The Farewell Tour

This weekend Mama Q brought a box of store-bought donuts home. It was the good ol', classic variety box: cinnamon sugar, powdered, and plain. On the front of the box was the above picture. I eventually figured out that it was supposed to be a cruller, but originally thought it was intended to be a much younger, out-of-shape-Mr. Peanut. Or at least much less....stylish. Chic. Hip. Anyway.

This past Friday I had the last-minute opportunity to drive to Burlington and pick up Alyssa, Quinlan child #2, who was coming home for the weekend to do laundry, pick apples, and visit yours truly before the end of the month (a little more than a week and I'll be in Germany! wooo). On the way up, I stopped in Middlebury to visit some friends, eat some free food, and more or less confuse a lot of people who had thought I had already left. I wasn't thinking about seeing so many people and answering so many questions when I decided to pop into Middlebury that day. But then again, I was in the dining hall for about two hours. It should have occurred to me.

Mama and Papa Q were a little skittish about letting me drive all of that way because, as I had mentioned earlier, I was involved in a little clash of bumpers, one might say, about a week before. I was driving home from Peterborough, where I had met my friend Devyn for a run, and had responsibly slowed down when someone ahead of me reduced their speed to turn left into a gas station. I decided not to honk at their failure to use a directional, and was feeling pretty proud about my unexhibited road rage, when I looked in my rearview mirror in time to see a white Chevy van push me 20ft from behind. Three towns' police forces were respresented that day. Big happenings in the small town of Antrim.

Between dog bites, pranks pulled at the local town beach where I (used to?) work (including a trench, six feet long, three feet wide, and four feet deep dug by some local punks and coming into work one day to find one of the picnic tables standing on the raft with our rather punctured dinghy boat resting on top of it), and, of course, car accidents, I would say that the entire police force of Antrim is pretty familiar with me at this point. I'm probably one of the only people in the town that can say that while still maintaining a perfect driving and non-existent criminal record. But please, hold your applause--I still have one week left in this town.

When I left Middlebury to go and rescue Quinlan child #2 from the throes of somewhat-urban life and bring her home to the safe sanctuary of quaint boredom, I was appalled at the conditions in which I had to drive. I'm not talking about inclement weather, or even frost heaves, for that matter. What this small country bumpkin is talking about is the insane amount of traffic she faced when driving north in South Burlington. It literally took me two hours to get from Middlebury to Isham Street. But then again, traffic jams in my town are caused by tractors pulling out of Tenney Farm and forcing you to go about 20mph, or by some dope that can't parallel park on Main Street (...I may or may not be guilty of that). So what do I know.

But, Quinlan children #s 2 and 3 came home safely and soundly. The next day, apples were picked. And then eaten. And also made into delicious apple crisp by Mama Q.

This past weekend, however, was also the date for Antrim's 5th Annual Home and Harvest Celebration. Now, just because it was only the 5th Annual does not mean that my town suffers from a deplorable lack of small-town celebrations--it only means that they change names every few years. When I was younger, we had Antrim Days in the summer with fireworks and parades, and then in middle school we had the Celtic Festival, where a bunch of artisans came and sold their Celtic goods in Memorial Park. But Home and Harvest Days is oh-so-much better. Even though I missed the parade and the fireworks this year, Alyssa and I did go through Main Street and look at all of the vendors, and even got to watch a skateboard slalom competition which, we learned, attracts a bunch of skateboarders from all across the country. Antrim's competition is the second-to-last event before nationals or something like that. AND AND AND AND AND---a WORLD RECORD was broken this past Friday. Basically what it was was a series of cones set up about three feet from one another in a winding pattern down Summer Street, which is a shorter street with one big hill. Two boarders compete at a time, and even exit from gates like skiiers would for a slalom competition. It was wicked awesome.

After Alyssa and I had had our fill of Home and Harvest Days (there was also a corn-on-the-cob eating contest that I didn't enter--although I'm pretty sure I could have owned that thing--and then on Sunday a softball game between Antrim's Finest (police officers...go team!) vs. Antrim's Bravest (fire fighters--who I think everyone really wanted to win--including myself) that we also missed), we returned home, where Amber, Quinlan child #1, came with her boyfriend Tim and the two cutest children in the world, Brayden and Baylee. Now, the saddest part about leaving for a year is that both Brayden and Baylee will have no idea who I am when I come back. I'll have to return bearing many gifts for them so that I can once again claim my title as favorite aunt. These are the important things in life, people.

Until next time,
Amanda "You gonna eat that?" Quinlan