Both ways is the only way I want it

O April, cruelest month, with nary a word a-written! My "notes" show much grousing this month about this and that, like so:

Say what you will about astrological nonsense, but Mercury is in retrograde and so far

• Broken refrigerator (repair ETA 4/10)
• Broken willow tree 
• Second ice storm in two weeks

In related spam

Now that's all in the past, and while there are no doubt plenty of bad news that I am about to hear, May is imminent and road trips have been taken and family members visited and a whole new distracting and miraculous season is unfurling.

It's squirty ice cream season!!

Also in my "notes" this month:

Me (watching an NCAA sportsball game): "What's Iowa's mascot?"

Mark: "I don't know — a stick of butter?"

Oh to see the squirrels 

sliding down the wet bird feeder poles

In the April rain

"All roads lead toward the same blocked intersection." — Mountain Goats

"Stars without light hold the others up." — Fanny Howe

"I almost forgot my amuse bouche!" — my Mom, eating a mini Reeses peanut butter cup

As smoke is in the world

It's Friday, or as I like to think of it, Gentleman's Saturday.* Specifically, it's Friday the 13th, always a lucky day for me, a person who missed being born on Friday the 13th by a mere ~19 hours. 

It's been a month of birds-of-prey sightings: just this morning I saw another Deering Oaks hawk, a smallish brown one drying its wings while perched in a tree, holding them wide and letting the wind blow through the feathers. 

Everything is eerily green for January. It's 50 degrees and raining. There are teeny buds on the lilac.

We started out the week eating Chinese food and playing? solving? a mystery-in-a-box with Adam and Jeannette's wonderful upstairs neighbor, Dani. We were successful, but we required many hints.

Sleuths, sleuthing

*To be perfectly honest, I think of Thursday as Gentleman's Friday. Today is actually just normal Friday.

Take omens from the flight of birds

Hello, it's 2023! 2022 wasn't my favorite! But it brought many sweet and beautiful things, as well as some crappy ones. What a lovely holiday celebration we had with the whole family in North Carolina, with (mostly) lucky travel and very lucky health and some of my most favorite humans (and dogs) all in one place together.

Items from the year so far:

• A game I play sometimes is Floater or Fruit Fly? (It's January, so it's usually a floater.)
• I met someone this week who...how to put this...if I learned they were a serial killer, it wouldn't totally surprise me? 
• I've been doing Adriene's 30 days of yoga every day this year*
• I'm ridiculously delighted with the etymology of inauguration!! 

Okay, on to the important stuff, the internets archaeology:

Why is no one talking about Libby's black jumpsuit?

Best bolster.

In other words, what to do with a whistlepig?

TIL

I can't stop thinking about Fishtopher.

#même

*hellloooo, it's January 5

I look upon time as no more than an idea

Home from a trip to North Carolina with Isaac and Zoë that feels a bit like a dream now, but hey: what doesn't? We were treated to sunny, almost warm days there, sat outside with coffee, walked in gardens, observed more than our fair share of birds, played games, ate food, all with some of our most beloveds.

The road trip part was fun with my copilots, falling asleep in our Aloft to the sounds of HGTV and Food Network and something about a Bigfoot-type creature in Alaska except it's a bird, and the two of them laughing together. Our ritual stop for really good biscuits in Richmond.

The Durham part was an opportunity for much-needed hugs and sorting through photographs and listening to stories and being together — and also Buckaroo Banzai!

A.k.a. buttermilk sky

Now I'm home and it's basically winter again and I put my Bean boots back on and walked under a mackerel sky on the beach. A bit of false spring, a thaw before the weekend. Soup and tea, movies on TV, dog naps. Isaac is back in New York, Zoë finally off to India for her work, after a year's delay. It had been a while since we had the vicarious thrill of watching her move around the globe on a flight tracker! 

We were together. I forget the rest.

 

The liminal week, in which I do crossword puzzles, finish jigsaw puzzles, light and blow out candles, sweep and vacuum, sort cardboard, move chairs, nibble the last cookies, watch movies, water plants, do laundry, drink too much coffee, and accomplish many many other things in lieu of (paying) work that doesn't need to be done but could be done. Mainly, though, it's a bonus week with Mom and Dad and Zoë and Isaac! 

How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?

Time flies whether you're having fun or not! Here we are, right on the cusp of at long past the winter solstice, and the month has been the strangest combination of tense, stressful, terrible news a-swirl; and cautious, joyful reunions, festive sights and smells, wintery walks, dogs in boots, quiet and noisy, music and the crunch of snow.

Earlier in the month, I wrote you a pandemic haiku:

Back in the habit

Of holding my breath as I

Walk past the unmasked

But now we've hung stockings, opened gifts, eaten several feasts and dozens of cookies, and drunk eggnog and hot chocolate and pots and pots of coffee. So it's probably time for a holiday haiku:

It takes two tables

To hold my whole family

To hold my whole heart

Together, Christmas 2021

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.

Astrophysicist and lead guitarist

Things all in a day's work:

Triple-double

Heir apparent

Left-handed marriage

"Assassin" shares a root with "hashish."

"Asteroid Day was co-founded in 2014, by Dr. Brian May, astrophysicist and lead guitarist of QUEEN."

Other items of note:

Adam walked over for dinner last night, and I made a delicious low-FODMAP meal (one food left to test, and it's APPLE). My brother walked over for dinner last night.

It is a teenage lifeguard's job to show up for work before 7am (how early? 6?) so he can shyly ask middle-aged ladies with dogs if they could possibly come back in 8 minutes (when they say dogs allowed on the beach from 7-9, they mean it).

As I was driving home from the beach, a woman on a scooter flew through a stop sign and screeched to a halt, almost hitting my car, dropping her scooter. I hazard-lighted, jumped out, and helped her pick the scooter up. She had on platform sandals and light khaki pants, and they were barely smudged from the fall. She promised she was okay. It was definitely her mistake, but in retrospect I worried that she thought I'd run the stop sign. (Reader, I did not.)

I am fasting for fasting blood work in about an hour, and I am hungry. I am also a dumbdumb: why didn't I schedule it for 8:00 instead of 10:00?

Buttermilk sky

 

I love you, Wikipedia.

Wouldn't it be amazing if I could capture my own mackerel sky photo to go along with the above? I see this once every ten days or so (in fact, I just noticed it a couple of days ago on a walk with Mark and Clover) and it's one of my favorite skies, but I never had a name for it before. It's also known as buttermilk sky. Or ciel moutonné in France (fleecy sky) and Schäfchenwolken in Germany (sheep clouds). Fish scales, milk curds, curls of wool.

What an exciting few days, post-fully-vaccinated-day. On that exact day I greeted my oldest, best friend at the door of my house and then hugged her. My tears surprised me! She cried too! That was one of the best hugs of my whole life. And then just a couple of hours later, I went to the Jetport and watched reunions, crying again as I observed parents gathering their young adult daughter (I assume) into their arms, the mom and daughter sobbing audibly as they held each other. I was actually at the airport to meet one of my two beloved brothers, and it was fitting that there were already tears rolling down my face when he appeared. Just talking, indoors, masks off, with people I love who I haven't seen in person for so long, is wonderful and exhausting! 

Melissa came by for tea yesterday. We sat together and chatted and drank our tea. So normal! Like the Before Times! When she was leaving, she said, "You know what happens now, right?" And I got to have another one of those hugs.*

*Warning: I may have become a person who boo-hoos every time I'm hugged. I'm fine with it if you are.

You can't have it all, but there is this

My latest aphorisms:

The ugliest smoothies are often the most delicious

A dog pees on your leg, seven years of good luck

Related: a tall, friendly hound dog named Baxter peed on my leg this morning. I also made a smoothie that came out a sickly avocado green (almond milk, half a banana, frozen blueberries and peaches, matcha, a handful of baby spinach, a spoonful of almond butter). It was so good.

I can't stop thinking about Nomadland. I truly can't recommend it highly enough! 

And that thing that's kept me going through the endless month of JanuFebruary has happened at last: one of my two favorite brothers* bought a condo in Portland!!

Sneak peek!

I am beside myself with excitement about this and now have to patiently wait out the rest of our pre-vaccine life until Adam and Jeannette come to set up their (part time, for now) household here, a 15 minute walk from my house! 

*now to scheme a way to get the other favorite brother here

Alive, alive

When I search my photos for "Clover" I get many pictures of my dog, but also this one, like a bonus magic lucky charm:

Lil Benny!

It's cold outside, actually January-cold, and I am being lazy about it, although I guarantee later Mark will encourage me out onto a frozen body of water in my skates because we have to get that ice before snow falls on it. Yesterday we met up with the newly-engaged Melissa and Erik to walk in the cemetery, bundled and masked. Right now I just want to sip coffee all day and sit in a comfortable spot with a dog chin on my leg and maybe a crossword puzzle. Maybe a piece of toast. 

Tomorrow is February, the longest shortest most mispronounced month of all. A very exciting thing is happening, but I'll say no more for fear of jinxing it.

Recommendations of the Month:

Eat this salmon with coconut chutney.

Do some yoga.

Watch Halt and Catch Fire.

Read The Overstory.

Listen to all the podcasts with Jenny Odell.

Go outside even if it's cold, you might see an enormous round of robins, all puffed up in their winter coats!

This year

I have zero cause for complaint. I'm extremely superstitious about mentioning this, but my loved ones are safe and healthy.

But here I go: this is the year in which a predicted snowstorm is likely to cancel Isaac and Edna's scheduled COVID-19 test tomorrow. They also have a test today, but they will have to wait longer for its results, and they're waiting in a generously donated—but very cold—space. This is the year that is keeping most of my beloveds, including my sweetest girl, far away.

Lucky: to have a kid who could drive here, to have a friend who would offer his empty house for isolating. To have enough money to feed ourselves and also buy out the frozen section of Trader Joe's for said kid's quarantine. To have a warm puppy and a warm catfriend and lights on a perfect little tree and batteries for window candles and a tube of almond paste for macaroons in the meantime. To have a car WITH HEATED SEATS and a beach ten minutes away, to walk in the cold wrapped in a warm coat. 

Things I observed recently:

• Crows congregating in a circle, something happening in the middle, but what? 
• A man wearing bright yellow trousers smoking a pipe over his lowered mask. 
• A sweet pit bull in a sweater gazing up earnestly at me, a loving, begging face. 
• Clover at a loss, looking like she forgot something, searching for Mark across the beach, on a day we'd gone without him.
• A police car running a red light, no lights or sirens on, just coasting slowly, brazenly through it.
• One lone bird trapped inside Trader Joe's (I keep thinking and worrying about this bird, days later).

And if you're worried about one bathroom

Hello from the summertime! Flowers are blooming, sun is shining, greens are green and blues are blue over here. The house* is full, with Zoë and her copain imminent (as in, just a couple of hours!). 

Just posting this non-informational post so that I won't have only one single solitary rabbit-related post for the month of July. 



*the other night I couldn't sleep and one of the things my brain was gnawing on was the fact that we didn't have some sort of guest log book for keeping track of everyone who's ever stayed with us in our house over the past 20 years. I was seized with an impulse to attempt a list, right then in the middle of the night. Summer log thus far = Mom, Holly, Maia, Isaac, Edna, Leander, Jonah. Upcoming = Zoë, Eric, Joya, Oona, Grandma Nancy, Tracey, Bill.

I want to fly like an eagle

Ooh, I like the new retro design, Facebook! Nicely done!

Hey I keep imagining writing about how we've now officially lived in Maine for 20 years and forgetting to do it. Which means we've lived here approximately 20 years and a week. We moved to Maine in February and instantly fell ill with the flu, all four of us. I remember it was vacation week — we planned to have that week to settle in before Zoë started school, but we stayed sick well into the following week. I picture us lying on mattresses on the floor and kids vomiting into the popcorn bowl* when I think of that time. We had a dog! Poor Happy, I don't even remember how we accommodated her needs for those first weeks. I guess we had a fenced yard full of dog poop.

Twenty years. Time is weird, and it keeps on slippin slippin slippin into the future,** doesn't it?

Also, this makes both our refrigerator and stove approximately 20 years old.






*Popcorn bowl = vomit bowl, sorry if you've eaten popcorn at my house.

**You're welcome, that's today's earworm especially for my favorite Academy Award winner!

I was an easy baby

A chapter in my family lore: 50 years ago today, Bobby Kennedy was killed, and I (an infant) cried disconsolately all night long.

1.2

Cold and bright and lovely, just like a January sunrise should be. I feel so lucky. Lonely too, missing holiday family and sweeties and even Mark, who's briefly in Kansas. But lucky to have them all.

Happy//sad

Last month, my dad had a Big Birthday (one of those divisible-by-five birthdays), and Adam and David appeared in Cambridge to surprise him. He may have had an inkling that something surprising was going to happen, but he was genuinely startled to see them walk into Veggie Galaxy, where he, Mom, and I were eating breakfast. We had a lovely several days, fit many museum visits and copious snacks and long walks in, and at some point realized that it's been years since the five of us were together, just us (sans kids or spouses). I love them all so much, and I am so lucky to consider every single one of them a friend.

(Mom's not in this picture--she took it!)

David, Mom, and Adam at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

On Saturday, my sweet Aunt Peggy died, my mom's oldest (and beloved) sister. She was 17 when mom was born, and always lovingly mothered my mom in a way that her own mother didn't. I haven't seen much of her for years, but she was a loving presence in my life when I was (unhappily) at Wellesley College, not too far from Peggy's house. I love this photo of the sisters (circa 1945 or so):

Mom's the baby.

Blurry and bleary

Did I mention that Gus has taken to occasionally howling like a wolf when he hears a siren? The siren has to be really close, like speeding by our pulled-over car or right past our open dining room window. It's adorable, and I always tell him, "Good dog, Gus!" Every once in a while I will hear a more distant siren, and I will howl like a wolf to try and get him going. It never works, but it does make him whip his head around and look at me the way I'd look at him if he suddenly said, "Say, I'd love to have one of those ice cubes, while you have the freezer door open!" Like, "She speaks my language. Why does she usually pretend not to??" When Adam was here last month, he did it once too, and again, Gus examined his face intently: This human too?

THANKS FOR THE ICE CUBE HUMAN.

It has been not-even-that-hot-but-hot-for-Maine lately, like 85ish, the last several days, and man, I have been sweating like a...whatever. Big salty drops of sweat just cascading down my face. I feel like some delicate alpine flower or something--so hot. (Is this hormonal? Or something? Some hideous mid-40s thing?) I mean, I've been unable to accomplish much of anything, just moving in slow motion as I rinse out a cup and a bowl and then think, "There. My work is done for the day," before collapsing in front of a fan with a glass of iced coffee. The other day I made an upsetting confession to Mark: "You know how everyone says they hate air conditioning? Because it's so artificial and blah blah blah? I LOVE AIR CONDITIONING SO MUCH. The colder the better." Okay, today's much cooler, and I've been able to paint a fourth layer of tung oil stuff on the counter and wash several loads of laundry and walk Gus and eat breakfast with Isaac and do the dishes and contemplate some billable work and write some emails.

My blurry neighborhood.

I felt so lonely walking last night and looking at the blue moon and missing Mark (who's in Kansas for a few days for our nephew James's wedding) and my bruddies and some other special people. It made me think about how brave Zoë is to go on her own to these places she goes, and to be committed to what she's doing there even if she has to be without people who know her and hug her and love her so much. I'm so much more of a wimp in just about every single way than that girl is.

My bruddie and me.

A flowery band to bind us to the earth

I've been fighting this cranky feeling lurking in the background of my general happiness the past few days. Just irritation and this sense that time is speeding by, but instead of feeling melancholy about it I'm annoyed. At people, too. ANYWAY, there have been many celebrations this month and there are more to come, so aside from a cyclical dip in fund$ due to various celebration-related expenses and a bunch of late checks (ahhh, the freelance life), all is swell.

Zoë graduated from Barnard College and Columbia University!! We made several voyages southward, moving both kids out of their dorm rooms, attending graduation ceremonies, feasting on Indian food that I still can't stop dreaming about, meeting the girl's friends and teachers and bittersweetly enjoying the neighborhood and campus and community she's loved so very much for the past four years. We are going to miss the fact of her being there, knowing how close she is and how content.

Isaac had a mixed year--a school year he's got mixed feelings about, that is, although academically I could brag like crazy about what he's accomplished. I'm happy to have him around this summer. For a couple of weeks we've got both sweetpeas, and after Zoë leaves for another summer in India, we'll have Jonah here too. Speaking of Jonah, today's his sixteenth birthday, and we zipped down to Cambridge last night to celebrate with Mom and Dad, Adam and Jeannette and Oona.

So, pointing myself toward the summer, my goal is to savor it. Just that, not to let it slip past because I'm distracted by busyness or whatever. I hope to dig in the dirt, work efficiently when I'm working, finish this kitchen project, stay up late, eat outdoors, play games, walk everywhere, pick berries, clean the windows and then open them wide every day.

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

It's chilly out there--for comparison, here is the Atlantic Ocean, steaming like a sauna. The water was so beautiful this morning, sending tendrils of smoke into the cold air, surrounding the islands and lighthouses you can see when you stand on the East End Beach. Gus is in love with a little spaniel, maybe a Brittany? He wrestles her with gentle, devoted enthusiasm and guards her fiercely against the attentions of other dogs. Today she wore a sweater with a squirrel on it.

Isaac has been volunteering at the Shack this week, lending his help with the filmmaking intensive he took several times in high school. Today it was so cold that they canceled school in the city (some of the buses wouldn't start at 6am).

Zoë studies Sanskrit every day, works on Kannada and grad school applications, and puts off plunging into her thesis. Last night we went to see Wild, which we both liked--I enjoyed it a bit more than she did, if by "enjoyed" you mean "bawled." Today she is getting acupunctured, at my insistence. I hope she loves it as much as I do!

Work on our kitchen is at a temporary standstill, as things like eating biscuits and drinking coffee and taking chilly walks and playing games and doing billable work seem to be taking precedence right now. Actually, Mark and I hastily installed a section of backer board (where the subway tile will go) the other day, then stepped back and realized it was completely crooked. We have to slow down and do it again, slow down and put up the rest of it, paint the moulding, install the moulding, and then get to tiling. And then, and only then, will we start contemplating CABINETS and COUNTERTOP and a new SINK, perhaps!