Alecto's Ophelia

Oh yeah - Bikram Yoga - bring it on, baby!

Yeah, I know, this site's on hiatus and all that but I really do have something relevant to share.

Did something called Bikram Yoga today. 90 minutes in a 105 degree room with relative humidity at or about 40%.

Yikes.

I'm 44 and while not out of shape by any means, not so much your super flexible yoga goddess either.

There were moments when I thought I'd pass out. There were moments when I thought all that stuff I've got would just come pouring out of me in this incredible torrent. There were moments when I just could not believe what it felt like to just lay there and breathe. There were moments when I surprised myself and stepped back up into it again.

And then there was the moment when I tried to get my pants back on.

Pause.

We're in the changing room and it's full of half or totally naked women who have just sweat out sixteen tons of water and what have you. I think I have toweled off and I try to pull on a pair of jeans that are too big for me. I've lost about 10 pounds in the last two weeks.

I cannot get them on. There I stand in my itty bitty thong with my 44 year old ass in what I so dearly wished was a breeze and I'm fucking stuck! Halfway up the thighs.

I look desperately at my WORK friend and make whimpering sounds. She is sympathetic but working out her own modesty (I have 14 years on her for God's sake). The woman next to me says, yeah, I never get how people try to put jeans on after this, it's like when we were little kids after swimming trying to pull our pants back up.

I wondered how I was going to get home.

Lets just say they did finally and I did and next week I'll bring something else to change into.

Bikram Yoga, highly recommend it. Seriously. Not just for laughs anymore.

A Love Story - Part 3

Love's got everything to do with it.

I recently made a statement (borrowed shamelessly from Grey's Anatomy) that I lived every day these days at an 8. And that was the truth. What I am discovering is that there are 8s and then there are 8s. The second does not negate the first, it's just of an entire other flavor.

To clarify, my original 8 centered around overwhelm, fear and a probable need to have my freaking meds adjusted as well as some unresolved issues and my stubborn refusal to let anything go until I'd reconciled it to something I could understand and live with. What that really boiled down to was my base line belief that I would be hurt no matter what. I recall telling my husband that the 8 didn't necessarily have a lot to do with him directly, it just was what it was. That's hard to hear if you think you're supposed to do something about it and the truth is nobody can do that nor should they be expected to.

Another flavor of pain at an 8 is the physical kind. Turns out I'm really good at dealing with that. I can sink right into myself and either be with it or ride the waves. I am not a screamer when it comes to physical pain. Unfortunately I tend to seriously under report and that's nearly gotten me dead once or twice.

The third flavor of pain is is the pain of grief. As it turns out, for me at least, this is not a suicidal fear or pain at all. It's purely functional, as in how do I get up, work out (because I think those endorphins are the one thing that kicks me off with a fighting chance), shower, shave (because that's normalcy, right?), dress, apply make up, put in my contacts if I think I can keep the tears to a minimum and my glasses if I believe I cannot.

There are moments when I believe I simply cannot bear it one second longer and will do something rash. Not rash as in hurt myself, that need seems to be gone right out the window (maybe it's self preservation or a final surrender, I'm betting it's surrender and THAT is a very reassuring thought). But rash in terms of causing undo pain or harm to others. Of believing I cannot be functional when in fact I know that is not true. Not for me, it isn't my way.

An event is just that. An event. We make of it what we will. We can choose to be mired or we can choose to let it wash over us leaving us engulphed in the truth of it all. This is not a drowning by any means. It's an acceptance. The more I fight it the worse it gets and the harder it is to move through it.

I think of child birth. I've had three children with large gaps in between (five and nine years). With each labor I learned to let go and wash through the waves sometimes chewing the sheets and sometimes just panting. Sometimes there were tears but never any outright crying and certainly no screaming. At the point of transition when the body called mine becomes something else entirely and I have no control there is only one thing to do - push through it. That's a scary thing because the ring of fire we all hear about is exactly that and the only way through is through.

I think of love that way these days. And by love I don't mean the romantic flowers and puppy dog love. I mean the enduring commitment that has us move mountains. I think that in the letting go of the me creates the space for something infinitely greater and quite honestly, precious beyond belief.

So here is an event. I have it. I am in it and the only way to be is just 'is'.

Try that sometime. I am.

Ah Jeeze...

I had to turn off the new compose editor because based on results I must have a very slow connection. Heh, sucky T3 line.

So here's my dog. Notice he's filling up a monogrammed bed? Notice his name is NOT Homer? Poor Homer. Looks cute, yah? He pees constantly. Almost always where he's supposed to (on the paper) and has only pooped in the house once as compared to the seventy-eight times he's pooped outside since Sunday evening when we brought him home. Might have something to do with taking him out every thirty-seven seconds.

It's been a great week. Or something. On Monday Nanny wrecked the nanny mobile. OK, I exaggerate. On Monday Nanny was in an accident that did just under $6,000 in damage to my $14,000 15 month old Honda Civic that has to live another, let me see, six years. At least. Nanny is fine (she's just mad because the woman who pulled out in front of her wouldn't make eye contact after the fact). Little Girl was not in the car.  All right, so that was Monday.

On Tuesday I found a series of photographs that sent me from hot to right off the deep end. They went like this:

1. Photograph taken Friday night at my house while I was in Vermont. Ten nannies having a party. I can draw the conclusion that the photographer was either my seventeen year old daughter left home alone for the first time ever or nanny number eleven. Before we left Nanny asked if she and four friends could have dinner in my kitchen to celebrate her birthday and could she have a bottle of champagne and the answer was a very polite hell no so I thought I'd better explain no parties and for god's sake no house parties and here are all the reasons why the hell not in my house with my kid present much less in my house even if my kid is not present. Could I be any more clear? Apparently I was clear as mud (do I strike any of you as murky?).
2. Pictures of my kid that while harmless were posted on a public site along side some rather questionable photos and while I don't have a huge issue with my kids on the web, it's um, only if I post them, not you the nanny and certainly not after you've been told by me and Au Pair America that we do not post pictures of the children on the Internet.
3. Photographs taken by my nanny at an over 21 club in Stamford. She's 20.
4. Photographs of what appeared to be my nanny at said club hanging upside down from a, um, pole. By her feet. Mostly dressed.

I wanted to drive my nasty-assed rental car (that I have so that she can drive my car to get the kid to and fro all the places the kid needs to go) home immediately and interrogate her within an inch of her life but Nomans and I had an appointment we'd already put off once and really needed to keep. So we fretted the hours away until we both arrived home at about 7:45 and confronted the poor girl with the photographs.

It went badly. Lets see, how'd it go...

• I didn't know ten was a party
• I didn't invite them all they just showed up, I couldn't stop them
• Everyone goes to Hula Hanks, we just walk right in
• I never drink and drive your car, Nora drives
• Cletus had no idea we were downstairs, we were really quiet

Nomans did a pretty good job finishing her off on Tuesday evening. I refused to even look at her until Wednesday morning at which point I assured her that she was (and is) a wonderful nanny but that she absolutely can not behave this way and live in my house and that flagrant disregard for local laws and custom (especially felonies) shows extreme idiocy and sets an absolutely unacceptable example for my seventeen year old. OK, I used slightly stronger words.

On Wednesday evening we all went to dinner as planned to celebrate Nanny's birthday and our anniversary (because it was actually last night). When we got home she took my car and went out. We stood stunned at the audacity at the top of the stairs.

This evening, after taking over Little Girl's care because Nanny apparently can't get her showered and in jammies and to the table on time, we had the car conversation. The Honda will not be fixed for about a month. That's how long it's going to take to get the parts and settle with the insurance company and fix the mess. My car is a train car. It is my car. It is not the nanny mobile. She has it while I have the rental car. She has it for Little Girl and Cletus and class and required nanny events but other than that she's on her own.

She's downstairs sulking in a state of disbelief. (actually last I checked she got somebody to pick her up so she can finish her sulking at Starbucks with the rest of them)

She's a really great nanny as far as my experience with nannies goes (like I nearly killed the one from last year?). I wonder if she's going to make it? How in holy hell do other people do this?

My dog though, how freaking cute is he?

On being kickass

Spartacus says I'm a kickass blogger. See?

And I'm going to post it on my sidebar just as soon as I can locate those specific brain cells that allow for content adjustments. Also, I received this award yesterday and I've been blushing furiously ever since (and I don't blush easy). So here are the rules associated with this particular award:

1. Select five Kick Ass Bloggers.
2. Leave a comment on the kick ass blogs so that they know they have an award.
3. Link back to the person who gave the award (in this case that's me) but also to MammaDawg.
4. Visit Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky and leave a comment (and if anyone can tell me where and how to leave a comment at the Mr. Linky site that would really help because I've failed miserably).

And there they are (drum rolls please)....

1. The Contrary Goddess - Life on the Farm - This is CG and she is my hero. This is a site worth mining for days. As a matter of fact I'd suggest starting at the beginning and working your way forward just to pick up the flavor and texture of the lifeline. This is an incredibly inspirational and educational diary of the ethics of living on this planet and the how and why we might want to  reconnect with the world we live in. You can learn everything from how to properly kill, clean and store a chicken to what it really means to live a free and unencumbered life.
2. Deliverance - This is Lewis. Lewis has a lot to say on many subjects ranging from our collective deep seated political beliefs to how dumbed down is America anyway. What I really love about Lewis is his unflappable ability to communicate directly and with a great deal of grace. I can be direct but it's not often that I can be direct about sensitive subjects and do it gracefully. Plus he's a Southern Gentleman and I do so have a thing for Southern Gentlemen...
3. Suburban Homestead - This is Wendy. Wendy is documenting her life on a quarter acre homestead. There are a lot of quarter acre homestead sites out there and they all seem to link to the bigger homestead sites, you know, the ones that seem to almost go commercial (I link to them too) but in that largeness that often occurs with these would be forerunners of the green movement (however you care to define that) the individuality is lost. Wendy documents her life with a level of frankness that leaves me feeling as if I'm sitting in her kitchen with my elbows on her table drinking in every word she's got to say - because it's so very real.
4. Fast Grow the Weeds - This is El. For me El is pure magic. I want to be El when I grow up but I suspect I'll just have to get used to being me (I still fantasize about a specific level or organization and order in my life). El speaks (I know, it's 'writes' but El speaks) of her relationship with the garden, herself and the world around her as if she and it exist in a state of grace. She once remarked in response to a question about complaining why she doesn't appear to complain and her answer was something along the lines of, 'if you choose this life then you don't have much to complain about do you?' And while I'm certain that El does not live a trouble free existence I am just as certain that she lives smack dab in the middle of her own self made poetry.
5. I Agree With Me - That ought to about sum it up, don't you think? This is Amy. Amy is just cool as hell and she's one of the nicest people I know. She's kind of the female version of Lewis even though culturally and geographically they are worlds apart. Amy documents a life so unlike my own I often read it like a novel and then I find myself recognizing the sameness in all of us and our ability to find a common ground where communication can occur. 'Listening' to Amy taught me a lot about getting over myself and just letting go.

Just pickles I suppose

Well, you know I really wish I'd taken the time to use the camera at least once this weekend. On the other hand this will cause no download problems for my dial up peeps! I mentioned at the end of last week that my head was spinning from the nanny revolution and I think it still is, or will continue to, until we're settled in with just the one. In the mean time we've got territorial battles, language issues and food issues I was definitely NOT prepared for (you eat only lettuce? really. OK. Am I responsible for your getting scurvy if it comes to that? Probably not but you still need to set a reasonable example for my children.)

Big segue bump here. A very wise man wrote a blog entry a few days ago (OK, maybe only yesterday) remarking that a ton of people started gardens and then had fits when only half the garden worked out and he mentions in his blog that 50% seems pretty good... 20 watt light bulb flickers on over her head momentarily... but does not go out.  He might just have something here.

This is what I wish I could show you:

1. There are no less than forty tomatoes growing on my 20 very scrawny plants. They might not be strong enough to stay tied to stakes and hold up the weight of the fruit but they sure are producing.
2. I made a mess of pickles. My first ever. That fermentation disaster from last year does not count because even the dog would not eat them and also because I can blame that on Nomans (hands down). I only made five jars because apparently that was the end of my seals. Off to acquire more. They are, however, quite beautiful and made from my pickles and my dill. I can't discuss the garlic or the vinegar.
3. From the local farmers market I purchased a mess of tomatoes and made a marinara thick enough to stand up a spoon which was used on pizza which used up the remainder of my harvested veggies for the day.
4. I also made a bolognese and a gazpacho but have yet to convince new nanny that gazpacho is liquid salad and should be at least tasted before turning up one's nose and demanding lettuce (boy is she going to love it when I explain that the butter crunch I will deliver up to her this evening grows wild in my swamp because that's where I let it bolt and bolt and bolt again).
5. And there were two batches of bread, the cheese and the no knead wheat. I am wondering if new nanny will eat them. Old nanny will not.

The chickens are hilarious. We have one small poult egg that Nomans wants to frame on the wall like first dollar bill. He suggested we put it up in formaldehyde like St. Thomas's finger in Rome (really, we saw a finger in a jar of fluid, I am NOT making this up). I suggested he eat it but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get it out of his clutches long enough to crack and cook it.

We are learning that while some chickens roost at home (like the coop, ladies, come on, please) other chickens run amok. One of these prefers roosting in the bushes in the front yard. I'm tempted to leave her there except she'll attract more raccoons. Old Nanny chased her back to the pen yesterday. I'm not sure New nanny will even acknowledge her presence (although I'm not so sure that's accurate because I believe her family kept chickens in the back yard until fairly recently, she just won't eat them or their eggs).

Overall it was a very productive weekend. I question my sanity and my choices periodically but I suppose we all go there periodically.

Now if I could just get my heart rate under 120 and get a decent night's sleep I'm sure everything would be just peachy.

Hatteras photo blog

Random, not so random... This is from the back of the ferry on the way home from Ocracoke. There isn't much to see on Ocracoke but a few small sacred spots which has us make the trip most years although each year I think, this must be my last.

I posted a photo of Edgar's headstone last year but here he is again. Someday I may take a picture of the children's graves because that's who I really go to visit but I've yet to bring myself to overstep those boundaries. What I like about this island and about Hatteras is that people still bury their own dead. I read in a book this last week that we have sanitized death to the point where we no longer know how to grieve. There is this house on Hatteras Island that I ride my bike by and stop to read the headstones in the front yard. I sort of know these families in as much as I'll let myself trespass and I'm beginning to recognize names which makes me sad even though I am happy to see them kept at home. The thing about the babies I visit on Ocracoke is that eight died from the same family one year at a time until I had to wonder if there were any left. Tiny foot stones back to back.

This is back on Hatteras Island from the deck at sunset.

Here are four kids and a nanny in the hot tub on the deck overlooking the ocean.

We all climbed the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse together this year. It was the first time Little Girl was big enough. The winds were too high to step outside but we looked through the windows and door. This lighthouse was moved some time ago and before then no one could climb because it wasn't safe. When I was eight and it was still open I climbed 252 steps (I think) with my grandfather.

Yes, seaoats and that family snapshot that we never seem to take except this year we did and I suspect we'll be thankful for it.

Oh these are called Ass Antlers and I still have mine. I think it will leave a strange tan line when it finally washes off.

Self Portrait. I like this one a lot. I can recognize the shape of me and it makes me feel grounded somehow.

The very lovely Cletus.

I am watching all those kids from behind the seaoats on the dune line but it's too hot even with flip flops to squat that way for very long.

If I was less random this would have been at the top with Edgar. Here are the not so wild wild ponies penned at Ocracoke. They look awfully well groomed and fed to me. I can't tell anymore what they mean by wild; I think it's more of a cultivated sanctuary but I'm just guessing.

Here is the ferry line to come home from Ocracoke. It seems surreal the way the photograph came out.

And here is that egregious machine that transported seven of us over 1200 miles and for some absurd reason appeared to average 17 mpg. I'm not sure how that is possible but I'll accept it. It was a very difficult thing to maneuver if you're used to tiny or mid sized cars and on the second to last day there was a bit of an accident and we've had to address rental auto insurance for the first time ever.

And finally, the same as it ever is and when I lie face down in the wet sand and I can feel the sun burning up the ozone no matter how much sunblock I'm wearing I can close my eyes and shut out almost everything.

Who wants to live? Raise your hand.

The Belmont starts in 24 minutes. I don't usually watch these things, I find it painful in a way that is nearly mind altering. I will, however, watch Big Brown today. I will watch Big Brown six inches from the television screen (OK, not six, but you get my point), glass of wine clenched in my hand, breath of air clenched in my lungs and I will be crying, tears and snot running down my face before it is even over.

It does this to me. A visceral reaction I suppose, to my lizard brain's memory of me and the horse.

It is 92 degrees in the shade and humid as all get out. I am making tamales in the kitchen, how freaking hilarious is that? That's why I'm out here on the porch under the fan hoping to catch a little fresh air before I go back in the house. We closed all the windows and pulled the shades this morning and managed to keep the house in reasonably good form until I got home with a load of groceries and proceeded to tear the kitchen down, as it were.

To make tamales you need two days unless you have more energy than me and that's substantial. You start out slow cooking in water (you need that stock for the mesa) about 7 pounds of pork and 5 pounds of chicken. This takes hours and hours at about 275 but in the end, when all is said and done, you have some darn near miraculous pulled pork and chicken from which to work your tamale magic. You can also mix it up with a mess of sauce and just eat it too and we might do that with some. Just some. If I'm going to suffer through tamale production in this heat I'm going to end up with about 90 of those suckers in the freezer when I'm done.

On the way home I was listening to an interview with the surviving owner of Affirmed, the last horse to take the triple crown in 1978. She was asked why triple crowns didn't seem to happen anymore and what she said boiled down to 'we are just too careful'. Think about that. Our horses aren't tough enough to make it.

And at some point Affirmed's jockey was interviewed. I missed the context, all I caught was, "I was just sick, so sick at the idea of not making it and in the end I let the horse go."

He let the horse go and the horse went. Imagine that.

Watch this if you have better than a dial up (CG, try anyway):

Velka Pardubicka - Grand Steeplechase in Pardubice, 2006

My mother sent me the link. Here were my comments:

1. Good God.
2. Ouch.
3. Those riderless horses cheat.
4. Does it count if they go around?
5. We are big babies around here.
6. I do believe that riderless horse is going to win and it isn't going to count because he a) failed to go back and retrieve his lifeless rider and b) cheated and went around on more than one occasion (but he NEVER crossed his line).

This is extreme as extreme is extreme. Have I made my point? Watch the clip. All of it. We, today, now, here in this place, are extreme only in our aversion to risk. It's why we keep on keeping on the way we do; we don't want to take a chance on the unknown even if it means dying with our heads in the sand. Some days it feels as if we are barely alive.

I remembered the Belmont because I was driving home today and passed that big and nearly famous barn the next town over (where I will never in a million years be able to do anything but window shop and they are tearing down 200 year old architectural wonders to erect mcmansions on quarter acre lots even now in this plunge into the abyss...)

(and D'Tara runs away with it, Big Brown has refused to run and it's over, one more time and WHY do I always cry through these things?!)

And I'm watching the gorgeously turned out little girls on their gorgeously turned out 30 - 50k ponies and I pull over for once in what can only be referred to as my ghetto mobile (it's a five year old Mazda6, don't go over in Beamer land), roll down my window, turn off my engine and prepare to be wowed.

I am not wowed. I am stunned, I'll give you that. I am so not wowed I have to check and see where I am. Yep, it's this town, this barn, these little girls and these ponies and I am not dreaming. They cannot ride worth a damn. No, really. They can't. I can't figure it out either. They have everything. Absolutely everything I never had except the horse and the time and even my horses were just horses, right?  The best barn, the best trainers, the best horses and for crying out loud, the bestest little monkey suits you ever did see, these girls look fabulous! Sitting still.

When they move they become stiff upright sacks of potatoes. Didn't think that was possible, did you? Neither did I. To the pony's credit, most of them did all right with this bouncy bouncy bouncy bang bang bang yank yank yank happening to their backs, sides and mouths. That there would be one $30,000 pony with one seriously hardened mouth. Sigh.

Watching is making my stomach hurt and I so don't understand. I want to get out of my car, climb up over the stone wall, grab a bridle and haul little girl and horse across the street to a big open field, slap that pony on the rump and yell, go girl, go!

Here's my theory. These girls have NEVER been out of the ring. Never. They have no idea what this beast is between their legs except it's big and it's scary and they've been told it might kill them (really, no penis is so big it will kill you. You get my point).

Learning, of any kind is 90 to 100% doing (and I'm betting there are a bunch of you out there going to tell me stick to that 100 number, not the 90). Immersion. That's it. Instruction is nice and CG will tell you she's been having some lovely instruction but it wouldn't mean a damn if she hadn't spent a million hours on the back of a beast losing the boundaries between he and me until we are just we. These girls have never been out of the ring and therefore do not know that they might not die.

And so not knowing,  no matter how much money you throw at it, all is lost but the picture, which is flat and meaningless.

Go Big Brown, Go. Or not.

Sweet Sunday

It's been awhile since we had Sunday around here. Wait, Sunday always happens, right? Maybe I should call up Tom Robbins and ask his opinion about time (I'm working my way through all of his books again; it's been long enough and it's time).

So given tradition, especially if you're new here, I should explain what you see in the picture. Or you can leave it all up to imagination except in my case, I might be more fun.

First there's the back brace. Isn't it cute? My sixteen year old daughter says I look 'smexy' in it. Smexy? Well all righty then. Smexy it is. I have the brace on because of what I and that dog were doing with that mammoth pile of dirt yesterday. OK, NoMans helped too (a lot) but he doesn't seem to be suffering. The dog will tell you he's suffering if he knows what's good for him (loyalty in a dog is everything). Anyway, I'm wearing the brace over a camisole that I wore under a rather bulky sweater when I went to be fitted at Ye Olde Surgical Supply Store and Apothecary that opened up just for me because my pharmacist knows that pharmacist and I looked darn well pathetic when I walked into my pharmacy this morning under the delusion that they might have a brace to fit me (not being a surgical supply store or anything of the kind). The brace is helping me. A lot. Notice the smile.

Also, see the dried roses above the sink? The first batch were from my husband. He bought them at the supermarket on the way to pick me up from the hospital on Valentine's day. There were actually two bunches which is why there are two colors in that group. Next are some pink roses. My mother sent those. She never sends flowers, it's just not her style. But she loves me and it was the only thing she could think to do in the moment. And you know what? Because of all that, they were perfect. The next three bunches I bought myself from Whole Foods Market on the way back from group one week at a time. I hung them when they got old because I loved the colors in the window. And to remind myself that I matter. That last batch is half a string of smoked garlic. It was imported from somewhere and I bought it without thinking. I am ashamed but keep it there as a reminder that fuel don't come cheap. Sometimes I use it but I want it to last. Mostly I use the garlic that comes out of New York State. Pretty soon I'll have my own.

Now back to what I'm doing. I made two batches of Sunday sauce today. The first is with meat and the second without. The first is in the process of becoming Lasagna which is Tuesday's dinner and the second will cover some frozen meatballs I made months ago that will be for Thursday. The fish is farm raised Tilapia and I'm not sure (still working my way though The Omnivore's Dilemma) exactly how I feel about that. It's going to marinate in some olive oil, the juice of two lemons, pepper, cilantro purloined from some of my healthier seedlings and a good amount of garlic. Trust me, it can handle the garlic. It can also handle cheese which just boggles my mind. We will also be having a chicken from which I will make the stock which will feed the next batch of Sunday sauce and so on and so on. I'm using canned tomatoes now too. I gave up. Better to buy the organic canned then the organic hothouse. I don't know why I think that but there you go.

I laid out the plans for my garden today. I am so excited I could just about throw my back out again thinking about it. I have never given myself permission to use this much of the lawn. Back yard? What back yard? Never mind the deer, I'm putting up those rather unattractive U-posts and hooking up some seven foot (he - the hot guy at the lumber yard - SWEARS to the seven feet - and I did have to ask him - 'does that work if you have a gun or if you do not have a gun because I live in Weston and if I shoot the critters I'm going to have some 'splaining to do') anti critter mesh (replaced chicken wire apparently and will also support my cukes, peas and morning glory). Hows that for some parentheticals?

Which leads me to the next nanny. Holy cow am I ever excited! She looks like Barbie (I will probably forgive her) but her biggest concerns were about the food (mom bakes all the bread and they don't buy processed anything and she's a bit concerned about peak oil) and being a member of the family, i.e., cooking, chores, fitting in and all that. I about creamed my jeans and you'll all pardon my momentary lapse. Especially if you've followed the last year.

God is Good. Amen. May we all move on now.

Happy Sunday all - back brace aside, I'm having a happy day.

Love, Alecto

Really, the good parts

Now that I'm feeling a little more balanced (I was going to write, a little more like myself, but really, when are we ever not ourselves? Just because it ain't comfy doesn't make it not so). Where was I? Balanced. I can tell you what else about Vermont because there were a couple of serious highlights - made my week and all that.

First, I've got to respond to CG's last comment rather publicly because she raises such an incredibly intense point about the condition of Vermont. The battle between the environmentalists and the desire to bring outside money into the community has been waging for years. Maybe raging is a better word. Chris Bohjalian goes on about it rather prosaically in at least one of his books. I believe the portion of the state CG is referring to is Stratton where a mini mall grew up just to the West in Manchester (it's the entire town and then some) and three mountains that just happen to be far enough South to tempt most of us flatlanders are grouped close enough together for variety. I got married in the quaint town of Jamaica and I'll tell you, they have to work very hard to keep it that way; too far West and the stench of commercialism will slap you in the face and too far North and you're up to your knees in cow patties. I'm all over the cow patties but most of my guests would not have been. Most of them were having small meltdowns because their cell phones and crackberries didn't work.

In any event, we ski a bit further North in Waitsfield (or is it Irasville? or is it Warren?) at a mountain called Sugarbush and we only ski during the week in an attempt to pretend that what happened at Stratton and Brody did not happen at Sugarbush and Glen Ellen (oops, it's not Glen Ellen anymore, is it?). But the truth is, we really are just pretending. If I went just a bit up the app gap toward my Dad's house in Starksboro I could go to my old stomping grounds, a rock and ice palace called Mad River where they neither make snow nor groom trails (and if I understand this correctly are still banning snow boards). I don't want to though. I might break.

Here is what I love about going to Waitsfield (or Irasville or Warren).  I love to go to the Rivendell Bookstore in Montpelier where I can purchase books with titles like 'Everything I want to do is Illegal' and 'Doing away with the Front Lawn' (my neighbors are going to be SO MAD and my husband is going to have some adjusting to do) and 'Raising Chickens' and 'Wiccan Paradise.' I can visit the restaurant run by the cooking school and see what those kids are up to this year (it's almost always wonderful and when it's not it's so bad it's fabulous). I can go to Miller's Sporting Goods and talk to the man I can only presume might be Mr. Miller about the state of sustainable knitting needles (I am NOT making this up - I'm pretty sure he's going on about bamboo but it's hard to say) and buy some nice wool from him while I'm at it.

This year, instead of shopping for the week at Mehurons (I'm sorry, Mehurons) we went to Sweet Pea where we used to only go for specialty items and we bought the entire week of groceries at Sweet Pea. This is because I figure, I'm in Vermont, Vermont is good at this buying and eating local business, I should be able to do this too. I got to the meat section and low and behold I saw Walter's pigs. Who are Walter's pigs? Here are Walter's Pigs. Have a look. I lurk at Walter's site daily but never say much. I was so excited to see Walter's pigs in the supermarket I nearly peed myself and the kids minding the store thought I was nuts (and they're thinking, who the hell is Walter and why do I care about his pigs?). My kids, on the other hand, got to put a name at least to their meal. This is something that really bothers me about the way we eat; shrink wrapped food. It was just a small step, but it was something. The only thing better would have been finding CG in the next aisle buying baloney and beer but I mix my context or my metaphors or something.

The other really cool thing I got to do was put on a pair of cross country skis. This costs next to nothing, makes a minimal impact on the environment and is some serious fun (to me anyway; that other family on the trail wasn't too happy). I've been on cross country skis one other time when I was about twelve and it mostly came right back. We went and we went and we went until I was so tired I fell over just standing up. I had to take my skis off just one time to go down hill on foot because I would have surely wound up in the river but other then that I think I did all right.

So now I'm home and my dirt is getting delivered on Friday and even though it's going to snow again this weekend it is spring. I heard the peepers last night.

Breathing

I have been away. I have been away and I took my camera with me so at least there are pictures. I made a choice; I had myself discharged from the Hall-Brook outpatient group so that I could go to Vermont for a week knowing full well that this wasn't necessarily one of my better ideas. I removed myself from the support of a group of women, the first I've really had in my life, and I went away. This resulted in a lot of tears but I got through it, more or less.

The thing about the time share is that I inherited it. My parents bought it just as I was leaving home and just before their divorce so it never meant much. I grew up staying at a $4 per night dorm that got me a bed, a shower and a place to cook meals. It also happened to be at the base of one of the premier East Coast Ice and Rock hills. It's what I know. In any event, the time share is much nicer and my dad calls it Grandchild bait and eight years ago I started packing up my family and heading North for a week. My youngest was conceived there. Last year was the first year I went without my boy. I still missed him this year. I have had two husbands in that condo. I have had a fair number of significantly unhappy weeks in that place and yet, and yet, it's what I know. So off we went.

The first series of photos are of Little Girl. I put her on skis at 3 because I could and she didn't do much but fall over with a big $hit eating grin on her little girl face. She did that year after year while the other micro and mini bears skied right by her. This year she got up on those skis and something clicked. My girl went from middle of the minis to near top of the sugar bears (that's skiing with the ten to twelve year olds for the most part) in five days. So here she is on day one which was the only day I could even get near her with the D80 (I do NOT take that thing up this particular mountain).

Here is Little Girl actually catching a bit of air under one ski.

And here she is actually smiling...

I was embarrassed enough about that coat to actually buy her a new one. This was her third season and you can see it didn't quite give her the coverage she needed.

She is not angry, just tired. To me she just looks, well, flawless.

This is a 6,000 calorie ice cream sandwich that Little Girl and I made. I'm also afraid that might be my ass. Sigh.

Here are Cletus and I half way up the mountain. This is why the D80 stays in the locker (NoMans is using some very teensy weatherproof thing called a Hero). Winds kept the upper lifts shut down most of the week although the two days we did get at the top were just about the best conditions I've ever had up there. Cletus is only wearing what we call Turtle Fur which means her nose is uncovered and the whole thing can be pulled down around her neck. I am wearing a full balaclava with a neoprene mouth and nose cover under my helmet and a turtle fur and I am still seriously could if I'm not moving. The powder was very deep toward the end of our week and don't let anybody tell you we actually like that stuff here. First of all, we have no idea what to do with it. It won't take an edge, it covers our boots and our toes get cold.

Here is Sugarbush Mountain from the base lodge on Good Friday (which is why there are so many people milling about the lifts).

And here is the mountain as I know it.

 

And when we came home, it was spring. Time to turn what little soil we have from last year, make ready for the new soil delivery and survey signs of life in the eternal swamp.