honestly though, (bears).

So, the whole bears-in-the-yard thing has been a real emotional roller coaster. You can glean all of this by psychoanalyzing my tone in past posts (I mean, if you want...?) but I've gone through a real process with my enthusiasm/non-enthusiasm for these bears. It's like its own several-step grieving process. 

 1. Excitement! Garbage has been strewn all over the driveway and I am frankly giddy over it (I am also not the one who has to clean up the garbage. Thanks, Garret!) and I am oddly defensive when anyone suggests that since I did not see a bear throw the garbage everywhere, it could technically be something else.  I'm all like, "Um, no, it's totally a bear..."  

2.  Mystified!  When one night we are sitting on our deck and the bear actually ambles up to the driveway, silently, I am wide-eyed and amazed to be seeing such a giant, awesome creature.  (I am also a little like "HAH! Told you so, naysayers!") 

3.  "Oh, again?"  Once I saw the bear in person, I was rather immediately of the attitude that, alright, we've done this.  Go away now, bear.  

4.  "WHAT?!"  When a bear shows up at 11am and I have to call the Sheriff because I can hear children playing down the hill, I am definitely getting a bit eye-rolly toward bears. 

5.  "OH COME ON. GO AWAY." When, a week later, it's nighttime and Garret and I are enjoying a glass of wine on the deck, and a bear helps herself to our garbage as though we invited her over but didn't provide her with dinner, I'm very over the bears.  Especially when we yell at her to go away and she basically just looks at us like, "Oh, please."  

6.  "When does hibernation start?" A bear ripped our garbage box apart the other day.  We're awaiting a new one.

We have been in touch with the police station a few times, and they put in word to the warden about little miss steals-the-garbage.  At the beginning of my apparent six-step process, I thought this was just kind of a cute fun thing that would be a one-time experience.  By step 5 when we were literally shining lights at a bear and yelling at it and it wasn't even blinking an eye, I was very concerned.  They're supposed to be afraid of people and when they're not, it's problematic.

We haven't seen her in a while, nor does she have any garbage to get from us anymore since our box is destroyed.  From what I can tell from research, bears typically prowl a fairly large radius, and they're solitary within that radius.  So it's possible she's over in another neighborhood and maybe the warden has actually gotten her and we don't know about it.

Then again, there's always the good chance I'll go outside on any given day and she'll just be lounging in a chair in my front yard, sipping lemonade and getting a suntan.

Murgy and the Moth

In case you have not seen it, here is a video that Garret made a few days ago about Murgy's adventures with a luna moth that has taken up residence on our deck!

"We survived winter!"

If you've been reading about this 'adventure' for a while, you might remember that back in September, Garret and I ate at the wonderful local grill/ice cream stand, 'Wahoo's'. A few weeks after I wrote about it, we went to go back for some ice cream one day and sadly found it to be closed for the season. Ever since, every time we drive by we look longingly at the little building, wishing we could stop for some delicious food and ice cream.

Well, yesterday, we were going to some of the nearby antique stores to search for a few odds and ends we needed for various projects/pursuits. We decided we'd get lunch while we were out, and on a whim I called Wahoo's. Someone answered! [Brace yourself, this is an exciting dialogue coming up]:

Wahoo's Girl:  Hello, Wahoo's!
Me:   Hi! Are you open for the season?
Wahoo's Girl:  Yup!
Me:  Okay, great!

I know, I know - that dialogue was so exciting that you probably fell of your chair, totally blindsided by the drama at play.  You can see why I'm a writer now, can't you?

As Garret pointed out, I missed out on a real opportunity not saying, "Wahoo!!!!!" when she said they were open for the season.  Ah, a regret. I try to live life without any regrets, but, that one is pretty major.  Oh well, maybe next year!

So, obviously, we went there, and despite the fact it was bit too cold and windy to sit outside and eat, we did it anyway.  There's something about a mere hint of summer (read: sun) that makes me incapable of not pretending it's ninety degrees out.  I pretend full on, too.  I'm like, sitting there shivering, going "It's s-s-s-so n-n-nice and w-w-warm out..."

Anyway while sitting waiting for our food, Garret said, "Hey! Looks like we survived winter!" And then I snapped this photo:

At Wahoo's Eatery in Wilmington, VT. April 2012.

He even looks cold.  But look at that beautiful blue sky!  The sweeping landscapes!  The gorgeous possibility of spring and summer!  

What sadly didn't make it into that picture was the hitchhiker looking for a ride just to the right of the frame of the photo.  Before I moved here I thought hitchhikers were mythological and existed only in the 1970's.  Modern day hitchhikers seemed like they were a mere concept that was on narrative reserve to be written into scripts/short stories as necessary.  But.. nope!  Apparently, they are real. I see them all the time here.  Seems like a really stressful way to get from point A to point B, to me. I don't know.

Anyway I'm prepping for summer and very excited about it.  It's true, we did make it through winter.  Prior to winter Garret said that if one of us was going to go crazy it'd probably be me. Honestly I figured he was most likely right and that I'd be stir-crazy being cooped up inside. But I really didn't feel that way at all, surprisingly.  Instead, we both enjoyed the time afforded to people who are forced to be indoors a lot, and in doing so we dreamed up a whole lot of new creative pursuits for ourselves.  But more on that some other day ;) 

Last night I got to work rearranging the deck so that it is kind of an outdoor mirror to our living room and dining room.  We now have the table to one side and two awesome benches that were downstairs at the house we're renting as a little seating area on the other side.  Now I just need some fresh plants, citronella candles, and lots of company! 

The deck in Vermont. 

I made the boring white table festive by using a tapestry as a table cloth.

The "living room" outdoors!

.lsm

BEAR ATTACK!!!

Okay, so, we didn't see a bear.  But all signs are pointing to a bear (or a dinosaur, or an elephant, or - something big!) helping him or herself (gotta be politically correct, people! we just can't just assume it was a he) to our garbage last night.

Garret took Murgy out before bed last night as is typical.  Murgy has a variety of barks and cries that she employs for different situations.  For example, she barks in this high-pitched "hello?!?" way when she wants you to do something with her.  She cries the saddest little mourning cry ever when she accidentally kills one of her moth friends.  And she growls if Garret or I are giving another dog attention, teeth and all. What an overly protective dog.

So anyway Garret takes her out last night and she's apparently doing her sad/curious/I Really Want To Go Over There cry toward the road.  Garret didn't think much of it because as of late, it's been apparent to us that Murgy is preparing to film her audition tape for Best Dog Chipmunk Hunter.  She always wants to go somewhere, because there just might be a chipmunk there.  In hindsight, I guess she was "spooked" but another reason this didn't get mentioned to me is that Garret was spooked due to there being new neighbors across the street who he didn't realize were home and yet were still watching TV and lighting candles in their house (GHOSTS!).

Well, this morning, Garret took Murgy out again (dogs! they always need to go out!) and he found a surprise at the end of the driveway at the very place Murgy had been crying toward.  Our garbage can, which is a wooden box that is supposedly "bear proof" had been knocked over, and all of the garbage bags have been ripped open.

The scene of the crime. BEAR ATTACK IN VERMONT!

The normally nailed down garbage bin, completely turned over.

We're figuring it must have been a bear because:

-  If it were a person trying to steal our identity by going through our garbage, this is a supremely strange neighborhood to go identity huntin' in and also why not just open the can like a normal person.

-  If it were a deer, fox, possum, turkey, beaver, or raccoon, the task of knocking the entire wooden box over (it's heavy!) seems a bit extreme/impossible.

-  As Hanna-Barbera allowed to enter the history books of cartoonish time, bears do really love pic-a-nic baskets.

-  On the other hand, Hanna-Barbera also taught us that not all bears are smart, as Yogi who was (no offense) no genius was "Smarter than the average bear." But then again, it doesn't take a brilliant mind to knock over a garbage can, just a hungry one.


Anyway, hopefully this does not become a recurring problem.  Our garbage is always tied up and everything.  We'll have to see if it happens again.

engagements, roosters, and other life changing experiences.

WHOOPS!  Way to disappear for two months, me.  I guess it's safe to say that I got swept up in 'life', which is absolutely fine, because frankly, life is good!

So, there have been a few 'developments' since I went on my blog hiatus.  First and foremost: Garret and I are engaged!  We were sitting in the living room by the fire when he proposed, and then he gave me the very same engagement ring that my grandfather gave to my grandmother many years ago.  Words cannot describe how much it all means to me.  For that significant moment in Garret and I taking the next step in becoming a family ourselves to involve something as special as my grandmother's engagement ring... well, suffice it to say that even the writer in me can't figure out a way to explain how special it all is and how happy I am to have such an amazing family - both in the family I was born with and the family I have found along my journey.

This time of year also has me feeling grateful and inspired for a few reasons.  First, April 9 marked the seven year anniversary of Garret and I deciding to date.  Seven years!  We've had quite an adventure together so far.  Secondly, at this very time last year, we went on a cruise in celebration of our sixth anniversary.  We went to Bermuda, and were docked there for a day and a half.  In a lot of ways, I think Bermuda was the fork in the road that lead us to living in VT.

We docked near the old Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda, and therein found ourselves amidst historical buildings, a tiny beach, and local eateries.  The particular part of Bermuda we were in wasn't very touristy, but rather a little punctuation mark on the edge of an island.  There was a time when it was bustling, but today it's mostly where cruise ships dock.  Most people had planned day excursions through the cruise line to get to the more 'fabulous' parts of Bermuda.  We hadn't done that, and since we had never seen any of Bermuda, we were content to stay in the vicinity of we where were.

We took a leisurely walk around.  I'm always fascinated, in a new place, with the people that live there, so I was mostly excited to peek into car garages or pharmacies, to see what kind of people called this nice little area home.  At one point, on a little quiet side street by what seemed to be an office, a rooster walked by.  I had never seen a rooster, let alone seen a rooster walk by leisurely on a street.  I don't know how to really say this how I mean it, but: that rooster opened my eyes.  It was this moment of, "Wow, there are people who live here who see roosters walk by sometimes.  That's their day to day."  I had been living in Brooklyn, which being in New York City has a sort of "Center of the Universe" feel to it.  But here we were somewhere else entirely, on this quiet street, with a rooster.  It wasn't a tourist spot nor was it even anywhere at all - it was a side street between two other quiet streets.  In a sense, it was there just for us.  And I suddenly knew that not only were there other places that you could live in, but that there were other day to day experiences that you can have.  Yes, the walk I'd take every morning from my apartment to the subway and then the subway to my office was lovely.  But was there somewhere else that I was missing out on?  Were there roosters wandering somewhere for me?

On that walk, we kept noticing a wall that was architecturally gorgeous in this little town we were in.  Then we noticed someone walking on it.  We followed the wall, and it brought us to a gate for the Bermuda Maritime Museum.  Entry was $5.  There was a woman standing at the gate collecting money.  We gave her $10, and she said "Have a good day," and we were in.  In New York City, a museum is a bustling train station of artifacts and viewers.  Here, it was a sprawling land that was once a citadel.  There were no guards.  We were free to walk into and around the old Commissioner's House.  We were free to explore the grounds.  We came upon a herd of sheep, who we walked up to and gazed at.  A lot of awesome things were ours to discover.

Though nothing that happened that day was outwardly monumental enough for us to have seen the significance in it as it was unfolding, something shifted in us that day in Bermuda.  It was like we grew this mutual curiosity with what else we could uncover were we to just keep our eyes open on little side streets.

That Thursday, we docked back in New York.  We had to drive up to Albany to get Murgy, who was staying with my mom during our cruise.  While there, still in the mind space of leisure and seeing new things, we decided to take a drive out to Vermont to see what it was like.

We had breakfast in a diner in Bennington, and took a stroll around the main street there.  It was nice, and so was the weather, so we decided to drive another 38 miles to Brattleboro.  Garret had read about Brattleboro in an article that said it was a great place for artists.  My grandfather was from there, but that was all that I knew of it.  The drive took us through the Green Mountain National Forest, and through Wilmington, and down the Molly Stark Highway which winds gorgeously.  Eventually, we landed in Brattleboro, and again a spark lit up in each of us.  We went from shop to shop with wide eyes, feeling immediately comfortable and happy and inspired.  Our spirits were lifted in this way that I couldn't put my finger on, but I loved.  The thing was, it wasn't that we were unhappy before we got there - it's just, the place brought out something in us that was light and adventurous and... different.  Good different.

As we drove back to Albany that afternoon, Garret fell asleep.  So, he was quiet, and the radio wasn't on, either.  It was just silent.  My car windows were down and as I made my way back through the winding road, the town of Wilmington, and the national forest, I realized that I was more happy and at peace than I'd felt myself be in a long time.

In a matter of days we'd seen a rooster on a street, explored an old citadel, sailed across the ocean, and explored a new town in Vermont - a state we'd never even been to.  Though none of the experiences felt singularly life altering, I really think it was the culmination of all of it that created in us a realization that Brooklyn's great and wonderful, but maybe it's not the center of the universe.  Maybe there were things to discover elsewhere.  Amidst trees and new sights and new air.  Maybe the day to day somewhere else wouldn't be better or worse than Brooklyn, but it'd be different, and it was worth exploring.

The rooster.

Garret and I on the deck of the old Commissioner's house
at the Maritime Museum in Bermuda.

Garret at some type of long boardroom table at the maritime museum in Bermuda.

A random herd of sheep we encountered at the Maritime Museum in Bermuda.

Old/awesome anchors at the Maritime Museum in Bermuda.

The view from our cruise ship docked in Bermuda

Garret at sunset on our last night on the cruise ship.