Shaking the Tree
April 6th, 2008
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Redhead Reduced and Sadie were dead-on when they said that cocktail attire in the wilderness does not mean what it means to people living a tad closer to civilization. Because I was running late, I didn’t get to take a photo of what I wore to the event, but it involved a just-below-the-knee gray wool skirt, a cashmere sweater and black knee boots after a last-minute consult with a fellow female attendee. And sadly, I was the most overdressed person in the room, which made me want to smack myself in the forehead, because DUH, YOU TOLD ME SO. (But really, a skirt and a sweater is overdressed, REALLY?) But hey, better over than under, I say, and dear Jesus, at least I wasn’t wearing the cute black cocktail dress I was considering, because it’s possible that I would be dead right now from sheer humiliation. Because my God, it was like a Coldwater Creek catalog exploded all over the room. There were a lot of woolly vests, is what I’m saying, and not a cocktail dress in sight.
There was also a really fun moment where I was (truly very kindly) introduced as a blogger — literally, “And this is Jonna, she’s a blogger!” — and for a flash of a second, I thought I’d die because the concept was so foreign and no doubt insanely frivolous to the investment banker I was being introduced to. I felt so inadequate in that moment, because really, how do you follow that?
“Yes, hi! I obsessively document my life on the Internet, but hey, um, why don’t we talk about your $70B fund instead! How’s that going?”
And this was BEFORE I accidentally engaged a group (with the AMPLE assistance of my husband) in a lively, if slightly uncomfortable, discussion of “Scientology: Cult or Not?”
(Note: this is not as bad as it sounds, because of the lack of Scientologists and the fact that, I’m sorry, it’s a cult and we all thought so, but still. Really? How did I get there? REALLY?)
And dude, I didn’t wear the boots at all the entire evening due to a fabulous New England mud season tradition wherein you take them off at the door. Thank GOD for the last-minute addition of black tights, because, in nature’s never-ending reminder of ooky things, if there’s one thing I forgot, it’s that winter feet get JANKY when they’re all cooped up, and I’m sorry for the visual, but my God, winter feet are awful. Florida feet don’t do that, I swear. My puppies miss their unfettered breezy freedom found in a lifetime of Reef wearing, and every store should carry those foot cheese graters that give you gangrene when fallen into the wrong hands after grating multiple feets, because it’s obvious that WE ALL NEED THEM. I love New England, but this part is unpleasant. UNPLEASANT.
And hey, on to maple syrup sugaring! I don’t know what I was expecting, but the whole set up was like touring the Wonka factory, seriously. There were Oompa Loompas and vermicious knids, even! Okay, fine, there weren’t vermicious knids, but the distiller thing was so shiny and behemoth that I really was waiting for Gene Wilder to drive it away singing lines from “As You Like It” in his purple coat. And it was steamy! So steamy! Like that whole foamy scene! And though there were no fizzy lifting drinks, we did walk away with a wee bottle of our own, and it’s so fat and adorable I want to dress it up and put booties on it after I finish pouring it over a stack of pancakes.
Adam and I were also marveling that while sugaring and syruping (?) has gotten very high tech, the fundamentals of it are so crude. I mean, you jam a tap into a tree and shove a bucket under it, like this:
I mean, shouldn’t they have figured something out here? Some sort of wild piping system that draws the syrup out and delivers it to Giant Shiny Thing That Makes Syrup? No? I think my future might be in syrup planning and technology advancement.
Anyway, I hope you had a wonderful weekend full of pancakes and homemade syrup, too. Onward to Monday!
*Peter Gabriel, hooray!
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
10 Comments Add your own
1. She Likes Purple | April 6th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
You can get a Ped Egg! (It’s horrible of me to link to it AT TARGET, I know!): Here. Also, have you seen the infomercials for those? The couple who came in second on an early season of The Amazing Race is on it. Oh, they have fallen, have they not?
2. Swistle | April 7th, 2008 at 2:47 am
This kind of thing: “…and the fact that, I’m sorry, it’s a cult and we all thought so…” makes me want to give you a big ol’ KISS.
3. Assertagirl | April 7th, 2008 at 4:45 am
Last week as I was driving to my night class I noticed a whole bunch of buckets crudely hanging from large maple trees on the side of the road. Plastic buckets. Gets the job done, I guess.
4. Shelly | April 7th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Ah, the ped-egg—a great source of distress for my friend, Teenie. She finds them utterly DISGUSTING–whereas, I find them to be interesting. Although, I don’t have one, my feet aren’t something I give alot of thought to, actually. That is until last year, when my hard heels CRACKED AND BLED…….ewwwwww (and owwwww). I filed and scraped and filed and scraped, and used some strange heel cup device to keep vaseline on my crusty appendages all night. After a time, they seemed better, I gave up trying, and although no crackage, they still are icky. The ped egg seems like a PERFECT device to me….sort of like a microplane grater for FEET. As long as it isn’t a shared object in the house, it seems perfectly reasonable. I don’t know why my friends finds it so repulsive. I’ll have to get the low-down.
Glad your party went well…..sorry that you were over-dressed. I didn’t step into that convo since my normal uniform is a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that are so thin in the inner-thigh area that one could possibley read a newspaper through them. I wear them EVERYWHERE…shopping, running errands, playing with friends…..it’s pretty disgusting. But so very comfortable. I have no fashion sense, and since I’m pretty heavy, I wear what fits (sort of–teenie says I wear things too big and baggy) and what can be worn to work……..other than that, I just don’t care…..sad, isn’t it.
I think it sounds like you looked very nice—-and even where I live—it would be perfectly fine for many occasions……….
5. Jess | April 7th, 2008 at 9:12 am
It might be crude but it makes for a gorgeous photo, seriously. Also, yes thank god for tights. I swear I can hear my neglected Reefs sobbing from the closet.
6. Jamie | April 7th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Thank you so much for this post, as it gave me a new tune to hum instead of the Britney Spears crap that was stuck in my head ten minutes ago.
7. Red | April 7th, 2008 at 10:18 am
I can totally understand why you felt overdressed. I work in the largest city in NH; it is not exactly cosmopolitan, but it’s not way up in the North Country, either. I mean, we have an actual mall and a Target here. But when I wear skirts and tights in the winter, people always ask me why I’m so dressed up. I think the combination of cold weather and plain Yankee practicality/frugality do a number on wardrobes, hence number of the woolly vests and flannel shirts you see at formal events. I mean it just can’t be the cold; people in Montreal and Stockholm still seem to maintain a sense of style in the winter.
Oh, and they do have more high-tech versions of sugaring. Most places use PVC tubing to connect the taps to a big sap collection tank, the contents of which are then taken to the boiler. Buckets are traditional, but they’re not as efficient because of spills and the debris that can collect in them. (My parents, who moved my family from outside of NYC to NH in the early 90s thought that tapping the maples that lined the driveway would be a fun “our first spring in NH” project. They did it exactly once and now buy their syrup just like everyone else.)
8. -R- | April 7th, 2008 at 11:34 am
I saw some trees with the sap buckets last week, and it reminded me of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It looks so quaint. I am jealous of your cocktail/maple syrup party.
I put lotion on my feet daily, and they never get janky.
9. Emily | April 7th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Janky? I have never heard of this word, janky. But tomorrow I shall use it in a sentence! And I will report back on my success!
10. reef tanks | January 14th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Thanks for this great guide!
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