we didn't call it a day until 4am last night. i slept in the living room on the opened sleeper sofa. i woke up before 10am, brooke was nowhere to be seen, having left early (7am) to print out her postcards and brochures and to get her hair done. i had a very good sleep, woke up with the cold mountain air coming through the windows, the smell of wood mulch, the sound of rain on the trees like the crashing of waves. i put away the bed and had some cereal for breakfast, then started working on the website. maggie, the assistant, dropped by somewhere during that time to make a phone call. brooke came back, made some quesadillas for lunch. i decided to take a break and finally venture out into the forest.

this is what i like to do: i like to go out into the wilderness and explore and take photos, the less people i see the better. fortunately the house up here in vermont sits along a vast wilderness trail. i studied the trail map and then headed out. it was raining, but i didn't mind. i walked with an umbrella in one hand, the gps in the other (i'd later wear it as a necklace), with a bag carrying all my photo equipment. i walked along the trail deeper and deeper into the forest. there was a moment of nervousness when i cut through a neighbor's backyard, very much aware of the "no tresspassing" sign. from a distance i saw a mother turkey (or was it a pheasant?) with her brood of young turkeys cautiously crossing a field. eventually open-skied forests turned to darker canopies. the path i was taking followed a brook beneath the forest canopy. the forest floor was filled with rotting tree branches, lush ferns, and mushrooms. there wasn't much else to see in terms of nature except for the mushrooms, which seem to thrive with great abundance here in these woods.

despite the rain, there was still some insect activities. it might even be easier in some cases to find them, because they're hiding from the rain. i saw a few yellow goldenrod spiders, a few leafhoppers, a katydid (i think that's what it was, i don't have my nature field guide), and although not insects, i also saw a lot of slugs, which were most often eating mushrooms. i got a few mosquito bites finally, i've gone through a long stretch where i didn't get any and i was started to feel left out. they got me in the back of the neck, and for once i was able to learn from my past mistakes by not wearing shorts (jeans instead), which probably saved me from being eaten alive. i tried looking for some monarch caterpillars on milkweeds plants but didn't see anything.

by the time i got back to the house several hours later, my sneakers were completely soaked and i was all natured out. i worked on the website some more, then stopped when brooke's friends showed up, amelia and mieke. they're both photojournalists, and i got to ask them a bunch of questions about the job. i cooked my thai red curry, as well as some hasselback potatoes. there was a bit of cooking crisis when i realized there was no butter or cooking oil in the house. we found an old container of margarine and some non-stick pam grease spray. the coconut milk i got was the wrong kind, coconut cream instead, which was this sweetened syrup used for making cocktails, not really for cooking. it still worked, but the coconut fragrance wasn't as strong and the curry feel on the sweet side (although still very spicy). i used small thai eggplants which my mother bought from the 88 supermarket, as well as two different colors of peppers (red and yellow). amelia's a vegetarian, so i cooked two different versions of the curry, one with chicken, one with tofu. they entertained themselves with brooke's digital camera while i cooked, using the superimpose function of the nikon 4500 to take inappropriate special effect photos.

thai red curry chicken

thai red curry tofu

hasselback potatoes

we ate on brooke's bed while watching best in show on dvd, the bowl of curry balancing dangerously in the center. brooke quickly fell asleep afterwards. when the movie finished playing, amelia and mieke left, while brooke went back to bed.