Ruth White's 1987 Newbery Honor book. It was fine, especially read on the couch in the sun with magpies quarreling just outside. I knew the big reveals ahead of time, but then, I'm not a child.
RDC went to do responsible things at the National Forest Service and I idled off to window shop and read by the Roaring Fork.
On the way to dinner the first night, we passed the Dior shop, and I fell in love with a gown in the window. Stormcloud gray--a few different shades of gray, all lovely and harmonious--strapless, floor-length, gathered into a slight train behind, and from the bodice poured a sweep of (chiffon?) in a paler gray. I had a lot of fun being in love with that dress until today, when in daylight I finally noticed that in its variation of gray was lettering, "Christian Dior" around the hip. Abruptly, my crush flopped.
I looked at jewelry, always on the search for new rings for my large hands and a bangle for my right wrist. In one shop I met a large hairy black dog named Jack and when the proprietor asked if anything caught my eye I said, "Just the dog." Only later did I realize I might have insulted his goods. Oops. In another store I met a Great Pyrenees the size of a Newfoundland, with legs as big as a lion's; my first words to it as I flopped down beside it were, "Hello, rug," because I mistook it for a polar-bear rug at first.
In the library, I updated my Pitkin County account (Colorado goes by counties, and I have seven bar codes on my card), borrowed a book, and continued down Mill Street to the Roaring Fork. Tragically, the riparian spatch I had in mind for reading was occupied, so I continued downstream along the 'Fork hoping to find another.
I had more of a walking along a river day than a lying along a river day.
And that was a great thing, because on Saturday I felt myself getting sick, and Sunday I knew I was sick. Hiking at 12,000 feet was gorgeous but more exertion at less altitude than I needed. Walking five miles along the Roaring Fork in the more abundant air at 8,000 feet, inhaling all the glorious scent of the black willow cottonwoods, healed me right up.
Or so it felt.