Donuts, Rambles, Gliders, Rapids, Barns and Moose

I flew this weekend. I flew IN THE AIR like a bird. I glided in a plane that looked like a space age toy.

And that wasn't all. After a hectic week of summer camp that left me frazzled and sleepless, I hoped to spend the weekend immobile. No such luck.

FRIDAY

Friday we toured the Roxy projection booth with the kids and then showed their films to a group of 40 or so parents and family members. Then I rushed off to the Roxy for the Simpsons donut eating contest (video up Wednesday).

The winner was a Canadian runner who ate 8.5 donuts in 4 minutes. I ate 3 donuts over the course of the next 2 hours but Tim Kavanaugh and Aram helped. My sister (modeling the donuts above) followed suite and added some Red Bull and vodkas to boot.

Between the two of us, we could have beaten that Canadian, no problem. Merrill, the owner of the Roxy and the generous donut provider, was just pleased no one choked.

SATURDAY

Saturday I Rambled in the Old North End (video up Wednesday) and supported the South in the water balloon toss at The War of the Wards, also known as Field Day. Michael's dog barked up a storm every time anyone cheered and the North brought home the bacon this year.

Casey of the Garden Project made me a nice flower wreath but it was too humid to wear it all day long. Neighborhood kids ate fancy hamburgers and painted their faces. Scott and Will interviewed people with a cardboard camera and microphone. The Old North End was ALIVE and full of rambles.

Saturday night Molly and I had a moonlit swim and did not meet one snapping turtle or leech (that we know of) and had bubbly at my new abode. I ceremoniously unpacked my baubles and tchotchkes as well as my granny's hand embroidered hankies and aprons.

We explored the house inch by inch including the newly christened, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre Room." Yep, it is an odd house with many strange holes in the floor!

SUNDAY

Sunday I was late and sped at about 95mph to Warren to go up in a glider at Sugarbush Soaring. It is impossible to put into words how awesome this experience was (video up Wednesday - Mike's article also in paper Wed). It is as close as a mere mortal like me will ever come to flying.

I did not want to come down even after we did some scary acrobatics where we flew straight up into the sky and then fell over backwards all higglety pigglety. We went from 2Gs to weightless. Wow.

Below is a face full of fear...

My grandpa used to fly a Cessna airplane and I have hours of footage he shot on his weekly journeys around the Mid-West. Gliding miles above the earth with my cameras in hand made me think of him and wonder if he was giving me his little wink and saying in his thick German accent, "Good girl."

My friend Tracy was having a film festival as part of her Phantom Theater in the Edgecomb barn later that evening. Rather than drive back home, I had an entire day to kill in the beautiful Mad River Valley where your cell phone not only dies completely but gets sucked of all its battery power. It is a cell phone black hole.


I spent the afternoon lazing around the Warren Falls, reading Bazaar and Harry Potter, cloud watching and sticking my feet in the rapids. The rocks were worn away in spots and I lounged in cold whirlpools while reading and keeping my feet in the rushing water. Hell yeah.

This was the first day I have been able to do nothing in a looooooong time. It felt like heaven, even if I did get a really bad sunburn and a million bug bites.

Then I was off to the barn for films - half of them were mine and half were made by this kid named Woodrow (above with Tracy) who is a local movie making star who now goes to Vassar.

On the way to the barn, Tracy and I saw a moose and her baby. That was my first moose sighting ever despite many viewings of Northern Exposure. They are such strange, prehistoric creatures.


And after this full weekend, I made my way back on the long drive home underneath a sumptuous moon. Now do I get to sleep all week long? Oh right, time to get editing...