|
Thursday, October 26, 2006 Saturday morning: gray, raw. Drove into Montpelier to take care of errands, do the farmers market. Cars in front of me on Rt. 14 that had spent the night out in the open were adorned with snow -- the season's first. Crusty white bits blew off them as they drove, some hitting my windshield and breaking apart. I'd gotten up early, gotten the stove going, had been conscious enough to pull on thermal underthings before dragging on shirt and pants. Then for some reason as I left the house I grabbed a fleece jacket instead of genuine cold weather gear. Result: me freezing my cojones off as an early winter wind whipped through the market, vendors dressed in frigid season duds, cheeks and exposed hands red with cold. That same wind nearly took down stalls not anchored into place, everyone startled at the fierce turn in weather, plastic sheets meant to shield vendors from wind coming loose, flapping about, the sound startlingly loud. Sunday: gray, raw. Drove into Montpelier for a free viewing of Army of Shadows, a classic French drama, finally showing in the States 37 years after its first run. When the lights went down and the screen lit up, I realized all over again how difficult certain contemporary male haircuts (the kind where the hair sticks up in all directions) can make movie viewing. Had to lean out into the aisle to get a decent view of the action at those times the gentleman ahead of me pulled himself up from a relaxed slouch to sit erect. Good film, though maybe not for those seeking light comedy or car chases and big explosions. A World War II story, about the French Resistance -- stark, intense, impeccably acted and directed. (And also, for me, about twenty minutes too long -- its one big downside.) Monday: clear sky at dawn, the temperature sailing up into the 50's as the sun cleared the hills to the east. Then overcast began creeping in from the west. An hour later: gray, raw. Remaining mostly gray and raw since then. Mostly overcast, mostly cold, often damp. Wheeeee! And during all the meteorological joy, I've been chipping away at the list of things needing to be done before I flee back to Madrid. Including -- and it feels strange writing this, er, out loud here -- the possibility of getting a security system for the house, a prospect about which I've had wildly mixed feelings. I don't think I care for much of what that particular step apparently symbolizes to me. On the other hand, the couple who stayed here and took care of my little fiefdom for eleven fast weeks last autumn -- two retirees who, on the face of it, appeared to be good, responsible, capable candidates [brief pause here while the writer gives self several metaphoric kicks in the butt] -- convinced me that perhaps the time had arrived to lay the housesitting thing to rest. I am far less concerned about break-in type stuff -- virtually unconcerned, in fact, for a bunch of reasons, one being the vigilance of my downhill neighbor, Mo, well-known by local folk to have numerous guns and to be no pushover -- than I am about, say, the furnace going off and the temperature in the house sinking to sub-freezing levels. A low-temperature alarm seems like a good idea for a house in this part of the world whose owner will be away for weeks on end. Two kids from here on the hill will stop in once or twice a day to check on things, that will help. But I wanted more, and housesitters were not going to be part of the equation this time around. I contacted three different firms, collected info. and prices. I compared and considered, dithering a bit (this feeling like an unnervingly grown-up kind of deal, one whose first step would involve a fairly hefty pricetag) before finally settling on the only one of the three that didn't actually come to inspect the site. Yesterday morning, far too early, two 50-something guys showed in a company van -- brothers, turns out -- and got down to business. I made them espresso, they were impressed with the heat being kicked out by the coal stove, we got along great. By 3 p.m., the install was complete, a 30 or 40-minute orientation followed. They cleaned up behind themselves with a kind of conscientiousness I've rarely seen from folks coming to the house to do work. By 3:45, they were gone, leaving me with a strange bunch of high-tech frufru scattered about the living space, my house now connected to a hyper-vigilant monitoring center in Montreal. The only other place I've lived in equipped with a security system: my family's place in upstate New York. Out in what used to be country, nestled away in wooded land along a busy two-lane. A place my parents haunted full-time until the '80's when they joined their generation's migration to Florida, coming north for the warm season. A place that could have easily have been secured by simply closing and locking the gate that fronted on the two-lane, a simple measure suggested by my brother and me, waved away by my mother. Until Mr. Willets -- the old coot who lived across the road and walked into our woods every day while my parents were gone to take make sure everything seemed kosher -- one day realized the garage door was open, discovered there'd been a break-in/robbery. He closed the garage door, let my parents know what had happened, but didn't close the gate. A truck showed up one night, pulled in the drive, maybe looking to do Robbery, Phase II (Mr. Willets saw their lights from the safety of his home). The sight of the garage door -- now closed -- apparently spooked them, they turned tail and took off. From then on, the gate remained locked and chained during winters, a security system watched over the house, a place that became my retreat as my parents' absences grew longer every year and I spent more and more time in residence, driving over from Cambridge on weekends to take care of the place and hang out in what became my own weird little Fortress of Solitude, a space filled with my parents' worn furniture and the clutter of my mother's accumulated stuff (a phrase that hardly describes the clutter of my mother's accumulated stuff). [continued in next entry] España, te echo de menos. rws 12:02 PM [+]
Comments:
Post a Comment
|