking them into giving us 10% off the already drastically reduced sale price on a new Whirlpool- so that we would not have to make the dark of night, sneak-over drive to the hated New Hampshire….. just to save the sales tax. The HD manager was slightly incredulous at our request, but probably thought we were so strange that he agreed to the “tax abatement” discount. So we now have all out supplies to hard wire the dishwasher; including a special medical kit for mid-level electrical shock treatment. After an hour in Home Depot, we were so exhausted, we had to go to have Chinese at our beloved East.

So…back from a break from my early morning Sunday scribbling- after a short trip down to the lovely town of Wallingford for their annual town wide yard sale day. We had no needs per se- but still came back with a car filled with other people’s junk, to add to our own junk ….including some kind of early-Americana schlock, painted wood liquor cabinet, that is now searching for a home. It is truly amazing the shit that people collect, and then sell to other people to collect and then sell, etc., etc., ad nauseum….

And then…yesterday the JFM and I had made an all-day drive down to Boston to see the Sox play at Fenway. He got second row field box tickets for free from one of his fish guzzling customers, so we set off early in the morning for the 3 hour plus drive down to his hometown of Newton, where we parked and took the T (short for “train?) down to the city. But first, we had to make quick stop at Barry’s Village Deli (his boyhood haunt) to pick up $100 worth of deli sandwiches, which we initially consumed sitting on the floor of the packed train to the delight of our fellow travelers who stood all around us smelling the air to figure out what in the hell was happening in that train car. The stadium seats were incredible (and cushioned), it was incredibly hot and muggy, and the Sox won big. The crowd was delirious and we saw a couple of balls pounded off the famous Green Monster. Steve had four tickets so he invited two old rock and roll playing friends to meet us ….brothers Johnny and Vince from the Boston North end classic Italian gene pool. The guys vaped their way (not tobacco) through the whole game and kept a nonstop dialog going for three hours…..Goodfellas, good fun. On the trip back we stopped at a roadside park to have part two of the deli deluxe, with corned beef, pastrami, brisket, sour tomatoes, pickles, cole slaw, rugalach (you get the picture), sitting on a park bench at sunset while the mosquitoes had an orgasmic frenzy over both us and Barry’s Deli. As part of my herbal recovery, Jenn had had us trying to not consume carbs or sugar, which I had done very well on for a week (losing an amazing 7 pounds)…and which was more than reversed with yesterday’s eating frenzy (totally worth it).

Jenn, meanwhile volunteered for another community supper at the Oddfellows hall, and came back with 14 pounds of leftover baked ham…which is probably dead on for the caveman diet….

And now, my friends, I do believe it is nap time on bleak Sunday afternoon.

Be well, try to love one another right now, right now, right now…..

RIP…..Niko-Niko………………………

Ferlin’ Stu-Man