Day Two Hundred and Ninety Three
Well, I’m back and I survived. Two whole days with no husband or children. I read 1325 pages which was exactly Missy’s guess! Congrats and please let me know which book you would like!
The Hermitage was wonderful in many ways and often unexpected.
There were many, many bugs.
There was essentially no color.
All the food was past its expiration date.
The showers were incredibly tiny.
Seriously no color.
HUGE beatles.
Sweet nuns in denim habits.
A chapel with lovely architecture.
Lots of brown and gray.
After we overcame our shyness and rang the bell (not doorbell but churchbell) the sisters extended a delightful welcome and then dissapeared leaving MB and I to our own devices. This was exactly as we wished. We planned to meet at 8 for wine and chocolate and quickly unpacked and started reading. A hundred pages or so into My Antonia MB arrived a little breathless from the dark walk. We chatted sipped wine opened without a corkscrew and nibbled some lovely 76% cacao chocolate. After about an hour I walked MB back to her cabin and then, assiduously avoiding the mouse on my trail, I scampered back. I polished off Willa Cather’s excellent novel that night and then launched into the collected short fiction of Raymond Chandler. About three stories in I stumbled across a story I will swear I’ve read already this year. It was nearly exact but I could also identify the precise differences. I’m going to have to figure out if this is a short story he worked into a novel or if two seperate authors could have penned essentially the same story. I had a restless night (hard bed, cold desert air and no hubby) and got up at 8am. I read about 60 pages after showering and then went over to MB’s for breakfast. Muffins and coffee whiled away an hour and then I was back to my to Chandler. I stopped about six stories in (or 200 pages) and picked up Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. I read all 416 pages in about six hours interuppted only by strolling over to MB’s to borrow her couch (my cabin had only the bed and a chair). She retreated to her room and ventured out for Vespers while I made dinner and finished the novel. We ate plain beans and rice with cheese melted over them and then I set out for my cabin. It was so incredibly dark that I lost the trail after about six steps. Fortunately we had the car and although it seemed stupid to drive 1/2 a mile our collective inability to remember flashlights made it necessary. I stayed up until about 11 reading more Raymond Chandler and starting Alice Munro’s Carried Away. After another restless night, I was up at seven reading away until MB came over for breakfast. While we ate I cleaned and packed in order to optimize the remaining reading time. I ended at just over halfway through Carried Away and then since I drove home (lead footed) we made the 2 & 1/2 hour trip in just 2 hours. I’m so happy to be home with my little family now. I missed them so much I couldn’t even let myself think about them while I was gone. I’d have been crying if I did. Now it’s back to the regular routine and while I enjoyed peace and quiet and a chance to read, read, read, I’m glad that it is. And I was almost as glad just to be back where there is rich green, reds and other saturated colors…the beauty of the Hermitage is in the saintly women that live there and very little else.