January 24, 2026

The rookery at 10:34 a.m.  7 degrees.  

Otters have been playing at the rookery.

Arrived to at least 20 bluebirds and otter holes and tracks.

What a wonderful surprise.

The car is still inspected and insured in Annie's name so I got to have a great ride today.  At first I went up to the  rookery and tried to remember how to just sit there and write. How terribly lovely to attempt  it.  I lasted  maybe 25 minutes, but  it was enough time to track the otters.   Did not see any.   They were not far away though.  The tracks were fresh.  

Driving over to Bardswell Ferry I spotted a very big hawk.  I think its a red tailed, but I can't be sure.  There are no bars on his tail.  He was so still the entire time I  was watching I  began to believe he was snow on a broken limb, but he really is a hawk.   The  temperature did not rise above 11  while I was up in the hills.  I think he was preparing for the storm,  watching that stark white field for anything that tried to cross.

I started thinking about car stories  instead of love  stories.  Of course there is some  overlap, but the car that I liked the least that I owned was a 1972 Dodge van that was bright red.  I bought this van because I had this crazy idea while I was pregnant that I would run away in a van with a bed and a small refrigerator in it.  I don't know how long I actually owned it.  But Paul and I drove it to Cornell College in Iowa at the end of January 1973.  Somehow my mother believed sending me off to college a month after I gave my  daughter up was a smart idea.  So I took this whirlwind trip across the country and when I returned we packed up the van  and drove to Mt Vernon,  just the 2 of us, I think  it snowed through most of Pennsylvania. I'm not  sure how much crying I actually did, but we arrived and I was placed in a dorm.  My  roommate didn't show up. I was so frightened.   Paul flew home and I tried to matriculate.  A week later I fell down  a  fire escape and  hurt my   inner ear.  I was sent home, leaving my van with the one friend I'd made.  She got to use that van for a couple of months until a friend who was living in Chicago was willing to go out  and get it and drive it home to Connecticut.  Somewhere in there someone had an accident in it.  When it got back to me my dream of  being a vagabond in a red van was gone, completely.  

I don't remember how long I kept the van.  I worked at the Jr. High School that semester  and went on to Norwalk Community College in the Fall of 73.  I think I sold the van  immediately and used Mom's car to commute to school. The truth of the matter  is I have very few memories of 1973.  It is kind of a big hole to this day, including the demise of the red van.   I know the refrigerator was kept.  But the only actual memory of driving it is on Rt 80 in the  snow and feeling really unsafe.  Paulie, was it bad in the snow or was I just unsafe?

My next car was a 1973 Subaru Coupe.  I loved that car.  It was stolen from the Marlboro campus in February 1977, oh, how sad,  now that  car was my very good friend.  And it  was  quite good in the snow.

I went and  did the puzzles today.  I didn't finish either of them; can a weeks break from them destroy ones puzzle skills? I couldn't figure it  out.

Then I drove over to the canal and revisited the swans.  If you watch them long  enough you can see what Tchaikovsky was influenced by. Something like over 5000 muscles in their necks and the movement is hypnotic.  

I ended today with Chinese delivery, an expense I won't do again for a million years, it cost me twice as much as it would've a year ago.  That's ridiculous. Oh well, I'll get at least 2 meals out of it, but I won't be falling for that urge again.  But I wanted to party in celebration of the car.  It was not easy figuring out how to do it, but talking about an illustration of "it takes a village"  and I have such a wonderful village.  Kevin told me the experience  brought him joy.  I love that idea. I love that the interactions of the entire process brought him joy as he discovered new people, newness in general.

THANKS EVERYONE!!!!!!