At long last, the promised blog. It's December 2nd, and we've been here for three months. I guess one thing I can tell you about our lives is that it's taken this long to start the intended blog partially because of busyness, partially because of illness, and partially because of denial that we have all our friends in far away places.
Tonight it's going to snow a foot, or so they say. One big difference of life here is how the weather is nearly an entity. Everyone prepares for its arrival, the winter weather especially, like you might prepare for a papal visit. You only get to prepare before the visit comes, you don't get to scurry around while the pope is visiting and just make a few arrangements as the pope sits ignored. It's the same with winter, but I don't think we fully engaged like everyone else. We are still debating whether it's worth buying snow tires for our puny little hybrid car. People familiar with my car history will be amused to know that we have already had the Pruis towed, last week. It wouldn't start. The even more amusing end to the story is that it started the minute it got to the dealership.
Other than tires, our winter preparations are all about heating and baby clothing. We both have gotten very familiar with daily woodstove maintenance; we learned a special wood stacking technique from my father; we keep the mud room stacked with wood; we keep a small box of wood next to the stove; we don’t lose the matches.
Clem has an amusing winter outfit which I’m told makes her look like the kids from ‘A Christmas Story’. Of course I’ve never seen this movie because I was media-deprived, but I understand the concept, which is that when she’s fully suited up she can’t right herself if she falls over. The big gap in this outfit is the mittens—little fleece things are not enough to withstand serious wintery blasts. We need to get some serious windproof equipment for her. I could write a long note about winter coats for adults, too—we are not prepared.
Jason and I both like our work. Jase is teaching twice a week at the Center for Cartoon Studies. He loves it. He likes being with like-minded people, and he likes the teaching. We are still splitting our care of Clem fairly evenly, but when he is not with her or teaching cartoonists he is working very hard to finish volume two of Berlin (City of Smoke, in case you have been wondering what came after City of Stones). He works every night and almost every day on this, so he is very busy and also very close to the end, probably a month away. I have just noted signs of stress.
I’m working at Farm & Wilderness, the Quaker-inspired summer camps where I was a counselor in the 90s. Pieter and Corky, our friends and landlords, are the ED and the Development Director, respectively, and needed a little help when C changed jobs. I’m editing the newsletter and maintaining the website. It involves no html. It’s nice to be there, and it’s a good amount of hours so far (two days a week). If you are an F&W alum, don’t forget to write in with your What We Are Doing note. I also am still writing Ask Umbra.
My mom is babysitting regularly, and my dad is perpetually being helpful about Living in Vermont. We see them often, which is nice.
We like being here. It’s beautiful, and quiet. It feels like the physically correct place for me. I love being able to walk out of the house and into the woods, and when the weather was warm I swam in our pond every day. Soon I’ll be able to ski out the door with Clem on my back, or drive a very short distance to ski on groomed wooded trails. I saw an owl fly by a few days ago, across the road.
The drawback so far is that we miss you all. For a few months we simply banished Seattle from our minds, but now we can no longer ignore the fact that we used to live somewhere else and miss our friends. Or, that we used to have friends and a social life. Those of you who don’t live in Seattle, we will start seeing some of you soon and that may help ameliorate the temporary loss of the Quad, our great neighborhood.
The photos are: Clem on the Appalachian Trail; the two maples and pond are the view from our driveway; the field is to the right of the driveway photo; there's a photo of the pond that I uploaded by mistake; the cow is at the Tunbridge World's Fair, also in September. Clem's first cow sighting.
