So tomorrow seems like a fine day for Argentina, doesn't it? But I stopped at the homestead en route, to say hi to my family and the color wheel of leaves and the chill that seeps into your bones. There's nowhere prettier than here right now.
Saturday: Boston. My cousin Shira showed me around Brighton, a quiet little neighborhood with the best twin bartenders a girl could ever shack up with. During dinner at Brown Sugar, the lights suddenly went out (not romantic dimming, but total blackness) and a green strobe light started up. Then a pulsing beat, then a Thai man singing a husky rock version of "Happy Birthday" to someone we couldn't see. For a full five or six minutes. Nobody reacted. Then the lights came on, and it was business as usual. Who's free next July 10? I'll see you there.
Sunday & Monday: Northampton. Blew a kiss to the old gray dog and picked up my sweet rental car, a metallic blue PT Cruiser immediately christened Skymall. (If you're looking for me, I'm the one in the pimp hearse. You can thumb wrestle Chuck D for shotgun.) Mom and I checked out the Paradise City Arts Festival, followed by a double-header of gorgeous, relentless biopics: Bright Star and Becoming Jane. They neatly reconfirmed my belief that the critical ingredients for British literary genius are shackled love and early mortal illness. (American genius = epic road trips and really good drugs.)
Tuesday: Vermont & South Hadley. Google Maps sent me on a complicated backroads route through Bennington with a turn every few minutes, mostly unsignposted but all pristine. Lunch with the Rabbis Boettiger and the samba dog. Back through the rain to Dad and Ann's, tested out my memory and took the Holyoke route off 91. Only got almost lost once. Rewarded with corn risotto and Scrabble.
Today has been lazy and logistical, tomorrow back on the bus and then the plane, a speed-demon layover in Miami and 10 more hours and hey! Good morning, South America. I don't believe I've had the pleasure before.
