Notes from SunnyJay

Vermont for Christmas 2006

Well friends, I have safely returned from Vermont.  It was a hazardous trip back, however, in spite of the snow and poor breaking ability, we were able to make it back home without a scratch – even if it did take us 11 hours instead of 9.  Ouch!

On Wednesday we left for Vermont, land of milk, cheese, maple syrup, and Ozie, my Grandmother.

above & Below, Ozie’s quintessential Vermont house.  The First cabin, is now the garage, at left, and was built in the 1700s, the main house was built in 1814.  My grandmother has been living in the house for nearly 40 years, and has made extensive additions to the house.

We left at 5am and arrived at Middlebury Vermont, home of Middlebury College, at roughly 3pm.  Ozie, my wonderful grandmother who from now on will be referred to as simply Ozie, had undergone a recent hip surgery and was immediately picked up from the Hospital upon our arrival, and we all helped get her situated in her new stair-ridden environment.

Above, the runner on the stairs was hooked by my grandmother, each step of which commemorates one of her children, interests, or memory.  I don’t believe mom’s can be seen.

This is Ozie’s living room where the majority of the Christmas celebrations were held.  This corner of the room is one of my favorites.  The gold mirror, the chair and table work so well together, and all three have the patina of ages long since gone by.  The history of hold things fascinates me.  And these three items really delight me.

Above, the dinning room where most of the dinners were eaten – including Christmas eve dinner.

Above and below are shots of the Sunroom, the case above and to the left used to be filled with model cars, which she has since given to me!  The gas pump is the only thing to suggest her fascination with classic cars.  The bright red stage is a marionette stage that was built by my Great-Great-Grandfather for his children so they could act out the Christmas Carol along with a record of a dramatic reading of the classic christmas tale.  The stage was set up and on Wednesday afternoon we were able to watch some neighbors perform the story for us.  It was really cool!  here are some more pictures.

Above: Scrooge!

Above: Carrie The Caribou!  She used to live at Lake George in our cabin Log-A-Rythmn, but when that got sold last year (2005) she came to live in the sun room.  We hope to move her back to lake George someday.

These were our accommodations in “The Wing” a spacious room with a bunch of beds out over the garage.  The three of us felt a little like the children in Peter Pan going to bed in the nursery before peter burst through the window to wisk them off to neverland.  We expected Peter Pan to burst through the door at the end of the room at any moment!

Above, one of my favorite pastimes is to pump the player piano.  The extensive college of player piano scrolls (at left) cover a range of genres and I’ve probably played all of them over the course of my years visiting there.  It was also good exercise, pumping those pedals can be quite tiring.

Sadly, this year, we had a green Christmas and ended up with more fog than snow.  However, we did end up with a small dusting.

The majority of the visit we spent caring for my grandmother, watching the History, playing Canasta which is a card game that I plan to bring back to college with me.  However, we did go for a nice long walk to this cool cemetery near the house.  Not too Christmasy but fun enough.

So it was good Christmas, but a long one.  10 days seemed a bit long but we survived!

Oh, what did I get for christmas you ask?  well!  I got a word of the day calender, a chocolate orange, a biographical book on Monty Python, a subscription to Wooden Boat Magazine, and the Wooden Boat annual Calender!  But thats not all!  i ALSO got a suit!!  yay!

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!