I’d never noticed his holster before.  Perhaps because we were always passing too quickly to see, or perhaps because his unusual riding style leaves us scratching our heads until hewas too far away to see anything else.

But today he had just finished filling up as I pulled into the gas station, and as he adjusted his trademark red scarf over his lean, shirtless torso(an other part of his trademark) and stood up to ride, his feet planted on the bike’s footboards, I noticed that he was wearing a gun belt.  It looked like something out of a western, and when he sped away, it was apparent that he was sporting a holster on each side.

Thinking that the chrome-colored firearms might be fake or for decoration, I went into the station and asked my husband, “Does he always carry?”

“You never noticed that?”  My husband asked.  “He always carries at least one Colt .45.”

“Really?” I was only curious because I knew it wasn’t deer season or bear season or decorate your gun-rack season.

 

“Well, except when he wears his nickel-plated Colts.  They’re pretty cool.  But only on special days”

“I guess he’s trying to remind everyone that it’s a special day,” I said.

 

 

Today I got a fresh crop of volunteers.  I’m just starting to see the first descendants of last year’s veggies in places I didn’t plant them this year.  The flowers, however, have arrived!  Out come the weeds that happen to be flowers, and into the mason jar go the flowers I never planted (a gift from Irene, maybe?) that are now acting like weeds.  But hey, they’re pretty and they’re free.

 

“What’s senility?”  asked the imp at the kitchen table.

“Loss of memory that’s usually associated with old age,” I replied absently.

He laughed and then stopped abruptly, smiling at me at for just a moment.  Barely controlling a grin, he looked back at his computer with a strange, happy expression on his face.  It wasn’t discretion or valor. It was the smile of someone who is saving something special for rainier day.

One of the pitfalls of living in a rural area is that your kids are likely to run into lots of people who keep livestock – large and small.  And after they meet the afore-mentioned chickens, pigs, dogs, goats, you-name-it, they work like crazy to steer all subsequent conversations to the “Can we get chickens, pits, another dog, another cat, you-name-it” question, secure in the knowledge that we do have somewhere to keep them.

Taking your kids to a sheep herding demonstration starring a dog who could melt the heart of a snowman practically guarantees a sudden interest in acquiring sheep and another dog, and today was no exception.

The one difference today was that the dog who inspired the latest request has been inspiring many of author Jon Katz’s recent blog posts, and that piqued my 11-year-old’s curiosity.  Unfortunately for him, Thing1 is currently grounded from any electronica, but he saw an opening.  Thinking, perhaps, that interest in reading about sheep online (as opposed to polishing the kitchen chair playing video games) was a more reasonable request than an actual sheep (or the requisite additional dog), he casually mentioned he might be interested in Red’s journey to Bedlham Farm.

Trying to avoid repetitive stress disorder from the inevitable refrains of ‘No computer’, we turned to the tried-and-true distraction – ‘what’s for dinner?’  But our five-year-old, also serving out a sentence of no electronica, was ready for this and began quizzing us about Red and sheep and who had herded the sheep before last week.  And as we answered, I remembered that the story of Red’s predecessor Rose was waiting at home for us.   I dropped a copy of ‘Rose in a Storm‘ on Thing1’s lap as soon as he got home and plopped on the couch.  He eyed it with suspicion – it is summer vacation after all – but the little red dog had him wondering about sheep and dogs and farms, and he started casually flipping the pages.  I said nothing and left for the grocery store.  I got back an hour later and found my normally reluctant reader, remarkably lost in the story of another remarkable little dog.

Once Little League is done, we make it a point to spend our Saturdays dragging Thing1 and Thing2 to at least one art museum or event.  We  engage in this torture, partly because we want to expose them to some sort of culture that doesn’t come out of an iPod, but also because we love to hear the grumbling as we travel to and from the designated venue.

Today, however, we screwed up.  We thought we had the rugrats where we wanted them – we promised an art opening in a country setting and even a little poetry at a show curated by Maria Wulf, a New York fiber artist and wife of author Jon Katz.  The two-day event is showcasing her quilts and Jon’s photographs along with work by photographer and collage artist Kim Gifford, painter Donna Wynbrandt, Diane Swanson, and Joyce Zimmerman.

On any given Saturday surrounding the kids with fine art and holding out the promise of poetry and even a talk by one of the hosts  would result in considerable push back.  But the minute we stepped into the gallery/barn, they seemed to be under a spell.  Colorful and popping with imagination, the paintings and collages provided plenty of eye-candy, but when Jon invited the crowd to congregate in the main barn, my husband and I realized that he and Maria were the ones casting the spell.

As a student of Jon’s at Hubbard Hall’s Writer’s Project, I (and exhibitor Kim Gifford) have had glimpses of this magic, and today, watching Maria and Jon share their lives and their art while nurturing the gifts of the other exhibitors, it created a little pocket of joy.  And joy is pretty strong magic.  It keeps a five-year-old listening contentedly to a poetess.  It inspires people in its midst to go out and create their own magic.

 

 

My husband works for a place where they claim to be the best strippers in town.  It’s a lot more family-friendly than you’d think, though, because they also repair and refinish the furniture once its stripped.  Like most small Vermont businesses they offer an array of complementary products like chainsaws and propane, which, in a rural area, makes it a better place to get the scuttlebutt than any beauty shop because everybody – contractors, farmers, and ex-urbanite immigrants – comes in at some point and jaws with the strippers.

It’s also one of the last places in the world where you can get the news of the day and not feel sorry you heard it.  So, after chauffeur duty this morning, I popped in for a soda and what I thought would be a quick visit before heading home to work.  When I got there, however, my husband was chatting with an old acquaintance who needed a ride from Arlington to Manchester about 8 or nine miles up (and I do mean up) the road.  I said I would do it, and, as soon as we loaded up the gentleman’s wheelchair into my car, we headed off.

We met this man over a decade ago because the previous owners of our first house had recommended him as a good source of firewood.  We got to know him a bit over the course of a number of deliveries but lost touch when the latest oil crisis spiked the demand for cordwood and we had to diversify our sources a bit.  I had not seen him since he acquired the wheelchair, and I sensed that we were both more comfortable with me not asking about it.

So we drove and talked about mutual friends.  Who was building this new barn; when that family had moved away; if this neighbor was really in a bad way or was that just a rumor.  A former contractor, he pointed out homes he’d worked on and noted changes in favorite projects.

We were still chatting when we got to Manchester, and learning that his ultimate destination was Rupert – another town and a big mountain away – I offered to drive him to Dorset, thinking I would offer to go the rest of the way when we got to there.  So we drove the next leg, talking about wood prices and where to get the best ice cream this summer.  As we neared the center of Dorset, I noted the lack of a good place to let him off, but he pointed out a place near the country store, and we pulled in.

I was imagining the hot climb he had ahead of him, but before I could say anything, he said, “I’ve been riding all over Bennington County to build up my strength.”  And with that he quietly got his gear organized, and settled the matter as he propelled himself down the last leg of the trip.

 

I know that brownie a la mode last night was not regulation on the diet-I-don’t-call-a-diet-because-it’s-supposed-a-way-of-life (if you can call living without brownies life). But as I was sitting there berating myself and not enjoying the afterglow, I couldn’t help thinking of all the mean things people say about large, well fat, women and the mean thoughts I have about myself everyday.

When I first setup this blog, the last thing on my mind was posting a picture of myself anywhere on the web. For most of my adult life (especially the overweight part), I’ve managed to be in the background of pictures or, better yet, to be taking them. But because the need for speed trumped pride, I decided forgo a cartoon and to use my own picture – chins and all.

I’ve been on and off and then back on the diet wagon too many times to count but someday, as God as my witness, I will have a waist again.

And when I am a thinner woman, I shall be grateful that I can find things I like in my size.

I shall not assume that woman at the next table who has not made it there yet is lazy.

I shall not assume that she has no self-control or self-esteem.

I shall try to remember that her day is as hectic as mine.

 

 

I shall remember that being fat doesn’t make her a bad mother.

And I shall remember that the thin woman in the mirror is no more perfect or pathetic that she was when she was me.

Never underestimate the ability of two hot kids to start a fight over something completely ridiculous. Right now they’re arguing over who gets the biggest pea pod while standing in a row of plants covered with peas, and I’m loving it.

Fresh peas are so sweet, and the pods make really cool wrappers from a five-year-old’s point of view. So when Thing2 first asked if they were candy, I smiled and answered, “Kind of.” It was a little green lie in service of a good cause.

 

I was mentally patting all of us on the back when we got seated at our favorite family restaurant tonight.  My boys can get a little rambunctious in the car  (earning their Suessian nicknames, Thing1 and Thing2), but when we get to any venue with an audience, they pull it together.  They’ll hold doors for people and even hold a polite conversation.

Except when we go to Dave’s.  Dave’s is actually the SouthSide Cafe in Arlington, VT, but true disciples of the place call it by the owner’s first name.  Dave serves 4-star quality food in a casual but very pleasant dining room that has about 6 or 7 tables.  Many nights we’ll bump into friends and conversations across the room with a few other guests are common.  Our kids have been eating here since they were old enough to peer out of their car-seat carriers, and the familiarity is enough to bring out their inner goofiness  – not that deep under the skin to begin with.

Tonight, however, we got through most of our meal enjoying actual conversation, but a clean plate is the devil’s workshop.  We usually sit the kids at opposite ends and opposite sides of any dining table to divide and contain the chaos.  Somewhere between the last curly fry and dessert, however, my five-year-old (who thinks he’s Shemp) managed to catch his older brother’s eye, and I just registered that he had sent a burp winging toward him.  But Thing1 was focused on getting dessert and signaled that he was in no mood to play.

Undeterred and unperturbed, Thing 2 attempted to launch another burp-bomb across the table, this time attracting Daddy’s amused attention.

“Stop!” hissed Thing1.

Thing2 just giggled.

“Dad!” Thing1 turned to my husband who was sitting next to him.  “Did you see that?  He just tried to burp right in my face!”

Dad turned to him with a devilish grin, pausing for just a second as his lips formed the word “What?”, and he birthed a burp just loud enough to be audible only to our son.

Sometimes, they don’t pick it up on the street.

 

His small, powerful fist unclenches just as his breathing acquires a gentle, rhythmic rumble.  And as badly as I wanted a few minutes earlier to extricate myself from his fierce grip, now I am completely content to lie quietly next to him.  I could almost forget that the soft, contented snoring was a result of his allergies as I savored the feel of his hand in mine.

I still lie down with him when he has trouble getting to bed.  It comforts him, but for me it is a reminder of the early days when milk and my mere presence were always enough to completely comfort him.

Now,  I lay him down to sleep, and I wait for the chirping to turn to silence and the silence to turn to snoring and for a few minutes I am completely aware of what serenity is.  And when the present and all its ‘to-dos’ intrude,  I will forget that love-struck peace until the next time the silence becomes snoring.

If the Perfect Housekeeping Channel ever did a show about how NOT to maintain the perfect house, my life would give them enough fodder for 10 seasons of episodes like “How to Create Clutter in only 5 Minutes a Day” or “Make It from Microwave”.

The irony is that as a mom with one of those highly-coveted working-at-home-for-very-pleasant-people jobs, you’d think my husband would walk in the door of a perfectly-ordered house, with two smiling, clean kids and a perfectly-coiffed and aproned wife waiting to hear about his day. Instead, he drives down a dirt-and-gravel road to a dirt driveway and walks up the gravel pathway to our door where it seems that our unfinished concrete floor has acquired magnet properties that allow it to attract any type of mineral or organic material as long as it’s in toy form or has already been converted to dust.

I didn’t start out like this. When we first moved to Vermont and to our first real house, I was going to be the perfect country mom. I didn’t work from home back then (my husband got to be Mr. Mom for a bit), but a 40 hour workweek and a one year-old were not going to keep me from growing all our own heirloom gourmet vegetables, making my own bread from Vermont made flour to be served with homemade maple syrup in our perfectly-restored (and clean) 200 year-old farmhouse decorated with quilts I was going to make by hand. And it was all going to happen while we prepared our perfectly-mannered toddler (who had not yet hit the terrible twos) for private school and then, naturally, Harvard.

We did get the garden going, and even managed to find time to make a couple of gallons of maple syrup, but the quilting quickly became an excuse for collecting fabric that looked nice in clear plastic boxes in a shelf, and we were buying our sliced bread at the country store before the first snow fell. I had already mastered the art of maternal guilt by then, and each successive little concession was just another reminder that I was failing SuperMom 102 (I had only made it through 101 on probationary status).

And then, on our first anniversary as Vermonters, we went to our first Ox Roast – the town’s annual potluck feast whose centerpiece is a spit-roasted side of beef fresh from the field. At the time, I thought the homespun meal and the square dancing with our new neighbors were just what I needed to get my country skills back on track. But it wasn’t until a few nights later, when the hostess of the party called with 75 pounds of extra beef to sell (at $1 per pound), that I learned the most important country – and mom – skill of all.

Even divided into 75 single pound packages, 75 pounds of beef takes up a surprising amount of room in your freezer, and it was just the excuse I needed to buy the appliance I coveted most – another freezer. Our budget was tight so I turned to the Want Ads and found a promising listing for $50. It was just a town over, so one Saturday morning I strapped my almost two-year-old in the car and took a little field trip. When we got to their farm, my son and the seller’s adorable daughters toddled around her yard while she showed me her garden and the freezer, which was sitting in her barn right beside its successor. Possibly just to reassure me that she was selling because of a desire for better features and not any malfunction, she opened the new freezer which was already fully stocked with produce from her garden and healthy selection of distinctly unhealthy, un-homemade pre-packaged dinners.

“Have you ever tried their fried chicken?” She asked, pointing to a bright red box of frozen fried chicken. “It’s not as good as mine, but who has time to make it from scratch every night? I have too many other things at the top of my list.”

After that, I didn’t make concessions. I slaughtered sacred cows.