down-home georgetown

We were welcomed into our hosts' home with bourbons on ice, beer and raw oysters drizzled with Luke's tasty vinegar and red onion salsa. On the scenic drive to Georgetown, Michael and I had gotten caught in a sudden downpour, the fringes of which never reached our destination, where we found no evidence of rain or wind and, due to an unusually cool, dry spring, no bugs. Around us, huge rhododendrons splotched the edges of granite shelves with white and pink blossoms and guarded a gnarled tree bearing a tire swing for their boy, Jacob.

When it was Jacob's bedtime, I made a salad while Sarah cut russets and sweet potatoes into wedges for fries. Nellie was discovered in Jacob's bedroom hovering over their orange tabby cat, Body, in a state of trance. Sarah remarked on what a good dog Nellie was not to have barked, so I told her I'd been training her to be nice to Woody's cat, Trixie, adding that it was a good thing for Body that he hadn't bolted because Nellie would've probably gone hunting.

As the evening wore on, Sarah and I chatted a bit about our boys—two peas in the veritable pod of disability—and about the immense difficulties of caring for non-verbal, unstable, incontinent, fragile boys who regularly wake before dawn and whose moods are volatile. We lamented about the added stress of finding consistent, reliable, compassionate help so that we don't lose our minds, our careers, our nest eggs, our marriages, our physical and emotional well-being, because I'm loathe to imagine what might happen to these vulnerable boys and our husbands if something were to happen to us. Needless to say it would be nothing short of ruinous. I went on to reminisce about the time we first met at the Witch's Tit ice cream shack several summers ago, and how, upon seeing Jacob who reminded me so much of Calvin, I was compelled to introduce myself. Little did I know what famous friends we'd become, nor what a match the couple would be, though fourteen years our junior, for our twisted sense of humor, unsparing candor, love of good food and drink and Michael and Luke's bromance with each other and with occasional nicotine and fire.

While Luke grilled the teriyaki salmon kabobs he'd skewered alongside cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and red onions, Sarah and I brought our drinks out onto the back deck to enjoy a sun setting into a bank of diaphanous clouds. I'd forgotten my camera, as did Michael, so Sarah tutored me on how to use her iphone. As I practiced my panoramic skills, she hammed for the camera, the shot below being our best result.

Few warm evenings are complete without Michael's homemade ice cream. He made basil flavored this time, with chocolate ganache. The earthy, green scent and taste of the ice cream reminded me of cannabis, the two herbs sharing fragrant terpenes likely responsible for some of the anticonvulsant effects used to treat epilepsy and, no doubt in my mind, having contributed to getting Calvin off of over 75% of his wicked benzodiazepine.

Just before the sun slipped behind the foothills, it shone bright and golden, then in its absence a blanket of mist formed and laid itself atop the water like a sleeping beauty. Calvin and Jacob were both asleep by then, and as I gazed out over the valley, grateful for all that I have, I wondered what our boys might be dreaming.