Running Water Kicks Ass

Robert Gordon's book The Rise and Fall of American Growth asserts that some economic advances are unrepeatable-- technological innovations such refrigeration, air-conditioning, television, air travel, and motor vehicles are probably never going to be surpassed-- and thus, the era of massive economic growth is coming to an end; running water and indoor plumbing are in this exalted category, and though we survived a day without running water, flushing the toilet with melted snow, we were very happy when the well started pumping again this morning-- we were able to shower, brush our teeth, go to the bathroom conveniently, and do the dishes . . . and this also freed us up to do other leisure activities (just as all those major advances created massive economic opportunities) and we built a wild and fast sled run through the woods-- Catherine set a new landspeed record-- and played Settlers of Catan (I won, but more significantly, Ian bult a wall across the island, blocking all our advances and Alex called him Donald Trump and then Ian tried to engineer an absurd trade with me so he could bolster his wall and Alex said, "He's making you pay for it, Dad! You're Mexico!") and then Cat and I dug the car out-- we got over a foot of snow-- and we drove down 91 and ate lunch at the Whetstone Station in Brattleboro (I finally tried some Hill Farmstead beer: Edward  and I pronounced it very very good, also had Legitimacy IPA, almost as excellent . . . wish I could find cans of this stuff in the stores here) and we wandered around town until we found a couple of new sleds for the boys (the old ones were fairly shredded) and some very good coffee and some houseplants for my home improvement project . . . you'll have to see it on Pinterest, and we plan on getting up early tomorrow to go snowboarding-- I was quite impressed by the job the plows and sanders did on the roads, even the dirt ones, so we should be able to make it west through the mountains to Bromley . . . and all this vacation stuff was made possible by running water . . . aside from the dog's vacation dream: he found a frozen dead mouse on the porch and ate it.