Curry Hooks and The House That Traveled

Yesterday, official Day 2 at Glen Ellyn. Having recovered the Stomach, I was ready to meet Race Car Dave. What a delightful family! Ka-de-ka Road, Bliss Woods, Sugar Grove - All part of their address that is part of old Indian lands. 'Ka-de-ka' in the native tongue means sugar grove. And a sweeter family I haven't met.

I was again in the lovely circle of love flowing and catching up as memories were revived and jokes were laughed at and the warmth of coming home touched me. As we were leaving, Joe asked us "Have you found the curry hook in your car?" Our mean, macho, slightly over packed LandRover Discovery had a curry hook? What is that? The story according to Joe goes that when the car was being designed they attached a hook, left of the glove compartment that people could hang their take away packets on - it is believed that Land Rover owners ordered a lot of Indian food and before the curry hook came into existence the curry just sloshed around and soon there was a car that smelled perpetually like curry. Solution: Curry Hook.

It was a cute going away story that Carol and I giggled about as we drove through rolling gold fields of corn that await plowing under. The classic midwest picture - wide blue sky thick with cloud, vast golden abundant land that has borne fruit, open, inviting, silent and endless.

Onward to Geneva, Illinois. Like the others around here, it is a little city that contiguously flows from and into another. Looking for Dave Scatterday's house we passed the historic streets with Queen Anne and other ancient houses. Pretty, colorful, scalloped and date-labelled.

Then we saw it. A purple and grey-blue house - Dave Scatterday, a beer in one hand and the cell phone to direct us on one end of a creatively done yard. A lamp post with a number of different signs on it. On closer inspection we found tincan Maynard the Moose, draped with a Homecoming blanket - Homecoming is a time honored high school tradition that is honored also by Maynard!

Now here is the unique part - this house was actually a left corner house a few streets away. And it was moved... Yes, the whole house was bodily moved to this corner. Now it is a different direction so the front door which is supposed to open into the street is now a side/back entrance, with Maynard in full glory in a bowling ball patch, looking happy in its new habitat far away from its creator's workshop in Mexico.

Martha and Dave have an adorable house - a sun room that is from the Carribean - flamingos and all. A kitchen that is so inviting and eclectic that you want to dance in it, be in it - do something other than just cook in it. And then there is the moose theme bathroom. I haven't met a more creative and lively house. We sang, strummed and hummed. I felt alive, happy and delighted shaking to old songs and belting them out loud in a voice that was uninhibited and large in a space that could have been anywhere in the world where there are friends and guitars.

With love