Thursday, June 12, 2008

טוב לטייל, אך טוב יותר לשוב הביתה


Thanks to the oil crisis the ugliest word ever to enter the English language has recently been coined--staycation, a vacation during which stays home. I await with bated breath the proliferation of hideous souvenirs and t-shirts emblazoned with the appropriate imagery. I envision t-shirts, ceramic tchchkes and coffee mugs emblazoned with homely sayings such as, "West or West, home is best" and such like. I imagine that come September, every school age child will be struggling to write compositions on the joys staying put.

Being a devoted homebody, I have no problems with staycations. Give me a computer, plenty of books, a few decent movies, tolerable weather and the occasional visit from congenial friends and I am just fine. I happen to live two hours away from the nation's capital, a few feet away from a beautiful little park with a magnificent view of the Potomac river. I have a comfortable house and a wild garden with a rustic wisteria arbor. The arbor faces a small fish pool and deciduous woods behind there is a garrulous creek. Blue herons, Canada geese, blue birds, kingfishers, orioles, mourning doves, wrens, wood thrush, pileated, red bellied, and flicker woodpeckers, hummingbirds and owls visit my garden often enough. Monarch and cabbage white butterflies hover above my dishevelled flowerbeds and once in a great while a luna moth and a zebra butterfly keep them company.

Oh, I have been to Paris and I love it. I have been to Lisbon and Zurich and Rio. I have dallied in Charlotte Amalie, in Cochabamba and in Cremona . Someday I will, g'd willing, spend a few weeks on Tell Aviv and Jerusalem someday. But home is fine and dinner under the arbor is superb--chicken in chipotle adobo, Brazilian rice, steamed broccoli, freshly baked bread, a glass of chilled Stella followed by a homemade brownie and ice cream. Take that, OPEC.

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