Thunder Road

This afternoon's commute was marked by one of the more intense thunderstorms of the season. When my carpool rolled out of the parking lot and around the bend, I saw Mount Ascutney draped in what looked startingly like a snow squall but turned out to be the northern edge of a quickly moving front. Soon it was raining in huge fat drops and then it was pounding the windshield, obscuring all but the tail lights of the car in front of us. Lightning shattered the gray sky and thunder rolled behind and above and around us and I gripped the edges of my passenger seat. As we wound along the river to the north, it began to hail in icy spits, bouncing and striking and piercing ear drums, flinching eyes. By the time we reached town, traffic was at a frenzied standstill as stop lights flashed in electric confusion. Rivulets streamed down the edges of the road, into storm drains and over sidewalks. Car tires sent waves crashing over themselves covering street signs and curbs. One lone drenched bicycler stood on the corner, waiting patiently for the walk signal to change.

Oriented

After today's grad school orientation I am officially feeling the weirdness of being a student again. At several points throughout the day as they told us where to go and how to do things on campus, I needed to actively remember that they were talking to me. I felt like I was just sitting in on someone else's day rather than attending my own gig. It's odd, but sort of awesome. Can I just tell you how many neat resources are available to me for the low, low cost of a small fortune each semester? Anyway, a lot.

I met no fewer than ten other students who have gone through or know of SCA. It's a whole new world in which I don't have to spell out acronyms or sum up an unsummable entity. These kids are all a bunch of chaco-wearing, national park hopping adventurous smarties, and I think it's going to be good.

My smiling and talking and listening and absorbing muscles are totally worn out after today, and I feel a little naked, now that I'm home, without my name tag. I managed to buy most of my books and not break the bank. One of my required "texts" is Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods.

My convictions that this is going to be one hell of a time have been completely, utterly confirmed.

That Was So Easy

My cell phone has been misbehaving lately--battery malfunctions causing annoying chirps and power loss during phone calls, claiming low battery when it is fully charged. I was hesitant to take it in for repair. My last phone had the same issue and when I did take it in, they gave it back an hour later in the exact same condition. What's more, the closest Verizon repair store is more than an hour's drive away.

Nevertheless.

Today Ed and I took a trip to Burlington and stopped on the way into town at the Verizon store. After signing in through their high-techy computer robot system, I waited in the queue for roughly 4 minutes until my name was called. I took my phone to the desk and handed it over while explaining the problem.

I braced myself. I was so prepared for the service man to give me some line about how there was nothing much they could do. I was so ready to give up before I'd even begun. But lo! The repair man took one look at my phone, popped out the battery, declared it diagnosed with "Burst cells!" (sounds gross), ripped open a new battery package and popped the new battery in. He then handed me my phone and said, "That's all. You're good to go."

And he meant it! Problem solved! Free of charge! The man just gave me a brand new battery and fixed everything in the blink of an eye. I nearly pranced out of the store with my sparkly new telephone.

Customer service, sometimes you are just so right.

Hippie Law School

When Ed started law school last year I had no idea what to expect, but what I really didn't expect were a bunch of Birkenstock-wearing, deadlock-growing, rock-climbing earth-loving hippies running around everywhere. Much to my delight, this is exactly what Vermont Law School is all about. The cool thing, though, is that these hippies mean business. They're serious about saving the world, and they're smart enough to realize that a fancy-shmancy degree and some actual knowledge will get them a heck of a lot farther than all the protest shouting and sign waving they could muster.

I was reminded of the excellence of all this at last night's event at the law school. We attended a "diversity cocktail" and chowed down on delicious food wearing the farthest things from a cocktail dress and dapper khakis. Dinner was followed by a hilariously rousing contra dance and some laying on a hammock on the school lawn, watching the stars come out.

Vermont Law School, you're the greatest.

Sionara to Summer

The vestiges of summer are spinning away all too quickly, and I am always surprised at how autumn rushes in before August is even spent. The nights are cold enough to warrant blankets and slippers, and the humid mornings of mid-July have turned to the foggy chill of early commutes. It all happened while I was asleep one night, I think. It all happened before I was quite ready.

It was a wonderful summer, to be sure, full of hiking trails and barbecues, big lakes and rope swings, driving with the windows down and long sits on green grass, good books, long weekends and a bit of recovery for me and Ed after a tumultuous year. I feel strong and solid but not quite ready to let it go, not quite ready to launch into an autumn that promises to be our busiest yet.

Today Ed's semester begins with an orientation to Law Review and in less than a week, I'll be orienting myself to a Master's of Science program in Environmental Education at Antioch. It's exciting but not quite real yet. The actuality of it hasn't sunken in. A few weeks ago I was full of fervored excitement, passing through exhilarating interviews and sitting in on classes that left me buzzing. Once I was accepted to the program, I fell back into a normal pattern of working and waiting, and quite expectedly, forgot how excited I should have been. Now I feel unprepared, logistically and mentally and emotionally, to begin something that promises to be really quite excellent.

Rather than dwell and stress about it, I'm trying to just float into it and take it as it comes. I'll be a student again, two days a week, and will deal with the demands and delights as they roll in. I don't know what to expect or how I'll do, or how it will feel to be occupied and doing something that is so much my own again. I've been waiting to find something like this that I could claim and pursue, something that would push me into the next phase of me-ness. Now that it's here, I don't really know what to make of it. I guess I don't have to. I guess it will make something of me, instead.

Last weekend we kissed summer goodbye on the Jersey shore and as the sun turned to rain, we hit the Turnpike with all the other weary travelers. On our way we passed trailers and trucks carrying carnival rides, packed and folded in on themselves, their garish clown faces and dragon heads cartoonish juxtapositions along the dark road. Giant flash bulbs ringing the iron frame of the summer's last ferris wheel whizzed past, and I watched it go. I thought that was kind of perfect. The carnival is rolling out of town, and summer's going with it.

...the ghosts of the tilt-o-whirl will linger inside of your head
Oh and the ferris wheel junkies will spin there forever instead...

Erin

We're here. Soon we'll be there, but we'll always be here.

Behold!

The first fruit of the season just dropped off the vine, into my greedy hand. It's our first tomato from our first garden ever. Hip hip hooray! And many more!

Dragon Slime

Grist bestowed us with this excellent-sounding recipe today and I am going to make it! I'll let you know how it goes. But, um, it might be a few weeks. See, it's summer. It's beautiful outside nearly every day. I have things to do! Like: sit very still enjoying the season. Ride my bicycle. Visit every farmer's market. Kayak with my family. Fawn over my own garden which is producing magical things. Hike and camp. Run around the 'hood with Ed. Visit New Jersey and Ed's family. Watch for meteors. Eat ice cream. Make plans with old friends. Freak out a little bit (in a good way) about grad school and prerequisitely: learn to identify the two dozen most common local trees by bark alone.

See? I am busy.

If I can find time to buy whole wheat flower and a bunch of berries, I'll get right on this blueberry zucchini bread. I swear. In the meantime you should try it, and send me a piece in the mail.

Jumbled

Tuesday night and the heat of the world is boiling, and I'm just sitting and I'm sweating and it doesn't look like stopping. We're computer geeks, he and I side by side on the yellow couch with our laptops, he with his web comics and me with my words.

This week, it's walks across bridges and down to the market where maple syrup spills over and you rescue me with paper towels. It's always quiet in there and the old man at the register stands stooped and talks louder than I ever expect.

I'm going to grad school and I'll tell you about it later, if I remember, but for now it's only e-mails, imploring me to sign up, take workshops on identifying trees and navigating by map and compass. What a way to become a scientist. I think I can handle this.

I can't pin this down so I'm dancing around it and counting on it to go, as it does. This feeling, like things are precarious or I might miss the thing I really should be worrying about. My solution for now is: choose not to worry. Chin up and all that rot, because there's no reason not to.

It's heat until the rain comes tonight.

Movie Title Emergency

There's a movie Ed and I can't remember for the life of us: There's a main character whose mother, who is middle aged, has an affair with the host of a Home Shopping Network type of show. The main character's father sits at home and watches her on television with him. In the end, she comes back to him.

What the heck is this movie?! We have seen it but can't remember any more than that.

HELP!