adventures

Cari came up to visit last weekend and we had a great time relaxing, eating cider doughnuts, going for a long run around the reservoir, and carving Calvin the pumpkin! We also had a little adventure. Cari wanted to see Emily Dickinson's home (now a museum), so we stopped in for a tour before she had to get on the bus. We wanted to do a 1:30 tour, but we got there and it was sold out to an extra large group, so we took the 2pm instead. The tour begins downstairs. I've been on it before, so I was looking around the room more carefully than I have on other visits, and I happened to notice the ceiling had some major cracks. We continued on through the rest of the first floor, and then up to the second. A major section of the tour is in the bedroom where Emily Dickinson wrote all her poetry. Our small group had gathered in the room, all along one wall (most of the room is roped off to display her things), and was just settling in to listen to the tour guide. Suddenly there was a strange noise from downstairs...a thud. And then another thud; it sounded like books falling. And then there was a huge crash and crunching noises. It very quickly became clear that something huge was falling, so we all ran downstairs, to discover the ceiling of the room right below the room we were standing in had collapsed! The air was full of dust and god only knows what else, and the entire ceiling had peeled away from the beams. The tour was quickly disbanded (luckily, no one was in the room and no one was hurt) and Cari and I left to catch her bus.

You can read the official letter, with dramatic pictures, from the Museum, and read a report in the NY Times. There's still no word on why exactly it happened, although I can't help but wonder if the extremely large tour group ahead of us played a role...

Here's a poem by Emily that seems apropos (number 997)

Crumbling is not an instant's Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation's processes
Are organized Decays.

'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust --

Ruin is formal -- Devil's work
Consecutive and slow --
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping -- is Crash's law.

So last weekend Dave and I spontaneously took a very long walk. We left the house to get outside and go for a little walk and several hours and six miles later we were in Medford (the next town over) after a very wandering route. Since it was so spontaneous, I don't have any pictures, but I do have a strange story to tell.

At one point, we were standing at a major intersection, where 93 crosses with a big city road. While we were waiting to cross the street, we noticed a basketball rolling through the intersection, from no apparent source. As we crossed the street, Dave picked it up. He was about to toss it into the grass at the corner when he realized, hey, this is a pretty nice, mostly inflated basketball, I might as well take it. We continued walking, looking at the ball, and suddenly realized the ball had a name written across it in marker. The name was Anubis. The Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis.

I was a little freaked out by this omen, but Dave insisted we had to take the ball along. We stopped for lunch at a diner and managed to acquire a plastic bag in which to carry it. We continued on for another few miles, vaguely heading for this big state park that we knew was in the area. While we managed to find the park, we were unable to find a way in that didn't involve cutting through yards, so we stopped at a playground and shot some hoops. I haven't played basketball since at least junior high and discovered that I am terrible at it. Terrible terrible.

After we got tired, we headed home, Anubis in tow. He's now residing on the back porch (I refused to allow him in the house) while we figure out what else to do with him. Post on craigslist? Re-inflate him and play basketball at the playground around the corner? Pass him on to another friend? Haven't decide yet. Let me know if you have any ideas.

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I'm heading out to California for about ten days to visit Tassajara Zen Mountain Center for a work period. I will be completely offline for the week that I'm there, and right after I come back we're off to NYC for the wedding of some dear friends. Not that you'll notice much difference, but don't expect any new posts for the next couple of weeks--after that I should have some great photos and adventures to share!