Not having a cow

It seems like she has always been there, sometimes hiding just behind the front door, sometimes on the front porch waiting for kids to climb on her. Near the end she was too fragile even for that, and had to make due with kids posing next to her.

It was not her choice to perch on the roof, and indeed it subjected the artificial bovine to many indignities; besides the rain, there were the high school pranks, where she'd end up in someone's front yard or the middle of the football field.

But as fake as a fiberglass cow might seem, she was a piece of realness in a once-rural community where homogeneity has fast invaded. For nearly 70 years, she has watched as the McMansions and chain stores, strip malls and shopping centers slowly replace the fields of pastoral cows and corn. But still the dairy cow remained, even as a mega church moved in next door and the red-bearded owner passed away.

But last winter was different: for the first time in its history, Theno's Dairy closed for the winter. They promised to reopen in the spring, but the evidence is strong that this may not happen. Even as we turn the corner into sun-soaked days, the door (with the hand-lettered sign telling people to slide to open, since the automatic closer gave out five years ago) remains closed, the freezers (for gallons of vanilla and banana nut and mint chocolate chip to take home) are empty, and most telling, the cow is gone.

I stand at the closed door with my Little One, and we are both sad. There is simply nothing else like it out here in suburbia. Of course, there are the three national chains (you can probably name them with no difficulty), but this was the place we were going to buy two huge buckets for the end of year celebration at school. Without the cow, we are at a loss, for it seems impossible to treat the passel of happy kids to ice cream that comes from here, from milk from a fiberglass cow named Vivian.

Creature comforts

As I bask in the comfort of my own home, I reflect on my travels last week. Every day, when I logged on to my laptop to check email and establish a video link with my family, I was greeted by the hotel’s login screen. This being an all-suite hotel “designed for the business traveler” they couldn’t help but extol their virtues: “Spacious two-room suites,” “Cooked to order breakfast,” “Evening Manager’s reception,” and so on. They have a business center where you can print things out (instead of frantically hunting for the nearest Kinko’s) and a playroom where the kids can blow out some steam with toys that were too big to pack. This particular hostelry had construction going in the central atrium, with a big pile of sand that gives me different ideas for a hotel playground.

But for me, the best part was having a fridge and a microwave. Combined with the fact that there was a Whole Foods across the street, it meant that I was not at the mercy of restaurateurs. Trying to get a non-allergen menu in a reasonable portion, not to mention sitting alone in a restaurant, is not my idea of a recharging or even marginally relaxing meal. Kudos to the hotel chain that finally figured it out: no one wants to eat in a restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I think back to road trips in Europe with my Darling Husband (who was darling at the time, just not my husband yet). We would throw some things in a bag that was light enough to carry, and set off to the train station. We later added our own car, but our destination was always the same: a youth hostel. The bed, which seems to be the main feature in standard-issue hotels, was usually a Spartan metal framed affair with sagging springs, one of many in a sleeping dorm. But the rest of the hostel added to the experience. There is nearly always a full kitchen (and sometimes a laundry) at your disposal, where you can whip up something as simple as an omelet (pick up four eggs and some cheese at the fromagerie in Rennes), or as complex as a pot of soup (fresh vegetables from a market in Avila) and wash it down with a local vintage (a Côtes du Rhône in the Vaucluse Valley). And a room with a big table and some sofas and chairs to hang out in, often with outdoor spaces with fire pits or grills (sausage and pork chops from the butcher shop in Lorient) and lawn chairs and hammocks and such. Sometimes we would score a “family room” which only had four beds, and a lock on the door (I recall a particularly romantic one, under the shingles in an old Norman flour mill, with machinery running the length of the stone room). We could raid the kitchen for milk and cookies at midnight if we wanted (we dipped cookies in mascarpone at one a.m. in Ravenna). Try that in a Travelodge.

So, much as I prefer the comforts of home, it is good to know that the tide is changing, if only a bit (they still have those annoying paper lids on the glassware). Perhaps they realize they’re up against videoconferencing, which allows participants to stay home and sleep in their own beds every night. Odd to think of hotels cluing in to the more human comforts of the youth hostel that not only make travel pleasant, but contribute to the texture of the experience. Let’s hope for more fridges in the future, since curling up with Ben & Jerry and Harry Potter on HBO (and no kids to interrupt you) is something I can paste in my scrapbook.

From the mouths of babes

I vividly remember a worksheet my first grade teacher gave to us. It had pictures of everyday objects on it, with a few letters below each picture. The object was to circle the first letter of each image. Below the picture of the refrigerator, I dutifully circled the “F” – for fridge. The teacher marked it wrong, and I was very upset. I discover many years later that my mother has kept the worksheet, that it is a bit of family lore by virtue of the ensuing tantrum. Then today in the car, Little One, knowing that warm summer days mean ice cream, sings a ditty about the stuff of his desire, “in the fridge, and fridge starts with F.”

One time, we’re driving home from doing the shopping, and he blurts out, “Penguins make ice!” I make some non-committal Mommy-type grunt, since utterances like this are quite common. Still, I can’t help but wonder where he got that one. Then I see it the next time we shop.

A few weeks ago, as he took a bite of his supper, he considered for a moment, then looked at me and said “Everything we eat grows.”

Clearly, he continues to blur imagination and reality, but I am in no hurry to see him grow up. He will not be subjected to the same worksheet; he doesn’t need it. He’s already plenty wise.

I scream

When we were house hunting for our first home, the realtor took me to scores of houses, countless open house buffets and far too many McMansion showcases. But one hot day, discouraged, she showed us the way to Theno’s Dairy. Theno’s is an old, independent dairy, a holdover from Redmond’s rural days, complete with the fiberglass cow out front (she used to be on the roof, but now is wheeled indoors at night, the victim of one too many senior pranks). Their milk still comes in glass bottles, and their ice cream, Vivian’s Pride, is the best ice cream I have ever had. Hands down. Over the years, we became such familiar faces that the owners, Sandy and the gruff bearded Leroy, knew to look for Darling Husband’s favorite flavor when he walked in the door. Sandy would often have a half gallon of banana nut set aside in the corner of the deep freeze just for him. (There was a terrible dry spell when she couldn’t get bananas for a month and he had to make due with Marion berry cheesecake swirl.) They have seen us progress from newlyweds to parents; from yuppies to forty-somethings. We have watched them age as well, mourned Leroy’s premature passing, and seen their kids grow to take over the business.

A few years ago, Number One Son’s then first grade class went strawberry picking down the road at the South 47 Farm. Chatting with the teacher at the farm stand, we decided that there were more than enough berries to share with the whole school, and that ice cream would be the perfect accompaniment. The lucky souls in my carpool were subjected to a visit to the fiberglass bovine, where the kids slurped on mint chocolate chip and Mackinac Island cones while Leroy took our order for a three-gallon container of vanilla. “Since it’s for your school” he said, “I’ll give you the wholesale price.”

I received the seasonal phone call from school yesterday: would I be able to procure ice cream for the now traditional end-of-school ice cream social? When I told the boys and they had finished their rather loud happy dance, Number One Son asked timidly if we could go to the trendy new place in the mall. You know, the latest national chain that hires uniformed teens to recite scripted dialogue and smash candy into ice cream? No way, said I, we’re going to Theno’s.

You see, we started going there because the ice cream was incredibly good. We keep coming back because the ice cream was incredibly good and the people are friendly. We like it there: we love the rural setting, the fiberglass cow and the plethora of cow kitsch. We kept coming back long before we were principled to patronize our local businesses over national big box retailers, before we looked to the seasons to dictate our diet. And yet their cheesy reader board counts down the days until their refreshing cantaloupe ice cream arrives every year (around July first, depending on the weather). The pumpkin ice cream (think pie in a cone) comes from organic pumpkins you can see growing across the street.

We headed there yesterday after school, before the highschoolers descended. The cow has a fresh coat of paint (her udder sports a fetching color of pink this year). It is a sure sign of spring, catching up with Sandy and all the news, slurping up midnite chocolate, and ordering two three-gallon tubs for the end of school. The reader board reminds us that “ice cream is brain food: the more you eat, the smarter we think you are,” but it will change soon to the annual “congrats, RHS grads!” followed by the cantaloupe countdown, as it has every year. Now why would anyone want to go anywhere else?