Right Now

Right now I'm listening to the new G. Love ("got peace, love, happiness..."), waiting for Neil to get home from a meeting and cooking us a roast chicken, potatoes and zucchini for dinner.  Our kids are spending the week at camp with some of their cousins and grandparents.  I just looked at the pictures my mom has taken of all the kids doing fun stuff over the last few days.  Wow.  Howdya like cousins, ice cream, musical theater, magic shows, water sports, berry picking and homemade pies for a summer vacation?  Not to mention camp and Grammy Robin's lake!  Those are some dang lucky kids, living it up the way summer should be lived.  I'm grateful to my mom and Wayne and Gram for hosting and thoroughly entertaining them.  And happy to crank some G. Love while cooking a meal all alone in my house!

High Holy Holiday

I don't have anything profound to say about Old Home Weekend. I love my family. And by family, I mean all of the people who came to camp to celebrate being together and alive this weekend. They are all kind and generous people. Really, what more could anyone ask for?

This is our annual group photo in the middle of the road while we wait for the parade to come back. We always ask a stranger to be in the photo. Can you find the stranger?












Sally-ann asked a brass band on a float to play "happy birthday" for Gram and Riley. Here are the birthday girls enjoying their shared moment. Each of them are proud to share their birthday with the other. Damn, they are so cute.
















It's been a while since Joe has had a kid on his shoulders, but it's a look that still works for him. Faith took right to all her new aunts, uncles and cousins. I love them.






















I love this picture of Brook laughing. Pure joy. Isn't she beautiful?














Here's a picture of the five siblings, Grammie and Champ's kids; my mom, two aunts and two uncles.















Deb has taken this picture of Kali and Shani for years. Maybe I'll do a posting some day of the whole series, if she can share them all with me electronically. Even though these two brothers couldn't be more different from each other, they have one thing very much in common: they are both amazingly talented and artistic. They're actually brilliant. Probably because Neil and I lived with them for three of their infant/toddler years!




















Auntie Sally canoeing with Nina and Monica Jane. It was my step-sister Raina's kids (Monica and Sammi) first old home. They loved it. I overheard Sammi telling my mom she wanted to come back next year...yay!






Oh my god...Nina.















Karen and Bryan make beautiful children.

















Auntie Rae didn't want to share baby Shea. Shea might be the cutest baby in the world. Ever.















Patrick was psyched to march in the parade. My mom actually called me from parade headquarters to make sure it was okay that he carry a military sign. American flags were also passed out. Our ultra-patriotic, nationalistic family was impressed.
(An aside, just so we don't forget: On Sunday we had a memorial gathering in recognition of the 5th anniversary of my gram's late husband's passing. 40-50 of us, family, friends, neighbors, gathered in a circle around Poppa Dick's tree to share our memories. Patrick asked to share and said this: "I used to stand and watch while Poppa made puzzles. Now, when I make a puzzle, I think of him." It was perfect, succinct, thoughtful, appropriate and completely unplanned. I noticed I wasn't the only one who teared up at that moment. I am awfully proud of that boy and feel so lucky to be his momma.)
Jen and Terri on the Scully's lawn.















Henekis and I are trying to recruit our friend Carolyn into the Stoddard Tribe, so we roped her into coming to Old Home with her cute-as-two-buttons daughters, Sarah and Pheobe. Here she is demonstrating for my mom how she holds me like a baby. My mom had heard about this parlor game of ours, but had never seen it. She loved it! It really tickled her, which made it all the more fun. In fact, I can't think of anything BETTER in life than making my mom giggle like that.














Once people saw how cozy and lovey it is to be held like a baby, Carolyn had her work cut out for her.

Um, Alan...why are you so creepy?














And now for some ubiquitous, late-night self-portraits down by the lake.


Here's one of David A. and me right before I alienated him by picking a socio-political argument. I'm not always so good with teenagers.















Love you Auntie Rae!















My cousin Jeremy is a pretty funny guy. And he drove all the way from Albany (and all by himself) to be with us.














Tommy was awfully quiet this weekend. He's been working really hard and I worry about him. Maybe just because I'm lazy and don't want anyone I love working too hard. But that didn't stop him from cooking for us. He made the biggest pot of masaman curry you've ever seen (in a beautiful copper pot) and sticky rice. Delicious; it really was to die for. He also made a wild blueberry cobbler and some other fabulous eats. Food is love.

Freedom Old Home...Here We Come!

I have to go to work for a few hours, but Neil and the kids will pack the car and pick me up at 3 and we'll be headed to the best weekend of the year (as per David A.--I couldn't agree more).  I'm bringing a big pot of chili, hummus, farm milk and eggs and a log of Long Trail IPA.

I can't wait to see, kiss and squeeze all you mo-fuggin wackos!

Summertime...

Today was our summer child care provider's last day.  Sarah has been wonderful, reliable, kind and fun.  She and the kiddos spent a lot of time at the beach and playground and played a lot of board games. This morning, before I left for work, there was a lot of very sweet sounding giggling going on.  We'll miss Sarah, but she'll still be in the area for a while, so this shouldn't be a permanent goodbye.  Harper keeps asking me if she can babysit again, for an evening here and there, and I keep telling her "yes" and then she asks me again and I tell her "yes" again.  She wants to make sure.

In other news, our cousin Nell (Eleanor Altie Stoddard) is spending the week with us.   She's been a true delight to have around.  Nell is my Uncle Tommy's only child.  Tommy is, as you may recall, my Champ's son and my mom's baby brother.  So Nell and I are first cousins.  Anyway, last night the kids put on an excellent play.  It was a play about a play.  Very postmodern.  If I do say so, I think all 3 of them are very talented actors.  Here's Nell and Pat, fully in character.

These kids are the three youngest descendants of Champ and they are really quite the posse.  Harper and Nell have been as close as two people can be for all of Nell's life.  I have some cute pictures of them sleeping nose to nose when they were littler.  They LOVE to be together.  Harper would rather be with Nell than just about anyone.  But Nell is a couple years younger than Harper and this week I've noticed Nell and Patrick really connecting.  I'm happy about that.  Harper is enough older than the two 9 year olds that she's starting to see them as littler kids.  Because it's true that she's becoming pretty mature and grown up.  I don't think it affects her adoration of Nellie, but the dynamic has definitely changed, as I'm sure it will change again.  I like to think about how the three of them have each other and will always be close.  Very beautiful.  Champ would be proud.

I want to share a couple other tidbits with my readership (hi Mom!).  When I picked up my CSA vegetables today, Maryellen, our favorite farmer, mentioned the blog and that reminded me that I've been meaning to mention Old Shaw Farm.  We've been part of their CSA for several years now and it's absolutely one of my favorite things about summer.  The vegetables are beyond delicious, beautiful to look at, and plentiful.  And the Griffin family are delightful folks.  I first met Maryellen through work because, besides being an organic vegetable farmer, she is an attorney with Vermont Legal Aid, helping people who need legal advocacy and can't afford it. Pretty cool, huh? Today, Maryellen and Peter's daughter, Waverly (4) gave me a picture she'd drawn.  You don't get that kind of attention buying veggies at the Price Chopper or even the Coop!

The last thing I want to share is how exciting things have been for me at work lately.  This week and next week I am working with Pati Hernandez in a daily theater workshop for women.  I worked with Pati quite a few years ago and ever since we've been trying to make this project happen again.  Pati is amazing and someone I greatly admire, so I'm feeling really lucky about this opportunity to learn more from her.  The other work-related thing that's going on is that our sister program that serves the region just north of us is closing August 15th.  I won't go in to the reasons why, but the result is that I'm very involved with coordinating short term and interim services (and will also work on longer-term planning) for that county and a half.  I started my work with the battered women's movement in that community (working for the closing program) and as I left our initial planning meeting in Newport today, it felt like a full-circle kind of homecoming to be involved with the work up there again.  The community is very supportive and I saw some old friends/allies. Now that the community has expressed support for the plan, I'm going to be hiring and mentoring new advocates to serve the region.  A pretty big project, but one that somehow has me feeling serenely competent.  

Whew, all this running, working and blog writing has me happily exhausted!  And the summer air smells sweet tonight.

It's The Eyebrows!

Auntie Sally pointed out today that in these pictures Harper actually looks just like her dad!  People always say she looks like me, which I love because she is beautiful.  But when you draw heavy eyebrows on her for a play...wow! Doesn't she look like Neil here?  Pretty neat.  But, as Sally says, "looking just like Harper (no offense to either parent) is the most beautiful way of all for her to look."

A Thing of Beauty

I passed this guy riding his bike on my way to work this morning. Except he was wearing a yellow jersey and a backpack. I was lucky enough to see him as he was climbing a small hill; his specialty. Seriously, he looked like his body was doing what it was made to do. Not walk, not drive a car, not run or dance or skip, but ride a road bike (well, there's one other thing his body was made to do, but I won't write about it here). He was going fast and had perfect form and flow. Incredibly sexy. He averages over 20 mph on his commute. Pretty cool, huh?

I'm glad Neil can ride to work and back, especially these days as he is really unhappy with his job. I hate it when he's unhappy. He's such an easy-going, happy-go-lucky kind of guy and such a kind and good man, he doesn't deserve to ever be unhappy. If anyone wants to hire him for a new job, let us know. You'd be awfully lucky to have him. His only major requirement is that he be able to commute to work on his bike.

Notes from The Mikado and Other Busyness

Harper is finishing up a run in The Mikado this weekend. Here's a small clip from opening night. She's a Townsperson. Harper loves to be at the theater. Last week, when Patrick was in his show, Harper went early every night to usher. Tonight was really hot and, as you can see, the kids wear some pretty heavy costumes, but the girl came home happy and cheerful as always after a night on stage. And the play was excellent.  Good actors, projecting and singing with lots of gusto and talent.  And the set and costumes were beautiful, thanks to some parent volunteers who have a lot of talent.

Sadly, Peter and Maria left today. Peter and Maria fall under the category of "other wackos". They are family for us. It's funny how some people you only see a couple times a year, but then when you do get to spend a chunk of time with them, you end up missing them all the more. It's like the time together reminds you how much you love having them around. The days that I worked last week and came home to find them here, Maria cooking dinner and Peter calling family meetings or performing his "signature move", I felt like a puppy who is happy to see her companion people at the end of a work day. I wagged my tail. I wished we lived closer so we could see each other more regularly. In other good-company news, my mom and Wayne came back up this weekend for the show. They saw both kids' shows twice each and drove 200 mile each way to see them. What dedicated grandparents! And Grammie Robin came this weekend, too. So we were lucky.

On Thursday evening Pat's birth family, including some cousins he had never met before, came over for an early hot dog supper. Patrick was pretty pleased to have some boy cousins to run around with for a change. The baby (in big Pat's lap) is Pat's brother Matthew, who is 2 months old and doing great. The little girl is Patrick's sister, Kylie, who looks just like Manny did when he was little. It was nice to see everyone, albeit a tad bit hectic since Harper's opening night was also on Thursday.



So, after Peter and Maria left this morning (Neil was gone to yet another organized cycling event, the Mt. Ascutney Hill Climb), I decided it would be a good idea to get my long run in, since tomorrow I have an engagement at 11:00 am, meaning I'd have to get up early on a Sunday, run for a long time, and hurry home to get ready for the bridal shower. This turned out to be a really bad idea. Remember hearing about the Chicago Marathon last October? They actually called it off, but too late into it and it was a disaster. That day in Chicago reached a high of 88 degrees with 86% humidity; not good for running. Today, here, the humidity was about 90% and it was 83 degrees. But Chicago is flat, and I run a very hilly route, so even though I ran 10 miles less than a marathon today, when you factor in the hills, I feel like I ran the Chicago Marathon. I ended up doing a lot of walking, as I'm sure people did in Chicago that day, and my 17 miles ended up being 16.5. I bring my phone with me on long runs and I almost called for a ride a couple of times, but I didn't want to wimp out. I had to take a nap before going to sell refreshments at Harper's play. And I haven't felt much like eating, which is really f-ed up for me because I'm a big eater. But it's done and I feel fine now and tomorrow I can sleep in!