October 25, 2004

8:13 p.m.

My Sister and Me in Vermont

I'm sitting here pondering whether it's equally acceptable to say "My sister and me in Vermont" and "My sister and I in Vermont." Since it's not a sentence and I'm not dealing with "It is I, I am it" vs. "It is me, me is it," and merely judging between "Me in Vermont" and "I in Vermont," it's all sounding equally correct to me.

As opposed to, To I.

At any rate, Rose and I had two overnights and most of two daytimes in Chester this weekend, to accomplish several purposes. They were:

1) To organize our poetry book.

2) To scatter the final remaining remains of my mother in some scenic place.

3) To seek out strange new shops, to spend money where no sisters have spent before.

and,

4) to fall in love with Vermont, again if already in love.

We accomplished everything. I exercised amazing restraint and hardly spent any money, but Rose very generously bought me not only meals and sundry decafs, but also a very warm jacket from a consignment store, and a sizeable tub of body lotion that is 20% shea butter, my longtime favorite moisturizer. Jacket: $49, excellent condition. Shea butter lotion: $24. Weekend with sister: well, you know. Beyond price.

We hiked both days, and the second day we took mom's sturdy muslin bag, and her ponytail which she'd saved from childhood or at least teenhood when she cut her hair short, and we found a lake bridge over which to cast the ashes. We sang her favorite songs (well, our favorite ones for her, anyway), and recited some poems we knew. Rose asked me if I wanted to keep the ponytail, and I replied that I hadn't a clue what I'd do with it. I remembered that she (Rose) had had an elderly patient once, who was undergoing chemotherapy, and losing her hair. She'd sit at the open window combing her hair, smiling as she tossed it out on the breeze. "For the birds," she would say, "to make their nests." So we distributed mom's hair, tinsel-like, through the forest, in hopes that some bird or other creature would find the strands and use them for a nest.

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I bought a little yarn for a hat, a cute gift for Dar and a mouse figurine for $5 that was so adorable I couldn't resist. On the way back we stopped for chocolates, and Rose got some four-year-aged Vermont cheddar that was out of this world.

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Here are some images from the trip.






This lovely church is in the center of Chester.





Rose, looking out over the lake.

And I thought to take the two mice from the Chicago Mouse Caper (I still have to print out three chapters for Dar!). I thought this time they could meet a country pig, so they're here sitting at the bus stop with Padraic -- I know I've spelled the Gaelic wrong, but it's pronounced "Paw-rig" and means Patrick, and I chose it because it sounds like Pork. Only I suspect it's a girl pig after all, because he/she has pink bows on his/her boots. Oh well. Anyway I didn't get enough pics for a story this time so I'll have to just store them up for now.





Cheers, all.