Things that would not happen in Washington (but would happen in a movie)

Hello, friends. It's been waaaaay too long. Maybe some of you are still using RSS feeds, and will see this.

I've been feeling pulled to come back and post some things here again, frequently, and have put those feelings aside.

But then something so completely in the original spirit of City Mouse Country happens here where I live now that I cannot help but share it, and it feels like a (kind of violent) sign from God that I need to return here.

From the local paper: Plane, deer collide at Keene airport

City Mouth Country

Things I got used to in 8 years of city life that continue to disappoint me after SO MANY years not in the city: restaurants that are open on Mondays. I just want a damn Cobb salad.

Errand Grrrl

We haven't talked a lot about the advantages of living in a small city, over the other kinds of places I've lived in: small towns and big cities and even medium-urban non-city census-designated place counties.

But here it is.
At 12:58 p.m., I was pulling my car out of the work parking lot.

I then:

• Drove to the bank
• Parked
• Went into the bank
• Endorsed two checks
• Deposited them
• Drove to the library (narrowly avoiding hitting RI's step-grandmother as I went)
• Parked
• Went into the library
• Applied for and received a library card*
• Found the book I wanted
• Checked it out
• Drove to the dry-cleaner
• Parked
• Dropped off a comforter for cleaning
• Walked to the fish market
• Bought lunch
• Drove back to the work parking lot
• Parked
• Walked back into my building and up the stairs to my office.

At 1:29 p.m., I was sitting at my desk, eating phenomenal seafood chowder and writing this post.

Thirty-one minutes, friends.

*I already had a college library card, which lets me take books out of either library. Today, I decided it was high time I had an actual city library card.

Power

The day before Thanksgiving, we hand a biggish snowstorm up here — big enough that my boss sent me home at noon.

I lost electricity for a couple of hours in the afternoon and a few more in the evening. RI and I hauled the mattress off my bed and moved it into the living room, where we were able to keep a fire going and read to each other by flashlight.

Day 22 of our month of gratitude: I am thankful for electricity, for the people who work hard to ensure that I have it nearly without thinking of it, and for alternatives on the rare occasions when I don't.

I can breathe in a small town

So about that fundraiser last Saturday.

It was for Green Mountain Crossroads, which is an organization I love and support, and which organization has also given me so much. And I am bad at asking for money, and did it poorly the other night, but I'm going to do it poorly here, too, because it matters to me, a lot. One thing that made it easier the other night was that I was talking to such a great and mixed group: rural queers, GMC volunteers, beloved allies. Oh, hey. That's a group not unlike you people.

Even before he started the "It Gets Better" project, sex advice columnist Dan Savage talked a lot to young LGBTQ people about how their lives would be better once they got old enough to leave their small towns and go to a city where they'd find more people like them. For some people, that is no doubt good and even life-saving advice.

But: I tried that.

I moved to a city in my 20s for many reasons, in part to find more queers. And... I didn't succeed. I found a handful of wonderful gay men, and eventually I found a closeted girlfriend. As much as I love (in some cases, still do love) that tiny handful of people, they weren't a big community of queers. They were great friends, but they weren't a wider circle of friends and acquaintances. Those individuals had my back and helped make my life fun and richer, but they weren't a network of support.

Those things, I found (eventually) when I moved back to a rural place, thanks in no small part to Green Mountain Crossroads and its predecessor organization.

That is what GMC does: It supports and uplifts rural queers. Some of that is community-building, in dances and social events. Some of that is support-type support, in a confidential queer-and-questioning youth group and a monthly trans pot luck and discussion and a local group for LGBTQ people with disabilities. Some of that is political organizing and leadership training and consulting with businesses and healthcare providers who want to be more queer-friendly*.

GMC is doing all that with the help of some dedicated volunteers and one part-time employee. We want to do even more.

Day 17 of our month of gratitude: I am so, so thankful for the work of Green Mountain Crossroads and other organizations like it, and I am very thankful for the folks who've supported GMC's current fundraising push. Want to be one of those people? The donate button's here. Small monthly gifts make even more of a difference, and you can set that up online, too.

*Helpful hint: If your business has bathrooms, and if they are single-person bathrooms, and if they currently have gendered signs on the doors, take those signs off, for starters. It just makes everyone's life easier and involves literally no commitment to the cause.

Unplanned

Someone recently asked me how blogging fit into my daily life, and I responded with something like, "I WISH blogging fit into my daily life."

And you all know that's true, that for me blogging is mostly a way of staying in touch (though I love all my internet-only buddies here, too), and that I love staying in touch.

But also? I am just filled with gratitude for my life right now. Like, people ask how my weekend was, and I say, "busy," while rolling my eyes and almost out of breath, but the fact of the matter is, I choose my busy, because my life is filled to brimming with fun stuff and I don't want to miss out on any of it.

I've had this problem before; in college, I'd stay up late and get up early (sometimes), just because I didn't want to miss latenight conversations or shenanigans in the hallway of my dorm, and if I could get myself up in time, I didn't want to miss breakfast with a different group of amazing people.

For example, this weekend was the first in a long time that RI and I didn't have any plans — and we have a lot of heavily planned weekends coming up. In this unplanned weekend, I:

• Went to a lecture on "The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity"
• Visited with my parents and some old family friends
• Went yardsaling
• Hit the farmer's market
• Took a nap
• Started a new book (reading, not writing)
• Watched a documentary
• Had a date night out at our favorite Latin American restaurant
• Played a new game
• Set up a screen tent and a queen-sized airbed on the deck and fell asleep watching the fireflies (and woke up hearing birdsongs and the neighbor kid practicing violin)
• Went to church and heard my dad preach a really excellent sermon on the child refugees
• Took another nap
• Had a spontaneous ice cream double date with some friends
• Went to the supermarket
• Played with my niece and nephew
• Saw the very end of the World Cup final
• Read with my niece and nephew
• Had dinner with the family

I did not:

• Go to bed as early as I planned
• Get the laundry done
• Do a little writing for work
• Blog

...but I wouldn't have missed any of it. I mean, right?

Stormy weather

Today, my workplace was closed due to snow.

The highlights:

• As I am part of the "emergency communications team" at said workplace, I got up at 5:15 a.m. to share the word. Which mostly went fine.
• At about 6:15 a.m., after attempting to record the outgoing message for the switchboard about one million times, I texted my neighbor and subsequently went to her house in my pajamas to try again on her landline. That went better.
• I watched a few episodes of Dexter. Big revelation: A date that is featured sort of casually but repeatedly on that show is my exact date of birth. So that's fun.
• I videochatted with my sister and niece and nephew, which included tours of both houses, a puppet show, and my nephew's enjoyment of a toy drill for just slightly too short a time for me to come up with "that looks boring" as a clever thing to say. Those kids are very very very amused by seeing me upside down or sideways.
• I ventured out to the convenience store .6 miles away from my house on foot, both because I needed the exercise and because my driveway wasn't plowed yet. It took almost an hour round-trip because of the snow.
• My sweet friends had a temperature-solstice pot luck over the weekend that I was very excited about but then was too sick to attend, with the result that I have an excess of my favorite summer dish, which means peach cobbler, which is seriously summer in a bowl and good for the spirits of the snowbound.
• I watched Breaking Away. Golly, that's a good cast and a beautiful movie.

So, pretty much of a win overall.

How's your day going?

Vomit, leather, criminals, and a treadmill

I haven't posted much, but I haven't been doing much. Here are four things I have done, unrelated to each other, in chronological order:

• I got crazy-sick with that stomach bug that's going around. It was over fast(ish), but while it was not over, it was a nightmare. I don't recommend it.
• I went to a leather/drag-themed New Years Eve/birthday party, and it was super-fun. I don't know what more information on that readers are likely to want, so I present it just like that, with an invitation for question-asking.
• I put together a treadmill with a femme friend. In case you are wondering about our mad problem-solving skillz, we put the handle in the freezer, and also used olive oil. If you are marveling at our awesomeness, you are right to do so. If you are scoffing, well, shut up. I have a fully functional treadmill, and did not have one before we thought to employ the freezer and the EVOO.
• I caught myself reading the police and court reports in the local newspaper and then Facebook searching to see if I know anyone in common with any of the perpetrators or alleged perpetrators. I realized as I did so that it was not the first time I've done that. I am unsure if that is just a thing people in small towns do, or if it is just my own quirk, but regardless, I'm not sure how to feel about it.

...and apple cider doughnuts

This weekend has been full of many little blessings, like those of us who are lucky enough to live in New England in the fall and have good people around us get.

Here's a partial list of things for which I am thankful as I wind down on this Sunday evening:

• Fireplaces
• Birthday parties
• Humor
• My sister's family and friends
• Crossword puzzles
• The Office on DVD
• Newly discovered local doughnut shops
• Discount grocery stores
• NPR
• Phone calls with friends and family
• Brussels sprouts
• Drives in the bleak rural November
• Future plans
• Leftovers
• Shared kitchen time
• Windblown outsides that make inside cozier
• So, so much love

Day 10 of our month of gratitude: I am thankful for nearly perfect weekends that don't have to end on Sunday night.

Moral: No good comes of candlepin

Last night, I went to a birthday party for a stranger who was turning 30.

Her boyfriend is a friend and former temporary coworker of RI's. He'd arranged a party for a few dozen people at a local candlepin bowling alley.* It's a cute little small-town place with a bar in the entry and eight lanes of very old-timey-looking candlepin lanes; they don't serve food, so people brought cupcakes and snacks, and standard practice is that you leave your shoes and coats on or around the unguarded coat rack by the door, and then cross the bar to get your bowling shoes by the lanes themselves.

So we ditched our coats and shoes and then got into a conversation in the bar, standing around in our sock feet, which was clearly no big deal. At one point, my nose started to itch, so I went back to my coat to grab a tissue.

I should back up a little.

I have over the last few years owned a bunch of jeans that ranged widely in quality and in time bought, but the universe has colluded so that all of them became unwearable in roughly the same six-week period. I was out of jeans, which, bummer, because I wear jeans all the time. So last weekend I stopped by my favorite TJ Maxx and found one pair of nearly perfect jeans.

They fit great.

They look great.

They were very cheap.

But... the front pockets were fake. Like, there's stitching where the pockets should be to look like pockets, but they are not pockets. The back pockets are regular, and real.

And I bought them anyway, because they fit and look good and were cheap and I was entirely out of jeans, but, well, if there are any aspiring jeans designers out there who think maybe women don't want to use front pockets: It is way easier to just not use pockets that are there than it is to use pockets that are not there. Jackasses.

All of which is by way of explaining why my phone, car keys, and tissues were in my coat pocket. My wallet was in my back jeans pocket, which would horrify my chiropractor, but whatever. I went back to my coat to get a tissue — except my coat wasn't there. My plain black winter coat was just gone from the rack. I assumed someone had taken it thinking it was theirs, and my first concern was whether they'd left the party completely or just gone outside to smoke — because the phone would be easy enough to retrieve, since our host knew everyone and was nearby, and I could use bar napkins as tissues, but without the car keys, we weren't going home.

And as I was trying to decide exactly how much to freak out, I saw, out the window, the birthday girl, wearing my coat, complete with the pin my grandmother made. Now, that was mostly good news. She was unlikely just to take off and not return to her own party, and even if she did, her boyfriend was still in the bowling alley.

So I turned my mind to the matter of worrying about whether when I did get it back, it'd smell like smoke and make my whole car smell like smoke.

Meanwhile, through my internal meltdown, RI was deep in one of those conversations where there's not really a break to interrupt. Eventually, after probably ten minutes that felt like years, I explained what was going on, and the person we'd been talking to was very concerned. But what was I going to do? "Happy 30th birthday, please don't steal my coat"?

I was just going to have to wait it out.

And wait it out I did, until she returned. I didn't actually notice her, but RI's conversation buddy did, and nudged me, and I scurried back to the coat rack to move my coat to a less visible location, where it remained until I retrieved it.

Day 9 of our month of gratitude: I am thankful to have my coat back, smelling surprisingly unlike smoke. Further, I am thankful to have a warm winter coat at all.


*Yes, that is a real thing up here. No, that is not the kind of bowling RI and I normally do.

Dirty Dirty

Sunday night, I was fortunate enough to attend a Dirty Dancing-themed birthday party for a friend.*

We watched the movie and followed up with a dance party. People were encouraged to bring watermelon — and dress as their favorite characters.

I obviously went as Vivian Pressman.

For those of you unfamiliar with the film, or who just haven't seen it, say, this week, Vivian Pressman is this woman:

Recreating that hairstyle wasn't easy, but it was spectacular. I showered and washed my hair early Sunday evening, and then employed a whole lot of gel and very many bobby pins. Sadly, there are no pictures, but I looked awesome.

Monday, I had a long drive and decided I'd just showered the night before, so I could skip it that morning. The hair gel was sort of an issue, but by combing my hair and putting it back in a ponytail, I looked presentable — and thanks to said gel, the ponytail stayed in place all day.

Yesterday, I overslept and was running late for work. Also, my hair looked fantastic, practically immediately on getting out of bed. That is obviously a sign. No shower.

Yesterday afternoon, in what I assumed at the time was an unrelated event, I could smell myself. You know how you assume people who smell bad are accustomed to their own odor, and therefore do not smell themselves? Yeah, that was not me. I smelled awful, and was really worried that was just how I smell now. I thought of lots of possible causes, mostly ones that would be difficult to rectify.

It was not until this morning, as I got ready to take my shower, that it occurred to me that that might solve the whole smelling-bad problem, and that I could have fixed it more than twelve hours sooner by just showering when I got done with work.**

*It was in a yurt in Vermont. RI and I obviously called it "Yurty Dancing," and I amused myself and at least a couple other people by observing that the big advantage to being in a yurt was that nobody could put Baby in the corner.

**Actually, I couldn't showered quite when I got done with work, because I was dealing with the fact that apparently e-mailing pictures from my phone is sufficient to break it in such a way that I can no longer make phone calls. But that's a post for another day. I could have showered a few hours after I was done with work, certainly.

My Yankee Doodle

I tried to say this on my own Facebook page, but it just sounded scoldy and soapboxy, so it felt like I should maybe take it over here, where I actually have a soapbox.

There's a nuclear power plant in our region that has been bad news for lots of very real reasons, and people have been protesting its existence for a long time.

And now it's slated to shut down.

 And a lot of folks are celebrating, and I get it, but — I grew up near a nuclear power plant that employed a lot of people, and this is not all good news.

In a town of about 2,200 people, 630 jobs were just lost. Obviously, not everyone who works at Vermont Yankee lives in Vernon — which means we'll feel the effects regionwide. And 630 people either lost their jobs or will be relocated to other areas. That's hard for many of them.
And also:

• For those who benefited from those individuals' presence in the community
• For those who made money selling them goods and services
• For those who are served by the nonprofits they donated to or volunteered for
• For those who were already looking for jobs who will now have to compete with a whole new pool of skilled labor
• For really, probably, everyone in the region, whether they understand it or not.

Other people have also already acknowledged that (there's a really great editorial out there that I suddenly can't find; if you know the one, please feel free to link to it in the comments), but my own circle seems much more inclined to rejoice first, ask questions later. And I do not mean to diminish the role of people who've spent countless hours working to stop something that has been (and will continue to be for decades, actually) a real danger. I know I sound scoldy. I don't mean to sound scoldy.

But I'm seeing this as a mixed blessing, for sure. There are people I like having around who will not be as a result of this, and it makes me sad.

Several thousand words on the state of my deck

Note: On the Facebook page, I mentioned a little while back that I had a folder full of drafts I never finished: More than 60 of 'em, in fact. I'm going through that folder now, deleting what's not worth it, posting what might entertain you. This gem dates back to February 2011; I'm skipping around some, chronologically. 

Notes from 2013: That was the winter the ice fell off the roof and smashed the deck furniture, which I'd foolishly left out before the first snowfall, and then had never had little enough snow or ice to retrieve it.
And that pretty pyramid in the middle picture? That's my grill. Note the depth of the snow.

Ramblin', man

Friday night, I went to the Amos Fortune Forum with my folks. I think I've talked about this cool little lecture series here before, but in case not: Once a week in the summer, there's a lecture on some topic of interest, often by a renowned scholar or author, for which the speaker is compensated one jug of maple syrup. It happens in the meeting house of my parents' tiny town, about half an hour east of where I live. It's amazing. You should go, if you're in the area on a summer Friday.

Last night's talk was by a woman whose dad was a spy, about what it's like when your dad's a spy. It was cool, if a little strange that more of the talk was dedicated to bowling in her bathrobe than to spy stuff, but still, you know I'm a sucker for a good bowling story. And this was a good one. It's in her book.

Afterward, I decided I'd rather sleep on my parents' sleeping porch than drive home, even knowing that I don't usually sleep well there, and even knowing that I had a hair appointment at 9 in the morning about half an hour west of where I live, which is to say an hour west of where I spent Friday night.

But I got up in plenty of time and rolled up my sleeping bag and drove home to have a few minutes to putter around before I continued on to my hair appointment.

And once I got there, I realized I'd left my purse at my parents' house.

It's an easy mistake to make, because I almost never carry a purse.

But still, my purse had both my wallet and my checkbook in it, so I was not going to a) have means to pay for this haircut without making an extra hourlong roundtrip to my parents' place, or b) have time to make said roundtrip and still get to the hair appointment.

SO, I called my parents and then called the hairdresser to reschedule for later in the afternoon, and crashed on the couch for a bit (not having slept well the night before) and drove to my parents' house, grabbed my purse, drove back to my town, ran a few errands, went to the hairdresser, got a lovely new haircut which I paid for by check, and then drove another half hour south to cook dinner for RI (gazpacho and salmon, if you were wondering). We had a very nice time.

Sunday morning, RI had to be at work at 7, so we got up together and had the breakfast casserole I'd put in the Crock Pot the night before, and I slept for about three more hours, got up, did the dishes, and headed out for the hourlong drive home.

And once I got there, I realized I'd left my laptop at RI's. And rather than burst into tears, I crashed on the couch for about five more hours before deciding I just couldn't bear driving another hour back down there, only to have to drive an hour back, either last night or this morning before work.

All by way of explaining why you didn't get a blog post Sunday.

How was your weekend?

(Oh, and then I woke up this morning sick. You know how I love being sick.)

An open letter to my local Kia dealer

Note: On the Facebook page, I mentioned a little while back that I had a folder full of drafts I never finished: More than 60 of 'em, in fact. I'm going through that folder now, deleting what's not worth it, posting what might entertain you. This gem dates back to June 2010; I'm skipping around some, chronologically. 

Dear local Kia dealer,
When your ad campaign immediately makes me wonder if a terrorist sent it,

1. I lived and worked in a post-9/11 D.C. area for too long, and/or
2. I've been watching too much "Sleeper Cell," and/or
3. You need a new ad campaign.

Either way, I am happy with my car and will not need a Kia. You may save your plain white envelopes with my address handwritten on it, with no return address. You may save your first-class stamp, and use your creepy-vague post-it notes for someone else.

Thank you,
bzzzzgrrrl

Favorite things

Note: On the Facebook page, I mentioned a little while back that I had a folder full of drafts I never finished: More than 60 of 'em, in fact. I'm going through that folder now, deleting what's not worth it, posting what might entertain you. This gem dates back to January 2008. And is still true. 

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

And owning a house that I enjoy having people in, close enough to town that when I am in a bar for happy hour, and the waiters are being both slow and rude, and acting as though we are an imposition, I can say, "Hey, wanna just go have a drink at my house?"

And then we all do.

And even though the happy hour bars are cheap (so cheap, you city slickers, you would not believe), the drinks already in my house are cheaper. The beers other people show up with? Cheaper still.

What's up

Last night, a loyal reader and close friend said, "City Mouse has been quiet. Bzzzzgrrrl must have a [romantic interest] or something."

Which... maybe. OK, yes. You'll get an introduction soon.

But also, things have been generally busy around here. Everyone has moved, and I have helped several of them. Some of my favorite people, including both niece and nephew, have had birthdays. Another loyal reader and close friend celebrated her 20th anniversary with her husband; they've both been good friends of mine for even longer than they've been married to each other, and I took their kids overnight so they could have a little (precious little) alone time.

And I don't know if you know this, but I am the best babysitter. Not a great parent, because I am not smart enough to pace myself. But give me 24 hours and a couple of kids, and we will do All The Things.

In this particular 24 hours, we:

• watched a movie (with popcorn!) 
• went to a softball game (with a playground! and a puppy! and had ice cream!) 
• had everyone's favorite bagels for breakfast, cut the way they like them
• went to the supermarket
• went to my parents' house (where there was another little dog! and a porch! and a little door under the stairs like in Harry Potter!)
• went to the town reading of the Declaration of Independence (plus Yankee Doodle!) 
• toured a real old one-room schoolhouse with a real old-timey fire engine outside
• went to an ice cream social (before lunch!)
• had lunch with everyone's favorite kind of everything 
• went swimming in the lake for a loooooooong time, including a fun new game where Kid 1 and I just threw Kid 2 back and forth between us 
• went back to my house to meet their folks 
• went to dinner at Applebee's 
• Plus sleeping. And reading.

I do not pretend that that day represents the pace of my day-to-day life over the past month or so, but it hasn't been so far off.

And those of you who follow CMC on Facebook (ahem) already know that I have another little blog-related project in the works, too; seems like about time to kick that one off!

A brief thought on a sunny morning

I wonder if the neighbor I just caught watching me put wet clothes on the line thinks there are no undergarments out there because:

• I don't wear them, or
• I am hopelessly puritanical and New Englandy, or
• I find these particular neighbors creepy and don't want them, specifically, looking at my undergarments.

'Sup?

It used to be that when I got busy, I just gave you a bulleted list of what was going on?

Yeah, let's do that again.

My long weekend:

• drinks with a friend
• a long chat with someone I needed a long chat with
• an attic sale in a basement
• a motorcycle blessing sans motorcycles
• pie
• lunch in plaid
• drinks in a bar, crashed by unwelcome morris dancers
• drinks in a different bar, populated by very welcome and much-beloved morris dancers
• morris dancing
• dinner with great conversation, entirely adequate food, and just the right amount of tickling and sliding under the table
• ice cream
• not enough cleaning — but not none cleaning
• plenty of sleep and a little reading (the Boxcar Children found human remains!)
• breakfast of homemade blueberry pancakes, eggs, and perfect avocado, eaten on a fire escape while watching a small-town Memorial Day parade
• bowling
• Arrested Development

Really, my life does not get a lot better than this.

May Day! May Day!

Somehow, it seems we have not discussed morris dancing here much.

Morris dancing is a form of English folk dancing blah blah hankies, sticks, swords, etc., yadda yadda Langstaff something bells something go read Wikipedia.

I first learned of morris dancing through my cousins, who dance or have danced with teams in the D.C. area (Foggy Bottom Morris Men) (Rock Creek Morris Women). One of my early exposures was through their annual May Day dance, which happens at dawn, and which I have dragooned a few other people into attending with me over the years. It's a neat tradition.

Now, the last time I attempted to write much about morris dancing, particularly in my current area, I sort of started an incident. The internet was younger and I was more foolish in 1998.

I will attempt not to start any incidents this time, but I will say, one of my good friends up in these northern parts is also a morris dancer, and so I saw her team and one other dance this morning at dawn (which necessitated me getting up before 4, I'll have you know) on a mountaintop, and it was lovely. Great dancing, great company, stunning weather. Here are my (I hope) noncontroversial observations, based on years of morris spectating, followed by some pictures.

• Drinking 32 ounces of Pepsi on an empty stomach at 4:15 in the morning may keep you awake for your drive and subsequent hike, but is it worth it? Really?
• Nothing ensures that you will not need a flashlight on a sunrise hike like having a flashlight on a sunrise hike.
• A group of people outside and up earlier than should be true are often in pretty good spirits.
• Putney may be the Takoma Park of the north, or vice versa.
• Morris dancing is one of those things that makes a slow shutter response really infuriating. Whatever fun morris thing you are trying to get a picture of, the thing you will get a picture of happened after it.
• I may go to mountaintop or National Mall, to the rural reaches of New Englande or the bustling Parke of Takoma, to the north or the mid-Atlantic, and no matter how often or deliberately I move, wherever there be dancers with funny costumes and songs of whimsy, there will be someone prepared to stand directly between me and these dancers.

Putney Mountain Morris Women dance in very little light.

It worked! The sun's coming up.

Now there is cake, impaled on a sword. 

Really good cake, that I accept from a stranger and eat without even thinking about it.

Putney Morris Men dance in somewhat more light.

...and so do PMMW.