Impressions

New York from Vermont

Impressions of Washington County while riding in the back seat as Thing1 chauffeurs us to our favorite all-you-can-eat salad bar in Lake George, NY and the beautiful scenery.

Artist’s note: Any expressions of angst in brushstrokes are purely due to concern about how long the line will be at said family restaurant and not, as one teen driver likes to insist, to the speed of the vehicle.

In Bounds

Sunday afternoon I finished my last chat, signed out of my work computer and made a beeline for grand old country inn at the center of Arlington Vermont. A friend and neighbor of mine was celebrating her 85th birthday, and her daughter had invited family and friends which seemed to include much of my town of Sandgate, a village of 300+ people just next to Arlington.

I got there late but still found a place in the shade of a nearby episcopal church. As I walked up a path towards the barn at the back of the inn where large summer functions are usually held, I passed neighbors and friends from out of town. Here was a friend still in my work shirt and jeans from a job finished just before the party, there on the right I spied a friend from New York, perfectly styled for the weather in a linen dress. In the two minutes it took me to find the table on the mossy hill behind the barn where my guys were sitting, I saw perfectly a turned out teenager chatting with a grandparent wearing a Sunday best outfit that looked like it had been to quite a few parties. The variety of the crowd was like a field of flowers on the hill.

I had missed cocktail hour, and the Big Guy had parked our family at the same table as our next-door neighbors and some acquaintances up from Manhattan. We have always had interesting conversations with our neighbors about many topics. He’s more conservative while she and the Big Guy and I are decidedly more liberal, but there’s always been lively dialogue, even when, against the advice of Emily Post, the conversation turns political.

Politics has been even more out of bounds at many gatherings lately, something I’ve heard many people report lately. There are plenty of blogs highlighting the current points of division in the US, and mine won’t if it can’t contribute anything but more noise to the cacophony. At Sunday’s party, our foursome instinctively understood that discussing those divisions, even quietly with very old friends over roasted vegetables and artisanal bread in the shade of an oak tree, would just be more noise.

So we talked about the weather and our families. We talked about the husband’s art and their summer travel, carefully skirting around anything remotely related to current events. Thing1 had gone for his second helping at the buffet when the first lull in the conversation occurred.  

“So, have you had any trouble this year with the Japanese not-weed?” The wife led the way out. My vegetable garden is in planters this year, and I had fallen behind on horticultural current events. She brought us up to date on the latest species to appear by roadsides, taking over veggie plots, telling us her strategy for curbing it’s impact. Talk turned from taking care of gardens and gardeners on our road to taking care of the town in general. 

By the time the servers were bringing out the birthday cake, we had covered the deer population and road crew projects. Everyone in Sandgate has their ideas about what’s best for the town, and many debates end by agreeing to disagree. Our foursome had few disagreements. We knew, however, that talk town was safe not because we agree but because we had faith that everyone of us deeply cares about the town and the people in it. 

I know there will be other times when our little foursome will get together and wade into territory that would set etiquette experts wagging their fingers. Just as we do with the town talk, however, we’ll rely on that faith in the ‘better angels’ in each other that has allowed us to engage in dialogs all these years. It’s because of that faith, after all, that half the town can show up to a birthday party for one of its own on a sweltering Sunday or a fly-overrun potluck today and celebrate the things and people we have in common rather than letting our differences tear us apart.

Priorities

It’s 96 in the shade. The only objective is finding the coolest place to sit. I would not have thought Thing2’s chest would be the chilliest chaise lounge but Jim-Bob could have had other priorities.

Along Came a Spider


“Burt?” I could feel my right eyebrow going up. “ From UPS?”
“No, Mom,” Thing1 grinned at me as he shoveled Mandarin chicken into his mouth. “The spider.

“What spider?”

“The one that lives in my car. He’s really friendly.” There wasn’t a trace of sarcasm or BS in T1’s voice. “He rides on my lap when I’m driving.”

“He does!” Thing2 chimed in, backing up his older brother and making it official. 

T1 has a new pet. 

I don’t think he’s flipped his lid, and there aren’t any credible reports of a brother experiencing side effects from a medication his sibling is on, so I’m chalking T1’s adoption of Burt as a sign that six months of illness and uncertainty haven’t squashed his generous outlook or his sense of humor.

There are other theories, I’m sure, but i’m sticking with the positive one.

Singing to the Sky

Choir of Day Lillies
The July heat has coaxed a chorus of day lilies out of their buds this week. It happened all at once. Last week there was one, today the entire choir seems to be singing praises to the sky.

Shamelessly Unplugged 

Daylight in the Mom Cave
Facing a potentially financially ruinous reconfiguration of our solar bases electrical system, we cried uncle about two years ago, downsized our battery bank,and got re-connected to the grid. 

We still have all of our appliances on power strips that can be turned off so that vampire LEDs don’t drain the grid. We heat or hot water with the sun in the summer and our house exclusively with our woodstove in the winter.

This week, the biggest part of our energy saving infrastructure—our mostly earth sheltered house — has been keeping our house cool sans air conditioning. We’ve been keeping the windows in exposed front portion of the house closed with the curtains drawn, and the front rooms are usually dark. It’s only when I go back to my office and one of the back rooms and I remember one of my other favorite little energy savers — our insulated sun tubes on the north face of the roof. Once it was a way to have daylight without flipping a switch. This week it’s way to have light without heat.

Even if we had to compromise and return to using the electric company for some things, it’s nice having a reminder we don’t have to completely throw in the towel.