Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Yesterday they were doing construction on the detour over the mountain. I got stuck behind a yellowbus, which in turn slowed to a crawl as it tried to eke past roadside leafblowing, recycling pick-up, and the other sundries of early-morning town maintenance. Late for work, then, though accompanied by my much of my own homeroom crew -- I'd been following them for miles, and never thought to look at their faces as they peered out at me.

Today the autumn leaves glowed in the warm sunshine of a post-daylight savings universe. The washed-out bridge has been reopened, albeit as a narrow one-lane passthrough over which last week's rockpiling is visible, a new dam up against newly laid, barriered asphalt. No bus to follow; time, upon arrival, to check in with the principal about yester afternoon's junk technology removal, the subsequent space it makes available, and the potential for that space to be harnessed for new research and techproduction labs and presentation spaces.

And time to begin again here, too.

It's been a while. Halloween in our new smalltown turned out to be a downtown-only affair: two hours candy-collecting up and down main street followed by a parade of costumed young'uns from municipal building to town hall, where we drank cider, paraded in costume across the stage with the rest of Willow's age group, and left early when she threw a tantrum because we would not let her cross the stage yet another unwarranted time. Definitely my child, proud of our matching bee costumes and her tiny sister's sleeping sunflower. Even the dog got yellowstriped. Hoorah, as always, for costume and stroller designer Darcie.

More general familynews in-house and out (no potty jokes, please) includes the emergence of baby Cassia's first word: Hi! The exclamation is used deliberately, though indiscriminately, for those she loves and strangers alike; even the cat gets a cheerful greeting, and responds with headbutts of love. Interestingly, this was my first word, too. Looks like we've got another socialite on our hands.

Back home babyCass gets armcarried to library playgroups and storytimes with her big sis Willow almost daily while I toil. Willow's started getting carsick, which she gets from her mother, so we've been trying to keep other excursions few and farbetween, but most afternoons find us shopping before dark, a perfect nuclear family in newtown, just me and my girls out and about.

Though most shopping is the necessities -- supermarket milk, batteries for the babymonitor, pallets from the lumberyard -- we're still going out, too, for the lastditch hardwood. Not much -- the furniture is almost organized -- but enough to keep us outgoing even when the fridge is full.

Last night, for example, the family drove into upper Connecticut, weaving through the pitchblack early evening on our neverending search for the perfect dining room table and chairs; we liked what we saw, though the cherrywood is both expensive and, to my chagrin, probably too delicate for daily use in a household of wee ones.

But even if we cannot find the perfect shakerstyle woodblock in time, Friday through Sunday of this coming weekend will see me navigating the greater New England area, picking up the rest of our chosen furnishings, most already purchased and waiting, patiently, for my arrival in a rented truck.

And so it goes, and so it goes, and so will you, soon, I suppose, if blogging doesn't pick up instead of catching up, so seldom seen. If nothing else, I'm hoping to post newly loaded flickrpix anon. And maybe a draft of the bedtime story I've written for the elderkid, a horribly anti-PC tale tentatively titled The Ladybug Who Had No Spots.

In the meantime, here come the kiddies for yet another round of computerclass -- we're talking form-follows-function with the seventh graders this week and next. Until we meet again, my friends...

Comments:

I'm all about nice hard wood, sustainable, etc.
Have you seen the Basque line at the Crate and Barrel furniture store in Chestnut hill? You won't find it in a 'regular' Crate and barrel store.
We have their chairs and they are simply, amazing. hard wood like Sheesham, called mango wood. Wears and acts like hardwood teak. Our table and several pieces of our furniture are of sheesham or Indian Rosewood. They go very, very well with the Basque set.
Here, have a look, http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=881&f=8512
This is the kind of stuff that your kids will pass down to their kids.

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Anonymous : 11:21 PM, November 04, 2005

Saw Neil at VTFest, missed BettyAnn (darn), then saw Cheryl at Gallerywalk. Any minute now I expect to bump into you or Gail, the only others that live nearby.

Can't wait to read about the ladybug.

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