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.