Quiet

H just left to head for Boston with the cats, and when I walked him out, Mom said, "Why so quiet in the house"?

It has been quiet today. H and I were each working  on our writing - mostly in different rooms. Mom has been reading the NY Times. beside the wood stove. It is all in sharp contrast to the days that preceded this one.

I drove down to NY to teach on Monday night, and Mom and I packed the car to drive back to VT on Tuesday, where Herb was ensconced with the cats and making a bump  in the income of the local supermarket, the local organic farm (for the turkey) and a dent in the food budget. On Wednesday we started preparing for the holiday meal and of course, Thanksgiving was consumed (pun intended) with vacuuming, cooking, dish washing and a modicum of furniture moving.  Our friends Linda and Ursula came over to add stuffed squash and pecan pie and wine to the banquet, and we talked and laughed and compared notes on the Penn State debacle, books we had read, travels around the country, relatives, and friends in common, and ate until I could barely move.

Friday we digested large quantities of left-over risotto, stuffing and turkey, and visited with our farmer friend, Amanda, who was stuck in her town for three weeks because of the Hurricane in August. Her husband had used a clothesline attached at one end to a tree and to the house at the other, to shimmy through ice cold storm water with floating propane tanks to rescue an 80 year old neighbor who had stopped into his neighbors' house to check their sump pump and was then caught on the second floor in suddenly rising waters. The owners were at Dartmouth Hospital where he was in kidney or liver failure and she was by his side. Everyone survived and the home owners are now back in the house thanks to a month's volunteer work by a relative who gutted and restored the house from the damage of water soaked walls and utilities.

We got caught up with Amanda's life, finding routes around severed roads and bridges to milk their goat, building new 50 foot greenhouses on leased land, and we heard about her sister who had a baby one month ago, breaking or straining her tail bone in the process. She is still unable to drive. We got caught up on Amanda's part time job as an LNA and her plans to eventually take on training as an LPN. We heard about her grandfather's stroke that has him in rehab in Rutland, and her grandmother's dementia that has necessitated moving her into Amanda's parents' home. She left so she could drive the hour back to Stockbridge to wake up her husband for his 12 hour night shift making snow at the local resort. We hugged and promised to get together again soon.

Yesterday, we took Mom to the Weston craft fair which was profoundly disappointing other than the work of our friends the Morgans and the Munyaks, and then we went over to the classic Vermont Country Store for a dose of tourist excess. We drove to the Northshire bookstore after that and then home, having had our fill of people and churn.

So today is indeed quiet. We haven't gone anywhere. Emmett called to say that he got his plow on his truck so he can plow us out if needed. Jeanette called to say she has a stomach virus and can't stop down to see Mom before I take her back to NYC. The cats slept in their boxes after making a perimeter tour of the house. We spoke to Coreen, our across-the-street neighbor, for a few minutes while we were walking the cats. All in all, a low key day.

And now the cats and Herb are on their way to Boston.

Yes, it's quiet. We hope it's quiet where you are too.