SMOKEY

It is a rare occurrence when on my morning walk I encounter someone and am happy to see them. At best it is a nuisance because Chaucer gets all crazy, at worst, it is an intrusion. The morning, as stated before, is for me a much needed meditation time, a time for breathing and listening. However, this man sometimes appears out of the forest.

I am going to call him S.M.O.K.E.Y. A: because he smells terrifically like cigarette smoke, and B: Spirit Man Of Knowledge Ethereal.... Yup. I have only seen him a couple times, and I have walked the old dirt roads of that park since I was in my early teens. Every time I have seen him he comes at me sideways...right out of the woods... literally, he walks out of the woods, not down the road like a mortal would. I think I may have mentioned him in a previous post at some point. The last time I saw him I was miles into the woods and he just walked out of behind an old oak tree. This time, he came out of an especially dark grove of pines. Oddly enough, its not creepy. I know it sounds all stalker and preyish, but he is a really nice guy. He always has this point-and-shoot camera with him and we compare pictures. He speaks really slowly and every time he has met me he has spoken about indigo buntings. This seems trivial, but on my list, they are the king of birds: black feathers that shine bright blue due to the diffraction of light through the hairs of their feathers. I have always wanted to see one, and he just seems to have scores of pictures of them on his camera. He is the Spirit of the Woods after all so that seems to make a lot of sense.

I saw him this morning, and as always, he had a treat in his pocket for Chaucer. He also had stories. He walks a ten mile route through the park every day. He has fed moose, he held a baby grouse in his hands, he rode a bear, bronco style through a wandering troupe of girlscouts... alright, maybe not that last one, but he has pictures as proof of the other two.

We talked for about ten minutes this morning. I admired his new pictures, he probed my knowledge of gold finches, and he walked away, down the road and into the woods on the right. And that was that. Gone. Just another mystery.

I am also including a picture of Henry. He rushed out into the freak hail storm we had for 30 seconds today. Exactly what I wanted to do too.

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kiddos

They're so sweet.

Center

This morning was the first morning since the clocks changed that I was able to get out and walk Chaucer before school. It felt so good to be out there, by myself, in the morning air. It was beautiful too. No flies... although, the first black flies of the season appeared at my house this afternoon... not welcome.

Center.

I sometimes think it is some magical thing. When I was younger, I distinctly remember feeling like the world was spinning too fast and that one day I was going to fall off of it. I just remember feeling that everything happened around me and I was thrown to the winds of it all. I don't feel that way anymore, usually, but I still struggle with finding center. For me, it is a feeling of control, of peace and, I don't know... Chi? Like feeling rooted to the ground around me. I felt that way this morning. This could be for a couple big reasons. I am completely current on all correcting. I am through the winter months. I am past MCAS. I am looking at the beginning of the end of the quarter and year.

Getting out in the morning helps me find my center. I am not thrown into my work day and then buffeted by the whims of hundreds of teenagers. It is VERY important in my job to be in control of yourself and the happenings around you. Things can go sidewards incredibly fast during a school day, or even in one class. I am rooted, immovable, I have found my Chi and am centered again.

The picture is of a Catbird that followed me on my walk this morning. They are amazing birds. They can mimic hundreds of other birds' calls, even hawks and predatory birds. Pretty little things...

Easter

Coloring eggs... getting up early and playing guitar in the bitter cold... Ham and Lamb and Fam. It was a nice holiday.

Pete and Henry's

Henry did a great job in school this week, and for his reward, I took them out to Pete and Henry's in Royalston. When I was a kid, this place was known for having the best chicken nuggets around. I haven't been for years, but both of my kids are kind of Chicken Nugget conosuers.

It took a little over half an hour to get there. From here it takes about half an hour to get anywhere, but it is seldom that I go deeper into the woods, and Royalston is nothing if it isn't deeper into the woods. I actually drove down roads I hadn't driven down since I was really young... like in my teens. I went past one specific graveyard, bordered by a white picket fence, that my sister and I used to try to hold our breath for the entire length while my parents drove by it. The roads get old going that way, bordered by those old white pillar things that had the wires strung through them. The way follows Millers River for a while. Actually, Pete and Henry's itself sits right next to the river. Right outside of the restaurant there is an old closed down bridge, and it must have been closed for a good while, because I can't remember it ever being open. The memory of the restaurant itself is one in my mind with this bridge. I have special love for the Millers River. I caught my first trout in its deep tan water.

Pete and Henry's is one of the old style restaurants, the restaurants of my childhood: the kind with drop ceilings and wood paneling, filled with people with too much facial hair and t-shirts without brand logos on them. The food was great. I think that this restaurant might have had the first chicken nuggets in the area, way before McDonalds ever thought of them. Still, they are a whole different thing. They are soft and juicy, just as I remember them, except, I think they used to have some sort of apple dipping sauce. They didn't serve that, unfortunately. Still, I think that Henry and Nora were completely impressed. The waitress offered Henry frog legs. I think he would have taken her up on them if I hadn't talked up the chicken nuggets so much on the way there.

I am posting a few pictures tonight, just trying to capture everything a bit more completely.

Also, did you see the moon tonight?! I can't help but post a picture of it.

Uncle Bob

Yesterday, on a clear, cold, spring day, they buried Robert Locke. His family came to my house afterward, fifty or sixty of them all packed in here. I don't really know a lot about Jenny's Uncle Bob, but who does. The man didn't talk. He did here and there, but he was just like the rest of Jenny's elders... stoic.

I have a couple solid memories of Bob. He always walked down to the little store on 68 to get his paper and what not, every morning. I told Perry, his son, that and he laughed..."The whole town probably knows him for that." Perry told me that his father ate the same exact breakfast every day... oatmeal and blueberries that he picked in the summer and froze. He also told me a few things that I didn't know; His Dad literally had never gone to the hospital before his stay 6 months ago...he died in his 80's. His father had tons of chickens, like hundreds at one point, and sold eggs around town on top of his other job at "Wayne Roy" (I think I may have misspelled that). He had rabbits too, and I think I remember that. He was an excellent gardner, Perry said it was out of necessity rather than pleasure, but that it turned in to something that he loved, or at least liked.

What I remember most about Uncle Bob, was that he was calm, reasonable and good. He seemed like he could hold everything together really well, and that he married Aunty Fran who was really fun, and funny. He was a really good guy. If God has respect for pureness of spirit, genuiness of character and decency of action, then Robert Locke is eating at his table right now... oatmeal and blueberries, I am sure.

Dragonfruit

I took my kiddos, with my parents, to Wegmans yesterday. I have never been there before. Jenny had taken Nora previously, but Henry and I had yet to go. Jenny told me that Henry would love the place because of the restaurant there. Henry has an unbelievable curiosity and capacity for food. He loves good food. He has real taste and isn't afraid of spice, culture, anything really. He tends toward clean food, which I love of course. He tends to turn from saucy things and would be just as happy with a salad as with other things. So, Wegmans was a treat for him.

For lunch he chose three types of spring rolls and nan. Oh, and a slice of cheeseburger pizza. We walked around the store afterward and he saw a dragonfruit. This is something that he has known about for quite some time, I think he read about it in a book. This is the first time we had seen one in person. So, of course, I bought it for him. Nora then got to choose something for herself, she chose... corn holders. You know those things that you stab into the ends of corn on the cob... they came in a fine assortment of colors.

So the picture is of our dragonfruit. It is a bit waxy on the outside, and gives a bit if you squeeze it. The inside however is crisp and tastes a bit like a kiwi. It doesn't have a pleasant smell... slightly acrid, But it tastes good enough.

The list of exotic fruits/food that we know about and haven't tried is growing, not getting smaller. We have tried all sorts of things: starfruit, passionfruit, lychee fruit, uglifruit, cactus pear, on and on. God knows what the future could hold for Henry. Watch, he will probably grow up to be some sort of world-traveling chef or something.

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