Countdown to Patagonia
On New Year's Day...mid evening, we sat down to select our lodging in Santiago. We needed to get the dates right. Now is the time to fix our departure in my notebook as well as in my consciousness. The itinerary is fixed but not full, there's plenty of room for days in distant cities. Twenty years ago I would bemoan my link to the daily grind of parenting, work, and school. I still parent, but less closely, still work, but with more freedom, and have finally finished my formal studies. I longed then for freedom from the station wagon, the lunches, the dog, and the commute. I mused about visitng places with names long, romantic, and rich in vowels.
Ten years ago, I packed my bags for one such adventure .....six months in Hong Kong to be interspersed wtih a week in Belize. That morphed into a year on Hong Kong, with many new friends and adventures, including a side trip to Thailand and Laos. As time progressed, the wagon was traded for other more practical cars, then for a mini. Life in the suburbs was jazzed by time in the ctiy. Sailing Cape Ann waters was traded for the Gulf of Maine. And now, it's time for another adventure.
Patagonia....a ship, a course, and rounding the Horn.
The notebook is new, a lovely spiral one with a bright colored cover from Mary Hayes, with matching pen and many blank pages.
The cabin is booked as are the flights.
The passport is fresh, clean and ready for stamps ..if stamps still exist.

Lunar new year.......rabbits!

I saw rabbits today, coming out of hiding to announce their new year on a morning coated with snizzle. You know, changing the name of snow/sleet/ice/and mush to something cutesy, (like a pet rabbit) doesn't really make it fun. Think of all the great rabbits: Peter, Harvey, the Velveteen one, Reddux (?) Brer, and what do we know?
Stay out of McGregor's cabbage patch
What you see isn't always what you get
Get vaccinated
Updike is a mystery
Don't bet the race against those tortoises........
On one side of Charles a small brass rabbit sat amid antique necklaces, pendants and earrings, while on the other side, Savenor's offered rabbit ravioli (next to Lion Loin).
Rabbit years are calm and quiet after Tiger years, let's hope so! Wonder what rabbits think of snow.

January's lost gloves

The gloves are on the move...or  not. No longer warming hands, stuffed into pockets, or coat sleeves, the ones I see wave from  the slush or snow, subway steps or bus stops.
It began a week or so ago with a nice new pair of men's leather gloves wrapped in a rabbit fur outdoorsman's hat that were left in an empty seat at the Garden. How convenient to try out the hat in the next day's blizzard, how itchy the rabbit fur and decidedly uncool the look! Hat and gloves now rest in the Garden lost and found. Undoubtedly a holiday gift, how will the owner explain the loss? Was it for dad, uncle, grandpa, or perhaps a college student like the ones sipping their rum and cokes in last nights game, getting ever carried away with the Celts' dominance of the Jazz?
On Tuesday I got off the bus and directly saw another pair of once lovely lined leather gloves sodden with slush and surely never to be salvaged. Left them on the electric box in front of the Liberty Hotel. I imagined the owner digging in her pocket for a Charlie card and hoped she didn't have a long walk at the end of the line.
Climbing the steps from Park Street's Red Line to the Green there in a corner a black velvet glove lay with fingers outstretched, elegant, almost frivolous for the icey weather. I saw rhinestone bracelets and high heels and a cold hand jabbed inside a black NorthFace coat, spikey heeled boots and a date to be met.
Like broken  flipflops on the summer beaches, these gloves mark how the season grabs us, sometimes taking just a small piece of what but not who we are.