Every sum­mer it comes as a sur­prise to me to remem­ber why it’s called “fall.”  Because they are – falling, that is.  The lovely green canopy that has kept us cool on even the hottest sum­mer after­noons has begun to make its way, leaf by crunchy leaf, onto the pic­nic table.  The stretch of hill­side between our pond and the brook has begun to fill with col­or­ful frag­ments, blink­ing in the after­noon sunshine.

The change in the air from sul­try to snappy fits my mood today.  I’m feel­ing rebooted, fresh and ready to take on tasks like clear­ing out the archae­o­log­i­cal night­mare that is Avery’s bed­room, shelv­ing all the ran­dom books I’ve read over the last few weeks, clear­ing away Jessamy’s lit­ter­box and food dishes and wav­ing her off on her trip back to the city.  Camp Cur­ran is over, for the kitty.  She has shred­ded her last roll of toi­let paper, has had her last nap on the liv­ing room chair.

Yes­ter­day I would never have dreamed that today would bring energy to attempt any­thing more stren­u­ous than pour­ing a cock­tail.   I have been on a com­pletely insane tra­jec­tory of Extreme Hostess­ing, stretch­ing back more days than I can count.  My lov­ing friends and fam­ily have pointed out that I have a very hard time say­ing “no” to any pro­posed get-together, espe­cially if the get-together might involve feed­ing some­one.  There is really noth­ing I love more than prepar­ing a truly deli­cious meal for my loved ones, who always seem to enjoy get­ting fed.  I think that while every­one gives me advice to learn to say “no,” all those peo­ple would be aston­ished if I began the prac­tice on them!  At least I hope they’d miss me.

How­ever, this ten­dency to say only “yes” can be taken to an extreme, as I expe­ri­enced in the last ten days or so.  I blithely pro­posed and invited, included and reached out, and every sin­gle one of my lit­tle plans came to fruition.  Which meant a frenzy of demented revolv­ing door arrivals and depar­tures, over­lap­ping guests with incom­pat­i­ble dietary require­ments, plus the result­ing filled dish­wash­ers, end­less laun­dry loads.  You know what I mean.  I bet you’ve been there too.

It’s what hap­pens when we come “home” for the sum­mer and try to live in five weeks as if we were here to stay.  I see us as a fam­ily of spi­ders try­ing des­per­ately to weave enough webs to last all year, to catch all the lovely plump, sat­is­fy­ing flies we can to feed us dur­ing the months in Lon­don when we live a com­pletely dif­fer­ent life, filled with com­pletely dif­fer­ent peo­ple.  Except I stop short of actu­ally wrap­ping my beloved peo­ple in silk and suck­ing them dry.  At least I hope so.  Speak­ing of spi­ders, look who John found today on the pic­nic table, drink­ing from the rain­wa­ter in my votive candle.

Now that I’ve had a good night’s sleep and the incip­i­ent fall sun is shin­ing, I can step back and say that I would rather get myself in a too-frantic pickle than miss any of the adven­tures we’ve had this summer.

Includ­ing, of course, bell­ring­ing.  As soon as my mother’s birth­day extrav­a­ganza was over, I had a per­fectly won­der­ful, intense bell­ring­ing ses­sion where I had the inim­itable thrill of ring­ing the “tre­ble bell,” which leads every ses­sion of rounds, or a peal.  So, since I was the first to ring, I got to utter the immor­tal — in bell­ring­ing cir­cles! — words, “Look to… [every­one must meet my eyes]… Treble’s going… [we all pull our bells off the bal­ance to be ready to ring]… Treble’s GONE.”  And I pull off and the rounds begin.

Thrilling!

That very after­noon, as I was blithely pulling my ropes, John’s sister’s fam­ily arrived from Min­nesota.  Now, their visit is a rare treat; even see­ing them hasn’t hap­pened in four years, and that time we went to them.  They have not been to visit us on the East Coast in – I can’t even remem­ber – eight years?  So it was a reunion well worth wait­ing for.  Cathy, her hus­band David, their girls Sarah and Ellen.  Lovely.

I had clev­erly under­ch­effed plates of chopped veg­eta­bles and cooked sausage and shred­ded cheese before I went off bell­ring­ing, so even though I got lost on the rainy way home (typ­i­cal me!) we were able to assem­ble crispy, tall piz­zas when I got in, and set­tle down around the din­ing room table to catch up on our var­i­ous lives.

After din­ner some of us played “Aggra­va­tion” while oth­ers gath­ered around the telly at the back of the kitchen, to lis­ten to the pat­ter­ing rain on the roof and watch “Dark Shad­ows”!  Do you remem­ber, Barn­abas Collins and all the sheetrock ceme­ter­ies and sup­pos­edly blood-curdling music and… noth­ing hap­pen­ing, episode after episode?  Too funny.  Avery and Cathy began what would be a four-day con­ver­sa­tion called “Books You Must Read.”  It was very sweet to see the two most vora­cious and eclec­tic read­ers any of us knows, por­ing over title after title.

In the morn­ing the rain was relent­less, so we piled into the car and drove up to see Joel and the girls for a diner lunch, so they could meet John’s fam­ily and also recover from their dis­ap­point­ment at my mother and brother going home that morn­ing.  Then we were onto the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hart­ford, a really won­der­ful place to take any peo­ple who love books as my fam­ily does.  I per­son­ally love Twain’s quote, “I never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Words to live by!

From there we were onto a trip to Barnes and Noble, to stock up even more fully than my house already is, and I must say I found this par­tic­u­lar sec­tion a lit­tle grisly.

Home for riga­toni alla vodka sauce, cheesy spinach, and cros­tini piled with every­thing in the fridge, includ­ing creamy moz­zarella for Cathy who is a veg­e­tar­ian, and anchovy but­ter for John, his mom and me.

After recharg­ing my bat­ter­ies to some­thing like 60% overnight, I awoke to John with a toothache, a jour­ney that has occu­pied us through to today, poor man.  But at the time, that sun­rise, we didn’t know how bad it would get, and I could enjoy the dawn sky, not some­thing I EVER nor­mally see, as my near­est and dear­est will tell you.  Now I kind of won­der why.

When Cathy’s fam­ily arrived from the hotel, we man­aged a clean-out-the-fridge lunch, and then a ride up the Phillips Farm meadow in Quincy the Land Rover, to see John’s Dad’s Bench.  How the girls screamed and shouted as Quincy bounced up and down the hills!

There was time for quick stop at Tricia’s gar­den, where Cathy bonded with Baby Rol­lie and I cal­lously raided for veg­eta­bles.  Tiny egg­plants from their branches, and beets, pulled right from the ground!  If I weren’t a com­bi­na­tion of not-here-in=spring and super-lazy, I would LOVE to have a gar­den yield­ing such solid gold bounty.

Cathy and I cooked together in the per­fect after­noon sun­shine, pro­duc­ing the beets and egg­plants ready for grilling, and lit­tle round squashes stuffed with mush­rooms and goat cheese.  I can NEVER get enough grilled beets.

These lovelies were sup­ple­mented by bison burg­ers, and sweet­corn, and David and Katie from across the road.  What an unfor­get­table menu, and guests.

Any mem­o­ries of Cathy’s fam­ily visit would not be com­plete with­out a ref­er­ence to our trips to the local dairy farm, Rich’s, for ice cream.  Have you heard Jon Stewart’s hilar­i­ous injunc­tion against the use of the word “rich”?  “We have to call them ‘job cre­ators’ now, not ‘rich.’  You know, like say­ing, ‘This cake is so moist and JOB CRE­ATOR.”  Well, we have made many vis­its to “Job Cre­ator” Dairy Farm lately.  I per­son­ally can­not take that much sug­ary fat, but I am alone in this, so I keep every­one com­pany.  Except Avery, who brings a book.  Cathy prob­a­bly would too if she weren’t all grown up.

The next after­noon saw us burn­ing calo­ries on the ten­nis court and then join­ing Cathy’s fam­ily at their hotel pool.  It sort of put our com­mu­nity pool to shame, with its lovely shaded chairs and snack bar, serv­ing “whipped cream vodka shots.”  The girls had an amaz­ing time.

We came home to a stir-fry din­ner, with every­thing under the sun included — many veg­eta­bles for Cathy, plus chicken and beef fil­let for us, and a touch of Chi­nese five-spice.

We piled into Quincy, the girls scream­ing at every bump, for another trip to Rich’s, and sadly, in the mid­dle of the night, John’s tooth absolutely killing him.  This meant he was off to the den­tist, and our trip into New York with Cathy’s fam­ily off the sched­ule.  We kissed them good­bye, and vowed that it would not be so long before another reunion.

And the very after­noon they all left, Avery’s best friend Cici arrived for her sum­mer stay, includ­ing the best heir­loom tomato-burratina salad ever, with lemon zest and pine nuts.  Glorious!

Why would a giant ball of bur­rata be called “bur­ratina,” which sounds to me like a diminu­tive?  Who cares.  It is quite sim­ply the creami­est ver­sion of moz­zarella you will ever sink your teeth into.  The dress­ing on this salad was noth­ing more or less than olive oil, and lemon juice.

Cici stayed for two days, on the sec­ond of which I drove John to Water­bury for emer­gency root canal surgery, poor MAN.  I raced home to feed the girls and drop them off at the crummy com­mu­nity pool which did not look any more appeal­ing after our expo­sure to the hotel love­li­ness.  This impres­sion of skank­i­ness was enhanced by the appar­ent acci­den­tal loss of a cru­cial let­ter on the sign.

The day only got cra­zier after that.  We aban­doned poor John to his antibi­otics and nar­cotics and a dark­ened bed­room and raced off to a hasty but beau­ti­fully put-together tea party given for us by the niece of the old lady who lived in our house before suc­cumb­ing to old age.  Cathy is a supreme baker and her apple pie was stu­pen­dous, but I con­fess to wor­ry­ing about sit­ting qui­etly chat­ting when I had a large num­ber of peo­ple to feed that night for din­ner, hav­ing invited them in a rash of con­fi­dence that of course I would have time to DO IT ALL.  Off we went.

Cici and Avery paced about in denial that she was about to be col­lected to go home.  A com­bi­na­tion of hot and sweaty (I turned the AC on a bit too late!), wor­ried about John and his mis­er­able chip­munk cheek, and over­whelmed by din­ner prep for 11 in an hour’s time, I began to expe­ri­ence a sen­sa­tion that my sum­mer hol­i­day had become a giant steam­roller with me in its path, about to be crushed.

Jill and Joel and the girls arrived, Jill wisely pre­scrib­ing a cock­tail.  I pre­pared shrimp to fry, corn to boil, sliced toma­toes and moz­zarella.  John’s mom set the table.  Avery and Cici enter­tained Katie.

Real­iz­ing that Cici’s brother, to arrive any minute, suf­fers from celiac dis­ease, I dashed to saute a chicken breast for him.  John emerged from his cave of pain to say hello and threw casu­ally over his shoul­der, “Keep the back door shut when you have the AC on,” to which I growled through grit­ted teeth, “I have a lot big­ger prob­lems than that on my mind right now.”

And yet finally, can­dles lit, food on the table, every­one gath­ered around, it all came together as usual.  Cici’s fam­ily arrived, we made room.  The fried shrimp was crunchy, the toma­toes juicy, the corn but­tery.  We were with fam­ily and friends.  The mos­qui­toes landed.  All was well.

And so I have sur­vived.  I have rested and spent today qui­etly.  It will be only a mat­ter of time before I’ve for­got­ten the crazi­ness and sched­uled six more impos­si­ble things before break­fast.  Maybe that’s what sum­mer is all about.

Or maybe I need an intervention.

The humid­ity has really set­tled in.  It’s that decep­tive sort of weather that makes you don your ten­nis togs, grab JUST not enough cold water, and head to the courts.  After you’ve moved around for about five sec­onds, you’re SOAKED!  It’s a nice tem­per­a­ture if you don’t MOVE.

Last night was one of those iconic Con­necti­cut evenings, heavy with damp, fra­grant air, rolling dis­tant thun­der and flashes of heat light­ning behind Stillmeadow.  I dashed across to leave a pack­age that had come UPS for Anne and David, open­ing our sweet lit­tle red gate to run across the dusty road, knock on their door, hear sounds of Katie’s bath­time, look in at the cozy lamp­light, feel­ing at once like a bit of a voyeur and also intensely grate­ful for our friendly lit­tle bend of road.

How I love hav­ing Kate turn up to tram­po­line, her mother to sit down for a quick sand­wich — today’s of slices of a rolled-up moz­zarella, pancetta and pars­ley con­coc­tion, plus the juici­est of heir­loom tom­toes — lis­ten­ing to her dad strug­gling with the lawn­mower across the road.  And more heat thun­der and light­ning, today at lunchtime.  They are the best pos­si­ble neighbors.

Avery’s best friend from baby­hood has turned up for her annual visit.  Cici came to meet Avery when Avery was three days old and Cici a grownup lady of six months, and they were joined at the hip for nine years, until we moved to Lon­don.  Their friend­ship is one that sur­vives from year to year with a mys­te­ri­ous alchemy from lit­tle girl­hood to the beau­ti­ful young women they are now.  The two of them haven’t changed one iota.

They’re teenagers, which means they can watch eleventy hun­dred episodes of “America’s Top Model” in a row, while com­par­ing the rel­a­tive mer­its of Amer­i­can and Euro­pean candy, then sleep for twelve  hours.  They also don’t mind the heat if they can be on an amuse­ment park ride, so John has taken them off this after­noon to Quassy and after shar­ing a few rides with them, has left them to spend a hot after­noon filled with roller coast­ers, The Sat­u­ra­tion Sta­tion, and fried dough.  Last night they ate their weight in spaghetti car­bonara, so my con­science is clear.  I have fed them real food.

Cici is the last in our series of sum­mer vis­i­tors, and a nice crown­ing touch to a sea­son of cel­e­bra­tions.  My mother has come and gone, for her big 75th birth­day week­end.  What fun we had.

Oh, the food we cooked!  We made our way to Jill and Joel’s house for an on-the-day birth­day din­ner, where my con­tri­bu­tion was tri-color slaw, with poppy seeds and an Every­thing Dressing.

Tri-Color Slaw

(serves at least eight)

1/2 head red cabbage

1/2 head Savoy cabbage

4 car­rots, shredded

Dress­ing: 1/3 cup each: olive oil (I used the left­overs from a jar of mar­i­nated arti­chokes!), may­on­naise, lemon juice, Thou­sand Island dress­ing, plus 1 tbsp Dijon mus­tard and 1 tbsp poppy seeds

Shred both cab­bages and all the car­rots, toss with dress­ing.  Serve room tem­per­a­ture or cold.

*************

And my good­ness, Joel cooked an incred­i­ble din­ner.  Grilled pork ten­der­loin and the best risotto.

Fresh Tomato Risotto with Basil

(serves four)

5 cups chicken broth

4 tbsps butter

1/2 chopped onion

1 tbsp veg­etable oil

1 1/2 pounds firm ripe toma­toes, peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

salt and freshly ground pepper

1 1/2 cups carnaroli, arbo­rio or vialone nano rice (about 10 ounces)

1/2 cup freshly grated Parme­san cheese

10 basil leaves cut into very thin strips

In a medium saucepan, bring the broth to a boil and keep sim­mer­ing constantly.

In a large saucepan, com­bine 2 tbsps of the but­ter with the onion and the oil.  Cook over mod­er­ate hear, stir­ring occa­sion­ally, until the onion turns pale gold.  Add the toma­toes and a pinch each of salt and pep­per and cook, stir­ring occa­sion­ally, for 10 minutes.

Add the rice and stir to thor­oughly coat the grains.  Add 1/2 cup of the sim­mer­ing broth to the rice and stir con­stantly until most of the liq­uid has been absorbed; adjust the heat to main­tain a sim­mer.  Grad­u­ally add more broth, 1/2 cup at a time, and cook, stir­ring the rice con­stantly to pre­vent it stick­ing to the pan at any time.  The rice is done when it is firm but ten­der, with­out a chalky center.

Add the remain­ing but­ter, the cheese and the basil and stir for 1 minute longer.  Sea­son with salt and pep­per and serve at once.

It was lovely to have all the girls together with their grand­mother and John’s mom, sit­ting in the back­yard with the swingset and the chalk games being played on the dri­ve­way.  And after risotto, there were cupcakes.

My dear mother loves noth­ing more than a plate of sweet things!

Jill and Joel’s kitty Snow­ball marched back and forth with first a half-dead chip­munk and then a more-than-half-dead bird in his mouth… “The cycle of life,” said Joel.  “Finally, another man in the house.  That’s my boy.”

And we gave Mom her present — “the most fun I’ve had with my fam­ily in a very long time!” John said, describ­ing the evening we put it all together.  The 75th birth­day Per­sonal Crossword.

How we racked our brains for clues, and answers!  Going all the way back to Mom’s child­hood, her favorite movies, sports teams, color, flower, tele­vi­sion shows, all our names, the neigh­bor­hoods she’s lived in… it was SUCH fun.  And she enjoyed it.

But the fun didn’t stop there.  The next day brought them all to our house for the annual party, dec­o­rated care­fully with as many yel­low bal­loons as we can fit in the back of the Land Rover.

Even a very cool teenager is happy to get out of bed to tie a few thou­sand bal­loons to the fence and the bird feeder!

It is always such fun for me to work in the kitchen as the time for the party approaches, and to watch cars pull up in the dri­ve­way, filled by a happy group of so many won­der­ful peo­ple.  Of course, it’s a com­plete acci­dent that some of them come armed with the most deli­cious food, like Cathy and her strawberry-rhubarb pie, or Olimpia and her famous meat­balls!  It’s the friend­ship that matters.

And of course it’s a com­pletely coin­ci­dence that Tri­cia and Rol­lie come armed with everyone’s favorite baby, Tiny Rol­lie.  Olimpia and Tony may have enjoyed spend­ing time with him, just a little.

There was the table of lit­tle girls…

And while I did not get a decent pic­ture of my dear friend Shel­ley, I did snap Avery with Shelley’s present.  There is a lady who under­stands cats.

There was time to sit for a time to appre­ci­ate everyone’s spe­cial con­tri­bu­tions: the won­der­ful sto­ries that Cathy tells of her aunt liv­ing here in our house, Shelley’s ency­clo­pe­dic knowl­edge of the gene­ol­ogy that makes her eighth cousins something-removed from Anne, Joel and Olimpia’s con­tri­bu­tions of ideas for egg­plant meat­balls, the shouts of the lit­tle girls (and one big girl, ever-patient) on the tram­po­line, ring­ing sweetly in the dis­tance.  First Joel super­vised and they were crazy.

And then, because they all adore John’s mom who wielded the cam­era (as we all count on her to do!), they posed for her, each of them beau­ti­ful in her own unique way.

My husband’s good humor and end­less energy with the girls and the Land Rover, added the spice of Everyone’s Favorite Dad to the mix.

And Anne didn’t save all her baby enthu­si­asm for her own.  She had time for Tiny Rol­lie, too.

Jill and Avery sim­ply can­not take a bad pho­to­graph.  The two most beau­ti­ful girls at the party, perhaps.

And what part do I play in all this?  I am the rope that draws every­one in, the chron­i­cler of our times together, the grate­ful audi­ence for everyone’s charms.  And the pro­ducer of grilled scal­lops wrapped in bacon, it must be said.

Through it all, my mother per­formed her usual mir­a­cle of find­ing some­thing to talk about with every­one.  She had brought the cross­word with her to beg for mercy, to ask for help with the last three or four clues (and they weren’t our best effort, I admit).  She sat on the shady ter­race with Anne’s and Olimpia’s flo­ral trib­utes all around her, and enjoyed all her favorite foods, which hap­pen –hap­pen!- to be my favorite foods!  There were chicken liv­ers sauteed in but­ter and Madeira, mush­rooms stuffed with sausage, pecans baked with spiced but­ter, heir­loom tomato salad with moz­zarella, olive oil and lemon juice.  I think she was happy.

And for once, Jill, Joel and John’s stric­tures that “it’s not a party at Red Gate Farm unless everyone’s cry­ing” did not come true.  The day ended mag­i­cally, as all birth­days should, with cake.

Now it is all over for another year.  The birth­day is over, the last hugs have been exchanged, and my mother and brother have gone home.  Thank good­ness John’s mom has stayed behind to cheer us up.  Although, to tell you the truth… we’re pretty happy these days.

And then it rained.  Anne’s pond filled up first, and ran under the road.

Then it ran into our pond, which rushed around as if all sorts of impor­tant things were hap­pen­ing under its sur­face.  Maybe to the craw­fish and min­now and tiny brook trout, it was exciting.

I thought of our “road improve­ment” Town Hall meet­ings, looked up our unim­proved dirt road, and was grateful.

The reflect­ing ball pre­dicted more rain for the days to come, and it was right.

The hydrangea tree sud­denly real­ized it was mid-August and burst into bloom.

I drove off in the rain to ring bells in Brew­ster.  “Look to… Treble’s going, Treble’s gone.”  We rang rounds and call changes on all eight bells as the rain drummed down the win­dows.  I stepped past the wet, fallen apples out­side the bell­tower door, got in my car and promptly got lost com­ing home.  Why does rain make every­thing look unfa­mil­iar?  Thank good­ness there were my mother’s birth­day flow­ers in the win­dow at home to wel­come me.

There comes a moment, every sum­mer, when we’ve truly set­tled in.  Tri­cia has brought her tra­di­tional herby cen­ter­piece, bless her heart.  We’ve spent the first few weeks set­tling in, see­ing all the neigh­bors, play­ing ten­nis, cook­ing, swim­ming, reread­ing all the sum­mer books we’ve been think­ing about all win­ter.  I catch David in a rare moment of relax­ation, read­ing by the pond, and this image seems to epit­o­mize summer.

There’s time for an after­noon pho­to­shoot with Avery, try­ing to cap­ture her 14-year-old self.  Our house is pep­pered with framed series of pho­tographs of her as a lit­tle girl, mak­ing faces, being silly.  It has been a few years since I sat her down to be cap­tured, and it was more like work­ing with a pro­fes­sional model than a child.  Times have changed.

She has opin­ions now on the pho­tographs I take!  “Delete!  Delete!  I look demonic!”  I have to be strong.  But there are some we agree on.

We’ve had plenty of hot and humid ten­nis games, accom­pa­nied inevitably by the Grumpy Old Men At the Ten­nis Court, whose grumpi­ness seemed to have been ratch­eted up recently.  One morn­ing last week, after a heavy rain the night before, we arrived at the courts to dis­cover that they had eschewed the shady court out of fear of its pud­dles, and were installed on the far court in the blaz­ing sun.  A recipe for dis­as­ter.  All four of them spent the whole morn­ing won­der­ing under their col­lec­tive, grumpy and highly audi­ble breaths.

“Those young peo­ple might not want that shady court, they might rather have a sunny court… we should ask them if they want to move to our court, here in the sun.”

“Of course not, you fool, if they did, they’d move to the cen­ter court… Nobody wants to play in the sun.  Shut up and serve.”

There has been the chance for Anne to bond with her kitty niece, Jes­samy, here at Camp Curran.

I’ve had time to recre­ate — with my own quirky addi­tions — the break­fast strata con­cept that Alyssa and I inhaled dur­ing our jaunt to Beecher’s Cheese Shop in Man­hat­tan.  I have to warn you: it’s very rich.  But what a cel­e­bra­tion of savoury.

Break­fast Strata

(serves 8)

12 slices old-fashioned white bread, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 lb pork sausage

1/2 lb chest­nut mush­rooms, chopped

1 Padron pep­per, sliced thin

hand­ful small heir­loom toma­toes, cut in half

1 cup cheese curds (or pizza moz­zarella, cut in bite-size pieces)

1 cup shred­ded Ched­dar cheese

4 eggs

2 cups half and half

But­ter a 9 x 13 bak­ing dish.  Place the bread in a large bowl.  Saute the sausage and break it up into small pieces.  Add the chopped mush­rooms to the sausage and saute until soft.

Add the sausage, mush­rooms, pep­per, toma­toes and two cheeses to the bread in the bowl and mix well.  Beat the eggs briefly and then whisk in the half and half.  Scat­ter the bread mix­ture in the bak­ing dish and pour the egg mix­ture over.  Bake at 350F/180C for 40 min­utes or until egg mix­ture is set.  Serve warm.

***************

All these activ­i­ties are com­pelling and deli­cious, to be sure.  It’s our summer.

But it’s all a bit of a wait­ing game, until the moth­ers come.

Of course in sum­mers gone by it was the moth­ers and the fathers.  In those won­der­ful days we reverted to being the chil­dren again, with the fathers fight­ing over who would carry heavy bags of gro­ceries and pay the din­ner checks, and the moth­ers bring­ing enter­tain­ing gifts from their bags for the grand­daugh­ters.  When the fathers were here, they ran errands: to the hard­ware store for the screw­drivers they thought we needed, to the bal­loon store to carry home dozens of bal­loons for birth­day par­ties, to the liquor store for a spe­cial Scotch to accom­pany a chess game.  They came with us to the pool to swim laps and toss lit­tle kids to and fro in the water, and to pro­vide end­less quar­ters for the snack machine.

I hope sin­cerely that I appre­ci­ated those days and sum­mers with our fathers.

Every­thing changes.  Our moth­ers are exam­ples to me of The Right Stuff.  While life changes and chil­dren get taller and the fathers are no longer with us, the moth­ers still pack their suit­cases and take end­less flights to arrive at Red Gate Farm, arms out­stretched, smiles glow­ing, bags still packed with home­made cook­ies, piles of hilar­i­ous old fam­ily pho­tographs, ready to have a good time.  Din­ner con­ver­sa­tions are sprin­kled with sto­ries and mem­o­ries of the fathers, and it is as if they were still with us, for scat­tered moments.

The impor­tant thing is to make sure we appre­ci­ate our fam­i­lies as they are now.

My, how we pre­pared for John’s mom’s arrival!  We became the Com­pleat Clean­ing Team, scrub­bing every inch of the house, putting up the new clothes­line so I could wash and hang out the ancient red rug in the guest room that always takes a bit of a beat­ing dur­ing the busy sum­mers.  Espe­cially with a toilet-paper-obsessed kit­ten around.

Finally every­thing was bleached, Hoovered, mopped and folded.  And we were off to the sweet lit­tle munic­i­pal air­port to fetch Nonna.  With all the dread­ful inter­na­tional air­ports we seem to find our­selves in, I love this lit­tle local one, nes­tled under blue skies in a cozy hol­low of green hills, always smelling of new car­pet, with one unin­tim­i­dat­ing arrival gate which seems to emit only happy peo­ple being reunited with grand­chil­dren!  And so we found her, gath­ered her up and brought her home to relax with a glass of wine and enjoy the spe­cial brand of ease and com­fort that this old house seems to offer everyone.

And we had such a good din­ner… there is just noth­ing like fresh fried had­dock, with home­made tartare sauce.  John’s mom asks me to tell you that although she always says this, it was “the best had­dock ever.”

With sweet­corn — plenty of but­ter! — and broc­coli, sauteed in olive oil, it was the per­fect sum­mer sup­per to wel­come her.

I love the feel­ing I get when my mother-in-law is safely under my roof.  I love her set­tling into her cozy red room with the green glass lamp, the table piled with tan­ta­liz­ing books she might like to leaf through before going to sleep, a selec­tion of lit­tle presents gath­ered in Lon­don and New York — a jar of ras el hanout, a funny mug with bicy­cles painted on it.  I went through boxes and boxes of pho­tos from the barn and assem­bled a lit­tle pile, full of memories.

It’s one of the unex­pected ben­e­fits of get­ting older.  We are finally able to give a lit­tle bit of com­fort, a lit­tle cozi­ness, some cher­ish­ing, to our par­ents, who have given so much to us.  A place to come and relax.

And the next evening brings MY mother, all the way from Indi­ana.  I know she was a bit intim­i­dated by the idea of trav­el­ling with­out my dad, for the first time.  A first time to check in by her­self, to han­dle the lug­gage, to be in charge.  But she han­dled every­thing with aplomb, with my brother’s help, and I was so glad to get her here, safe and sound.

They arrived with Jill and her fam­ily, for an evening of trampolining…

And a din­ner of beef fil­lets with a but­tery, mush­roomy Duxelles.

Here’s how my con­ver­sa­tions go with my niece Molly.

Molly: “Aunt Kris­ten, how old were you when you were my size?”

“Well, how old are YOU, Molly?”

(she holds up fin­gers) “Two.”

“Then I think I was two when I was your size.”

Molly con­sid­ers.  “No, I think YOU were ONE.”

*******

The moth­ers arrived.  All was right with the world.

Just a word to let you know that there is some behind-the-scenes tweak­ing going on at Kris­ten in Lon­don… please for­give any crazi­ness for the next week or so, if click­ing in var­i­ous links takes you to lands far, far away.  Back to nor­mal soon!

I’ve been grounded, temporarily.

It all has to do with buy­ing a mattress.

Per­haps I should explain.

When we bought this lit­tle house seven years ago, Avery and I weren’t even around to do it.  We were in Maine for a sum­mer vaca­tion when the papers were signed and every last T was crossed and I dot­ted.  So John was left to han­dle the last-minute details like oh, say, mov­ing in, and buy­ing all the fur­ni­ture.  And he would be the first to tell you he is the last word in CHEAP.  So our mat­tresses were the cheap­est that Sears could offer, and grad­u­ally, over the years, ours has not shown itself equal to the task.  My hus­band is 6’2″ or 3″, and by no means a sylph, so when he decides to turn over in his sleep, there are ramifications.

The mat­tress sales­man yes­ter­day described the phe­nom­e­non as “motion trans­fer.”  And it sim­ply isn’t done, in the best of bed­rooms.  We needed a new mattress.

“What you have is coils,” he explained in deadly earnest.  “And that’s going to give you motion trans­fer.  Now, are you a hot sleeper?  Then the Tem­purpedic won’t be for you.  A lot of sleep­ers will tell you they hold in the heat…”

And on and on, mat­tress after mat­tress, until finally we came to… The Doc­tor.  Yes, it turns out that while many people’s PhDs turn out to be less than use­ful after a decade or so (mine, for exam­ple, gath­er­ing dust under a pile of cook­books), Dr Michael Breus, PhD, is The Sleep Doc­tor.  “What’s his PhD in?” I ask.  “Sleep,” our Mat­tress Pro­fes­sional Fred answers, dead­pan.  “In the sleep world, he’s a celebrity.”  Who knew there was a sleep world.

There is.  And for bet­ter or worse, The Doc­tor has designed the per­fect bed for us.  After at least an hour test­ing beds (and get­ting remark­ably sleepy in the process), we alighted on the right level of firm­ness, with as lit­tle motion trans­fer as pos­si­ble.  Then we took Avery with us on the way to play­ing ten­nis, to con­firm our choice.  “Mat­tress longevity has to do with the break­down of mate­ri­als,” Fred explains.  “Now with your latex mat­tresses, you’re deal­ing with a rub­ber prod­uct.  No break­down.”  [Which is in itself a bit troubling.]

“There’s a lot more to this mat­tress busi­ness than I would ever have dreamed,” I said to Fred, who reminded me a lit­tle of a down­mar­ket Leonardo di Caprio, com­plete with goa­tee and slightly men­ac­ing smile.  “Not really,” he answered, bitterly.

We came home and I looked with dis­fa­vor at our old mat­tress, crouch­ing on the bed with elderly defi­ance.  I had washed the sheets that day so the poor thing had nowhere to hide.  As I made the bed, some malign fate put the bed­frame in COM­PLETELY the wrong place and I smashed my kneecap into the cor­ner.  “AAAGH!” I bel­lowed, as the wood made con­tact with my poor middle-aged Osgood-Schlatter’s inflamed car­ti­lege, the bane of my knees since my teenage years.

And so here I sit, on my cool and peace­ful ter­race, unable to play ten­nis for the time being.  We went off to the court this morn­ing, hop­ing to tease my poor knee out of its bad mood by exer­cise, but it isn’t coop­er­at­ing.  So I shall sit here for today, wait­ing for my new mat­tress to arrive, plot­ting out the cru­cial trips up and down the stairs instead of rac­ing about as I usu­ally do.  Get­ting old and run­ning into things sucks, as it turns out.

Thank good­ness this didn’t hap­pen on Mon­day, when we ven­tured into the city.

It’s always excit­ing to make the nos­tal­gic drive down the Henry Hud­son Park­way to Man­hat­tan, say­ing all the same things we say every time.  “Isn’t the GWB — the George Wash­ing­ton Bridge — beau­ti­ful?  Why are these high­ways so pothole-y?  Look at the gor­geous sky­line.  Aren’t you lucky to be a native New Yorker, Avery?”  We headed down Broad­way, watch­ing the crowds seethe hotly across the inter­sec­tions, and dropped me off at 20th Street to meet Alyssa at Beecher’s New York, the new super-fashionable cheese shop sprung from its orig­i­nal in Seattle.

Sam­ples, sam­ples!  Alyssa and I wan­dered around try­ing every­thing, except that she turned up her pretty nose at “fresh curds.”  “It’s against my reli­gion to eat any­thing with the word ‘curd’ in the title,” she main­tained, but she was really miss­ing some­thing.  Such an intensely DAIRY fla­vor, and the squeaky nature of a hal­loumi!  When I got home, I put them together with grilled beets, and the curds were deli­cious, but to be hon­est, the dish needed another ingre­di­ent to tie it all together.  Ideas?

We tried some­thing called “break­fast strada” as well, a sort of supe­rior savory bread pud­ding with roasted veg­eta­bles and curds, and may I tell you, I shall be repli­cat­ing it as best I can tomor­row for brunch.  Salty, cheesy, creamy, sausagey.  A very good idea indeed.

From Beecher’s we went across the street to an old favorite haunt, Fishs Eddy.

Now I must be a tire­some old per­son and rem­i­nisce about the olden days, when we lived in New York in the early 90s, and Fishs Eddy was a mecca for any­one who loved one-of-a-kind vin­tage castoff porce­lain and china.  They bought up all the china from din­ers and men’s clubs that had gone out of busi­ness, along with old flow­ered Ital­ian wine glasses, sets of sil­ver­plate from train din­ing cars, giant plat­ters with the names of old steak joints painted in gold on the rims.  Glo­ri­ous stuff.

Now the world has run out of such bril­liant flot­sam, but Fishs Eddy has stayed cool.  The shop is filled with hilar­i­ous cof­fee mugs bear­ing such uplift­ing images as “You’re not perky; you’re obnox­ious,” New Yorker car­toons show­ing a doc­tor look­ing at a naked patient and say­ing, “TMI, TMI,” draw­ings of male mod­els wear­ing noth­ing but boas and car­ry­ing feather dusters.  And one tiny sec­tion of old trea­sures, includ­ing these dies from a stationer’s shop, bear­ing cus­tomers’ addresses in reverse script.

“Look, Alyssa!” I whis­pered excit­edly.  “It’s Russ­ian!”  She looked closely, then at me pity­ingly, “Honey, that’s just ‘Penn­syl­va­nia’ upside down and backwards.”

From Fishs Eddy we saun­tered in the blis­ter­ing heat to the incom­pa­ra­ble ABC, which used to be called “Car­pet and Home” but is now just ABC.  Quite sim­ply, do NOT enter this store unless a) some­one has tight hold of your purse-strings or b) you already own all the cool items you could pos­si­bly want.  There are can­dles pur­port­ing to smell of every­thing you can imag­ine, includ­ing “cash­mere” and “bam­boo,” (call me a sucker, but I could smell the clos­ets of rich New­port wives and the fields of Viet­nam), piles of beau­ti­ful fab­rics that could be made into every sofa cush­ion you could ever want, note­cards with New York yel­low cabs on them, and glass cases of hand­made jewelry.

“Look, these lit­tle bracelets have inspi­ra­tional mes­sages on them,” I cooed, think­ing they would be nice for a Christ­mas present for Avery.  “Aw, lis­ten to this: ‘the ones you love are life’s most pre­cious gift…’”  Later, when I described these bracelets to Avery, she snorted and said, “Really?  You read inspi­ra­tional mes­sages and thought of ME?  The ‘you’re not perky; you’re obnox­ious’ mug sounds MUCH more my speed.”

Finally we tore our­selves away from mer­chan­dise and headed to the restau­rant, abck­itchen, for lunch with my divine edi­tor Ivy, she of the peer­less Vin­tage Mag­a­zine.  Alyssa and I were early and sat for a bit chat­ting in the gor­geous inte­rior of this, Jean George Vongerichten’s new ven­ture, locavore-obsessed and filled with all the most beau­ti­ful peo­ple in Man­hat­tan.  None more so than my beloved chum.

Ivy arrived and we dug in: roasted heir­loom beets with “house­made” yogurt and micro-herbs, to start.  I would carp slightly and say that I like my roasted beets with a bit more bite, not quite so thor­oughly cooked, but the sev­eral dif­fer­ent vari­eties and col­ors were intrigu­ing.  Then I had a tuna burger with shred­ded radic­chio and wasabi may­on­naise on a truly inter­est­ing roll.  I have every inten­tion of mak­ing a tuna burger very soon, so I shall report when I do.

We were Ladies Who Lunch!  It is a beau­ti­ful atmos­phere with lovely wait­staff and a very heart­felt, sin­cere menu, list­ing EVERY sin­gle source for EVERY sin­gle ingre­di­ent.  An earnest menu.

Finally it was time to say good­bye and jump into the car when John and Avery pulled up out­side.  They had spent the hot, hot after­noon shop­ping in SoHo and were ready to leave the teem­ing streets behind.  Hugs all around, and out to New Jer­sey for the evening and to spend the night with our pre­cious friends Lille and Jan­ice, they of the most per­fect house in cre­ation.  White, white every­where, dark floors, oil paint­ings, Steiff ani­mals over­flow­ing shelves.  The most peace­ful spot on earth, and the scene of so many cozy overnights, going back 20 years ago, to our new­ly­wed days.

As always, we sat in the white, white kitchen and chat­ted about every­thing and noth­ing, sur­rounded by envi­able china that I want always to get my greedy mitts on.  The arti­choke plat­ter!  To die for.

The cab­bage leaf-tureen, which has con­tained every per­fect soup from vichys­soise to gazpacho.

China envy abounds, in Janice’s house.

We stayed up far too late, John finally retreat­ing to his sleep­ing porch and Avery to her bed­room, with book­shelves filled with Nancy Drew, Beat­rix Pot­ter, lit by Gladys the Goose.  Noth­ing ever changes, in that house.  A bliss­ful feel­ing of child­hood serenity.

Home in the morn­ing to Red Gate Farm, where we all col­lapsed in var­i­ous stages of total exhaus­tion!  I’m not as young as I used to be!  A hot day ring­ing the third-heaviest bell in North Amer­ica, another hot day gal­li­vant­ing in Man­hat­tan, a too-late night with a girl­friend and a bot­tle of Scotch… I needed to recover.  And to eat copi­ous amounts of spinach.  I can­not believe I have not pro­vided you with this recipe already, but it’s sim­ply the best.  How else are you going to get your fam­ily to eat an entire pound of spinach at one sitting?

Cheesy Spinach

(serves 4)

3 tbsps butter

2 tbsps flour

1–2 tsps cel­ery salt

1 lb baby spinach, washed and spun dry

1 cup shred­ded melty cheese: sharp Ched­dar, Fontina, or Edam

2 tbsps light cream

Melt the but­ter and add the flour in a large skil­let, cook until foamy.  Add the cel­ery salt and stir.  The mix­ture will be rather lumpy and unpromis­ing.  Do not despair.  Turn off heat.

In batches, put the spinach through the Cuisi­nart until fairly finely chopped, but not mushy.  As you go through the batches, empty each into the skil­let with the but­tery mixture.

When all the spinach is in the skil­let, add the shred­ded cheese and cream and turn on the heat, low.  Now sim­ply stir con­stantly until the cheese is melted and the mix­ture is thor­oughly amal­ga­mated.  Pour into a bak­ing dish — about 9x9 will work, or a pie plate — and bake at 425F/220C for 20 min­utes, till bubbling.

****************

This dish is a fam­ily favorite, always first on the list of requested side dishes.  It is a sta­ple at Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas, and has been known to make even peo­ple who “don’t like spinach” sit up and beg like a dog for more.  The only caveat I would offer is that the cel­ery salt makes the dish quite salty: do not add fur­ther salt.

And may I offer you quite sim­ply the best scal­lop salad ever?  This was a dish com­piled out of what was in the fridge, and heav­enly it was.  The com­bi­na­tion of scal­lop and bacon is of course clas­sic, as is goat cheese with beets.  But alto­gether, with avo­cado and rocket?  All my favorite foods, on a platter.

Scal­lops, Beets, Bacon Salad

(serves 4)

4 large or 6 small beets

2 tbsps butter

24 large scallops

8 slices streaky bacon

1 avo­cado

juice of 1/2 lemon

6 ounces goat cheese

2 hand­fuls rocket

driz­zle olive oil

fresh black pepper

About an hour and a half before you want to eat, wrap the beets in foil and roast at 425F/220C.  Allow beets to sit in tightly wrapped foil out of the oven for about 10 min­utes after roast­ing, then slip skins off and cut into wedges.

Melt but­ter in a large skil­let till smok­ing and browned, then care­fully place scal­lops in, in a sin­gle layer.  After cook­ing for about 30 sec­onds, turn.  Cook another minute, or until opaque, but not too firm.  Remove from heat.

Cook bacon in same skil­let or in oven until crisp.  Drain on paper towel.  Dice avo­cado and toss in lemon juice.

On a large plat­ter, assem­ble all the ingre­di­ents to your lik­ing and sprin­kle with fresh pepper.

**************

Oh, the tex­tures!  The firm beets, soft scal­lops, crisp bacon and creamy cheese, with a lit­tle slurp of vel­vety avo­cado and a bite of rocket… and the fla­vors!  Salty, sweet, but­tery, every­thing you could want.  And SO good for you.

I can­not tell a lie: I fear it will take more than spinach and beets to cure my knee.  I sup­pose rest is the only solu­tion.  Luck­ily, any moment now my motion-transferless bed with a doc­tor­ate will appear, and I can cast myself upon it with a Nancy Drew and recover.

This is, quite sim­ply, the sky view I dream of, dur­ing our months in Lon­don.  Lovely as those months are, they are char­ac­ter­ized most often by grey skies (not “gray”, you know), the soft pat­ter of rain, a slightly island-y wind whip­ping through the trees bereft of leaves.

But I’ve said it before: hap­pi­ness is about con­trast, because the pre­vi­ous day the sky was gun­metal, the air thick with humid­ity, the meadow across the road full of fly­ing turkeys.  No kidding.

So stop before you agree to do some­thing, “When turkeys fly.”  THEY DO.

I am lying here doggo, half-reclining with an icy glass of vodka on the arm­rest of my ter­race chair, totally exhausted from my after­noon.  I spent it… bell­ring­ing, of course, since it is Sun­day.  For a spe­cial treat, my ring­ing band in Brew­ster arranged for us to meet at Kent School, in Kent, Con­necti­cut, whose tower pos­sesses 10 bells!  More than I have ever rung.  The view out­side… to die for.

The view inside… the bells had to be muf­fled because, believe it or not, the neigh­bors object to the sound of bells!  What is wrong with peo­ple.  Reminds me of Avery’s old pri­mary school in Lon­don, located next to the Chi­nese Embassy who for­bade the use of the school play­ground because the sound of children’s voices was too… what?  Human?  Life-giving?  Joyous?

I rang today for two and a half straight hours, suc­cess­fully ring­ing the tower’s tenor bell, Great Paul, who weighs in at just over 2700 pounds.  Ouch!  Then I was assigned “tenor” a highly tech­ni­cal nomen­cla­ture mean­ing “last bell whose job is only to ring in 6th place with­out screw­ing up,” while my band rang a com­pli­cated method called Grand­sire.  I can report that sim­ply stay­ing in 6th place while every­one else moves around is JOLLY dif­fi­cult!  And incred­i­bly hot and sweaty.  “Why take a shower when you can just visit the tower?” every­one chimed in.

These are the kind­est peo­ple I have ever met, I think.  Friend­ship based on a sin­gle point of inter­est is a new expe­ri­ence for me.  I think always before I have become friends with peo­ple because I encoun­tered them in daily life, found them com­pelling, and made my inter­est known.  These are the moth­ers I meet by chance through child­ish activ­i­ties, cher­ished chums of my own child­hood for whom longevity is enough to solid­ify feel­ings, neigh­bors who prove them­selves warm and invit­ing, fel­low vol­un­teers at school.  These peo­ple I meet as PEO­PLE, and we either choose to be friends, or we are nod­ding acquain­tances, friendly enough.

But these peo­ple entered my life strictly through the avenue of lov­ing bells!  Why do I, with no excep­tions in Lon­don or here, find them all to be friend mate­r­ial?  There is not one I would walk away from and choose to have no more to do with than to pull ropes together.

John says it is the strength of shared inter­est, espe­cially a “freaky” inter­est like bell­ring­ing, that makes every­one so friendly.  We want to stick together.  Their par­tic­u­lar brand of sup­port­ive­ness is unlike any other in my life: it is highly specif­i­cally crit­i­cal — “speed up, but not that much!  back­stroke needs to fol­low through, let the sally rise” — but at the end of each bit of ring­ing, there is a great deal of laugh­ter, relief that that par­tic­u­lar exer­cise is fin­ished, cheer­ful making-fun of every­one in turn.

I think too that it is the only thing I’ve ever tried to learn where the com­pany of oth­ers is absolutely essen­tial.  You know me: I’m a social bird of my species.  I like to gather peo­ple around, and I enjoy them in all their pecu­liar vari­ety.  But cook­ing, eat­ing, writ­ing, read­ing, bik­ing… all these can be accom­plished alone.  To ring a lone bell would be… unthink­able.  It is the cam­er­aderie, the arcane jokes only we can under­stand, the com­mu­nity spirit that adds an inde­fin­able sparkle to bellringing.

When life hands me a set of ideas I don’t feel like think­ing about, a con­stel­la­tion of prob­lems I can­not solve, I quail a bit at the notion of get­ting up the courage to per­se­vere, to stay cheer­ful, to keep the bogey­men from the men­tal door.  Bells, and the peo­ple who ring them, are an irre­place­able amulet against these demons.

I came away with every mus­cle in my body protesting!

Ah, no mat­ter my exhaus­tion, it was a great after­noon.  And now I am back safely home, to rejoin… Sum­mer Camp.  That’s what we’re call­ing our sum­mer super­vi­sion of dear, dar­ling Jes­samy, fluffi­est cat on earth.

Last night I went into the bath­room to find the roll of toi­let paper strewn tooth­fully across the floor.

“Avery, you’re Head Camp Coun­selor.  I don’t think you’ve had enough activ­i­ties for her here at camp, if she’s eat­ing toi­let paper.”

Avery: “Actu­ally, Mummy, I think eat­ing toi­let paper IS one of the activities.”

How lucky we are to have her to play with this summer.

This week we joined in a par­tic­u­lar New Eng­land activ­ity: Town Hall Meet­ing.  Why?  Why are we not tak­ing advan­tage of our sin­gu­lar sta­tus as highly infre­quent mem­bers of the com­mu­nity, to stay OUT of town pol­i­tics?  I’ll tell you why.  Our road is being threat­ened with paving.

NO!  No.

An enor­mous part of the charm of our dusty, point­less lit­tle road is its dusty point­less­ness.  We reg­u­larly sit out on the ter­race with our books and com­put­ers, or our lunches and din­ners and shout auto­mat­i­cally as cars go by, “SLOW the *&&% down!”  Because the lit­tle road goes up and down, every­one with an accel­er­a­tor at his or her dis­posal feels like gun­ning it.  All is rel­a­tive of course: exces­sive speed in our dusty point­less road is around 30 mph.  But still.  The clouds of dust drift across our lawn, we fear for the way­ward steps of lit­tle Katie cross­ing the road in unthink­ing joy.

The ONLY result of paving our road would be the increase of the mph to 40, or 45.  Unthinkable.

So on intre­pid Anne’s advice, we turned up at Town Hall on Thurs­day morn­ing to sit in the newly-carpeted, acoustic-tile-ceilinged splen­dor of the Road Paving Meet­ing.  This was hilarious.

In the light of cer­tain recent events of a polit­i­cal nature hap­pen­ing down the East­ern Seaboard, we felt immensely proud to be part of our local gov­ern­ment.  All six of them, gath­ered around a con­fer­ence table.  Half the res­i­dents of our road lined the room.

“Whew, there’s a lot of peo­ple here,” one wor­thy board mem­ber (or what­ever his title might have been, Select­Per­son Extraordinaire).

“Well, I can tell you right now that Jim can’t make it.  He’s at the Wet­lands meeting.”

(Much lack­lus­ter dis­cus­sion about whether or not we should dis­cuss adjourning.)

“But we can’t make any deci­sions with­out Jim.  How long is that Wet­lands meet­ing going to take?”

“It’s got some seri­ous busi­ness on its table, I can assure you.”

(Much rustling and stack­ing and straight­en­ing of papers.)

“Fine.  I’ll just go down there and find out how long that meet­ing is expected to take.”

(Avery described this robust per­son­age as “Dolores Umbridge,” if that makes any sense to Harry Pot­ter fans.)

She returned.  “At least 45 minutes.”

WELL.  It was decided to adjourn, where­upon all the really inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion took place, with secret agen­das being aired — “Not that I want MY road paved before theirs!”  “There will have to be CULVERTS!”

Finally we adjourned till a fort­night or some such English-sounding period of time, being hotly pur­sued by the local Crazy Per­son Run­ning For Office, who pressed upon us his mimeo­graphed (I think this term was actu­ally bandied about) Man­i­festo Against The Way Town Busi­ness Gets Done.   In the park­ing lot, he reluc­tantly let us get into our car and shut the door.  “Ser­ial killer, ser­ial killer,” Avery hissed.  “There’s def­i­nitely a sev­ered head in his car trunk.”

Oh my.  Will the road be paved?  Or will it remain, as the biased town lingo goes, “un-improved”?  Even under the stress of “rain events,” which appears to be the ter­mi­nol­ogy for “rain”?  Watch this space.

I spent a restora­tive after­noon at the Farmer’s Market.

Avery reported these to be the sweet­est berries she had ever eaten.  Picked that morn­ing at a local farm.  The best fruit she had ever had, in fact, until these emerged from my bag.

Finally we had a much-needed cloudy day, wak­ing us with sprinkly rain and an instant excuse not to play ten­nis.  I stayed home with a left­over ham hock — a sad lit­tle sen­tence, that, but fear not.  From this pitiful-sounding spec­i­men whose orig­i­nal roast the night before had been so sub­lime, came ham and bean soup, and the best Reubens EVER.

Not really a recipe so much as a list of my favorite foods, piled up.  The shred­ded left­over pork, a slab of ched­dar cheese, a thinly-sliced onion, a hand­ful of sauer­kraut, a driz­zle of Thou­sand Island Dress­ing.  Popped into the panini maker.  Heaven.

And we made it just in time to the most touch­ing exhi­bi­tion I have ever seen, I believe: on a par with the Viet­nam Memo­r­ial, only so homely, so tran­si­tory, so local and per­sonal.  It is the Field of Flags, and on its trav­els through Con­necti­cut it stopped here, to move on, on Wednes­day morning.

Avery took these beau­ti­ful, sen­si­tive pho­tographs.  There is one flag in the ground for every one of the 6,126 solid­ers who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their names listed on a sand­wich board at the top of the hill, by the doors of the church.  So, so poignantly, there is an empty plas­tic sleeve tacked to the board, to con­tain a tem­po­rary sheet of paper for those sol­diers who have died since the last com­plete typed list was made up.  Thank­fully, since the field arrived on July 15, no one else has died.

It is impos­si­ble to look at this field of wav­ing flags, so beau­ti­ful and evenly-spaced, so col­or­ful and lovely, and not real­ize that every sin­gle flag rep­re­sents a fam­ily torn apart, mem­o­ries cut off like a spigot, chil­dren left father-and mother-less.  If it comes near to you, go see it.  It reminds me that while we make gen­tle fun of our Town Hall, while we lie back on the tram­po­line on a peace­ful sum­mer after­noon mar­vel­ling at “the red of the barns, the white of the picket fence, the blue of the sky,” there is another red, white and blue that has been torn apart, bravely left behind so far away.

How unut­ter­ably lucky we are to bask in the free­dom we have here, to enjoy our fam­ily sum­mer, take every advan­tage of our love for our friends and neigh­bors and family.

This luck became abun­dantly clear when Joel and Molly arrived for an after­noon of fun and frolic, while Big Sis­ter Jane and Mom Jill were in Indi­ana vis­it­ing our mom.  Lunch first, includ­ing this tomato-mozzarella-pesto salad that Avery’s pho­to­graph made look even bet­ter than it tasted.

The pool beckoned.

All we can do, in these times of such warm high feel­ings and such reminders of the cost of all our lux­ury, is to hold the impor­tant ones close — whether they’re pre­cious sum­mer cats, bell­ring­ing bud­dies, crazy Town Hall nuts or per­fect nieces — and enjoy ever moment of Sum­mer Camp.