Stowe, Vermont

Trapp Family Lodge I am going to Vermont for about a week with my sons and their families. There will be five kids, the oldest being six.  The German contingent is still here, and we shall look for Maria and Captain vonTrapp every day.  My family has had a home at the ocean in Maine for many years. A conundrum, mountains vs. the ocean, which is why I love the following poem,  "It's all temporary," anyway, who cares?                                            Our Valley by Philip Levine We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass, something massive, irrational, and so powerful even the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it. You probably think I'm nuts saying the mountains have no word for ocean, but if you live here you begin to believe they know everything. They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine, a silence that grows in autumn when snow falls slowly between the pines and the wind dies to less than a whisper and you can barely catch your breath because you're thrilled and terrified. You have to remember this isn't your land. It belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside and thought was yours. Remember the small boats that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men who carved a living from it only to find themselves carved down to nothing. Now you say this is home, so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust, wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.

Thrift Shop Thursday

The local thrift shop feeds my retail therapy hunger. It contains an astonishing selection which is constantly changing. If you see something you like, buy it, because it won't be there if you come back an hour later. Pictured below is my latest find, three canisters to hold my Boston Terrier's food. How I love them and Oskar is thrilled.  We both get excited at meal time, our tails wag and wag even though his was chopped off rather unceremoniously when just a puppy, and mine, well, lets not talk about that . . . 

I cruise through the shop at least once a week, pausing at the entrance to check the place out. Like a hawk scrutinizing the horizon, I scan the tables, always looking for small glass containers with LIDS! Hard to find.  I then check out children's clothes for my puppets and fabric, sheets, posters, etc. for backdrops.  Last but not least I buy several children's books.  At 29 cents a book, you can't go wrong, and my grandchildren love them!  They go fast, "it's all temporary."

Wig Wednesday

Wigs are a major addition to my puppet props, they love their wigs. Here are two cuties at the manicurists.  I should have painted their nails red, but so be it. "It is what it is" seems to be the appropriate thing to say these days (about everything.)

And this is my friend, Nick, who owns the local wig shop and has been kind enough to give me discount wigs and many bald heads stands. I am sorry his hair is covered, I'll take his picture again some time when he is showing us his dreadlocks because they are quite wonderful.

This is his little shop and below that a "trailer" I made for fun.  It needs work, but will have to do for the time being.  My little people enjoyed making it and we know "it's all temporary" which makes any project less daunting. 

Twitter Tuesday

I love twitter.  I love to tweet. There is something so satisfying about leaving a tweet bomb. Who knows, who really cares who will read it, it's mini therapy. I often wonder what those who passed on 20 years ago would think about our vocabulary in 2011: Google it, Facebook, friend me, tweet, email, youtube, Blackberries, imacs, iphones, ipads,  eye, eye, eye!   It is indeed a strange new world. Sometimes I think things are spinning out of control far too quickly even though "it's all temporary."

Debt Ceiling Negotiations?

Finally Friday

And here come the Hamburgers!

!

En route from Hamburg, Germany, as we speak, are my two grandsons, Max and Felix, my son, Alex and his wife, Simone.  These next two weeks have been planned for so long, the heat wave here in New England is supposed to break and all is well.  Cousins bonding, uncles grilling all week end, and then off they will go to Kennebunk, and Hanover, NH. Alex wants to show Simone the town where he grew up, the bicycle trails, the gym, the pool. Growing up on Dartmouth's campus was just great and the school was wonderful.  They actually learned how to write a coherent sentence and speak the king's English. It's too hot for me to go off on a tangent on the dumbing down of America. Keep cool, the heat can be dangerous but remember, "it's all temporary."

Lips