It's Just My Nature

My secret weapon for today

I am a rebel. My hair is large and in charge. I'm wearing a black bra. Everyone else here (at the reservoir) is exercising - I am eating an eclair. I can tell they're all jealous. Also, I recycle - TO THE EXTREME!!!!!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!

NaBloPoMo Filler

Uh oh, eleven PM and I haven't posted yet!  I'd better think up a topic quick!

Well, here's something:  I took a bunch of photos today of the giant dead maple tree that stands at the entrance to our driveway.  I love that thing.  It really is beautiful even though it's falling apart.  It's rather stark and knobbed and has huge funguses (oh yeah, that should probably read "fungi."  I'm not changing it though) growing out of it.  I saw an owl suffering through a rainstorm in it once.  It's dramatic.

Unfortunately, because it's falling apart some guys are going to come next weekend and cut it down.

BOO!!!!!

However I accept that that has to happen.  It could fall on someone, after all.

Another unfortunate thing is that I can't fine the folder I saved the photos to.  I'm pretty sure it said 11 somewhere in the name of the folder but it's not the folder I thought it was.  I'm going to have to download some more photos from that camera and see where it wants to put them in order to find out where it s.

Here's something else I did today:  I went to the Brookline house and got a tour from one of the new/old* owners.

Not surprisingly it looks great.  They completely renovated the basement.  They also refurbished the old windows, saving the antique glass panes and replacing the window ropes with chains.  They did a lot of new insulating too.  I could tell the place was less drafty than it had been.  Debra showed me around.  She was so excited to be living there again.  I was happy that they have it again and can afford to make the improvements we couldn't.  It's a great house and we were lucky to have lived there.

And now, random photos of Fay.  Two almost identical ones because I couldn't decide which was cuter. Of course if I had just picked one you would never have missed the other.

I looked back and am shocked to see that I never posted about the people who bought our house last year.  The people who bought our house from us are the same people we bought it from in 1991.  

Still No Car Photos

Ms. Observant just noticed that she never posted one word about the closing on her house.

I'll tell you right now we were a little bit sad but overwhelmingly relieved. It was a great house and we loved living there. Now we don't live there and that's completely okay. It's not even a little bit weird, possibly because we still haven't had time to think about it too much.

If we go on like this we might not ever think it's weird!

One thing I may have learned (you know how slippery lessons can be) is that I don't want to live in a big house again. I'd live in a sort-of big house as long as I could afford to have someone else come and clean it regularly.

Since we still have Vermont (with a clogged sink in the bathroom upstairs among other things) we still have maintenance issues and plenty of them. But maybe we've cut them in half. We no longer have tenants and that's a load off.

Of course you can't shirk all of life's hassles. Then you'd be dead - or as good as. I can dream though.

My dream: Making making making all day long, only stopping to eat, have fun with interesting people, play with my dog, go swimming in the ocean (or have a snowball fight or something) read a book, learn some languages, garden, meet more interesting people, daydream, nap...okay, there'd be a fair amount of stopping. Let's call it fifty-fifty, making plus activities.

Enough daydreaming. Time to strategize for the future! (And eat a piece of apple pie)

Too Much Stuff

This move has consumed my life. We're still organizing, tossing, donating, packing and driving.

I hope I've learned something important though: I want to be sure to appreciate the nice things I have rather than just concentrating on achieving the next goal. I've taken so much in my life for granted while I focused on the things I wanted to bring in to my life, let a lot of potentially rewarding things slide. I'm hoping to turn over a new leaf about that.

We close on the house in about ten days. It will be empty and clean. The room in the barn where I work out and have my sewing machine set up will be stuffed with boxes and unusable for anything besides storage. Boxes tower in the rooms of the Vermont house.

That will have to wait though because I'll be heading for California the minute this move is settled. My dad's mouth cancer is back.

I know - he just got out of the hospital.

Dad was treated for mouth cancer back in the late nineties. He was cancer free for over ten years. Unfortunately the original treatment damaged his mouth and that damage will complicate his recovery from this next round of treatment.

I want to make it out there in time to spend some time with him and my mom before he has to recover from anything else. No doubt I'll be there during and after too.

Stupid cancer.

But that's a worry for next week. This week it's hauling another couple of carloads to Vermont then back to Brookline to fill up a dumpster then maybe rent another truck to move out the very last stuff.

The light's at the end of the tunnel that leads to the next tunnel.

!@#$%&*!

Pete and I are in the middle of our last push for emptying the house in Brookline.  As I go through the last of our belongings I can't seem to stop the stream of obscenities that is coursing through my brain.

We have SO MUCH STUFF that we don't need that I can't figure out how to part with.  

Sensible Me: "Goodwill."

Ridiculous Me: "But the tiger on that mug is SO CUTE and if I give away the set without that mug then nobody will want it."

SM:  "Give them all away."

RM:  "Bbbbut..."

SM:  "Loser."

RM:  "Screw you!"

SM + RM:  "!@#$%&*!@#$%&*@^#!@%&*#@~!" etc.

See - I'm really getting somewhere.  

Anyone need a gravy boat and matching butter dish?

Satisfaction

I walked up to Coolidge Corner and got myself an obscenely large banana split.

First I hit the comic book store for something to read while I ate but they were closed. Then I went to Booksmith and picked up a copy of Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World, by Haruki Murakami. He's got a heck of an imagination. His stories are wild but his style is "chill," as my brother-in-law, Marc would say. I feel I can count on him to blow my mind gently.

Back at J.P. Licks, the minute I'd settled myself at a table with my book and my trough of ice cream I heard someone say, "hi Mel!" It was Nancy, my neighbor from down the street, and her husband, Jeff. At least the book wasn't embarrassing.

As big as my banana split appeared to be (I thought it could feed four people) I managed to eat most of it. Funny how that works sometimes.

A Close Shave

I was just reclining on my divan (okay, I was in bed) for a bit of shuteye when the phone rang. It was Pete. He had landed in Los Angeles and called to give me some phone messages. One of them required me to call my mom which I did.

While I was on the phone with her I heard some funny sounds. Then I realized that - Holy Crap - people were coming for a second showing of our house today at 5:30! I totally forgot!

Thank God Pete called when he did or they would have found me in bed, asleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I guess I'm up now and ready to go after that hot fudge sundae. And maybe a good belt as well!

William Shakespeare 'n' Stuff

You see this rose?  Its name is William Shakespeare and it is growing in my garden in Brookline.  You would not believe how delicious it smells.  This is the finest smelling rose into which I've ever stuck my nose.  If you live near me come on by and smell it for yourself.  Or one of its co-roses.  It smells like deep rose and fruit and candy.

Do I have to move this rose bush to Vermont or will the people who eventually buy this house promise to take good care of it?  That is an answer for another day.

Today has been grueling and it's only now five o'clock.  I intend to spend the next half hour or so building up my strength for a walk to J.P. Licks in Coolidge Corner so I can go get a kick-ass hot fudge sundae.  I will brave the depths of hell (Coolidge Corner - blech) for a kick-ass hot fudge sundae.

Further Evidence That My Brain Could Work Better

I can't seem to get the taste of bath-water out of my mouth.  

You might be wondering how the taste of bath-water came to be in my mouth.  Well, I'll tell you.

Last night I decided I wanted to take a bath.  Once the tub was full and I'd added a cap-full of Hinoki cypress bath oil I turned off the water and began to disrobe.  When I looked back - horrors - the tub was draining!  I whipped off the rest of my clothes, jumped in the tub and stomped down hard on the plug.  

Something like this had happened before.  The problem is that the o-ring on the plug is seated improperly.  Crisis averted, I ran a bit more water into my bath and proceeded to enjoy a long soak.  I knew I might have a different problem once my bath was done but I WANTED MY BATH, DAMMIT!

Another thing that has happened before with this tub is that once you've stomped the plug down it won't always respond to the lever and go back up again when you want to drain the tub.  Sometimes there's a slow leak and the water will drain on its own if you leave it overnight.  I didn't think that would be the case this time.  I thought I'd stomped it pretty good.  Nonetheless I left the tub overnight to see what would happen.  I figured if it didn't drain I could go to the hardware store in the morning, buy some tubing and have the fun of syphoning the bath-water into the shower.

You see where this is going.

Did I mention that we were having an open house at 11 AM today?  I like to make up fun little projects for myself.

All was, in fact, well.  I got the tub drained and dried in plenty of time.  The bath-water taste is the only price I paid (plus what I paid for the tubing) for my adventure - as far as I know.  The last time I couldn't get the plug to pop up I left it for a few days and it came up on its own.  I'm not worried about it.  It will probably need a new o-ring before this is over.

On a side note, Chuck, the realtor called after the open house.  He told me that the couple Pete and I bought our house from came to see it today.  They are thinking of buying the place again.  I think it would be cool to sell it back to them.  We can leave them all the same stuff they left us eighteen years ago.  That would be portraits of the family they bought the place from plus a few cinder blocks and an old tire that's under the deck.

Some People Have Organized Brains

Okay so you know how I said a few posts ago that we'd sold our house?  Well my friends, that was an excellent example of counting one's chickens before they hatch.  A couple of offers have fallen through since that post.  The house goes back on the market tonight.

I did set foot in my studio today.  I watered the cacti.  They seem to like Vermont.  Maybe someday I'll have time to make something in there again.

In the mean-time it's back to Brookline to scrape and paint some old water damage and pimp the house some more.

I'm going to try to move into the Cambridge apartment on Sunday.  Anybody know some strapping young guy who can help me move our bed?  MMRROWRRRR!!!  Pete's going out of town on Sunday so he can't help me.

I've also got to move my favorite plants from the Brookline garden to the VT garden.  We'll see how that goes.

I think I might be losing my mind.  I'm being bombarded by logistics.  Beats garbage - or bullets.

Dad's still in the hospital though he called me a couple of days ago.  Pete and I were at Ikea, each having the smoked salmon plate in the cafeteria.  The cafeteria is the only place in Ikea with cell phone reception.  It was nice to talk to Dad - it made me feel a little better.  I don't know if it made him feel any better, which would be the more important thing.

Pete and I spent the first day at Ikea trying to figure out which bookshelves we should get.   The next morning we got some graph paper and did a drawing of what we wanted.  Then we spent the rest of the day trying to find the components in the Ikea warehouse.  We were partially successful.  We even found a couch we like (but only in the showroom - not in the warehouse)  This means that there is at least one more smoked salmon plate in each of our near futures.

I have to say I really enjoyed those two Ikea days.  It was kind of fun to have something so simple to concentrate on.  I'm also good at space so I enjoyed figuring out the bookcase conformation and doing the scale drawing.

Okay, I'm off to pack up the car.  Maybe I'll stop at Agway and see if they have any astilbes I can swap my peonies and roses out for.

Blah Blah Blah

Sarah posted a photo of another of the ring bearer pillows:

Whoops!  That's not it!  How'd that get up there?  Plenty of obvious Photoshopping on that one.

There we go.   That's the right one:

I'm definitely going to make more of those when I get back into my studio.

I'll be heading up to VT today for the first time in over a month.  I still probably won't get much studio time in.  In my absence we shipped tons of stuff up there from the Brookline house.  It all needs to be dealt with.  According to Pete you can barely make it from room to room in the house.  I'm scared.

A Few Thoughts

1.  I wish my dad was at home sipping a nice caramel frappucino.

2.  I believe I was unclear when I said that I have to do the same cleaning out in VT as I just did in Brookline.  What I mean is that now that we've rid ourselves of so much junk in Brookline I can see that we also have too much junk in VT.  I'm on an Own Less Junk rampage.

3.  We're actually having a Spring in New England this year.  I don't remember ever experiencing such a thing.  We're having long stretches of sunny, low seventy-degree weather.  It's hard to fathom but I'm REALLY enjoying it.  Usually it seems like it goes from forty-five degrees and raining straight to ninety and humid.  High-five, Mother Nature!

Now I'm going to go read a Hellboy comic.  Woo!

May, Week Two

We did an amazing job cleaning out the house and getting it ready for showing.  It is heartening to me to know that I can do something like that because now I'm going to have to do it in Vermont as well.

The first several people came to look at our house on Friday at noon.  It wasn't an official open house so Fay and I were still there.  It felt really strange to be there while people were going through so I popped Fay in the car and bolted.  We went to the reservoir on route 9 where the cherry blossoms were blooming and the grass is soft.

Fay and I went to the reservoir for at least an hour each of the next three days as well.  Our realtor said that the open house on Saturday drew a hundred people.  By Tuesday we had five offers, one of which we accepted.  Our house was on the market for one weekend.

So if you live in Brookline Massachusetts and you need a realtor, call Chuck Silverston at (617)264- 7900.  The man will sell your house.

On Wednesday Pete and I closed on the condo in Cambridge.

I love this house that we just sold.  Every day I'm saying goodbye to different aspects of it and of living here.  I know though that this is the right thing to do.  

One thing I think I'll miss very much is the greenery.  The block we live on is rectangular.  Our house is on one of the short ends so the back overlooks not just the back yard of the house behind us but the back yards of all the houses lining the long sides of the rectangle.  That's at least seven houses on each side.  It's very green for an urban setting.  We see more backyard birds in Brookline than we do in Vermont.  I've really been enjoying listening to the birdsong this week.

In Cambridge we have no trees near our apartment windows.  I can't complain because in Vermont I can listen to the frogs and the birds.  

Things in my life are changing at a rate that I can't begin to process so I'm not trying.  It's rather disorienting in a way.  Fortunately none of it is bad.

Well, except maybe this:  my dad's back in the hospital.  My mom called yesterday to tell me he was going in for a colonoscopy.  He'd been having what everyone thought was a bad reaction to his antibiotics but they just wanted to check to make sure.  It turns out he's contracted c. diff.  So dad's going to be in the hospital for a while longer.

What To Write About...?

It's been a very concentrated two-and-a-half weeks.  There's a lot to tell.  Finally things have slowed down a touch.  Also I'm recovering from a cold so I won't feel bad about sitting in bed for hours typing away.

First there was our trip to California for my brother's wedding.  Yes, that was why I was making ring-bearer pillows.

Here is the happy couple arriving at the reception:

I introduce to you my new sister, Sarah.  She is a wonderful person, too much fun and a welcome addition to our family.  You know what else?  I believe she can do anything and make it look easy.

Here's a shot of one of the pillows:

Pete took this photo but I stole it from Sarah's blog.  This pillow wasn't used in the wedding.  I went with a plain ribbon on this one so that the flowers inside wouldn't be obscured.  I left the ribbon long so it could be cut to whatever length worked best with their rings.  

Hopefully photos of the other pillows will be forthcoming but I didn't get any.  Sarah's hoping to post some later though.  Maybe I'll steal them from her blog again.

The wedding was beautiful and went really well.  There were donuts, cheeseburgers and six cakes and I don't think there were any ugly scenes (you know how family events can be)  I didn't hear of any scandalous episodes amongst the guests either.  It was just a good time with great people.

The next night Pete and I got to have dinner with Christian and Sarah and hog them all to ourselves.  Yay!

The night after that Pete and I came home from our date with each other to find my mom on the phone calling an ambulance.  Dad wasn't feeling well and asked to go to the emergency room.  I will spare you the symptoms.

You know things are bad when you can't wait for those sirens to get to your door.  First came a fire truck full of EMTs, then the ambulance.  It was San Diego at peak Swine Flu scare so they all wore surgical masks.  They whisked Dad away to the hospital and Mom went too.  Poor Mom didn't get back home until 5:45 the next morning.

It turned out that Dad had come crashing down with bacterial pneumonia.  Visiting Dad in the hospital has unfortunately become a bit routine.  He's very good at being hospitalized.  He now has a system.

Pete and I thought we'd give him a day to recover at the hospital so we visited him on his second day there.  Then we went to lunch with Mom and bought some Fit Flops (Pete didn't buy Fit Flops - and Fit Flops are another story)  Then we all decided to go to Starbucks for a Frappucino.  On the way to Starbucks Dad called to say they were letting him out and could we bring him a Frappucino too.  So Dad is now taking his antibiotics and recovering from pneumonia at home.  Phew!

Next hurdle: the flight home.  

Fay loves to travel.  She loves to go to new places and meet new people.  She also loves to go to different places and be with people she's already met and doesn't see all that often.  She loves a change of scenery and the potential change of menu that it entails.  More people equals more people to mooch from.  She was having a great time in California.

We've also changed her medications and she's been feeling great and moving really well.  She stands up on her back legs a lot these days though they still can't support her for long.  She can use them enough that she isn't wearing through the fur on the tops of her feet (or the skin on her backside) anymore.  She has all her joie de vivre back.  The only drawback is that she has occasional idiopathic bouts of diarrhea.

Like in her carry-on bag at the airport before we flew out of San Diego to come home.  Five times.  I'd take her into the ladies' room, wash her off in the sink, dry her with paper towels, remove the topmost diaper from the stack that I'd layered in the carrier, put her back in the bag on top of a new, clean diaper, wash my hands and carry her back to the gate, sit down, catch a fresh whiff and start all over again.  Fortunately we were two hours early for the flight.  Once we got on the plane the diarrhea stopped.  I think she ran out of ammo.  That was lucky because I didn't have an endless supply of fresh diapers.  She has been completely fine ever since.

We got back to Brookline early Wednesday morning with two days to finish cleaning out the house to get it ready to go on the market Thursday evening.  Our first open house was Friday at noon.

This concludes my first installment of "What I've Been Doing For The Last Two Weeks Or So."  With luck I'll write another installment later today.  Things have slowed a bit but they sure haven't stopped.

An Award

I give myself the "Worst Craft Blog Ever" award.  Why is this? (I have to ask because who else will?)

Mainly because "I Make Things" and I don't tell you about it.  I have neglected to photograph and post the last five objects (at least) I have made.  What's more I gave them to their intended recipients without taking any sort of photos whatsoever.  You will never see the beautiful raspberry colored lace cashmere scarf that I made for Fay's neurologist.  Nor will you see the ruggedly good-looking and deliciously soft charcoal-grey baby alpaca scarf I made for Fay's neurologist's assistant.

You might get a chance to see the three ring-bearer pillows I finished yesterday and mailed to California today.  I expect to meet up with them again later and there will be cameras in abundance then.  Also pretty California light.

I have to say that things have been stressful lately.  Nothing terrible - I have a very cushy life.  It's just that our real estate agent wants to put our house on the market next Thursday.  Pete's had clients non-stop in Vermont for the last two weeks.  This leaves me with most of the job of going through our belongings and deciding which to sell, which to pitch (rhyme!) which to move to our new puny apartment-to-be (if all goes well) and which to move to VT.  

That's actually fair since I was responsible for accumulating most of this crap anyway.  All Pete ever buys is guitars and recording gear which he stores neatly where it all belongs in his recording studio.  Wow, are we different from each other.

Still, it's a big job.  Spending yesterday cranking on ring bearer pillows was an enormous relief.  It was also damned successful if I do say so myself.   Should I ever get through weeding our belongings I might have time to finish my Etsy shop and start a new career in wedding gear (another rhyme!)  Maybe then there will be more photographic evidence of the "things" I have "made" complete with prices.  And maybe then one of the "things" I can "make" will be money.

Whining and Cowboy Boots

Spring has to be my worst season.  Summer's rough too for a gal like me: HATES being hot, hair frizzes impossibly in the humidity, only sunburns, apparently the favorite food of mosquitos.  I even started another blog inspired by my distaste for summer.

While summer annoys and angers me (on the really hot, humid days) spring can cut me off at the knees.  I don't usually get migraines in the summer or incapacitating bouts of woe.  That's why spring is worst.  I shouldn't be so sensitive.  What's a little gloomy weather?  So it's cold and dark and wet.  Mind over matter and all that stuff.  

Today started out sunny in Brookline so I headed into the garden.  The spring spruce-up is extra important this year since we'll be putting our house on the market soon and we want that curb appeal.  I imagine whoever ends up buying the place won't want the garden I've put in though - it's untraditional and needs a bit of maintenance.  Well, different maintenance than a weekly mowing and occasional hedge-trim.

I did the big payoff stuff first: trim the box standards, lightly prune the roses, cut back the ornamental grasses and remove the twiggy stuff.  It began to rain lightly while I was working but no big.  I kept going and it looks a lot better now.  

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny so I'll tackle the serious weeds - wild onions and lawn grass - then. 

So now that that boring weather report is over let's move on to shoes.

I kind of want some cowboy boots.  

These are nice:

And $439.00 on endless.com.  Not getting those.

These are very cool:

They'll cost you $1,115.00 on shopbop.com.  These are hand-made in Italy.  Needless to say...

You can get sort-of plain ones for under $100 on endless.com:

But once you've seen the pretty ones it's hard to settle.

$370.00

$509.00, both from endless.com

Not that it matters because I'm not getting any of them!  I don't have the $$$ and I don't ride horses!  Sure, millions of people sport awesome cowboy boots and never ride a horse.  I see people in them all the time and I don't go sniffing those folks to see if they just came from the stables or anything.  Hell, New England isn't cowboy country either.  People up here ride horses all the time - especially in Vermont.  I think they tend to wear hiking boots or something though.  Still, cowboy boots are pretty and I do like them.

As for other horse-related fashions, you'll never catch me in a pair of jodphurs.  Plenty of good reasons for that.  The fashion industry pulls 'em out once in a while to see what we'll do.  I'm not doing anything with those.  

I wonder if endless has layaway?

My Pal, The Void

I sent Pete to San Francisco this morning.  The dude seriously needed a vacation.  I hope he takes one - vacation requires a certain state of mind.  He'll be back Tuesday and I'm hoping he'll bring some healthy new perspective with him.  At least I hope he'll take a break from thinking about all the things that are stressing him out.

As for me I have work to do.  Life is distracting me though.  There are lots of extremely unusual things going on in our lives and that can be a little disconcerting.  None of it's bad.

For example we're making new friends and meeting new people.  It's something I want to do but don't usually know how to do.  I find it very easy to stay in and work on my own things and think my own thoughts.  It's harder for me to come out and engage with other people.  It takes extra effort that I'm not used to expending.  As my old pal Alex would say though, it's good for me.

We're also thinking about finally selling the Brookline house were we've lived since 1991 and moving into a closet in a totally different neighborhood.  We're very excited by this idea.  We'd have no tenants, no snow removal and a lot less stuff.  Hopefully we'd also have more money.

Things are moving forward in my art career.  In addition, I'm setting up an Etsy shop.  These two facts are making me rethink the things I'm making and the way I make them.  

At the same time I'm going through the normal processes that artists go through as their work changes.  Things in the studio become even more unpredictable than usual at times like this.  You can't be sure if the hours you spent working were productive or not and you may not find out for months.  Sometimes it takes years for certain ideas you start to become fruitful.  Of course you could also be skipping down a blind alley.

All of this can be a little uncomfortable but I'm really getting a kick out of it.  At least I am now while I'm writing this post.  It's a bit of a wild ride if you want to look at it that way.  Which way is up?  Which way is forward?  Who can say?  

I wonder if this Void has a taco stand?  I'm hungry.

Two Party Photos

Thanks Jamie for taking these photos of our Holiday party with your cellphone.  I did go to a little bit of trouble to match my wig to our Christmas tree so it's nice that I have at least something to show for it.  Next year maybe I'll light my wig too.  It would show up better in cellphone photos that way.  I'm not putting in ornaments though.  That would be too distracting while serving hors d' oeuvres.

The dude in the photo is our friend Steve.  We were having a very serious conversation about suppressed rage.

Inanimate Objects

Last night at around eleven o'clock Marc and I went out to shovel the driveway. Sorry neighbors!

Why eleven? Because it took me that long to talk myself into doing it. I am a very self-indulgent person with somewhat poor impulse control. I'm trying to fight it but I don't know how well I'm doing. I do get the things done that I need to do but not until after I've watched too much C.S.I. or read the Manga that I wasn't supposed to buy myself or bribed myself to get out of bed with a piece of peppermint bark. This is part of the reason that I never go to bed on time.

Anyhoo, shoveling last night reminded me of some other tools that I LOVE: my rain coat and my good winter boots. Those items aren't clothing, they're shelter. I have a pair of Sorel boots up in Vermont. They are little houses for your feet. When you're wearing them you can walk on/in just about anything without a care and your feet will be WARM. I have city Sorels here in Brookline. They have silly faux fur on the outside that would get dirty and gross in Vermont. They have excellent city condition traction and also keep the old dogs WARM. I'd rather wear the Vermont ones to a bonfire though.

I invested in my first good raincoat back in the early days of Fay. I got a bright orange Patagonia. If you can stand to pay Patagonia prices their gear is the best. They really pay attention to the details so you get the best protection from the elements with the least visibility/mobility interference. The raincoat I have now is not a Patagonia. I got a deal on it. I'm still grateful for it but it's a little skimpy in places.

Gratitude is the key for me and tools. When I find a tool I really love I am grateful to it and respectful of it. You might think that's a funny way to treat an inanimate object. The thing is, here's another thing about me: I think everything is alive.

Power

The drive down to Brookline on Saturday morning was incredible. I've seen ice storms before but not like this one. Everything you could see was glazed with a thick coating of ice. Like the Pyrex fairy had run amok. The forested hills were white with sparkling ice.

Along the roadsides all the trees were bent over, their branches drooping under the ice's weight. Huge, tall trees bent over to the ground. It looked like the roads were lined with giant frozen fountains or as if massive tidal waves of ice were about to crash over the road and obliterate the cars.

It was outrageously beautiful and astonishingly threatening. It was as if nature was saying "Look at my glory! Nothing is more beautiful than I am! I will wipe you off the face of the earth if I care to"

No one had power, only a few gas stations were open. In one small town cars were lined up for a mile and a half down both sides of the road to get in to the only working gas station for twenty miles. I'd never seen traffic on that stretch before.

Down in Boston everything was completely normal. Pete's band's Christmas party was scheduled for that night so he was hoping I could stay and go to the party. Our Vermont neighbors had offered to watch the fires for us so we took them up on it for Saturday night and I stayed in Brookline.

Pete decided to take the next fire-tending shift so on Sunday he went up north. About half an hour after he arrived, at about 7:30 PM, the power came on. Two days early! Thanks again CVPS!

So now Fay and I are back up in Vermont too. On Monday it was a balmy forty five degrees out. Today it's snowing again. My friend Michaela lives on a mountain top just outside of Brattleboro. Her power is still out and is likely to be out until tomorrow. I heard on the radio today that over one-hundred thousand "customers" in New Hampshire still don't have power.

Modern Western life is so much easier when the power and the plumbing are working normally. Unfortunately we know that we Westerners use power at an unsustainable rate. It's very likely that in the somewhat near future we're going to have to learn to live differently. Obviously it's possible to do - we've only been using electricity for a tiny fraction of human history. But wow, what a change that's going to be. God help us if it's a sudden change forced on us by uncontrolled events rather than a decision we make on our own.

In the mean time I'm going to try to remember to shower whenever I can and to keep the car full of gas!