The awesome thing about going out to breakfast in Vermont is the little butter packets are Cabot and the syrup came from trees. Always, with the syrup anyway (I read recently that IHOP opened their first store in Vermont and they got special permission from corporate HQ to serve real syrup, because it is Vermont and you can't not have real syrup).

Also, I spent the past three days in allergy hell. I used my inhaler every six hours, and I took three of allergy pills a day. MISERABLE.

But there was more than allergy hell, there were organic unsprayed apples picked off the trees and turned into apple crisp and apple sauce. There was good company and happy dogs. There were freshly dug potatoes turned into potato pancakes (to go with the apple sauce). And my parents' place in Vermont is extremely beautiful.

  _

Two days after the allergy pills disappeared and were repurchased, I dumped out my hamper to sort laundry and heard the sound of a pill bottle. And there they were. Oh, well, I guess I now have a 180 day supply of allergy pills. _