April 2024

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This is apparently peak leaf weekend in our neck of the woods. We saw a lot of out-of-state tags during our errands today. That's great! Come enjoy our leaves and support Vermont's economy!

My posting here should relieve anyone who was worrying that, no, I did not reach an ignoble end in a killer-clown attack at school yesterday. It was a little of a rough afternoon, and my colleagues and I gathered at the end of the day, kind of heaved a collective sigh, and I said, "Well, the good news is that no one was killed by clowns today."

Bobby had a rough week too, so we both very much needed to recalibrate. We discovered while picking up the perennials from his colleague on Thursday that we are about ten minutes from Brownington Pond, so we loaded the kayaks on top of the car and went out to explore.

It was just what we needed. About an hour-and-a-half out on the pond with the setting sun making the surrounding forest glow like fire and we both felt like new humans. Pictures are below the cut with the usual caveats that they are cell phone photos taken from a kayak on the water. I do my best to keep them clear and my horizons straight, but currents and winds sometimes foil my best efforts!

Pictures below the cut )

So I did end up letting that cute bearded guy who followed me up the creek take me out to dinner. We went to the Newport Ciderhouse for their Oktoberfest weekend. I have written here before about how I have the occasional allergic reaction to beer. A lot of beer makes me itch and cough a little, but it's very minor, and so I limit myself to one and never mix varieties, and I'm fine. But every now and then, I get a hold of one that progresses beyond itching and coughing. My face and lungs fill with mucus, so I'm constantly coughing and sneezing, and my face gets red and hot. I had tasted 14th Star's Maple Breakfast Stout when Bobby's ordered it before, but when I had my own pint last night, I was three sips in and felt that distinctive itching start between my shoulder blades. I asked Bobby to finish it for me and resigned myself to sticking with water going forward. Unfortunately, it didn't stop there, and I had a full-blown allergic reaction! D^:

I enjoyed dinner as much as I could given that my head felt like a water balloon being filled by a garden hose. When we arrived back home, I went to bed to read and ended up falling asleep very early, which I probably needed because the Goldens were very restless a couple nights this week, and I was operating under a sleep deficit.

I still can't figure out what causes that reaction. It seems so random. It's happened with four different beers: two stouts, a porter, and an IPA. The only thing I can figure is that it's a specific type of hops or yeast being used. Since Vermont has so many amazing ciders, I'll probably be sticking more closely to those.

Tomorrow, we are hoping to hike Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest mountain, so I hope I will have more pretty leaves and mountains to share soon.
Well, I'm back. We got home about an hour ago. Bobby is putting the air-conditioning units in because it was hot and sticky (aaah ... Maryland summers!), and it is presently pouring rain, though no thunder yet.

I spoke too soon when I said summer had arrived because, yesterday on the beach, the sun went in and the wind kicked up, and it was quite chilly actually. Then it was a cool evening; Bobby went out in just a T-shirt and was cold at various points in the evening. Bobby did get some decent surfing in after the lifeguards went in when the wind very briefly died down. (Wind off the sea flattens the waves and makes for poor surfing. I didn't know that!) I was hoping that he'd finally taken up a hobby that I could support him in without freezing my ass off (as with hockey and snowboarding), but it seems I have to wait till later in the summer for that to be the case.

We went to supper at Shenanigan's Irish Pub last night on 4th Street, then walked down the Boardwalk to the Inlet. We rode the Freak-Out, which is a smaller and therefore much more intense version of The Claw in Hershey Park. Because it is smaller, it swings higher and faster and spins faster.

Freak Out! )

I am not a publicly demonstrative person when it comes to emotion. I do not tend to show fear or sadness when others can see. Nor do I show a lot of noisy joy, so I'm not a whooper or a cheerer or anything like that. If I were to win a large sum of money at, say, a casino, I would be a disappointing person to feature as a winner. But on this ride? I shriek and cackle like a madwoman. Which in turn cracks Bobby up. But the ride is intense, and I say that as a person who has never met a ride she won't try. I reached a point last night where I wasn't sure which direction was up. I think I come by it honestly, as my mom--also not particularly emotionally demonstrative in public--used to be hilarious on thrill rides, to the point that a ride operator once kept us on the Tilt-a-Whirl for about ten minutes because he was cracking up at my mom.

After Freak-Out, we went out on the fishing pier, but it was too chilly to stay out for long, then walked up the Boardwalk. We wanted to try the new microbrewery that opened, the Backshore Brewing Company. I ordered the stout and Bobby the brown ale. Oh my, the stout was divine, with a strong taste of coffee and milky smooth. I have had allergic reactions twice to craft beers--once the oatmeal stout at Mountain State Brewing Company in Deep Creek and once to a chocolate stout from a microbrewery in Colorado--so especially with stouts, I have developed the habit of taking a good swig and meditating for a minute on the deliciousness as I wait to see if I start to itch. I did this with my stout last night and nothing happened, so I drank it slowly to make it last while Bobby finished his brown ale and went back to try the black IPA.

I also tried his brown ale (we are very much a take-one-down-pass-it-around family and will try whatever the other one orders), which was tasty, and so I also tried the black IPA. And started to itch. Cut for Possible TMI Involving Allergies and Belching! )

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