Secret Places Right Next Door

Hey, man - Long time, no bla bla bla. All that jazz.

My most recent adventures can be read about at the blog I kept for our trip to Ecuador over the February break. It's at lmmhsecuadortrip2010.blogspot.com, if you're interested. And if you're not. It's still there.

We had a great trip, but it was exhausting. I ate breakfast twice the whole time. I was always charging around, doing something, getting something set up or paid for...Or asleep. That's how I rolled on that trip. 21 kids, too - Too many, I think. It becomes such a production. I want to limit it in future, but then I sit and try to think of the kids out of this group that I would have eliminated. There are a couple, sure, but not that many. Part of me wants to limit it to 10, just because that's a nice round number. But that seems small - so I think about 15, but then that's hardly any different from 21. Who knows. It's a lot to try to figure out in one night.

Q is off on a sleepover at his friend Chris' house. Chris' birthday party, it is, so he, T and I all trooped over to Wal-Mart to get Chris a present this morning. Not that we wanted to go to Wal-mart, but Q knew he wanted to get Chris a nerf gun, and the cool, independent toy store we like to patronize in North Adams (Persnickety Toys) doesn't carry deadly weapons, or plastic simulacra thereof. So we knew we had to go to the Death Star. Might as well get it over with.

That was one of our adventures this morning - another was pancakes. I'm getting pretty consistent about hauling my kiester out of bed to go make the damn weekend pancakes. I experimented this weekend a bit and used a touch less milk (the recipe says they will be fluffier that way). But they wound up very dense and high - the batter was barely liquid. The kids didn't notice anything anyway. But what do they know - they prefer Aunt Jemima's to the local Vermont syrup we get here. Those kids are Philistines.

I just saw some syrup being boiled up this afternoon, actually - dropped over to my friend Mark's house to drop off a soccer jersey I bought for his son Owen, Q's friend, in Ecuador. He has ten sugar maples tapped, and he was getting a head start on boiling the sap down. Owen and Ronadh were out doing a science adventure outing in Springfield, so Mark had taken the chance to stand outside on the deck in the bracing spring air in his red flannel, six-foot-two and bearded and slim and manly, getting a head start on the syrup making. The whole incident made me feel inferior on many levels, so I scurried home to mutter to myself miserably. After only one beer and most of a bowl of popcorn.

But I was made to feel better this evening by an outing we had not seen coming at all. My colleague Stephanie Sears, who, along with her husband Russ, whom I'd never met before, had accompanied me on the trip to Ecuador, had invited us up to the Mount Greylock Ski Club, right here in Williamstown, for their monthly Moonlight Ski. As cool as their website makes it sound, it's cooler than that. Membership is a pittance, the skiing (so they tell me) is great, and it's the friendliest, warmest bunch of local folks I think I've ever met. All very woolen and hearty and down-to-earth, in a shed of a ski lodge that absolutely screams "family" and "acceptance" and "community". I met most of Russ' extended family (they're from Dalton and have been members forever), enjoyed a potluck supper, listened in to some guitar pickin' (Stephanie had encouraged me to bring my guitar, and I had brought it, but I just couldn't bring myself to jump in somehow), and otherwise had a grand time. Sampled local homewade wines, sat around the woodstove...They never fired up the rope tow (they have a rope tow!) while we were there, but next year, I pretty much plan on becoming a member. I got a great feeling from the place. Jiminy Peak is great, for skiing, but everything around the skiing is flat (emotionally) and impersonal. Here, the skiing might be phenomenal for all I know. Doesn't really matter. Because when they cracked out the fireworks that Russ had driven to New Hampshire to buy that afternoon, and T stood under the moonlight with a girl she'd just met and giggled and cackled at the spectacle as the steam rose from her upturned face, there was nowhere else on Earth I wanted to be. Just a fantastic little outing. Big thanks to Russ and Stephanie!

Q, apparently, has entered pre-adolescence with a vengeance. Janneke tells me that he was quite the hellion while I was away, and that she has taken on an attitude of being as patient and accepting as she can. Its sudden onset seems to have convinced her that it's simply hormonal and inevitable, and that the best thing will be to stand clear and keep you hands and feet well away from his moving parts. I, naturally, being an evil person, have considered the possibility that this will enable him to be a more aggressive player on the soccer field in the spring. See? There's just no hope for me.

Q's championship game for his basketball league has been postponed more times than you can imagine. We had a snow day Wednesday, for a storm that started Tuesday night, and they called it off again. But I had been at practice on Monday, for about half of it - I had planned to spend the hour he would be in practice delivering the presents to Brad and Betsy's kids, and also to Owen. But Owen hadn't been home (hence today's dispiriting visit to Mark the Hale and Hearty), and I'd had time to kill, so I'd gone back and watched some of Q's practice. Something I ordinarily wouldn't have done.

The cool thing was that they were practicing in a combined practice with an older team from Lanesborough. The guys who coached the Lanesborough kids were big, tall guys, around 40, who looked to be former ball players themselves. And when they broke out into teams and began scrimmaging, Q wound up clearing out to the corner and firing up a long, arcing jumpshot. It rimmed out, but it had looked very pretty before doing so.

The other team recovered, and Q went back on D. He stood near the top of the key, and read a pass that two of the bigger kids wanted to make. He stepped in quickly and poked the ball downcourt, and followed it with his trademark speed. He collected it and got a couple of dribbles in before laying it up perfectly and in, over the attempted block of one of the bigger kids. And then he trotted back down the court.

One of the Lanesborough coaches, arms crossed against his chest, turned to Q's coach and mouthed, "What's his name?"

The coach told him.

He repeated it, then nodded gravely.

Nice.

A little later on, Q wound up all alone, too far to shoot, with no one to pass to. But he hadn't picked up his dribble - he hadn't dribbled at all. I laughed to myself and said "C'mon, Q, dribble!" Not loudly - just a sort of commentary. The coach was sitting just below me and turned to say, "That's his gift, too: dribbling. He's a very good ball handler."

Har-dee-har!

OK, Janneke's out of the shower, and we're thinking of trying to watch a movie. So, as you were. I'll write more when I'm damn good and ready.