Reading: The Cider House Rules, The Bookshop, A Walk in the Woods, Memoirs of a Geisha, Anna Karenina

Moving: swimming and walking

Learning: lots of good stuff

Watching: whales

15-24 July 2000: Vacation

Part the first

I know it's past time when I feel disconnected and pinballish. I've been writing but not posting, and, if it's not audience I need, it's knowing I've been participating in my own project.

I could have chosen a better week to go off on vacation, since all the gearing up for our annual Big Top culminated in a frenzy and I was leaving at 2:00. Actually Friday didn't get frothy; people were already on the big train and the giraffes had been comfortably settled with their heads sticking out of the roofs.

Wouldn't that have been neat, to see a circus train arriving with exotic animals in it (and not to have had any conscience about how miserable they must be)?

RDC picked me up and off we zoomed to DIA. We lounged in the Red Carpet Club, which was emptier and furnished with better chairs than the holding pens of the unwashed masses below us. I pointed out to RDC that I wasn't in business attire, and he remarked that at least it was a dress and look at all the kids careening around.

I was reading The Cider House Rules and got to an inevitable bit that still hurt to read, so I nabbed one of the free papers and read The Rocky Mountain News instead. Free papers. A bar in which I think you have to pay only for liquor. Snacks (mangy crudité, but still). Chairs. Dataports. Concierge service, and what's more, check-in service. Unbelievable. I still think there ought to be a Red Carpet Club for people who have taste and not just money, so that I could listen to giggling instead of whingeing children and watch people converse with peers instead of harangue victims on cellphones, but for now I enjoy the comfy chairs.

We sat on the ground for an extra 20 minutes waiting for a flight plan that would save us 15 minutes that wound up not being available anyway, so we didn't get to Boston until midnight. Then there was the hassle of getting the car, and overall we didn't get to the Beasts' until almost 2:30--which luckily was only 12:30 for us still on Mountain Time.

That also explains why we, or why I, slept until I was woken with a knock at the door (RDC always sleeps later than I). I staggered upstairs to find LEB and PEB and Mollie, who is a very old dog now. We breakfasted and chatted and watched the hordes of goldfinches at the feeders. The weather was overcast but warm enough, and I knew what would wake me up.

I scampered down to the river. I had considered going for a swim in the wee hours when we arrived, and I'm glad I didn't try because the Beasts have bounded their backyard with electric fence against deer. Now was just as good and I didn't get electrocuted, always a plus. When I first swam in this river, I wore a bathing suit; then I evolved to taking it off once in; now I don't bother bringing one. There's never anyone at the river, even fishing. I slung off my dress and swam in the channel PEB created by removing the rocks. It's not very deep, and you have to skirt boulders, but it is fully private, a clear running stream, and wholly beautiful. I swam up and down a few times and sat on a boulder up to my neck in water, until I got cold.

My contribution to the party was to make a vinaigrette. The Beasts left to go hunt for bricks--I amaze myself at how interested I am in other people's home improvements now--and I was left with a recipe and my wits. I found the basil even though they moved their vegetable garden, just to hide it on me. I chopped and measured and shook and finally left the dressing to marinate itself. There. I cooked.

RDC and I went to UConn before Charenton, just because we're insane and nostalgic. We came through Gurleyville instead of up Spring Hill and thus were confronted with the new Chem building, just as hulking from the front as the back, and proved we hadn't been there in two years by turning left off North Eagleville at MSB. Except that Hillside Road no longer runs between MSB and the now-parking garage but between the garage and the new visitors' center. We're tourists now, finally, but remembered the one approach to the Co-op that remains of the once-three. Susie wasn't in the Co-op, but the Norton editions of Anna Karenina and Don Quijote that I've been wanting were. We popped into HBL on the off chance someone might be there on a weekend, and yes there were people we knew: none of RDC's former coworkers whom he wanted to see but the same ABD grad students who were shelving books when we were sophomores.

And so Charenton. A large sign pointed to free parking, which immediately made me giggle. As if there'd be another sort. As we drove carefully into the lamb pen--another lambless year--ALB spotted us and waved. That was the tone of the day right there. Family and friends and laughter.

AMB first told us of this party back in November. The 30th anniversary of the house and a party for it. I absolutely wanted to come: Nisou was expected home for a cousin's wedding in Seattle the week before, which is how her parents chose the date. Seattle, Storrs, it's all the same continent anyway, once you've crossed the pond. But then Nisou and SPG were to go to China instead and much discussion happened in our house.

See, there's always pressure for us to go home for our vacations, which I think is unfair. It's not as if blood family regularly zoom out to Denver; and why should the obligation to connect be always on us? My only requirement of vacation is ocean, but I don't care whether Pacific or Atlantic. This time I cared because Nisou was to be home.

In 1998 we worked our vacation around PGN's 100th birthday. We knew we would go home, but the only reason it was June instead of elsewhen in the summer was that. I had no expectation of being invited to ALB's wedding, but invited we were and Nisou came home for it--in September. I love my library, but it's no contest whom I love more, Phoebe or Nisou. That June was miserably hot and humid, more like August, and September would have been a better choice for weather alone.

In 1999 we planned to go to Florida for Christmas, as we do about every other year. We booked our flights in the early fall while Nisou decided to go home in the late fall. Not that we would have gone to Connecticut anyway, as I said, but still.

So instead of Catalina--or, RDC said later, the Caribbean--we went home. We made sure to book our own time: five days in Provincetown. The weekends were for family and friends, and this was the best start. I had hoped for HEBD and her family as well, but she had promised her mother and brother a trip to other family that day. Also I hoped for TJZ, but she and Soulmate were going to a Red Sox game. (They have resisted the brainwashing that pulls Fairfield County into New York's orbit--away from the tendency of the rest of the state rightfully to prefer Boston--enough to name their dog Fenway.)

Even with Nisou and SPG in China, this was great. If not Nisou, then her parents, siblings, nephew and niece, and dogs. UConn family in addition to Charenton like the Beasts and the Ladies' Sewing and Terrorist Society. Daigen and her sons--we met Djibril at a week old in November, and now he is huge. CXJ and JKJ, whom we hadn't seen for five years. Karen. I introduced Karen and RDC, not remembering if they had ever met. They had, but Karen and I agreed that someone has to keep up the tradition of useless introductions, because what we have in common besides a great fondness for Charenton is the fact that for a long time Nisou could never remember if we'd ever met. Jeff, whom I hadn't since well before graduation and whom I knew only through NML. I pressed him for an eye-witness account of NML's daughter HGL, but he hasn't met her. Not LKW, now living in San Francisco, but her parents.

RDC talked to LKW's father and other faculty for a long time. He had Mr. W for Econ 112 (Microeconomics), and he recalls that as one of the most useful courses he had at UConn. Plus all these faculty, Mr. W, PEB, and others, all use his company's software. Happily, they all like it.

As at any Charenton event, there was English country dancing. Somehow I didn't indulge at Nisou's wedding, and as has been well documented I didn't make it to ALB's, so this time I would. RDC would not, poor devil. My theory is that since this animal or its near relation was good enough for my pal Jane Austen, it's good enough for me.

ALB partnered me first, and I was stupid and rhythmless--and considering that this form of dancing involves a lot of standing still (though here not for the half hours at a stretch Elizabeth Bennet describes it as) and set figures and patterns to perform, that's pretty rhythmless. My second and last (because it was the last dance) was a Barstow uncle. ALB and I were looking for an available man, and she said to him, "You must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. -- You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is before you." And taking [my] hand, [s]he would have given it to [her uncle], who, though extremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it. Okay, not really, but both of us did dance about as badly as Mr. Collins.

It rained on and off all day. Dancing happened under the big tent--the house not being big enough, even by Mr. Robert Ferrars's calculations, for such activity--but volleyball and croquet were set up in the lawn. Rain encouraged cozy chat and copious eating under the tent and deterred the children--at least a dozen, with at least two copies of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire among them--not at all from their various games.

It so seldom rains in Denver, and we are only just again under our own roof instead of a downstairs apartment, that I have not heard rain on a roof in a long time. It was beautiful to see, to smell, and to listen to. And it was warm--even Denver's summer rain is usually cold. It didn't pour so heavily or continuously that you couldn't run to the house for another armload of baguettes or tub of ice cream. Most importantly, it didn't bucket so much that I couldn't let myself into the blueberry enclosure and eat blueberries by the pint straight off the bush. Oh the bliss.

The sun had set and twilight was lasting however much longer it lasts two degrees farther north when within the tent I saw someone bounce out of a car toward the house. I smiled, thinking I'd meet this bouncing person when she got to the tent, and promptly forgot about her again until she did get to the tent and launched herself at us.

It was TJZ! Their game had been an afternoon one and Storrs only a slight detour on their way home. So I got to meet Soulmate and officially give him my blessing. Sigh.

---

A few weeks ago we walked across the park to Le Peep (whose pancakes are much better than its name) for breakfast. Going out for breakfast reminded me of RRP, because it's her favorite meal to go out for. So I suggested this for Sunday morning, forgetting how ill-equipped the greater UConn area is for restaurants.

There was the greasy spoon we had breakfast two years ago, which with folding chairs and lots of smoke discourages idling. There's Friendly's and the place they used to go to after the bars closed in Willimantic. Kathy John's, in Storrs, might not mind idling, but there smoke and grease cling to the walls in tangible layers. So we made breakfast at their house--Biscuit pancakes, which amused me, and real maple syrup, which gratified me, with begging by Mason, who is about the size of a pony. A small pony.

Two years ago, Mason was the German Shepherd puppy RRP and MPR adopted the day of my birthday party. That Saturday night was nearly sleepless for all five of us as he cried for his family. He's gotten over that now. He's over a hundred pounds, very tall, very slender, and he's got swivelly ears. He's afraid of oars. I was disappointed that he had no role in their wedding, but I don't suppose he'd have been a very reliable ring-bearer.

The reason I carried the most boring flowers in the history of weddings was that I had planned to carry Percy as a bouquet. I didn't because I never found a nice smallish decorative cage to cram him in for the duration and I was hardly about to risk him in open air with lots of Charenton cats around.

But Rocky was in his parents' wedding; he wore a cummerbund to match.

Sooby and DDJ were married in Kennebunkport and President George and Mrs. Barbara Bush, landing their cigarette boat nearby with Arnold Palmer, crashed their wedding. Either I've seen him in other photos or he is indeed also in the photograph with the five humans. (Which, by the way, if George Herbert Walker had had his clumsy way, would have featured my two friends, himself, and Palmer, but not his wife. It was Sooby who waved and called her to join them. The large, incredibly cheaply framed photograph they received from the White House somewhat later hung over their toilet with a Clinton/Gore sticker in the corner. Have I told this story before?

Percy would have been manageable in his cage, and Rocky is a small dog (though only in body); I can see where Mason could have been a little much. TJZ tells me Fenway will not participate in her wedding either. Nor Cody in EJB's. Poop.

So anyway it was mid-afternoon before we dragged ourselves away from Coventry. I had thought to spend the afternoon at my lake, but RRP didn't want to go and it would have been nearly two hours drive for not so long there, so instead we visited the growing V clan.

We had not yet met MLV, the third, and here was DMV gestating the fourth: we were behind. So after this discussion and a phone call to the Vs, we turned around on 32, to campus for a grinder for RDC, and to the Beasts' for the books I had for the kids. RDC ate his grinder--which are called only subs in Denver, I think--on top of Horsebarn Hill, while I drank in scenery and watched butterflies and swallows swoop.

What delightful children. They're huge and sweet and helpful and loving and rough-and-tumble and I just wallowed in them.

We met Duncan and the other one whose other Scottish name I forget, who are miniature horses. We were shown the assorted hens and their rooster. MJV, being himself, removed a hen from the coop for a few minutes and tossed her back in to show how the rooster greets runaways. I hadn't seen the house for five years and wondered about the logistics, but they've finished their second storey and while it's not commodious, it's livable.

And most of all, I met the kids. NAV was born a few weeks after our wedding, and two years ago was the first time I met NJV. Now they're much more themselves, with more distinct personalities, much more interesting. MLV was sweet and once when she got tired, clamored for me (lounging in the hammock), so I got to hold her and rub her back for a while until she woke back up.

Saturday had been NAV's fifth birthday, and so today family were still showing up with presents. I met two aunts and two cousins; one, a baby, didn't thrall me and one was a perfectly beautiful two-year-old in a flowered sundress with a bonnet. What particularly impressed me was how willing NAV was to share his presents with everyone, and how ungrabby the other children were. I was slightly horrified at how often DMV, in her seventh month, swung chunky 18-month-old MLV into her arms, but perhaps I am too delicate-minded.

In addition to his sisters, I met MJV's parents. (RDC already had.) Now, I commonly say I hate parents but what I mostly mean is that I hate the people's methods, or lack of methods, of parenting. I enjoyed being proved so thoroughly wrong in this case. The kids are wonderful because they are and because my friends raise them well; and my friends raise them well because they were raised well themselves.

His parents joined us in our leafy glade so comfortably and easily that no one ever actually made introductions. I have no idea what their given names are, in fact. That was just an overlooked detail, because much more important in the conversation was their recent trip to Denver and Estes Park. They stayed at the Castle Marne, the B&B on my walk to work. The senior Mrs. V exclaimed at how narrowly they had missed visiting our house, but their trip happened well before we bought it.

I went to find NAV before we left; I found him absorbed in the read-aloud version of Stuart Little that I brought for him; he's been reading for himself for a while now. DMV, once an elementary school teacher, is going to begin home-schooling him in September. I asked about socialization, but besides that the Vs are well on the way to populating a one-room schoolhouse on their own, NAV is an extremely social child, makes friends everywhere, and belongs to church and other community groups. Which reminds me, I do know MJV's father's name. NAV has both his grandfather's middle name and his outgoing personality.

Back at the Beasts', we made supper. A striped bass LEB caught in the Sound, vegetables from their garden, and a Charenton baguette. That's a meal. On their deck, with the river fading into darkness but still singing to let us know it was there, and a full moon rising around the front of the house.

So I went around to the front of the house to see the moon.

LEB has herds of goldfinches because she has lots of feeders filled with sunflower seed kernels--no pesky shells to litter her deck and a lot less work for the birds. The mourning doves like them too, but since they can't perch on the feeders they're content to peck around underneath. The squirrels like them as well, but even though they're not welcome on the feeders they're not content to scrabble for scraps. Recently PEB wrapped some of the left-over anti-deer electric fence around one of the posts that supports the roof over the deck. Apparently it's been effective, because soon after he strung it up, LEB woke up one midsummer morning to a fried squirrel with its claws caught in the wire.

Do you see where this is going?

Turning the corner of the deck to the front of the house, I stumbled over the iron rack for the grill's rotisserie. I put out my hand to steady myself, and I became a squirrel. I am ohsoglad that barefoot moi had stepped off the iron bits before laying a hand on the post, and that I didn't have any hooky parts like sixteen little claws to get tangled in the wire, but I would have been a happier camper if I had not been squirrely at all. My theory is that, since it was my right hand, it probably cured my incipient repetitive stress disorder.