The thing about being on vacation is this strange dichotomy: the urge to cram your days and evenings with fun things and, in the absence of normal routine, a general slowing down. En vacance, as they say in France, you must permit yourself to do absolutely nothing. Whatever the French word is for guilt, it isn’t used much.
My annual spring break of five weeks or more, on a par with the August exodus from Paris to the south, is not so much about doing nothing as it is about breaking routines.
First of all, I don’t wear a watch. I use a small part of each day to do the annual “deep clean” of my Big Sky condo, saving the hefty fee for the procedure required by Resort Property Management. Instead of the company hiring a crew for a day, I do one little chore at a time. It took me a week just to do the kitchen, using two boxes of SOS pads to scour the pots and a gallon of vinegar to clean the glasses and silverware.
Actually, living in the small unit, destined to be my ultimate retirement home, gives me the chance to figure out what’s been broken or gone missing during a year of rentals. Ski season renters are the hardest on things, their main focus being how many runs they can make down the face of Lone Mountain during the short days of winter. Summer tenants are focused on golf, hiking, river rafting and fishing, spending the longer days almost entirely outdoors. They mostly just leave the gas barbecue a mess-scraping charred fish and steak remains is a major chore necessary to keep the bears at bay-but otherwise they’re easy on the furniture.
Apparently, last spring, a bird nested in the horizontal pipe that vents the windowless powder room downstairs. While enjoying the first warm sunny day on the deck, I noticed the white drippings from vent to floor that could only be guano, avian variety as yet unidentified.
I went inside to turn on the fan. Bits of nesting material and feathers drifted from the ceiling. I removed the vent plate and with my needle-nosed pliers retrieved three large black feathers, some slender twigs and enough down to stuff a small pillow. How is it possible that no renter complained or no maid ever noticed the ends of feathers protruding from the vent? Feeling smug for just a moment, my sense of accomplishment faded when I realized I couldn’t replace the metal vent cover because the one long bolt holding it to the ceiling wouldn’t go back in right. Cover and bolt are resting on a shelf waiting for someone who knows more than I about such things.
Next day, I attacked the white streaks on the outside wall. Not as easy as I thought. It started pleasantly enough with the sun warm on my legs, scrub brush in one hand, small pail of warm soapy water in the other. It looked like I was making progress, but each time the wood dried, the white returned. Guano, it seems, is the Gorilla Glue of the bird world.
Two days later, with the reddish brown wall pretty much back to its original color, I figured I should find a scrap of screen to prevent another nesting. So far, I’d seen only raptors and magpies, which I assumed lived in the tall spruce trees. But sitting by the glass doors to begin this column, I saw a flit of black across the deck. A songbird small enough to fit in that pipe was definitely sizing it up. Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, these guys begin spring house building the first of May, as Montana residents head to Mexico or Hawaii to flee what they call “mud season.”
Since there were no pieces of screen about, I temporarily covered the hole with bright blue masking tape. I also put a piece over the fan switch to remind myself not to turn it on. Okay, that’s my chore for today.
It’s clear and sunny, and mild. I can walk to Meadow Village to get the Bozeman Chronicle and check my mailbox. Then I can sit outside to read it and do the crossword puzzle. Later, I’ll probably walk around the golf course, which won’t open for another few weeks, though locals are already driving, chipping and putting all over the place, while maintenance guys, with rakes and mowers, are starting to get the fairways in shape.
In the afternoon, I swim laps in the indoor pool, then ease my aching hip in the spa. Though I love to cook, I’m really enjoying a break from family meals. I get to eat whatever I want, whenever I feel like it. Sometimes dinner is just humus on fresh bread with a little fruit and cheese. Or vegetables sautéed in olive oil and garlic. My kids say I could live on “nuts and berries.” Well, maybe. But the local country market does bake dynamite brownies every day.
And vacation changes my reading habits. Fewer newspapers and more books, but perhaps not the page-turning, can’t-put-it-down variety. I got a card for the local library, open a few hours three days a week at the elementary school, where I picked up Wendy Northcutt’s 2000 best seller, “The Darwin Awards,” which commemorates “those individuals who ensure the long-term survival of our species by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion.” This collection of hilarious, fatally stupid stunts can be read one or a dozen pages at a time, whatever fits into the casual routine en vacance.