my green vermont

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November 28, 2008 “Stick Season”

Welcome to My Green Vermont - A Blog by Eulalia Benejam Cobb.
By Eulalia Benejam Cobb

Good friends invited us to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. Our contribution, aside from our irrepressible charm, was limited to a few bottles of wine. It was my easiest Thanksgiving ever, and one of the best.

But that was yesterday. Today is another story.

Vermont\’s stick season (no leaves on the trees, no snow on the ground, just sticks everywhere) is in full swing. The clouds hover above the treetops, and the brightest color outside the window is the dull yellow of the dead grass.

It\’s stick season in my soul as well. No spark, no oomph, just existential dread clogging up my vitals. So oomphless am I, in fact, that after asking my husband\’s permission (I\’ll explain later) I decided to spend the day in my pajamas, in and around the bed.

Now spending the day in pajamas when I don\’t have a fever symbolizes a major abdication for me, second only to watching TV in the daytime. Spend a day in pajamas and before you know it, you\’ve stopped washing your hair, then your teeth fall out (because you\’ve also stopped brushing your teeth), then you stop going out (after all, you\’re in your pajamas) and instead you start keeping cats, lots of them, in the house and you stop changing the litter….

You can see why I had to ask my husband\’s permission before setting foot on that slippery slope. Since the man is utterly lacking in tragic imagination, he willingly gave me his blessing—heck, he even smiled. And later, when I asked, he took the dogs out into the field and threw balls for them to tire them out. I\’m married to an enabler!

So here I sit, in bed, in my pajamas (hair and teeth brushed, however—noblesse oblige) trying to salvage the day in the only way I know: writing.

When it gets dark, I\’ll go downstairs and make a fire in the stove. Then, still in my pajamas, I\’ll walk through the attached garage to the attached chicken coop, say a few words to the chickens, and close them in for the night.

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