The Cabin
This is my busy time of the year for work. And it’s really busy. Blech. Almost through though. Over this past weekend I headed up the Rod’s cabin just outside of Fairplay. I left on Saturday morning. It’s a long drive and a windy town but it’s worth it for a relaxing weekend. There were 11 of my friends up there lazing around for the weekend. We were all slippers and sweatpants and comfy sweaters. I started out my afternoon in the mountains with a quick nap, really, the only way to start off a lazy weekend. I the laid around and read my book, watched TV, and then interspersed that fun with playful bouts involving my friends one-year-old and one-and-a-half-year old daughters who are a complete joy now that they have developed some personality. A baby is just a baby until the personality kicks in - then the fun begins.
Later in the evening we all gathered around the dining table and ate a enormous spaghetti dinner, drank wine, had tons of laughs, drank beer (somehow, over the two nights, the twelve of us were able to drink an entire keg. Yeah, we got problems), took pictures, and played mexican train and uno attack, which Father Jones somehow turned into pornography. Of course, Father Jones can turn a BBC special about Mother Theresa into pornography easier than he can undo a bra clasp, so this uno incident came as no surprise to anyone.
Later in the evening I took the telescope out to the front porch. Being hidden away in the mountains, with little light pollution, the cabin provides some great star gazing. Because I have been the biggest fan of Jack Horkheimer (keep looking up) since I was a teenager, I knew how to locate Saturn and that it would be at it’s best right now. I had never seen Saturn and it’s rings in the flesh so I was pretty awestruck and excited when I saw it through the telescope. And I felt kinda proud that it was something that I could do on my own. I actually started to shake a bit and ran in to tell everyone they gotta come see this. Only about half the people got up to see it, but those that did were just as excited as I was and we couldn’t stop talking about the planets and Stephen Hawkins wheelchair for a while afterward.
At some point in the evening I crashed out. I guess I feel asleep before the beer was gone, and before the Indian leg wresting and basement basketball tournament ever got started. I’m glad though, cause the kiddies were rise and shiney at 7:30. Ouch. I don’t even get up that early on workdays. I lazed around and catnapped and watched football and ate leftovers for about six hours before finally peeling myself off the couch and heading back into the city. Thanks for the stay Rod and Ting, I had a blast.
1 lotus Says:
Hey! Are you the only other person on Earth who watches “Jack Horkheimer, Star Hustler” late at night on PBS? I LOVE him. When I was a kid, he always reminded me of my best friend Kelley’s dad. And I love that they play that Debussy piece on his show, and he walks down the cheesy looking galaxy walkway. I haven’t seen him in years..I MISS HIM…
2 Mala Says:
Seeing Saturn must’ve been too cool! I’ll have to check it out when I travel to the sticks in Massachusetts later this month!
3 hubs Says:
lotus - i love Jack. me and my brother used to come home with a good buzz from some randoms parties back in highschool and college. we’d often stay up till the other came home and then watch the stargazer together and talk about our nights. then we’d go outside and look into space to see if we could find what he was talking about. i miss that. i got my brother a stargazer video for his college graduation. maybe it would make a good stocking stuffer this year. i love how he does that little squatty thing when he fall from the top of the screen. i didn’t know Dubussy whistled ;). anyway, he’s still on if you stay up late enough.
mala - try to check it out if you can, apparently you can see the rings with a powerfull pair of binoculars, but somehow i doubt it.
4 lux Says:
That’s the show with the Debussy piece as the theme song? I used to play it on the piano and people would say, ‘hey, that’s the song from that show on PBS’ and I would have no clue what they were talking about. I’m more of an earthy girl.