Kettlecorn.

There's a flame under the cauldron that comes roaring to life.  You check your protective sleeves, flick down your visor and toss a half dozen kernels of popocorn into the rapidly heating oil.  You wait until they start to pop and quickly dump in the scoopful of popcorn and then directly upon that a smaller scoop of sugar.  You grab up the wooden paddle and start stirring the bubbling mix of kernel, oil and sugar.  Back, forth, around, back forth, around.  A few begin to pop and then a few more -- and you stir more vigorously.  Spatterings of oily sugar and rogue kernels fly up and most, but not all arc back into the great kettle.  A needle-sharp jab of oil hits an exposed bit of skin on your neck.  And then things intensify into a shocking machine-gun crescendo of popping and flying.  Passersby pause to see what the commotion is.  As the climax passes you slam down the lever and the roar of the burner stops, but the popping keeps going and you keep stirring as fast as you can.  Finally, you grab a handle and lever the whole cauldron up onto its side to dump the steaming kettlecorn out onto the perforated metal bin.  Once you spread it, salt it, spread it again and salt it again -- you have kettlecorn ready to bag and sell for the fairgoers.

For 7 hours at the Washington County fair, I made the batches, one after another and Gordon helped to bag them.  It's the year's great fundraiser for the cub scout pack -- and in exchange for our sweaty shifts -- we don't have to distract the scouts with fundraising for the rest of the year.

The thunderstorms and their torrents had passed on -- leaving the clouds to shred themselves into sunlit tatters.  I drove the back roads to the winery in North Stonington for the Thursday night music.  It was The River Gods playing -- roots rock -- a little reminiscent of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but with a bit of Grateful Dead mixed in and put out with mandolin and pedal steel guitar.

I was alone for the first set (they played till they'd broken one string too many).  The nearly full moon was rising in a lacework of blue clouds, and the purple peach sunset was fading down over the back horizon.  A treefrog was chuckling somewhere over my right shoulder.  Monica had gone to Boston to pick up Hanno and they arrived the same time as Yuri and Sarka.  Then the zinfandel and merlot and conversation flowed and I lost track of all but the most soulful of the music.

The next time you hear someone describe John McCain as a "maverick" this is a nice video to show them:

The URL is: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBfngOsvmA0

Box Lots

I went to the estate auction for Florence Drew -- who died a month shy of 96.  With a distracted flock of other bidders you wander along -- following the auctioneer as he jollies you along through the mounds and piles and boxes of an old lady's stuff.  I bought a pile of her gardening tools and got a little green and yellow push cart for Monica.  Mrs. Drew had upholstered the seat of her old Model A when it had outlived the car.  I have a weird liking for the crunch of horsehair, and so for the fair price of 5 dollars that's become a bench in the basement.  A pair of nice oak chairs for $7.50 each (and the man who I outbid shook his head regretfully and said I got a very good deal).  And because I'd also been willing to pay 5 bucks for a few old Zane Gray novels, I ended up with a pile of 5 box lots tossed together.  One, of fabric, I opportunistically pawned off on a church lady, and I gave a framed photo to someone who knew one of the people pictured.  But the rest came home to be sorted into keep, donate or discard.  Pictures and books and old housewares mostly.  Ah, the guilty pleasures of being an auction bottom-feeder.

Bridget Gilchrist Gary Quillen Johnson

Welcome to the world, niece!

Cathie and Eric brought a new baby girl into the world last night.  Word is that baby and mother and father and grandmothers are all doing fine.

(Cue the image of a ball sending the duckpins flying -- and a new life knocks other lives end over end over end.)

Two weeks early, 19 and 3/4 inches, and 6 lbs 13 oz.

Gigi and the proud grandpa

A she-sparrow eyed a spider that hung in its web.  As she stretched her neck forward toward it, the spider vanished into a brownish blur, vibrating like sand on a drum-head.  The sparrow drew back, cocking her head and looking stupid.  A spider body came back into focus.  The sparrow stretched forward again and again the spider blurred.  The sparrow sat perplexed for a moment before some distraction sent her flitting off noisily with the other sparrows.  The spider hung in its web.

I posted a short essay over at DailyKos:

The Last Boondoggle and Civilization's Endgame.

A true boondoggle is a marvelous thing.  It's more than just a mistake or a normal swindle.  It is a burst of misguided energy and activity that completely fails to accomplish what it is supposed to -- but which serves the purposes of the boondoggler perfectly well . . . . 

Click here for the full post.

The economy lands a blow.

Cutbacks at work -- the company's in the red.  Fewer hours, less pay, and my job security flips to job insecurity.

It's not quite dire straits, yet, but cast your money-spells for us as we scramble to re-cobble our cash flows.

As I passed between the quince and the blackberries, a large and buzzing insect flew into my beard.  I thought it was a clumsy beetle, but you can't actually see whatever it is that is entangling itself on your chin.  I swiped at the struggling thing a few times before I noticed the swaying paper-hall of the paper wasps.  I swiped harder and ran.

Monica said that she guessed it was good I'd kept the beard an extra day, but the annoying thing still ought to go.

My grandmother's grandfather had 13 children -- including my grandmother's father, Roy Metz, and her dozen aunts and uncles.  Entire clans sprang from those 13.  

And every summer since the 1950's, on the last weekend of July, members of those clans, nine or ten score in number, gather in the home valley.  They bring food, they bring family news, bring new children, spouses, grandchildren.  And they come for the barn dance.

The Metz's and the Browns still farm the narrow end of the valley, northwards up to where it opens up and the Amish dominate with their own clans and sects. 

It feels to me like a natural rhythm -- to return to central Pennsylvania every hot summer to that farm where my grandfather was born; where my grandparents raised cattle on the mountainside and in the meadows along the creek; and where then my uncle Fred and now my cousin Scott have done the same.

We're not such outsiders yet that they can't put us to work -- when we insist.  

And tasks become traditional over time.  Uncle Bob and I sweep the barn floor each year to clear the dust for the dance.  This year there are new planks replacing those that used to sag underneath the band.  (Planks too ancient by far to stand up under the stomping of square dancers.)

Tradition is that many of the thicker planks are from the original barn that was put up in 1820. 

(In 1919 or so the stone sides had gone decrepit and it was torn apart and put together as a fully wooden barn -- and most of the great beams still show the notches and peg-holes of their first century of use.)  

Bob showed me how 20 years ago he had to jack up and saw off the rotten posts of the front -- putting down concrete where poor engineering had set them all upon an oaken log lain on the ground at the top of the barnbridge -- gone rotten after a mere 70 years of weather and wear.

Stay to the north of New York City,

and drive at night, 

and take 7 hours to make your way

from Rhode Island  

to the green and hillish heart of Pennsylvania.

Alberto Departs

Alberto left 

on Wednesday morning.

Off to California,

then to Costa Rica, 

then to Colombia, 

and perhaps back to Miami,

and Rhode Island.

A migratory man.

An Alberto story . . . .

"I used to do the payroll for my brother in the 1950's in Colombia.  He would get the money sometimes in the evening and I would drive the money, something like $20-30,000, out to towns far away, 2-3 hours.  And back then it was very dangerous on the roads.  Not political like today, but just bandits.  And I would drive that truck full speed, never stopping for so much as a drink of water.  He even gave me a pistol to take, but I dropped that it behind the seat.  I was terrified of the thing!  One time I drove something like four hours up into the mountains, and man I was thirsty at the end of it.  I got to the town and I went in to the bar and I asked the bartender, 'Please, sir, could I have a cold beer?'

But there was another man there, a big montanero in a rana and a hat.  And he said, "Oh no, you will have an agua ardiente!  Bartender give the doctor an agua ardiente!"  (They called me doctor because they thought I was the engineer like my brother.  You know I was dressed very well.)  

"Oh no sir," I said, "I’m very thirsty.  I drove today all the way today from Medellin."

"You’ll have an agua ardiente with me!" he shouted.  He was very drunk.  

So I said, “OK, bartender, give me an agua ardiente!” and I slapped my hand on the bar.

And we said, “Salud!” and we drank.  And then the big man in the rana said, “And now you will buy me an agua ardiente, just as a I bought you one.”  

And I said to the bartender, “Two agua ardientes!” and we drank again.  

“Now,” he said, “you can have your beer.”  And I offered him to buy a beer, but he said no that he only drank the agua ardiente.  And then I notice that the bartender was standing there with his fists clutched tight looking terrified.  But I went back to the hotel.

The next day we went back to the bar, because usually the director would give out the money in a restaurant or bar and buy the men a drink.  And the bartender he said to me excited, “You are the man who was here last night, no?” 

And I said,  “Yes, “and he said, “Oh doctor, I was so afraid for you.  That man, he is one of the most dangerous men in this area.  He’s killed like 5 policemen and I don’t know how many other men.  And last night, when he asked you to drink with him, he had a gun under his rana pointed at you.  If you had refused to drink with him he would have killed you.”  

And I said to myself “Jesus Christ!” and I was weak with fear.  A lot of men, especially like the engineers and professionals thought they were much higher than the common people and would have refused to drink with such a montanero and they would have said, “To hell with you!” when he asked them to drink.  But I was not that kind of man.  I was friendly to him and treated him well.  But Jesus Christ when I thought about the gun underneath the rana . . . . 

Lyme Disease, round two.

My thigh has a Jupiter on it, with its own great red spot -- in this case an ovoid hurricane of spirochetes.  Anyone who plays tick bite roulette here -- and I've had eight or ten tick bites this month -- is lucky to be taking only 2 or 3 weeks worth of antibiotics.

The doctor at the walk in clinic said they're getting 7 or 8 cases a day.  And he gave me the prescription.

She makes 

ratatouille

in the summertime.

How did I get

so lucky?

New York City is too big - a universe unto itself.

But what an extravaganza of human diversity!

We drove into the city on Tuesday evening after work, to stay with a friend in Brooklyn.  There was good Polish food on Bedford Avenue -- pierogi, kielbasa, sauerkraut, stuffed cabbage.  And Polish language murmuring through the small place to complete the aroma.

And Wednesday after a false start (who knew NYC buses don't take dollar bills?!) we met Denver, Rhonda and their little girl Maybelle for breakfast at a little locavore place by Cobble Hill park.  And afterwards sat on benches while the kids made sand castles in the park.

Then it was across town to Manhattan and the Museum of Natural History for large doses of paleontology and museum anthropology -- punctured with sightings of characters from the film "Night at the Museum".

And Central Park for late afternoon picnic of bagels.  And the boys got blue popsicles that turned them a sticky, zombie-like color.  We watched the herons and turtles of Turtle Pond, took the view from Belvedere Castle.

A bit after 7 I left them to their wanderings and took the subway back to Brooklyn where Denver was doing a reading with Matt Maneri.  Matt's improvisational viola perfectly complements the slightly disorienting rhythms of Denver's poetical tangents.  And the way they so clearly dig each other's stuff  adds a pleasure to the watching and listening.

Tuesday Morning 9 am

A man standing at the bus stop 

reading the newspaper is on fire

Flames are peeking out

from beneath his collar and cuffs

His shoes have begun to melt

The woman next to him 

wants to mention it to him

that he is burning

but she is drowning

Water is everywhere

in her mouth and ears

in her eyes

A stream of water runs

steadily from her blouse

Another woman stands at the bus stop

freezing to death

She tries to stand near the man

who is on fire to try to melt the icicles that have formed on her eyelashes

and on her nostrils to stop her teeth long enough from chattering to say something

to the woman who is drowning

but the woman who is freezing to death has trouble moving with blocks of ice on her feet

It takes the three some time to board the bus what with the flames and water and ice

But when they finally climb the stairs and take their seats the driver doesn’t even notice

that none of them has paid because he is tortured by visions and is wondering

if the man who got off at the last stop

was really being mauled to death

by wild dogs.

Denver Butson, from Triptych.

One of the bloggers at DailyKos had some extra tickets to the Ani DiFranco concert in Hyannis for Sunday night.  Their car was out of commission and they were looking for a ride in trade.  Hyannis is two hours away, but the tickets were free, they were right on the way, and it was practically a good deed.  So we left the boys with Alberto and hit the road.

Kimya Dawson put on a beautiful opening act -- a great sweet woman full of shyness and steel.  She played her stuff, including a few of her songs from the movie Juno, and the crowd was in love with her.

And Ani DiFranco is 95 pounds of guitar-pounding charisma.  She and her band had 'em on their feet.

Church

The Unitarian-Universalists keep their services rare and informal through the summer months.

And it's mostly about food and politics and jumping in a lake.

The girls are closing in on Porter.

Hospitality is an ancient art -- making a place for the guest, giving them food and cool water.  It is good to receive.  And Monica and I have received more than our share from Uzbekistan to Ireland to Costa Rica.  

But it's even better to give it back.  To seat your guest in the shade of your tree and pluck the best sun-warmed berries for them.  Especially when they've traveled from afar.

On Saturday Marysia and Ian came on the ferry across from Long Island for a visit with two Polish friends, Krystina and her niece Ewelina.  So we played hosts and settled everyone in the shade of the climbing tree and had an elaborate lunch spread out upon the table.  

And we took them into the woods where there were more berries -- blueberries, huckleberries, and dewberries just purpling.  And, since they were Poles, we showed off the wild mushrooms even though we don't know which ones are tasty and which ones are poisonous.

Last night people gathered at a beautiful hilltop winery in Stonington for music and wine.  By the time we got there just after 7, the raggedy trio of musicians was already filling the big sky with jouncey roots music.  We found a grassy spot beside a bed of lavender.  

"It's just like the Reunion, except people aren't related," said Nico as he plunked himself down onto one of Esperanza's quilts.   By the time Monica and I had bought and uncorked a bottle of the zinfandel, our friends Sharka and Yuri had shown up with their boys and Porter in tow.

The four boys quickly raced off through the alleys of grapevine toward the stonewalls where the trees drop an ordnance of little green apples.  The four adults were dismissed to their wine and their conversation.  

As humans big and small danced in the grass before the players, orange and blue sky gave way to indigo ink and an alabaster half-moon a-nest in the stars.  The boys were happily lost in the gloaming.