These last few days...

...have been fascinating in all sorts of ways, almost too full to begin to describe. There were 3 days charging across country from Chicago through green forests and clouds of jetlag. There were 2 days in Montpelier, which were equal parts being feted and being a tourist - highly enjoyable. More driving, and dinner with Greer Gilman in Cambridge, and an evening walk around Harvard with Greer as our guide, and since then a couple of days with Greer's friend and colleague Faye Ringel, who is also a wonderful guide to New England, and today took us to Kitchen Little and Mystic Seaport and tonight is hosting a talk by Paul Di Filippo at Otis Library, where I'm sitting now typing this.

That's the bare bones of it; fleshing it out is the birch beer, the toasted-almond and coconut ice-cream, the witches' houses, the day lilies, the drooping foliage over the headstones old and new, the elegant old boats, the fresh cherries, the sea shanties, the children tumbling all over the Seaport, the mouthwatering bookshops and the long, long, mild evenings.

Having a wonderful time.