Home Again, Eventually (I hope!)

So we got in to our B&B in Rochester around 10 on Friday night, exchanged greetings and hugs with the proprietors (a retired architect and a retired lawyer--she's now in the Vermont legislature, and has fascinating stories to tell). The place is old and funky and eccentric, the breakfast is fabulous (they keep chickens so the eggs are terrifyingly fresh; they make jam and bread, and breakfast is garnished with edible flowers) and we're old customers...

The next morning Avocado, golden tan and grinning all over her sweet face, turned out to be the first person we saw at Camp on Saturday morning. We spent a long, humid, lovely day with her--brook-stomping (that is, walking around knee-deep in the icy cold brook), tossing softballs, examining her beautiful pottery and the silver ring she's made already, meeting zillions of kids who all seemed delighted to meet us right back (we are, it appears, funny and cool. Who knew?). The rain held off, or rained elsewhere, and despite the sort of weather that makes my hair sproing up like a Brillo pad, it was all swell. At last, around 6pm, we handed the girl to a counselor and went off.

Then the Spouse and I went up to American Flatbread, a fabulous restaurant specializing in pizza cooked in a vast, primitive-looking oven tended by a succession of sweaty, matter-of-fact guys who flung pizzas in and out of the oven with the casual skill of long use. The place is only open on Friday and Saturday, so it was packed; we waited 45 minutes or so to get in, and another hour for the pizza (because at the two tables immediately before us in the queue, each person at the table had ordered a full pizza for him/herself). They comped us dessert because of the wait, which was sweet.

This morning, after another breathtaking breakfast and lots of political talk, we took off into the face of a downpour. The kind of rain where you feel like God is hovering over your car pouring from a bottomless pitcher. It's an hour and a half from Rochester to Burlington, whence the Spouse's plane was leaving. He got there on time but the flight was delayed. I believe he made his connection. So I left him and drove down to Boston through more thunderstorms. And more. As a result that my 6:05 flight will be boarding at 8:17, and unless the Gods do something really eccentric I'll be crashing at a hotel in Cleveland tonight. Can't confer with the Spouse until he touches down (at which point I will, I hope, be in the air). So I'm just, um, vamping.

It's all an adventure. And I had another idea for a story...

uhhhhhhhh

Flight from Boston scheduled to depart at 6:05 departed at 11 something or other. Arrived in Cleveland at 1:15 or thereabouts. Helpful agents said, "Um, here's a discount number. Call them, they'll find you a hotel at a cheaper rate." Which is not the same as picking up the tab on the hotel, which they had said they were going to do. Fortunately I had earlier made my own arrangements. Unfortunately, this was the Ramada that doesn't have 24 hour shuttle service. Fortunately found a cab. Cabbie very sweet. Could not find housing for seatbelt, and at one point when we took a corner a little sharply my entire seat fell over.

It's all good fun. Up at 6 so I can be at airport at 7 to haggle arrange for the 9:10 flight to San Francisco. Assuming we're not invaded by, like, Martians or something.

They did comp me a glass of wine on the flight. That was nice.