And speaks Spanish. But most notably, he is five feet, 8 inches tall--same as Ulysses S. Grant and me. I maintain that having one of "our kind" as president once again is LONG overdue. Anybody hear if Howard and Judith, their family and home are OK?
Howard and Judy live in Chittenden county here in the NW part of Vermont, and we weren't hard hit by this storm as the rest of the state was. I'm sure they're fine.
Well, Beau's out having an adventure. . . . He saw something that excited him, and I was going to let him out, he hit the screen door handle by accident, and ZOOM. . . . I'm just trying to act like a grownup, and assume if he wants to be here, he will be. . . .
All 13 towns in Vermont that had been cut off from the rest of the world by the devastation have now at least received airdropped supplies. If you'd like to read about one such town, this is a good article about Rochester, Vermont: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110830/NEWS07/110830025/ Mah*Sweetie and I have been there many times. They have a little town green with old houses on it, and we have eaten at two restaurants there. One looks like it once was a small general store, but now it's half restaurant serving good old-fashioned food (turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy...) and really good ice cream, and half Vermont local gifts shop. Across the street is a very nice health food restaurant serving homemade soups, quiche, sandwiches with thick whole grain bread...and one eats at tables mixed into the bookshop...which specialises in out of print, autographed and other amazing books...! I hope the books were saved!! The restautants have been using all their supplies to feed the town and the one grocery store in town has been giving away perishables. The article mentioned something I hadn't really thought about. Some communities have a "boil water" order...yet they have no electricity and in some cases it will be a month or more before it can be restored. (You can't restore power if you can't even drive your truck into town to look for the breaks in the system!) This reminds me of what was probably the last West Wing episode, in which C.J. is taking a new job. She is going to be doing something to help in Africa and in an interview she is asked what's needed first. Immediately she says, "Roads!" You can't deliver medicine or food or water or any other supplies without roads. Or helicopters. We are grateful to the Illinois National Guard for their helicopters. I saw one in operation today, and they're larger than the ones we usually have here. BTW, the photo out front was taken at Son's wedding. The place the couch is resting on had several feet of water. In fact, I read today that the restaurant there had not 2 feet of water in it, but 7 feet of water, and the floor of their wood-fired oven will need to be replaced! It was sobering to read, also, that just today the guests from a wedding in Pittsfield were able to get as far as Killington and are now able to leave the state. { ! }
Just wanted to let everyone know that I've been around. But with so much else going on -- nothing except work of any huge importance -- I haven't had much to say.
BTW I like hanging out anywhere blue, with or without a guitar.
As per request, the further adventures of Snowball the Wonder Cat and her person.
It started to rain just as the door closed behind us. So, we had to go all the way back inside and up to the apartment, where I detached and coiled Snowball’s lead, unbuckled her from her harness and zipped her into her kitty papoose. This wasn’t her favorite way to travel, but at least it would keep her dry.
After a moment’s thought I stowed the harness and lead in my pocketbook. This was actually a smallish leather backpack with a carrying handle. Going out with a cat seemed a lot like going out with a child. You needed to bring so much stuff!
Setting the pack on the couch beside Snowball who squirmed, trying to sniff it through the mesh side of her carrier, I unthreaded the cane holster from my belt, setting the white cane where I hoped I wouldn’t forget it, and pulled on my yellow, Gloucester fisherman style rain slicker and hat. Carefully settle Snowball’s papoose on my shoulders, temporarily stow the cane in one of the slicker’s capacious pockets, heft the pack – I’d already checked that my keys and iPhone were safely inside – and I was ready.
“Off we go like a herd of turtles,” I said brightly, using one of my dad’s favorite expressions, as once more the apartment door closed behind us.
“We’re not a hurrrd,” Snowball pointed out, her high, clear voice somewhat muffled behind my scapular. “We’re a twosome.”
I swung open the door to the stairwell. Even in her papoose, Snowball didn’t like elevators. “Off we go like a twosome of turtles,” I amended, jogging down the stairs. Hey, Rocky had nothing on me! Or was that running up the stairs? Whichever it was, I felt pretty sure he hadn’t done it with a twelve-pound cat on his back.
Outside, I paused to settle my hat and to fish out and unfold my cane. It was four and a half blocks to Mulberry Street. Once there, I was to cross to the further side, turn right and watch, not for the name of the bookshop, but for the large, golden image of a frigate under full canvas on a wrought iron sign over the door.
The rain fell softly, more of a heavy mist than a light rain. It muffled the sound of my footsteps and of the occasionally passing car. Visually too it wrapped everything in a soft, blurring cloak. Distances and depths shifted confusingly. I was glad of my white cane and the skills I had learned that allowed me to travel safely.
My ex boyfriend, Kit McClain, had shied away from the cane, claiming he feared I would skewer him at any moment. By contrast my current boyfriend, Ross Perelli, lead guitarist of the Folk-Rock band Skunk Grass Cabin, encouraged me to use all my blindness and daily living skills as much as possible. Both Snowball and my parents liked Ross a lot better than Kit.
In fairness to both my cat and my mom and dad, Ross had more to recommend him than interest in my Orientation and Mobility skills. For one thing he was, as my friend Pam said, knock-your-eye-out gorgeous. While this trait didn’t mean as much to me as it did to, say, Pam, it is one that parents, especially mothers, apparently value in their daughters’ boyfriends. He was also intelligent, thoughtful, great company and, what Kit had definitely not been, both a book lover and a fabulous kisser. As the clincher, he had a steady, respectable job as assistant manager of The Frigate. We hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Mom and Dad about the Skunks, as the members referred to the band.
He’d offered to walk me from my apartment to the shop the first time. After some consideration, though, I’d decided that wasn’t necessary. “The worst that can happen is that I’ll end up in the wrong shop, right?” I’d asked doubtfully.
He was close enough for me to see that gorgeous smile. “Right,” he agreed. He squeezed my hand. “And you can call me at any time if you get disorientated or whatnot.”
So, though I would have preferred for Ross to guide me to the Frigate on my first visit, I was being brave and grownup, demonstrating that I could follow directions and find a new place just like anyone else. I was nervous, but it wasn’t far, and my town was safe. I walked all over it all the time, to already familiar places. Besides, I had self-defense skills if it came to that. Of course, I hadn’t reckoned on carrying Snowball. The weather forecast had confidently asserted that the rain would hold off till tomorrow; and, for once, I had believed it.
Oh well, it wasn’t far. The soft, misty rain, sometimes stirred by puffs of breeze, was very pleasant. I found myself cheering up, walking more confidently. When we arrived at the bookshop, I’d see Ross. I started to whistle, not a Skunk Grass cabin number, but a song my favorite DJ on the oldies station played all the time, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”
My town had been built on a small, livable scale. Four and a half blocks there was not like four and a half blocks in Manhattan. All the same, by the time I turned right on Mulberry Street and slowed my pace to watch for my destination, I’d decided that starting tonight, Snowball was going on a diet!
We past a bakery. The heavenly smell was enough to alert me to the shop’s identity without the fancy breads and cakes in the windows. My stomach growled, apparently finding the lunch I’d given it of a cream cheese and pimento sandwich with a celery stalk and some cherry tomatoes on the side, a glass of lemonade and a dish of raspberry sherbet to finish inadequate. I couldn’t really blame it. Nose pressed to the window, mouth watering, I stared like Julie Andrews at the beginning of Victor Victoria. Drawing back I shook myself, ashamed. Julie Andrews had been starving. I was merely greedy. I had places to go, people to see...Ross to meet. All the same, I couldn’t resist one last glance as I moved on.
Had Snowball growled? Pausing before the next storefront, which showed an uninteresting display of women’s clothes, most of them with skirts much too short for my taste, I reached up awkwardly to pat the kitty papoose. I felt more than heard her purr. Glancing around quickly to make sure there was no one within earshot I told her softly, “Almost there, Kitty.” Her purr increased in seismic magnitude, if not in volume. I smiled, leaning a bit more heavily on my cane as I walked on. There was a saying I’d picked up somewhere, “Ain’t Mama happy, ain’t nobody happy!” In my life the equivalent was, “Ain’t Kitty happy, ain’t nobody happy!” The converse was true too. I always felt better when Snowball was in a good mood.
My thoughts were so absorbing that I almost walked right past my objective. Fortunately, some instinct, or maybe a thought wave from Snowball, caused me to look up before passing the shop altogether; so that I saw a large, black cat sitting regally beside a display of beautiful hardbound books in muted rainbow colors, obviously a set. Unable to read the titles, I counted the volumes laboriously – visual tracking was difficult. “Probably a set of Dickens,” I said to Snowball. She didn’t answer. I looked at the cat again. He hadn’t moved except for the slow swishing of his long, fluffy tail. “You must be Darth Vader,” I said to him, though he couldn’t hear me through the plate glass. He stared back with his round, black eyes.
Under that steady gaze, I had the sudden conviction that he thought me rather silly. Snowball mewed. The sound brought my attention back to my surroundings. The rain had grown heavier. Indeed I was silly to stand outside getting rained on when I could be inside. “You’re right,” I said, though whether to Snowball or to Darth I didn’t know. Turning, I retraced the three or four steps to the door and went in.
Howard Dean is First and also plays guitar!
ReplyDeleteHe is indeed, and does indeed!
ReplyDeleteAnd speaks Spanish. But most notably, he is five feet, 8 inches tall--same as Ulysses S. Grant and me. I maintain that having one of "our kind" as president once again is LONG overdue. Anybody hear if Howard and Judith, their family and home are OK?
ReplyDeleteI couldn't find anything in the news. So I'll assume nothing untoward happened or it'd be in the news. (Hopin')
ReplyDeleteAh, just picked this up from the BBB:
ReplyDeleteTalked to Jim Dean via email yesterday and today..
By linda b on Aug 31, 2011 11:23 AM EDT
They are ok but without power, water, etc. Jim said they all will be fine...
Hi guys!
ReplyDeleteGood sleuthing, Puddle. And, welcome if not optimal news.
ReplyDeleteHoward and Judy live in Chittenden county here in the NW part of Vermont, and we weren't hard hit by this storm as the rest of the state was. I'm sure they're fine.
ReplyDeleteHi backatcha!
ReplyDeleteWell, Beau's out having an adventure. . . . He saw something that excited him, and I was going to let him out, he hit the screen door handle by accident, and ZOOM. . . . I'm just trying to act like a grownup, and assume if he wants to be here, he will be. . . .
ReplyDeleteHe's HoOOomME! Don't know how often I can take this though: farmers around here shoot unfamiliar dogs. . . .
ReplyDeleteSorry that took so long, listener. I was outside, and didn't hear the notification, and didn't check till I got one from somewhere else just now.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad Mr. Exuberance is back safely!
ReplyDeleteNo worries! There's never a time limit. :-)
ReplyDeleteAll 13 towns in Vermont that had been cut off from the rest of the world by the devastation have now at least received airdropped supplies. If you'd like to read about one such town, this is a good article about Rochester, Vermont: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110830/NEWS07/110830025/
ReplyDeleteMah*Sweetie and I have been there many times. They have a little town green with old houses on it, and we have eaten at two restaurants there. One looks like it once was a small general store, but now it's half restaurant serving good old-fashioned food (turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy...) and really good ice cream, and half Vermont local gifts shop. Across the street is a very nice health food restaurant serving homemade soups, quiche, sandwiches with thick whole grain bread...and one eats at tables mixed into the bookshop...which specialises in out of print, autographed and other amazing books...! I hope the books were saved!! The restautants have been using all their supplies to feed the town and the one grocery store in town has been giving away perishables.
The article mentioned something I hadn't really thought about. Some communities have a "boil water" order...yet they have no electricity and in some cases it will be a month or more before it can be restored. (You can't restore power if you can't even drive your truck into town to look for the breaks in the system!)
This reminds me of what was probably the last West Wing episode, in which C.J. is taking a new job. She is going to be doing something to help in Africa and in an interview she is asked what's needed first. Immediately she says, "Roads!" You can't deliver medicine or food or water or any other supplies without roads.
Or helicopters. We are grateful to the Illinois National Guard for their helicopters. I saw one in operation today, and they're larger than the ones we usually have here.
BTW, the photo out front was taken at Son's wedding. The place the couch is resting on had several feet of water. In fact, I read today that the restaurant there had not 2 feet of water in it, but 7 feet of water, and the floor of their wood-fired oven will need to be replaced!
It was sobering to read, also, that just today the guests from a wedding in Pittsfield were able to get as far as Killington and are now able to leave the state. { ! }
Just wanted to let everyone know that I've been around. But with so much else going on -- nothing except work of any huge importance -- I haven't had much to say.
ReplyDeleteBTW I like hanging out anywhere blue, with or without a guitar.
ReplyDeleteAs per request, the further adventures of Snowball the Wonder Cat and her person.
It started to rain just as the door closed behind us. So, we had to go all the way back inside and up to the apartment, where I detached and coiled Snowball’s lead, unbuckled her from her harness and zipped her into her kitty papoose. This wasn’t her favorite way to travel, but at least it would keep her dry.
After a moment’s thought I stowed the harness and lead in my pocketbook. This was actually a smallish leather backpack with a carrying handle. Going out with a cat seemed a lot like going out with a child. You needed to bring so much stuff!
Setting the pack on the couch beside Snowball who squirmed, trying to sniff it through the mesh side of her carrier, I unthreaded the cane holster from my belt, setting the white cane where I hoped I wouldn’t forget it, and pulled on my yellow, Gloucester fisherman style rain slicker and hat. Carefully settle Snowball’s papoose on my shoulders, temporarily stow the cane in one of the slicker’s capacious pockets, heft the pack – I’d already checked that my keys and iPhone were safely inside – and I was ready.
“Off we go like a herd of turtles,” I said brightly, using one of my dad’s favorite expressions, as once more the apartment door closed behind us.
“We’re not a hurrrd,” Snowball pointed out, her high, clear voice somewhat muffled behind my scapular. “We’re a twosome.”
I swung open the door to the stairwell. Even in her papoose, Snowball didn’t like elevators. “Off we go like a twosome of turtles,” I amended, jogging down the stairs. Hey, Rocky had nothing on me! Or was that running up the stairs? Whichever it was, I felt pretty sure he hadn’t done it with a twelve-pound cat on his back.
To be continued...
Outside, I paused to settle my hat and to fish out and unfold my cane. It was four and a half blocks to Mulberry Street. Once there, I was to cross to the further side, turn right and watch, not for the name of the bookshop, but for the large, golden image of a frigate under full canvas on a wrought iron sign over the door.
ReplyDeleteThe rain fell softly, more of a heavy mist than a light rain. It muffled the sound of my footsteps and of the occasionally passing car. Visually too it wrapped everything in a soft, blurring cloak. Distances and depths shifted confusingly. I was glad of my white cane and the skills I had learned that allowed me to travel safely.
My ex boyfriend, Kit McClain, had shied away from the cane, claiming he feared I would skewer him at any moment. By contrast my current boyfriend, Ross Perelli, lead guitarist of the Folk-Rock band Skunk Grass Cabin, encouraged me to use all my blindness and daily living skills as much as possible. Both Snowball and my parents liked Ross a lot better than Kit.
In fairness to both my cat and my mom and dad, Ross had more to recommend him than interest in my Orientation and Mobility skills. For one thing he was, as my friend Pam said, knock-your-eye-out gorgeous. While this trait didn’t mean as much to me as it did to, say, Pam, it is one that parents, especially mothers, apparently value in their daughters’ boyfriends. He was also intelligent, thoughtful, great company and, what Kit had definitely not been, both a book lover and a fabulous kisser. As the clincher, he had a steady, respectable job as assistant manager of The Frigate. We hadn’t quite gotten around to telling Mom and Dad about the Skunks, as the members referred to the band.
He’d offered to walk me from my apartment to the shop the first time. After some consideration, though, I’d decided that wasn’t necessary. “The worst that can happen is that I’ll end up in the wrong shop, right?” I’d asked doubtfully.
He was close enough for me to see that gorgeous smile. “Right,” he agreed. He squeezed my hand. “And you can call me at any time if you get disorientated or whatnot.”
To be continued...
So, though I would have preferred for Ross to guide me to the Frigate on my first visit, I was being brave and grownup, demonstrating that I could follow directions and find a new place just like anyone else. I was nervous, but it wasn’t far, and my town was safe. I walked all over it all the time, to already familiar places. Besides, I had self-defense skills if it came to that. Of course, I hadn’t reckoned on carrying Snowball. The weather forecast had confidently asserted that the rain would hold off till tomorrow; and, for once, I had believed it.
ReplyDeleteOh well, it wasn’t far. The soft, misty rain, sometimes stirred by puffs of breeze, was very pleasant. I found myself cheering up, walking more confidently. When we arrived at the bookshop, I’d see Ross. I started to whistle, not a Skunk Grass cabin number, but a song my favorite DJ on the oldies station played all the time, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”
My town had been built on a small, livable scale. Four and a half blocks there was not like four and a half blocks in Manhattan. All the same, by the time I turned right on Mulberry Street and slowed my pace to watch for my destination, I’d decided that starting tonight, Snowball was going on a diet!
We past a bakery. The heavenly smell was enough to alert me to the shop’s identity without the fancy breads and cakes in the windows. My stomach growled, apparently finding the lunch I’d given it of a cream cheese and pimento sandwich with a celery stalk and some cherry tomatoes on the side, a glass of lemonade and a dish of raspberry sherbet to finish inadequate. I couldn’t really blame it. Nose pressed to the window, mouth watering, I stared like Julie Andrews at the beginning of Victor Victoria. Drawing back I shook myself, ashamed. Julie Andrews had been starving. I was merely greedy. I had places to go, people to see...Ross to meet. All the same, I couldn’t resist one last glance as I moved on.
Had Snowball growled? Pausing before the next storefront, which showed an uninteresting display of women’s clothes, most of them with skirts much too short for my taste, I reached up awkwardly to pat the kitty papoose. I felt more than heard her purr. Glancing around quickly to make sure there was no one within earshot I told her softly, “Almost there, Kitty.” Her purr increased in seismic magnitude, if not in volume. I smiled, leaning a bit more heavily on my cane as I walked on. There was a saying I’d picked up somewhere, “Ain’t Mama happy, ain’t nobody happy!” In my life the equivalent was, “Ain’t Kitty happy, ain’t nobody happy!” The converse was true too. I always felt better when Snowball was in a good mood.
To be continued...
My thoughts were so absorbing that I almost walked right past my objective. Fortunately, some instinct, or maybe a thought wave from Snowball, caused me to look up before passing the shop altogether; so that I saw a large, black cat sitting regally beside a display of beautiful hardbound books in muted rainbow colors, obviously a set. Unable to read the titles, I counted the volumes laboriously – visual tracking was difficult. “Probably a set of Dickens,” I said to Snowball. She didn’t answer. I looked at the cat again. He hadn’t moved except for the slow swishing of his long, fluffy tail. “You must be Darth Vader,” I said to him, though he couldn’t hear me through the plate glass. He stared back with his round, black eyes.
ReplyDeleteUnder that steady gaze, I had the sudden conviction that he thought me rather silly. Snowball mewed. The sound brought my attention back to my surroundings. The rain had grown heavier. Indeed I was silly to stand outside getting rained on when I could be inside. “You’re right,” I said, though whether to Snowball or to Darth I didn’t know. Turning, I retraced the three or four steps to the door and went in.