Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Independence Day

Sorry for the break, kids – I was out living life! Not to worry, I’m back in front of the computer now. (There’s a cartoon in this week’s New Yorker with a picture of a new couple and the guy is thinking, “I wonder what she’s like online.”) Ben and I spent the holiday weekend at our new country house in Michigan with our friends the Hensleys – of Ruby fame – and it was pretty awesome. Okay, fine, it’s not really ours, but we got the actual owners to agree that it would be fine with us if they continued to rent it out for us, but that from now on we would be considering it our second home.
It’s pretty much the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. It’s like a playhouse, but full height and with two bedrooms, decorated entirely in painfully adorable fifties modern and with a kitchen stocked with gelato, which is the… other owner’s primary business. (It should go without saying that the gelato is unbelievably delicious.) Oh and it’s five minutes from the beach and a gabillion antique stores and there’s also twenty-seven acres and an orchard and pretty much an unlimited supply of mulberries and black raspberries for the picking, out of which Anne made a delicious galatte (sp?). The best bonus, though, in my estimation, was Petey Palazzolo, the four-and-a-half-year-old who lives with his parents in the main house on the property. He and Ruby were of course new best friends, and he is about the cutest kid ever, although bear in mind I do say that a lot. He’s got ginormous blue eyes and wears striped t-shirts and the greatest smile and he starts pretty much every new clause with “…um, and you know what?” He let us bounce on his trampoline which was a total blast but now my entire body aches. If you haven’t ever bounced, it’s a surprisingly good aerobic workout.
I tell you, I don’t know what more anyone would want in life besides what I already have, except for a kid (although about this Ruby says, “Yeah, so you can be annoyed!”), because I feel thoroughly charmed, and so grateful that we can afford to go away for a weekend with good friends to a place as magical as this. The Hensleys are too cool to even get into. The fact that Anne is a fantastic cook is – well it’s almost redundant, if not unnecessary. I would eat olive loaf on Wonder Bread with these people. Anne and I had several great talks (as usual) and when we came back from a berry-picking walk on the property she reported to Chafe that we were two smart bitches who had it all figured out. (Inasmuch as we know we don’t have it all figured out.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks, pal. it's pretty ridiculous how perfect the weekend was, isn't it? i tried to explain it to the guys at work this morning and they were like, "yeah, cool, that's great, trampoline, mulberries, blah-dee-doo ..." but they didn't get it. how could they? chafe brought up that next time we have to have a hand-held tape recorder with us at all times to record the impromptu song styles.

Anonymous said...

Ha! To both of you. We should both have tapes going all the time here and in K-zoo, Anne, for the song stylings. We do jam well together, the Henslies and the Brandts. Debra, it was awesome, I'm sorry about the Wonder bread - I could have written another entire paragraph about Anne's yummy french toast and scrumptious eggs and fresh fruit salad and cucumber salad (which I tried to replicate last night minus the lemon juice - not bad!) and on.
I don't miss NYC in the summer, nope. I'm glad you could virtually be with us though, Debra!