Category: Green Mountain Blog

Guten Tagin:

“I was lying in a burned out basement, with a full moon in my eyes
I was hoping for replacement, when the sun burst through the sky”………………………………………………………………….Neil Young

“When I die, I wanna go out like my granddad did. Passed out in his sleep…not like the other screaming passengers in the car”……………………..Willie Nelson

“The sparkling blue sea
Reminds me to wait an hour
After my sandwich.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Haikus for Jews

Spring has definitely sprung in the mountains, though it is still pretty cool-had a night in the 20s this week….and pretty rainy. Not much has happened this week, aside from the greening of the Greens, so thought I would try to do some choice updates and leave it at that…plus…well, you have to wait…

The trees….are all green and blossomed overnight this week

THE POND- is full and spouting water from the fountain twice a day for several hours….none of our trout farm citizens seem to be apparent after the winter…no carcasses… where did they go?

Baby Quinn turned one year old and ate cake…with Nanna Jenn in attendance

Jenn got back Tuesday from five days cavorting in Cleveland….and has been buried somewhere out in the garden ever since …I believe currently lying under two yards of mulch

Tess and Jake are closing on their new house in a few weeks and have sold their current one…movin’ on up

Max is closing on his new and first house, in Paradise, also in few weeks…..movin’ to the other side of the tracks

Tess had a slight fall up (not down) this week on the basement stairs….and hurt her finger, but the baby did not come out

The CAVS remain alive after thrashing the C’s last night

The Jewish Pig Farmer and his bride….are now The Jewish Pig and Solar Farmer…..they are doing weight watchers with some success, but go out to dinner once a week , and all bets are off…..we went to eat with them last night at Mojo in Ludlow….and they ordered everything on the menu….we were there a long time…

We have finally installed our new SMART TV and it has totally outsmarted us…..we have no idea how to work it

Nikki, the post mistress, has applied for a better paying job at a PO over in hated New Hampshire….and has disappeared without telling anyone…..but WE know….

Kevin, the Walrus Dump Master, suggests Jennifer should come live with him for week, and fill up his garbage

Without any sensible people around right now, the Folk Club has become the out- of- control jammin’ club….someone is a bad influence…

Keven, the cantankerous owner of the General Store….had a near fatal fire this week overnight……only hours after telling us how much he hated his place and wanted to get rid of the store…subtle!

The Jewish Fish Monger is getting us tickets to go to Boston and see the Sox next weekend…..I’ll be sure to wear my Cavs t-shirt and earplugs

After a month of Jonesing……Stu went off to Waterbury this week for a Governors Council meeting and an overnight at the Marriott….and thought about just moving in there…..there is really good Thai food across the street, a hot tub, mountain views, and no house projects or pickup trucks looming

AND…our baby, Lucy, is going to turn four in a week or so…we took her on an early birthday treat to the market yesterday, where she encountered a pet pig on a leash…she was in disbelief and thought she had gone to hog heaven…especially when the pig started shitting in the middle of the market, which Lucy thought was expressly for her to roll around in..…suitably aromatic, she then went shopping ta Walmart, where she is loved no matter how she smells………………………..

So…you are probably wondering what is it with Aunt Sadie….and what the hell she has to do with The Blog? Well, truth be told, I was thinking yesterday afternoon that I did not want to do the dam blog thing this week, and maybe I could pacify my angst ridden readers by just telling a story…..then it morphed into a few short sentences about the week as a lead in to the story…AND…the story…..and then I got into the whole thing, and you get the above ranting..…but I promised the story anyway. So the story you get.

My Great Aunt Sadie worked in the Garment district in the city for almost 50 years. This was during the Golden Age of this place, where 90% of the all the world’s clothes were produced in this tiny corner of the big city that stretched for eight blocks by four blocks centered on 7th Avenue in Manhattan in the high 30s. The enclave flourished in the 1920s up through the 1970s before China started making all our clothes a lot cheaper. Sadie was a master seamstress working in one of the zillion sweat shops for 12 hours day, six days week for all those years. But, every day at noon sharp, she walked over to 7th and 38th, and met up with her coffee klatch colleagues of Yiddish speaking, Eastern European immigrant women for a light lunch and little master Yenta activity. Some herring, a bit of chopped liver, a smoke and a glass tea….and then she would head back to the shop to work until long after dark. One particular overcast and drizzly day, Sadie was on her a back to the shop- when a tall, gaunt man jumped out at her from a doorway along 33rd St. He had on a long raincoat and boots showing underneath. The man blocked Sadie’s’ way, and opened his raincoat to show her his naked boy underneath. Aunt Sadie stood there in the drizzle, looked him up and down for several minutes..….and in her very heavily accented English, said (you have to hear the accent!)……..”you call that a lining”……………..

Let the sun shine……….

Stu

Happy Mother’s Day to all: (Mothers in the many senses of the word)

“All truths wait in all things” ……………………………………………………………………………………Walt Whitman

“To understand nothing-takes time” ……………………………………………………………………….Zen Saying

“Sorry I’m not home
to take your call. At the tone
please state your bad news”…………………………………………………………………………………….Haikus for Jews

There have been many miracles this week in the mountains. The sun came out for more than one day at a time. After several false starts, the tractor is running AND mowing….and the broken dryer is now fixed by the urban-bred home repair boy…without the appliance repair guy coming. And……Thursday it turned green here overnight…one of nature’s unusual phenomena.

Jenn is off to Cleveland for four days for Baby Quinn’s first birthday- leaving me to deal with the various forms of animal excrement…as well as slamming medicine down the throat of poor little fading Niko the cat…..who is beyond traumatized by the process. We made another sudden trip to the vet this week- thinking again it may now really be the time to put her down, but once again she got a reprieve and has bounced back- for the 700th time. Now, under the unconventional and bizarre care of Dr. Stu –she seems to be thriving..…what does this mean? Let’s just say that maybe the junk food diet has some benefits….

Wednesday was our good weather day this week- so we headed off to find a drive and dirt road (we are staying off trails, per se, due to increased tick activity in May)..…wound up down in Peru (really!) for a lazy walk up a mountain dirt road and then down to J. Hapgood’ s general store, where we picked up lunch and ate on the church bench in the hazy sunshine….watching a bevy of guys with high-end implements clean up everyone’s yard in town….what do we have to do to qualify for having this ?

We got home for a quick rest and then up the mountain to John and Lydia’s house for another memorable swinging soiree..…John and Lydia tend to show up out of the blue for few days and invite us for dinner PLUS….which always has significant consequences for the next two days. We had a heated five hour discussion over whether or not they were bonafide “Southies” (look it up)….apparently vehemently not, with quite sophisticated explanations on what exactly makes a “Southie”..…I still think that they actually are, but then that is just me…

Jenn made a trip down the mountain this week to visit with The Jewish Pig Farmer and his bride, who are now doing weight-watchers (Kosher, I presume) and are barely visible due to immense weight loss…..we will go out to dinner with them next weekend, which may present some menu challenges..

I made another twisted road, lost- four -times, exotic trip to see the Healer up in the Woods this week….in order to…well, get healed (modicum of success)….I was on her healing table for two hours and could barely walk when I left…but felt very woodsy-Zen like.

Friday was a moderately nice day…and the Pond-schmutz has begun to announce its presence due to the thousands of tadpoles giving birth…so I did a hocus-pocus pond treatment and then convinced Jenn to get in the water (before she left for the airport) and re-initiate our wacked out fountain and water moving system…..it was in the low 60s and the water temp (which I assured her was lukewarm on the surface) was probably in the 30s….but since I had hid her car keys, and she could not leave for the airport to go to Cleveland…..she agreed to do it…with superior results.

Well- cutting it short today…as I have excrement to contend with…and heading over to watch the Cavs and Celtics Game One with The Jewish Fish Monger (a lifelong die-hard Celtics Fanatic)…..which I hope to survive intact…so got to get going…..plus he has promised to make matzo ball soup to modify the game conflict and tension…

So, until whenever….

Yours, Papi

Greetings mes amis:

“I walk into where the light is”……………………………………………………………………………………………Mark Strand

“Sorry I’m not home
To take your call. At the tone
Please state your bad news”………………………………………………………………………………………………..Haikus for Jews

GO CAVS……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Ferlin’ Norris

You were probably wondering where the heck I’ve been today-as I try to have this ready for your Sunday brunch….but alas, country life in the mountains gets in the way…spent most of the day with chainsaw in hand cutting up limbs from our recent losing battle with 60 mph winds….then on to getting the yard machines running (so far- amazingly- so good)….and then lamenting the sudden loss of our clothes dryer with a lot of wet clothes to dry…in the rain….Still- a lot for nice Jewish boy from the Bronx, NO?

As a result….I am sore and tired and still have damn house things to yet fix today….So, again, he threatens the Zen version…but today I am committed….so bear (or bare) with me….

THE POND…is thriving…with a zillion little frogs’ eggs abounding, waiting to overtake our lives and some new resident ducks floating around…and the peepers at night are like a country symphony…..

Birthday came and went this week…quiet one, but made the requisite lunch trip to Java Baba, where treated like a local here for surviving for __ years (you’ll have to guess)…and then on to my first visit to our little local post office (only open for two hours each afternoon), where the postmistress, Nikki, came out to jump into my arms…apparently missed our fascinating brand of mailings..

Monday…got back to folk club, for Monday night music for the first time…the real folkies were missing and I am a bad influence, so we got little loud and crazy (Can you say 20 minutes of Neil Young ranting?) ..which I will have to temper for the next one

Tuesday, our bestie, Blue Skies, came over “for coffee”….which is a metaphor for a lot of Yenta action…and filled us in on winter’s life on the Mount…as she was leaving, she mentioned , in passing, that she was getting her knee replaced the next day…Vermonters are stoics, don’t you think?

Wednesday….the sun came out for the first time, and the temps soared to a ridiculous 86 degrees (it was 24 on Monday night)..so the snow is almost all gone now…and we headed up to quaint Middlebury for a drive through the mountains, lunch with Mama Corleone at Costello’s Italian Deli (we actually had a sandwich called the Don Corleone)….then up over the Middlebury Pass to find a dirt road and Big-Ass pond (actually a dam built in 1916..and still filled with ice) for a nice hike down…then the drive home down scenic route 100, and our first Maple Creamees of the season…which Lucy adores….

Speaking of Lucy, she is adjusting to the mountains slowly- going out at night to howl at the beasts of the mountain night (nothing there), digging massive holes in the yard, in search of what?….and rolling in shit daily…which adds to our cacophony of animal experiences- with Grace puking daily and old Niko leaving puddles of liquid poop..…this is all where Jenn comes into play…

Friday, we snuck under cover of darkness, over to the hated New Hampshire, to go to the Super Walmart and buy a new Smart TV at a silly-low price…AND…no sales tax….We’d love New Hampshire if everyone was not busy acting out the “live free or die” thing…..so now we have a massive unopened box in our living room that we are trying to figure out how to fit in our quaint country home (this was actually a Xmas gift from Max, that we returned in Ohio-so as not to schlep it to Vermont, and then re-bought, with our return Mart gift card…at $100 less…my momma wood be proud)…

Yesterday we spent the day as true Vermonters- picking up trash along the roadways for statewide Green-Up day and then volunteering for the first community supper of the season (thanksgiving in May…) at the ODDFELLOWS HALL (for real). I was rewarded for my superior serving skills with a few glasses of pinkish wine, which I did not know really existed- thought it was a myth…

Jenn is off next weekend to Cleve-town for baby Quinn’s first birthday (see her pix)-while I apparently will have the animal excrement assignment back in the Greens…and Tess… is halfway there with baby girl whatitsname…and that, my friends………is all she wrote…

Spin your dreidels and make a good wish…..Love Ya’ll,

Stu-man

Greetings fellow travelers:

“The world is its own magic”………………………………………………………………………………….Shunryu Suzuki

“Our plans never turn out as tasty as reality”………………………………………………………….Ram Dass

“Lacking fins or tail
The gefilte fish swims with
Great difficulty”……………………………………………………………………………………………………..Haikus for Jews

We have just arrived…so time is of the essence, as we are overloaded with moving in and set up issues- but I thought that many of you are probably twitching at this point with withdrawal, so felt obligated to resume pontificating, at least minimally…so the Zen of this moment:

The Winter…….was somewhat daunting….thirty days in a row below 15 degrees and then the rains hit for two months solid….and of course about four days of suns since November…our water system sprang a leak somewhere in the yard, so sump pump ran every minute (we’re on our third one) and Stu walked around with a chainsaw in his left hand looking for wood to cut to keep the house from becoming an igloo…and work travel…ughh….let me count the airports I was stranded in since December…Jenn did yoga 14 times a week, found an ecological center to volunteer at, thus bringing home a brand new range of ideas to translate home dictatorship into, and fruitlessly searched for the magical p-up truck. We also had a range of exotic health issues, but who wants to know that shit anyway?

Prep for the transition went smoothly until I dealt with our cable provider in Ohio- Time-Warner- who I had such a delightful time with, I told them I’d walk on their grave and hung up, terminating a 35 year relationship. Who does not hate their cable company? Then, on our last day, I decided to drive the ancient Jeep and snaking out of our driveway, totally knocked off Jenn’s side view mirror (for the third time),which led to a two hour unplanned – for jury-rigging job to allow her to have any view whatsoever for the 12 hour drive (she’s such a wimp- who really needs to see out both sides, anyway?). Did I mention that this is the fifth year in row of last second calamities trying to leave Ohio…what is the message here anyway? I would recount all of the calamities to you…but it would be very Un-Zen like, so another time, maybe?

Generally speaking…I’m wondering if we are getting too old for this double life? But, then I’d have to start talking about health issues….which I’m refraining from, at least for the moment….. no promise on this

The trip here tuned out to be quite easy on a beautiful sunny almost 70 degree day…with our new strategy of driving as far as Binghamton (yes, it really exists) making it very bearable. Lucy slept the whole way somewhere amidst the piles of shit in the back- I even had to wake her to go potty….and the cats are now loose and crawling all over Jenn for 7 hours. We had great delivered – Italian from our new favorite road stop place and made Mt. Holly by 2 on Friday after a somewhat late start….and arrived to find not only no Green, but a yard with snow piles and very brown grass…no memo here yet on it being spring time…BUT….the POND is peaking…what joyful sight

We then spent almost three hours unloading the cars in a downpour….leaving the almost heated house in a state of utter chaos and confusion…but being the slightly OCD, frenetically driven and competitive schmucks that we are, we had most of it sorted out before going to bed at midnight…though neither one us could bend down by that point (that is not really health related!?)

So- the initial updates……………………………..

Jenn insisted I go down to Java-Baba while we were unloading to see Beverly, who had texted me every Friday all winter to tell me how much she missed me…when she sent me one last week, I replied on Monday, with a link to David Bowie’s “Monday I have Friday on My Mind”….which may have tipped her off that we would be back this week and set up a misguided (on my part) expectation…that I surely needed to fulfill….though it resulted in our usual massive and wonderful free lunch

And by the way…it is April 29th…and snowing out as we speak….ah, mountain life…….

And….we found our return greeted by mouse turds everywhere, so the cats are out at night (instead of being locked up in their hovel) and little Grace is bringing us a daily gift of dead meece at the foot of our bed each morning….

Saturday turned out to be a decent day and we headed off to massive choring in town…so, musings from our first outing:

– The dump now has an office (instead of the beloved Belmont Mall)-which is where Kevin the Walrus in now hiding out…though he came out to flirt with Jenn when he saw us arrive….and Lucy still
thinks the dump is doggie heaven
– The General Store is still very general…and the proprietor, Kevin, is still a world class curmudgeon
– The Famer’s Market is thriving indoors for the moment- and still a cost match with “Whole Paycheck” foods
– Walmart still loves Lucy-and she loves that they stock interesting things on the lowest reachable shelves
– Our favorite Ramuntos- still has the best pizza north of NYC…and a good supply of Burlington’s “Seven Days” weekly news rag for our green-lefty readings
– It’s still a major treat to shop at Hannaford and walk out into the parking lot and be surrounded by mountains

We got home to sunshine and Lucy immediately went exploring to find the best pile of shit she could roll in- which had her banned outside until Jenn deigned to bathe her…I myself kind of look forward to the scents

We have been welcomed back by countless Facebook messages and texts from our mountain friends-apparently the word leaked out that we were back in the greens…though people have been kind enough to stay away rather than have to help us unpack and schlep…

AND…our really BIG NEWS…both my kids (Max and Tess) had offers accepted yesterday on new house purchases…moving on up…and if you don’t already know, Tess and Jake are expecting a little girl in October….which has been quite a shock to us all….and will be our second grandbaby- to go with our dearest little Quinn in Cleveland (Ryan and Lauren’s little girl) who will be a year in a couple of weeks…trying to get used to being Big Papi and Meme right now……

So…back to adjusting-which means Jenn is relentlessly cleaning and ordering shit on line, and I am destined for the couch and watching the Cavs try to win game seven…supposed to be up into 70s midweek so hoping for some mountain hiking, and then next weekend is Green-Up day and the first community supper of the year-both of which we will be volunteering at…but for now, we eagerly anticipate Sunday night return to East for some special duckling and elegant Chinese in the mountains…

Well, once again…not very Zen-like-but there you have it….back in the saddle

Stay safe, do a good deed and stay in touch…

Love to all,

Papi

Greetings fellow travelers:

“No one’s mouth is big enough to utter the whole thing”……………………………………………………………Alan Watts

“Through the Red Sea costs
extra”- Israeli movers
overcharge Moses………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Haikus for Jews

Well…a reluctant and BRIEF (promise) mid-winter Sunday dispatch due to overwhelming popular demand to keep The Blog going from the flatlands……………………………………

Bee-Bop- A- Lupa………Manish Tanah Khalilah Chazeh………Go tell it in the mountain……….Da-doo-run-run-run, Da-doo-run –run……You can’t always get what you want, but…….

These are the chants of the mid-winter blues. Is anyone else quite done yet? We are at a balmy 20 degrees today ,after a week of numbing cold that never exceeded ten….and we are apparently one of the warmest in the eastern half of the country (it’s BAD in the Greens)…so what to do, what to do…..

Apparently the answer is….Bedding…after ten days of sleeping in our lovely double bed with two dogs (Cousin Rosie has been with us while The Nave and Suba were off on the heated slopes of the Rockies)- we are committed to find a king bed setup that we can schlep up the narrow old- farmhouse stairs (the kind that inflate on contact with the air and may explode– but are worth it for a good night’s sleep)

So we are trolling the internet, visiting the new state of the art IKEA nearby, dealing with a variety of scammers on Craig’s List who purport to want to purchase our Sleep Number double unit, but in reality want to steal our identities…… and are busy procuring a vast selection of bedding regardless of whether we yet have a bed to put these on.

This, along with the daily pick-up truck availability report…..and…a list of a dozen or so pending new home renovations (yes, it comes with us from Vermont to Ohio) are making for a busy mindset of winter activities, not allowing for much else. Of course-we all know what this array of activity means for your faithful scribe…..yes, you guessed it- checking in to the Marriott…..any Marriott. Which I had planned for this week, but spent the best part of a miserable day on Thursday at the Columbus airport unsuccessfully trying to get flights to Philadelphia, where there was apparently another storm of the century. I wept when I had to call the Marriott to cancel my reservation and trudge back home to the waiting tasks at hand.

Not much else has happened over the holidays, which were very quiet in a Zombie sort of way. Been reading a lot of books (I am now able to solve the mysteries by page 17) and seen a lot of movies….and burned a full cord of wood in less than a month trying to keep the old house warm (I am wearing nine layers as I type this- along with a coonskin cap and giant skunk mittens with the fingers cut out).

We had a low key family Christmas with Tess and Jake…with the possible exception of four insane dogs going berserk for 24 hours- and spent the stroke of New Years senior- dozing on the couch after a nice afternoon trip to the fine Columbus Museum of Art (hence the Impressionist photo)….and now we are just in the deep freeze and waiting for the basement to fill up with melting water and the sump pump to once again cease to function…but who’s complaining….could be worse, no?

I have another week at home before I begin a bizarre two months of travel to all the places you would not want to go in the dead of winter (excepting a week with the prodigal in sunny San Diego paradise). But- I get ahead of myself-since today is clearly about bedding, project preparation and truck hunting….though ..there ARE a few Marriotts nearby, and Jenn seems to be horded away at the moment making fiendish plans….so maybe a slip away into the cold, and some room service is not yet out of the question….

Be that as it may…enough is enough….a wink is as good a nod to blind horse…and so on……..

Where is Leonard Cohen when we really need him? Or Jim Harrison? Or MacGyver? C’mon people now , smile on your bother….……..right now…..right now…..right now……….

In Sha Allah (look it up)

Stu-brahim

Dear readers and sometimes friends:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Highlights of The Downs of not being in the Greens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace on you…..Preacher-Stu

Greetings kind readers:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love, Stu

Greetings fellow travelers:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stumberry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Wannabe Prophet

Autumn greetings my friends and near-friends:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See ya……

Stu-bert