Eat, Bray, Grouse...

Another night at the Copper Beech Inn in Ivoryton (named after piano keys,) Connecticut, and we'll head home in the morning. Mark Twain's house in Hartford--let me tell you--was well worth a visit. Not quite as fun, perhaps, as Monticello, but with an animated tour guide and a readiness for stair-climbing, it's a well-spent ticket price.

I gave some serious thought to taking us to Eat, Pray, Love, at a small, but cutely provincial, local theater after dinner but was put off by the 2 hour 13 minute length of the film. Honestly, I just wasn't sure I had the stomach for 133 minutes of self-important Julia Roberts portraying self-indulgent Elizabeth Gilbert. I'd rather watch it at home where I can temporarily stop the playback while I run screaming into the kitchen, kick a few things, and maybe make some popcorn. While some strange and masochistic, but poorly understood, compulsion requires me to put the movie on my Netflix queue, I'm not sure I can appropriately discharge the Julia Roberts frustration anywhere but at home.

Instead, it is possible that I will eat another chocolate chip cookie, purchased this afternoon at the Bishop's Orchard Farm Market. Jeff has given up after 5 minutes of a History Channel program which appears to be about a family of oversized men who like to talk about big things made of metal. Jeff gives up on most t.v. rather quickly, which is a shame in a way, because many of his AD peers find t.v. to be entertaining in the face of a illness that robs them of much else to do. Truthfully, he would not have gotten much out of Julia/Elizabeth on a global traipse to become a deeper, richer, and more sexually fulfilled person-of-abject-perfection, but at least we would have been doing it together. Which seems to work for him. Me, I crave a conversational reciprocity which almost-but-not-quite caused me to join a cluster of fishermen at the bar in the Black Seal Pub in Essex, CT, where we ate too much for dinner tonight.

If you don't believe me, try it.

Today I clinically tested a phenomenon I've read about but not specifically discerned. Well, I mean, if you can stretch the definition of "clinical" to include a llama pen next to a farmers' market just off Connecticut Route 1.

It is, apparently, a feature of Benson's syndrome (the visual variant of Alzheimer's) to experience left hemi-neglect. Ok, ok...I like using these medical terms...it heightens my dork factor. Here's what it means: Due to relatively more severe damage to the left hemisphere of the brain, one might witness perception of things-to-the-right (or, in some cases, function of body parts on the right) to be more impaired.

Here's how I noticed: For some reason--today specifically--due to the winding nature of country roads in maritime Connecticut, I began to suspect that when I said "look at that gnarly barn on the left!" there was a slim chance Jeff would look and notice, but when I said "check out the star-spangle onion dome on the right!" the odds shrunk to zip. I tried testing by pointing out houses and such to one side or other, but in a moving car almost anything is apt to be missed, and the test was inconclusive.

THEN (in an otherwise fruitless hunt for a vineyard open for tastings on Monday--note: Connecticut stops on Mondays,) we pulled into Bishop's Orchard Farm Market (Guilford, CT) and bumbled into the proof I will now describe. In a large fenced enclosure, next to the market, lived 4 or 5 llamas, a couple of goats, and a sheep which resembled a goat. We approached a side, roughly 50 feet long, to have a look and see if we couldn't get spit at. (We couldn't.) About 5 feet from the side of the enclosure (on the inside,) stood a hay trough from which the animals could munch. It was double-sided, and situated--relative to the fence--at a 45 degree angle. (draw this: long fence, trough at 45°, angle opening to the right.) So, straight on, or standing to the right, you could see the road-facing side of the trough, but to see the backside, you had to move to the left.

As it happened, there was a small goat pigging up the backside of the trough by sitting in it. Yeah, he was just totally sitting in the trough, and I attempted to point him out to Jeff. No dice. Jeff couldn't seem him. We moved to the right of the trough, such that the trough was now on our left. "See the trough?" Yes. "See the llama eating hay out of the trough?" Yes. Now we moved along the fence so that the trough was on our right, and we could (ostensibly) have a view of the other side. "See the trough?" "You mean here?" said Jeff pointing at the fence. "You mean here?" said Jeff pointing at the small shed in the center of the enclosure. He could not, whatever I tried, look at the trough when it was on his right. Hence, he could not see the goat lounging in it. I tried several times. He couldn't. Case closed.

Next time we take the twain...

Before I have anything trenchant to report about last week's junket to Disney World, I need to debrief a tad from the watershed weekend I'm in the midst of.

Yesterday morning Gabe snoozed as I piloted the Soobie. 3 hours up the road in Moorestown, NJ, we stopped for lunch at a Panera and he inquired as to whether I knew the whereabouts of his wallet and book. Nope. A quick phone call later, and Becca was on her way to overnighting them from the home Post Office. If that was the worst of our organizational lapses, I'm feeling good.

I have a couple of brief comments to make about Moorestown, NJ. 1) It's in New Jersey. State motto: We don't make left turns and can think of no reason to allow you to do so either. Goofed? Turn right, then right, then right, then zigzag through a few residential areas...we'll get you where you're going. 2) I am curious, in a cautiously tentative way, about any town in which the first businesses you encounter post-exit ramp are The Truck and Turf Hotel (turquoise, 50s-style neon lettering,) and Jay's Elbow Room lounge. Oh, and here's another favorite NJ style trick: Erase all lane markings 100 yards before any toll plaza. That way you're sure to find yourself as far as you can be from the human-who-can-make-change lane, deciding between blowing the barricade in an "Easy Pass" lane, or scrounging for enough coins to make exactly a dollar in the "exact change" lane. We picked option two. Perhaps one of our pennies got trapped in a seam on its way into the big bucket, so I followed these actually-posted instructions--"If machine doesn't work, blow your horn and keep going." Not that my toot stood out from everyone else's. This is New Jersey, mind, where horn-blowing every fraction of a mile is pretty much de rigeur.

Jeff was placidly rocking on Helen's tranquil upstate New York front porch, plugged into an ipod she'd set to Jeff-pacification music. He seemed pleased but perplexed to see us, but caught on that we'd come to get him. He grasped the gist of our trip in a loose sense, in that he asked Gabe several times last night--"So which college do you like?" I slipped Gabe a quick verbal reminder to limit the bigness of the deal of this slight anachronism, and he replied, each time, "I've already picked a school. This is the trip where I move in."

From yesterday morning to move-in today, I've perceived Gabe's mood progressing from reluctance to leave his home and favorite cat, to tuning out, to an acceptance of this transition to independence. I can't quite call it enthusiasm, but as we got there I felt a hint of ownership of the experience emerging in his vibe.

I'll tell you one thing about the typical Thames Academy parent. They hover. I left Jeff on the front lawn of Gabe's big old Victorian home-for-the-year, as I helped him get his stuff in and sorted. Last in, first out I was. I don't think Gabe would have swapped for the parental pair organizing Michael's things to a fair-thee-well, or the other set who were hanging around to fetch more supplies and even take their son William out to dinner tomorrow night, after he'd gotten a taste of classes. Gabe's bed was made, his stuff was in drawers, he was ready for us to go. So we did. And as for the tissue which I'd wadded into my pocket this morning--I needed it as we walked away. But only a little.

Now Jeff and I are ensconced in a small inn down the road in the Connecticut woods, to veg, eat, recoup from driving, and tomorrow--visit Mark Twain's house in Hartford. Jeff likes that idea, but I have no doubt I'll be escorting him to and from the bathroom at least three times in the middle of tonight. As I did last night at Helen's. Which is half the reason why a bit of time to sit in a garden and post a blog update is a good move before I tackle another solo drive.

See Spot?

Dick and Jane have grown up.

After a while they realized that--while it was good for Spot to run, (run Spot, run!)--it was beginning to seem unneighborly to let him do his business in everyone's else's yard. So Mother got Spot a nifty retractable leash for walks, and he spent the rest of his outdoor time romping in a nice fenced backyard.

Eventually, Dick decided he'd rather go by Rick, and he and his partner Ed bought a house in Vermont. Rick is a landscape designer. Ed runs a bed & breakfast out of their extra house space, and tends their dog, Spot IV.

Jane is really busy. (Go Jane, go!) Even though her husband, Buster, was a bit of a bad move (See Buster leave...leave Buster, leave...,) Jane is doing well with their children (Dot, Horace, and Mikey,) and she's just sold a screenplay about a computer virus that interbreeds with swine flu causing all victims to look like Mister Softee.

As for Sally...after a stint in Amsterdam, where she learned, with time, that she enjoys meaningful work more than she likes existentialism, Sally came home and hit it off with Dick/Rick's best employee, Hector Hernandez-Ramirez. They forgot to get married yet, although they are thinking about it. They also like to invite the whole family over for home-made tortilla burritos. It's Grandma Ramirez's secret recipe. (Cook, Abuela cook!) The whole family is delighted by the newest addition--Pilar Sara Puff Smith-Hernandez-Ramirez. "Look!" says Father. "Look at baby Pilar's brown eyes!" "Look!" says Mother. "Look at baby Pilar's brown skin!" They can't help themselves. They are so excited they keep showing her to all the neighbors.

11

My mind is galumphing along at a speedy trot, which is an attitude I like in a mind now and then, as it reminds me that it works. The thoughts that splatter me along this particular mindscape are of quite a few flavors, but mostly they are not unpleasant. I can't complain.

A few days ago, Rachel mentioned that her favorite number has always been x. (No, not really x, but I'm using an algebraic substitution because it's her favorite number, not mine, and if it's to be shouted about, I'd better let her do it.) But, related or not to the fact that x is her favorite, she found 200x to be an especially agreeable year.

I will be forthcoming. My favorite is 11. It always has been. I don't think it had to do with the fact that I grew up in a house numbered 11 (later 611, when the county did some re-jigging of the mail system,) but I know I preferred it well before I selected 11 as my basketball jersey number, or zeroed in on high school lockers with 11 in the digit sequence. Our current house number is 111. It just happened. It was on the market when we were shopping for a house, and we liked it. Next year is 2011. Maybe it will be good. One thing that can be said about 2011 is that I will, like it or not, turn 50 at the end of it.

Long ago, when I was first married, I indulged in an astrological chart consultation with an astrologer who was a great favorite of my parents' next door neighbor. Her astrologer friend was in town for a visit, and my mother-in-law and I, both for the fun of it, signed on. One of the standout moment was when the astrologer-lady got all excited about how the "second half of my life" was going to be super-awesome, I'd become "more myself," and that I'm in some sense "aging backwards." Now I'm not sure how exactly my uniquely giraffe-splotchy face represents a reversal of aging, but let's not quibble. The point is, she seemed to think that 50 would be some kind of karmic blast-off point.

hmmm. All I know for sure is that I set myself a challenge this morning. Sometime, by within the confines of the year 2011, I will have whipped my house (#111) into marketable condition. I don't know what next. Either I will a) move, or b) achieve an unexpected peaceful and satisfactory resolve with the place. For now, I feel like Miss Havisham, languishing in her wedding clothes amidst the rubble of a dream that crashed and burned, and we really can't have that.

Somehow or other, we're going to have to grab that 11 by the little horizontal bits at the bottom, and vault up and over like one of those acrobat monkeys on elastic cord. But without the elastic cord, because that's just limiting. Maybe it's good my brother broke my little plastic monkey toy when I let him try it, back when I was around...I don't know...11. That monkey wanted off the squeezy-frame anyway.

Amtrakin'

As I start this bit, we're jerking slowly past some switchtracks in South Norwalk, Connecticut. At about this point the view-from-train will segue from a mix of rough and/or charming seaside towns to the graffiti, scrap metal, and industrial backyards of the NYC to Baltimore-Washington corridor.

I spent our hour-long wait in the New London train station reading Jeff all the informative posters describing the architectural work of Henry Hobson Richardson (whose last station, in 1888, was the very one in which we were standing.) Studying the founding fathers of the Arts & Crafts movement, and the purveyors of their aesthetic legacy has been a lifelong hobby of Jeff's, but now reading such informative exhibits for himself wouldn't work. He does, however, love to listen. And I enjoy reading interpretively, just in case any talent hunters from NPR may be hovering nearby. Not sure what the surrounding Amtrak passengers think.

Behind me on the train, a couple of older ladies are animatedly discussing the dementia-related incapacities of their various relatives. I could lean over the back of the seat and say "Hey! Me too! This guy right here!" But they'd probably think I was as nutty as the lady a few towns back who, finding herself below New London instead of Boston (where she meant to get off) suddenly went full-scale wacko, regaling our entire train car with a 10 minute, expletives-not-deleted monolog about how her life was now ruined and how "they" (the Amtrak people, I surmised) had ruined it, and how she was going to kill someone this afternoon. This incited a good deal of amused grinning and chuckling from Jeff, who is beyond grasping how you hardly want to be a lightning rod for the wrath of a psycho, if you can help it. Gabe and I and the rest of the car listened with poker mouths but raised eyebrows while a conductor gingerly prodded the imploding passenger toward the best position for ejecting her at the next stop.

I remind Gabe a couple times that he could read his student handbook, which is conveniently stowed in my tote bag. He prefers Forbidden Knowledge: Travel for now, and has just described the various means by which people have, successfully and un (in terms of survival,) attempted barrel rides over Niagara Falls.

Our trip has been a good one, as these things go. Gabe was corralled by an evidently more organizationally-minded kid to be one of a trio of roommates for a hexagonal tower room in the warren-like third floor of the Victorian in which they'll be living starting at the end of the month. One sleepwalks, Gabe sleeptalks...the other one--the organizer--will, with luck, sleep heavily. I am leaving the orientation program comfortable that--all the usual leaving-home adjustments notwithstanding--Gabe has a decent year in an agreeable environment ahead of him.

As for me, I am looking forward to a couple of opportunities to poke around maritime Connecticut when we return to move Gabe in, and again on Family Weekend. While waking in strange hotel rooms becomes more and more disorienting--and therefore grump-inducing--we can usually wash the worst of the cobwebs away with an orange juice and coffee.

off we go...

Let your internet connection break down for a couple of odd days, and you'll find out whether you've developed a dependency or not. I had no question about myself, but I was interested (though not completely surprised) when, two days into the dark time when Comcast failed us, all 3 girls bundled up their laptops and trundled off to Panera to re-establish all required connections.

This, as I understand it, is what they're up to as I type. I am jiggling along the northbound track of the Washington D.C. to Boston corridor, en route to Gabe's college (phase 1...The Gap Year) orientation.

Here is a snapshot of our conversation in the car, pre-Amtrak station: Gabe: ...but the real reason "Darksiders" (or whatever it's called) sucks is because it's a button-masher (or whatever the term was) and the situations are implausible...this tirade runs a bit long, interjected with me saying things like "Are you wearing your retainers?" (yes.) "Did you pack pants?" (yes.) "Did you bring your i.d.?" (oops.)

At the station I text Olivia, then Becca, then Olivia. Finally they both, upon request, text message me a fuzzy, Samsung phone photo of Gabe's driver's license. It'll have to do. Fortunately, and as usual, the train conductor does not request any of our i.d.s. (Jeff's is safely stowed next to mine in my wallet. His wallet likes to get mislaid between trousers.)

I was just reading, yesterday on the elliptical, about how--even in 2005--Japan was so internet connected that the writer, while zooming south from Tokyo on the bullet train, had easy access via his laptop at 150 mph. Amtrak makes a stab at it, but it's a weak, pathetic stab. Occasionally my Toshiba claims that there's a detectable network..."Scott," or "gwt13b," or "trackUedu"...but the "Amtrak Acela" signal disappeared 50 yards out of the station and didn't work there, at that. Surely the Hilton Garden Inn, where we'll lodge tonight, will perform better than that.

I tucked the last oddments in the wheelie-case this morning with a realization that bemused me a bit. Here I was, stuff packed, papers in order, hotel, train, and rental car booked, and I had no sense of anticipation--no glint of wheee, a trip! It was just what I was doing today. Like, yesterday I took the girls for some garment necessities. Today I herded Gabe and Jeff out the door and onto the train.

It's the lack of partner, or companion. A compatriot is an energizing factor--someone who, by being aware along with you, validates and codifies the experience and any quirky observations and discoveries you may make. Without a doubt, this is much of what drives me to write it down. "Look! This happened! I was somewhere!"

Jeff gazes about, taking in little, unable to see or grasp anything I point out. He will remember essentially nothing. Gabe is on the verge of waking up to notice the new ways in which he--as a fledgling adult--must absorb and interact with his new surroundings and encounters. He will notice whatever piques his esoteric interests, and--on that level--he and I can talk. But not right now. He's reading The Hunger Games, and Jeff and I are a row back, polishing off o.j. and veggie sushi from The Fresh Market.