Dig a pony

I was so distracted from work this morning by 1) my Christmas shopping lists and 2) these puffed up brown birds battling over a perch on the red bird feeder, shoving and shouldering each other off over and over again, when there was plenty of space for everybody.

Happy last day of November, everybody. I'm still a little obsessed with the Beatles documentary, totally in touch with my child self who loved them* so much and was utterly heartbroken that they split up. 

Fun fact: my first memory (quite possible not real, but I like it anyway) is being in a playpen and hearing Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.

*especially Ringo, every child's favorite

Everybody had a hard year

I've been watching The Beatles: Get Back (part one with Adam and Jeannette, part two with Clover). As a bonus, Yoko Ono had a cameo in my dream last night. 

It's pretty great, especially if, like me, you were raised on the Beatles, raised your own children on them, know every single word to every single song. Worth watching just for Scouse accents, cups of tea, toast racks, furry coats, George's boots, Yoko reading the newspaper, Ringo's patience, John being silly, Paul's songwriting brilliance.

I can see Venus through my kitchen window

This month seems to be wiiiiinding down (ah, there's still a full week left, I see). A looming dilemma at the moment is: should I set my alarm for six and treat tomorrow like a regular day, or sleep in? Either way, I will make a salad and we'll take it to Mitchell's house, where we'll all participate in the festive holiday tradition of drug store quick Covid tests before (with any luck) tucking into a small Thanksgiving feast.

There will be nearly as many dogs as humans there (three!). And in other dog news, an Irish wolfhound is coming over to watch basketball tonight. 

I'm at the stage of Christmas shopping where I'm prematurely smug about all I've accomplished, when in reality I've bought three things for one person and contemplated about five other purchases. I think I need to make some more lists.

If you could take the day by the hand

Yesterday we accomplished so much and yet still managed not to cross off several top items on our to-do list, including removing the last air conditioner from the window and hauling all three to the basement. Imagining it still there on Thanksgiving is bringing to mind the time Mark brought home an old metal desk he found and left in in the back yard, as I pestered him for weeks about bringing it indoors. "Snow is going to fall on that thing,"  I predicted, and Reader, it did. 

I hacked mercilessly at the enormous patch of beach roses in the front yard in my new quest to tame them to a small, manageable shrub. I want to replace most of them with native stuff — maybe bayberry and blueberry and elderberry bushes. There's also a rose species that would be a nice substitute, Virginia Rose. 

Okay, off to have a Monday now. The sky is smoky gray at 7 am, very November. 

On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree

Saturday is my traditional sleep-in day, but I woke at 6:00 with my head full of dreams, and got up to write them down. For weeks I haven't really remembered them, just the fuzziest outline and sometimes one detail (the night before I wrote in my dream journal "A flimsy tray, a shoddy paint job when viewed up close."). Last night's was one of those satisfying dreams that went on and on, involved flooding and long conversations and an Eastern European city and twins and adventures.

Gray November beach with Clover, early — one of my favorite kinds of beach. She played with many dogs, even big, bouncy puppies, and was only ready to leave when she heard a distant scary sound (blasting? Morning fireworks?).

I wish you could see how sleepy the sky is already now, at 4:15 pm, how tired the branches of the trees are in my neighborhood, still shedding gold and brown leaves. The only thing that's missing is crows! Where did they go?

 

Missed a day

Blerg, it was November 18 that broke my record! I actually remembered while lying in bed last night, but having pledged to myself not to look at screens after a certain late hour, I accepted defeat and fell asleep instead of blorging.

In my defense, Adam and Jeannette came for dinner (!!!). In other news, a wreath arrived in the mail from Dad so we went ahead and started our annual struggle with holiday porch lights — we seem to go through many stages of them looking weird before getting them to a somewhat normal state. It's early to do these things, yes! But we want to make the most of a Closer to Normal Than Last Year season. 

It's the twenty-ninth birthday of my first baby, my sweet, stubborn, shockingly brilliant girl. She is far away, once again celebrating (or not — I hope she is!) in a distant country. I'll never forget her stories of the first birthday she spent without us, turning sixteen in a German village near the Black Forest, so homesick, but fêted at school with cakes and gifts, held aloft on a chair and paraded around, as her classmates sang! I thought, those Germans really know how to do birthdays right.

Mica mermaid, 1994

Ephemera

 

One of my two favorite bruddies is coming back to Maine TONIGHT.

Mid-day work brain results in things like this.

In further avocado news, why would you name a mattress AVOCADO? The implications are just...weird. Squishy like guacamole, or hard as a rock like a grocery store avocado?

I would like more reassurance like this in general.

See you tomorrow!

Pro and con

Pro: my heated seat en route to Trader Joe's today. 

Con: the Time & Temperature clock was blank, a bad omen if I ever saw one.

Which will bloom most constantly?

As Lizzie As Possible.

I also forgot to mention the pockets and tufts of fog I drove through on my way to Holly's. The world disappeared on the bridge across the Piscataqua — I didn't realize I was even on a bridge until the Google map lady welcomed me to New Hampshire.

I realize I'm dwelling on this journey quite a lot here, considering I was away from home for about 36 hours. That may be a reflection of the number of times I've left Maine in the past two years (TWO).

Still Life With Blueberry Oatmeal

Holly not only made me coffee when I shuffled downstairs in my pajamas Sunday morning, but she gave me this beautiful handmade ceramic mug too. 

Whirlwind

Home, after a really lovely quick visit. I forgot to mention ice cream in the blustery cold, watching Passing, and cat cuddles on the couch. 

It's easy to get distracted in Holly's kitchen by the river rushing past, just down the hill from her back yard. Also, the pleasure and ease of talking to someone who's known me for forty years is one of my favorite feelings. The drive home was brilliant, all of those softer, deeper miraculous November colors. I saw other autumnal sights along the highway, including:

• wild turkeys 
• a whole bunch of pumpkins someone had apparently tossed out of a car?

Almost forgot

My host

I drove to Holly's and we talked for 12 hours straight, punctuated by her feeding me delicious food and guest starring her two charming cats and her all-grown-up charming son Evan. Now I'm happily exhausted.

Behind the clouds the sun is still shining

 

Mise en place

November's getting down to business out there today. I'm trying my best to keep it hygge in here on a Friday work day, the day my brain 100% believes is the weekend.

My life goal is to be a good iced bun.

I love you, Great British Bake Off/Baking Show

Lizzie 2021

Okay, forward through a rainy work day and into the weekend (full disclosure: the weekend is usually also a work day, plus extra sleeping in and watering plants and puttering in the yard, but I'm actually visiting Holly tomorrow so it's going to be a very weekendy weekend)!

Bye bye, pear and raspberry pie

TIME SENSITIVE

We're off to dinner at a friend's house for probably the second time in the past 18 months (not counting Adam and Jeannette, who fed us many many times over the summer). We owe these friends a Tandem pie. Thanks, phone, for reminding me to buy one this morning (though I remembered on my own and was walking home with a pink bakery box in my mittened hands when I got this reminder).

Just to be alive is a grand thing

Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink clouds

Just espied the mail carrier creeping through the bushes in my front yard, rather than stroll along the public sidewalk. Which is fine, but a funny choice (you really have to squeeze in between the overgrown rose and hydrangea to do that). 

We are watching Impeachment, which is way too long and so cheesy and about historical events I'd prefer never to think about again and I don't particularly recommend it. Can't stop watching though?

Succession's new season is excellent, however.

I can also highly recommend baked tofu with peanut sauce and coconut-lime rice.

Late

Uh oh. Late post, almost missed a day. I spoke with some crows today, as far as animals go. Dreamed of printing green letters on fabric, then actually spent most of the day printing green letters on fabric.

Comme ça

 

Ask Me About My Yuzu Mayonnaise

On Time Change Day, we went for a long, long, meandering walk around town and saw beautiful golden light and a pink-and-blue sky and then a crescent moon with Venus shining at its side and a fiery sunset and then, finally, a bruise colored sky that was just amazing. 

Also, as we walked past Ruski's, I saw two people in coonskin caps, one seated at an outdoor table (a young Black man) and the other standing, excitedly offering a fist bump (older white lady). 

Vaxes and snaxes

I would have had to wait til December to get my booster shot at the Intermed clinic where I got the first two jabs, so I went to Walgreens. I know vaccines at the drug store are not a new thing, but I still find it pretty bizarre. The 15-year-old pharmacist who gave me the shot was so speedy and unceremonious about it. He said, "Do you want a Bandaid, or...?" the same way they ask if you need a bag when you buy one thing at the grocery store. "Nah," I said, just like I do at the grocery store. "You're good to go," he said, and it wasn't until I was halfway home that I remembered they're supposed to make you wait 15 minutes in case of anaphylaxis.*

I made a delicious gingery pumpkin cake, topped it with barely sweetened cream whipped with mascarpone. 

(Olivia Newton-John voice): I honestly love you.

*this was yesterday — I am fine!

Softly searching for my delinquent palaces

Actually just organizing and twisting Mark's arm to let me donate some books to the 'brary (duplicates, Harry Potter, random novels, etc. He likes to hang on to all of it). As I was sorting through things, I found some items of interest. 

Starting with the saddest, I came upon a dust-covered crinkle ball, Theo's favorite. They stopped selling these and replaced them with larger ones, but he didn't care for those. My guess is these were choking hazards? Every few months we'd unearth one from under the fridge or behind a bookshelf and Theo would have hours minutes of fun!

Oh, Theo.

I completely forgot that Isaac had a book signed by David Sedaris.

Also so happy he's alive!

And finally, a find that may have been submitted to Found Magazine. Definitely found by Mom in Cambridge. 

Yikes.

Weird souvenirs from my internet travels

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Those who seek feel the glow

(Among the) songs that play on my brain radio when Clover is banging on the screen door to come in from the back yard:

Hello it's Me 

Let 'Em In

Knockin' on Heaven's Door

I Hear You Knocking

Open the Door, Richard

Today in "I Can Read Dogs' Minds," while walking Clover this morning we saw a Pyrenees leaping joyfully, sniffing the ground, then leaping again, gleeful, as close to smiling as dogs get. There was a layer of frost on the grass, and obviously this dog (who normally saunters slowly along, aloof) was thinking "IT'S PRACTICALLY SNOW."

So yes, frost and soft striped flannel sheets and two-sweater mornings and warming hands on mugs of coffee.

(I love Patti Smith. I don't love all her music, but I love this song, and I love the story that goes with it: Paths that cross)

You are the air of the now and gone

I'm inordinately annoyed that last week's recycling was never picked up, despite the Lodging of Complaints. Not only that, they Closed the Issue, claiming the recycling had been collected. I marched right out to double check that no, it had not, and Lodged another Complaint.

(Tomorrow is recycling day, and unless they skip us two weeks in a row, this is truly No Big Deal.)

Much more important: Mark is home after nine days caring for his sister after her cancer treatment. It was really lonely around here without him. The only plus side* was the way Clover shifted her allegiance to me (her second-favorite person in the world). When we picked him up at the airport last night, I imagined the inside of her brain this way: "Wait. Wait, is that... It's that guy! I totally forgot about him, he's my favorite person!" I can make myself cry by imagining her seeing her mother or Gus again.**

Candles, hot tea, November leaves, gray sky. 

*actually, it was also fun reading tons of books, watching bad TV, and eating sardines on crackers for dinner.

**granted, I can make myself cry by watching a Folgers commercial.

Everything present is made out of the past

It's November, and you know what that means! I attempt to write a blog post every day and don't...quite. Maybe I'll get it this year: hooray for low-stakes challenges!

Thought: Public art in the roundabout like something out of the George Saunders story The Semplica-Girl Diaries. Pay $18/hr for humans to stand there? 

Thought: Mark Zuckerberg's plastic Lego hair. Also his plastic Lego soul.

Habit: Everyday, watching the middle schoolers walk in groups, or alone, I smile at the ones who walk alone.

Internetty: Hello, it's me, age 54, googling "can you take a dog on a cruise?" 

Vicarious excitement: An Amazing Race to the airport (Zoë on the bus, bound for Israel, Mark in the car with...her vaccine card).

Remembering: Just a couple of weeks ago, on our mini-Anniversary-getaway-weekend, Mark and I ate dinner outside at a fish shack, and a man who worked there pointed at Clover and said, "Wait! Wasn't that dog here for lunch?" (I guess she has a doppelgänger in the Lincolnville area!)

Animals:

• An enormous brown hawk, swooping down low, so close to my head it made me say "Whoa!"
• A busy animal hurrying into a shrub, disguising itself as a cute, tiny squirrel: in retrospect, obviously a rat.
• So many dogs, always.
• Mice, a-pooping in my kitchen cabinet.

Reading: Proust could declutter his apartment all he liked, but he couldn’t stop people from serving him madeleines.

Rabbit rabbit

 

Of course it is cold now but somewhere it's colder.