what do good friends and kit­tens have in common?

Come on, it’s easy. You can’t have too many of either one.

What a day! Part of the time I felt like quite the lady of the manor, with var­i­ous peo­ple run­ning around help­ing me out, and part of the time I was the sweaty Cook House­keeper. All in all a won­der­ful day, end­ing up with two happy if exhausted girls in the dor­mi­tory of Camp Kristen.

The may­hem began with a phone call at 8 a.m. (never my finest hour) announc­ing that the propane man would be here at any moment to fill the tank. Never mind that the propane com­pany agreed that I needed a new tank, and agreed to move it to the side of the house where John wants it… sure enough, along came the guy with a very long hose and within 90 sec­onds had filled the tank. This was the ser­vice that took five days to book, and count­less phone calls between me and the com­pany try­ing to ascer­tain whether or not my gas­less state con­sti­tuted an “emer­gency.” Well, 90 sec­onds later and at least I had propane, if in a tank that leaks and in the wrong place. Sigh.

But I ral­lied to make some lovely potato salad, a tomato-mozzarella plate with nice rib­bons of basil, and then the lawn guys showed up. What lux­ury to open up the win­dows and smell that child­hood smell of fresh grass! They too made their work look effort­less and departed in the reflected glory of petrol fumes and hor­i­zon­tal lines across the meadow. I was just slic­ing up the left­over bar­be­cued chicken, toast­ing cia­bat­tas and mak­ing a cheese plate when up pulled Becky and Ash­ley! We all oohed and aahed appro­pri­ately over the dar­ling kit­tens for awhile, but then I was starv­ing, so we sat down and wolfed down our lunch. At one point Ash­ley decided to bring out Hast­ings to see if he liked the great out­doors, and I’ll tell you what he liked: the smell of bar­be­cued chicken! Between his fran­tic scrab­bling attempts to get at the plat­ter and Amanda’s hilar­i­ous, point­less repet­i­tive bounc­ing on her hind legs to get at same, we all sim­ply col­lapsed laughing.

Just as we fin­ished lunch, up pulled the clean­ing ser­vice to do their sched­uled “reclean,” a hideous and unac­cept­able word, but des­tined to remove all the spi­der and cob webs we have been liv­ing with since we arrived, the sub­stan­tial clean­ing bill notwith­stand­ing. I sucked it up and asked the crew to clean every­thing, not just the spi­der­webs, and I’m happy to say that the house is PRIS­TINE. The smell of clean! The clean­ing ladies were taken with the kit­tens, of course, and spent a lot of time dis­cussing their fate. “I’d take that lit­tle striped one, but my boyfriend…” and “I’m in love with that gray guy, but my land­lord…” Ah well, we don’t want to give them away just yet ANYWAY.

We had a nice impromptu chat with Anne, look­ing bloom­ing and rested, at the red gate (get it?) by the road, as she handed over clean and empty bowls that had been filled with bean salad, chicken salad, what­ever, when they made their way to her kitchen. Just as it had been with Alyssa, it seemed hard to believe that she and Becky did not know each other! it’s like watch­ing two of my favorite fic­tional char­ac­ters meet: two worlds col­lid­ing, in fact, two of my favorite peo­ple finally being face to face. Anne was her usual ele­gantly friendly New York­ish self (her self-deprecating intel­li­gence and charm always speak New York to me), and Becky’s warm South­ern humor made me real­ize that it will be the work of about two min­utes for her to have all of Green­wich wrapped around her lit­tle fin­ger. How lucky I have been to have these two friends in my life, and to have them every sum­mer is a stroke of genius! Becky laughed at the bowls. “She feeds the whole neigh­bor­hood,” Anne explained, and Becky said, “Lon­don too!” Noth­ing much changes, I guess.

I love the still, still air of Red Gate Farm in the mid after­noon on a slightly hazy day: the maple leaves barely move, the rope swing hangs silently, wait­ing for a pas­sen­ger, the fence gleams white and the gate so cheer­fully red. So utterly peace­ful. We all ended up pil­ing in two cars (guess who rode with me? no one! all the girls thrilled to be together) and went to Rich’s Farm for ice cream. That is, every­one had ice cream and I had ice water, not hav­ing a sweet tooth as you know. The hot air sim­ply hung over us all, mak­ing every­one feel sticky even before the ice cream dripped. Anne had said, “Don’t for­get to show every­one John’s pig goat,” and I laughed remem­ber­ing our last day last sum­mer before head­ing back to Lon­don, when we went for ice cream with Anne and David and John paid a visit to the barn. “Look at that pig! Boy is he fat,” John said, and Anne coughed gen­tly and said, “Actu­ally, John, that’s a GOAT.” A pig with horns? It turns out you CAN take the Iowa out of the boy!

Home to the preter­nat­u­rally clean house, and some hilar­i­ous times play­ing with the cats in the yard, first, and then when Hast­ings and Lizzie got scared, we took just Amanda to the meadow. She more than rose to the occa­sion, devel­op­ing a most impres­sive GAL­LOP toward… the dark woods on the edge of the meadow. Given her way, she would sim­ply dis­ap­pear into them, I’m sure, and never be heard from again. Not very domes­ti­cated, that one. A barn mouser, for sure, if we can find her a barn.

Yes­ter­day was sim­ply WACKY at Quassy Amuse­ment Park, home to Avery’s most favorite sum­mer fun and mem­o­ries. I was a good sport and went on rides that scare me (with the intre­pid Ellie in my car, always), and the gor­geous old carousel (in its 100th year, as is the whole park!), then the fab­u­lous water slides and Sat­u­ra­tion Sta­tion, fol­lowed by the needles-in-eyes arcade, and the final hor­ror of fried DOUGH for the girls. I sim­ply looked the other way, and off we headed for our ten­nis les­son. I have said it before and I’ll say it again: any­one who’s will­ing to spend time teach­ing lit­tle kids ANY­THING has my full, absolute love. Val, in his dark, volatile and charm­ing way, com­pletely enthralled Anna and Ellie, and far from merely lend­ing them rack­ets to while away the hour of our les­son, included them in a great exer­cise called “Ruler of the Court.” Ellie as usual was avidly com­pet­i­tive, while Anna had to be reminded to pick up her racket because her atten­tion was entirely caught by the scud­ding clouds and blow­ing firs. Avery was some­where in between, and I got a hand­i­cap, which thrilled me! “Kris­ten, you have to win two points for every one the girls have to, because you’re… taller. Or some­thing.” We all laughed and laughed, despite our Extreme Fatigue. One of my hap­pi­est mem­o­ries of the sum­mer: sweaty and exhausted, watch­ing everyone’s per­son­al­i­ties shine, admir­ing Val’s skill with us all. “Got to bring out the toys, got to make it fun,” he said, and I thought how many sit­u­a­tions in life that can apply to! If only I could slow down often enough to real­ize it.

Well, everyone’s sack­ing out here, and it’s warm I can tell you, but I’m too afraid of the power sit­u­a­tion to turn on the AC, so we’re just pant­ing. Will tomor­row bring storms and a movie, or sunny skies and the pool? Mostly, sadly, tomor­row will bring Ter­minix because Becky spot­ted ter­mites in the eaves over the kitchen. Drat! And then the stove guys will come with the SOLID GOLD part they have ordered from the one store in the coun­try that car­ries this part, in Cal­i­for­nia. Of course. By noon I’m hop­ing to have dealt with those two poten­tial messes and be off to play! Avery keeps remind­ing me, when I get com­pla­cent, that the fence is still lying doggo in the lawn, a tes­ta­ment to the still-unpunished Nasty Elf who pulled it down weeks ago, now. You’d never rec­og­nize the old meek me: I have devel­oped into a pos­i­tively fright­en­ing ogre when it comes to com­plaints! It’s not really the me I love… but needs must at Camp Kristen.