Thursday, November 27, 2008

Cottage 505

We are staying at Chautauqua for the Thanksgiving holiday. I told myself I wasn’t up to having a houseful of people for turkey day like we normally do; and then I had that houseful of folks over on the Sunday before for a potluck and jam in honor of our friends Brian and Judy. Oh well, I had thought I wasn’t up to it. It was a great party!

We rented our cottage here for four nights, starting on Wednesday. It is darling—tiny and prettily done with light yellow walls, white trim, and wood floors. We guess it is about 500 square feet, with a living room, bedroom, fully-appointed kitchen and bathroom. You have to be neat—the things we brought with us would fill up the whole place if we let it. Instead I have stored most things away in the closet in the bedroom so that we have room to move and won’t feel cluttered.

Molly was quite excited to be going on a trip with us. She was very surprised when we put her bed down in the kitchen—she didn’t realize that our cottage would have a bed for her just like the one at home. She was entranced this morning by two fat squirrels and a pair of sleek mountain jays outside of our screen porch. Overall, she has been a very good girl.

Along with our dog, we have brought books, computers, instruments, food—the accoutrements we deem essential for a get-away. I read a whole book today: “Family Linen,” by Lee Smith—and it was wonderful (both the book and the reading). David hooked up a little ham radio and fiddled around with that for a while in the late morning. Now he’s plunking on a banjo, working on a new song.

It is very quiet here. We hear little of our neighbors. But we hiked this morning and there were lots of people and their dogs out on the Mesa trail. Everyone was exercising in preparation for “the big eat.” It was a day of gloomy skies and winter gloves and beautiful in its own right.

We are on a retreat. It feels good.

No comments: