Blueberry Sunday

I was out early picking blueberries this a.m., yelling at the birds who were gobbling down the bigger berries in the next bush.  I should have gone straight to that bush, but I have a thing about order, starting at one point and moving along systematically to complete a good picking.  I was raised on a farm where you didn't abandon a row until it was finished.  My yelling did nothing to scare off the robin who was filling her gullet nearby.  It was still cool when I was out there around 8 a.m. after brewing some Armeno's coffee with its "bright tones" and, indeed, this coffee is superb.  Worth $13 a pound?  Yes.

Yesterday we went to the Wayside Inn, which is, incredibly enough, still located in a rather undeveloped and forested section of the town of Sudbury, despite proximity to Boston.  It's a little bit of Sturbridge Village, but no fees.  There was a wedding in the tiny white chapel on the hill, and we watched from the millpond area where I happily sat in shorts, cooling off on a large, cold rock. Just listening to the waterwheel spinning around was a relief.  A Hispanic family posed their 16 year old in front of the mill.  She wore a long, full, purple dress full of glitter and a purple crown to match; perhaps she'd just won a beauty conterst.

  We are having another heatwave, and riding around in my car with the AC was one solution. Today is even hotter, but there's a nasty blue/black cloud to the south, streaking lightning, that gives me hope of a storm. I envy all those folks at the beach, but did you hear the news report about how the water levels on the East Coast are rising at a much higher rate than expected due to glacial melting?  Scary stuff; Manhattan is going to drown.  Time to head for the Dakotas.

I've been reading "Wild", about a young woman who has done too much heroin and too many men.  She decides to walk the Pacific Coast Trail, although she never trains for it, packs twice as much stuff as she can carry, and ends up hitting the Sierras after a tremendous winter of snowfall.  It's a good book and it carries me away, remembering the Camino in Spain.  I trained a little more than she did, but once your feet start to bleed and blister, it doesn't matter a whole lot. I recommend the book, even if Oprah was partially responsible for me deciding to get it.  I am so sick of Oprah, not that she's on, and I'm even more tired of Gayle King. Gayle acts all chummy during interviews and makes jokes that cross the line. At least Oprah has done a lot for books, despite some of her battered women kinds of picks.