Small reprieves of coffee and birdsong

Today is a good day, the rain falling and falling, finally, all the bags of compost dispersed this weekend making even bare patches in the garden look lush and happy. True, rain is falling on a wheelbarrow heaped with items headed for the trash, but I am content in the knowledge that both garage and shed are tidier than they've been in years. And someone stopped to pick up the huge wooden toboggan we left on the curb, hoping a passerby would fall for it the way Mark did years ago (it's lived in our garage, yearning for snow, for years).

But most of all, today is a good day because Mark and I started it by consoling a crying boy in the park who had lost his phone as he rode to middle school on his bike. We asked where exactly he'd been riding and promised to deliver his phone to the school if we found it. "Oh no," I fretted, slowly searching a block of damp sidewalk. "We have to find it!" Reader, we found it. And we got to tell him we found it and see his smiley, relieved little face. 

I found you some things:

Artificial yes. Intelligence? Not so much.

Alliumphobia, perfectly rational.

Here's to October, the month of months! If you're reading this, I probably love you so, so, so much. 

Now I can see the moon

Today's Haiku, after Masahide:

Refrigerator's dead*

Now 

I can see the wall behind it.

*the compressor, to be specific, and we're pretty sure it's still under warranty, since the fridge is only three years old. But we had to throw lots of food away/compost it, and now we have a refrigerator in the middle of the kitchen and a little cooler with our breakfast milks and a can of dog food it it. Janet's refrigerator is hosting some salvaged things (DUKE'S MAYO), and our next door neighbor is feeding us today. 

Find the ceremony in every instant

Interrupting this busy work day/silent bloggery month with two very important items. First, in the course of blurbing the word natant which is basically a fancy way to say swimming, I found this helpful information:

Doge writing so useful much help

And part two is that a few weeks ago, Mark and I were walking Clover when we passed one of Zoë and Isaac's high school teachers. "What's his name again?" Mark asked, and I reminded him. After we were home, I opened my email to find a LinkedIn suggestion that I add this exact same person to my "network." (Not an invite from the person, just a LinkedIn-generated suggestion. LINKEDIN IS LISTENING)

Where can we live but days?

Animals this week:

• two red-tailed hawks in Deering Oaks
• many of the little brown ones at my bird feeders
• ditto a few starlings
• a corgi named Gordon
• a beautiful black cat with a plume of white fur on its chest, sitting on my fence

I don't think I've mentioned my dental coronation here, during which my new beloved dentist filed a crumbly old tooth down to a nubbin and fitted a brand new fake tooth onto it like a Lego piece (plus magic glue). My tongue can't stop admiring the wonderful new tooth, it's so smooth.*

Also in medical miscellany, at my routine mammogram this week I saw a sign that said "Avoid handshakes — try an elbow bump instead," with that last part inexpertly covered with masking tape. Elbow bumps are so 2020.

This morning we encountered the usual mob of middle-schoolers, but with an extra Lord of the Flies vibe. One kid with huge headphones was scrawling graffiti in black marker on the bridge railing, another walked with a portable speaker at his chest blaring Kendrick Lamar, a pack of boys behind him. Several were headed in the wrong direction, away from the school. We realized next week is winter break.

We're giving The Last of Us a shot, despite all the...zombies. I spent most of the first two episodes moaning, "Oh no, I hate zombies." Also, not a fan of these particular fungi. But episode 3 has inspired me to continue, it was sweet and touching and sad.

Absolutely NOT 10 miles west of Boston.

*It should feel amazing, it cost as much as a brand new sofa or a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2

Accept the fluster of lost door keys

Things I found wrote in my phone notes this week:

“Much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness.” - Freud

Party invite idea — "Should we break some bread? Are y'interested?"

The way the Property Brothers karate chop the tops of throw pillows continues to haunt me.

A thing that actually haunts me:

When Isaac and Edna were here last month, the three of us were driving on the shortcut road behind Trader Joe's when we saw a man step off a curb, fall flat on his face, and just lie there for several long seconds. I pulled over, and we all jumped out of the car. He insisted he was fine and got up on all fours while fat, dark drops of blood dripped from his nose. Isaac and Edna kept handing him tissues from a box in the car, which he held to his nostrils until we noticed he had a jagged little cut between his eyebrows and told him to press the tissues there. 

We offered to take him somewhere, buy bandaids at the Walgreens, call someone. He said, "No, no, I just need to figure out how to stand up," and somehow I kind of hauled him up from the ground — or, he leaned all of his weight on me and hauled himself up? I encouraged him to: "I'm stronger than I look," I told this massive man. (I wondered if it was true as I said it, and I guess so, because he got to his feet with his hands on my shoulders as I pretended to be something wide and solid). He thanked us, but continued to say he was fine, that he lived nearby, and then he walked away. 

I think it haunts me because I'm constantly questioning the best way to help (I often defer to pretending not to see in an attempt to protect a person's dignity*) and second-guessing whether my help was actually helpful. Also, I wasn't clear what this man's situation was: he seemed sober, wore warmish clothes, Carhartt-ish, had a sturdy backpack. He was maybe in his sixties? Was he down on his luck, or a man who happened to be walking through a down-on-their-luck area of town? It doesn't really matter, except: did he have bandaids at home, or money to buy them...or a home? And why don't I have a first aid kit in my car?

*See: the time I pretended I didn't see a middle-aged man's pants fall down and expose his bare butt as he juggled to-go coffee cups and a bag of pastries. I am positive that guy didn't want my help.

Unique among the monsters

Thursday thoughts:

• Editing > writing
• My neighbor is actually a professional musician, but from here her playing sounds like jingle-jangles and actually becomes annoying sometimes

Well, yeah, cause milk is delicious! Also I truly love how this article is basically "the diarrhea wasn't all that bad."

It me.

Each each other's animal again

Sarah brought me two little baby sweet pea seedlings, which I anxiously nurtured through the end of the winter and into the spring and then planted in a pot outdoors. I keep adding sticks and bamboo poles for them to wrap their tiny tendrils around as they grow taller like Jack's beanstalk. They're sort of humble, and they look like they'd fall over on their fine stems but somehow they don't; they're stronger than they look. Pale cream and pink and violet.

Oh yes, when I see the word "saucepan," it is pronounced in a British accent inside my brain: SUUSpin.

On this day in history: I had to reference NFTs in something for work. Also, "cryptocurrency." 

Make your nails look as smooth as Velveeta feels.

If I'm not worrying about the state of the country/world as I fall asleep, I'm picturing roots, the branching kind and the rhizome ones, the coy rugosa babies popping up here and there, looking so tender and innocent above ground while sneakily connecting to something wide and woody as a tree branch underneath the surface. Also, weevils on the roses and oleander aphids on the milkweed. Daily, I put on one disposable glove and squish the aphids, their tiny yellow bodies staining my gloved fingertips. I wear my reading glasses out in the garden, which means I move drunkenly from plant to plant but can see each little bug vividly and avoid harming the tiny monarch larvae under the leaves. I often startle my neighbors, crouched there in the plants. "Squishing aphids!" I called to one confused neighbor this morning. It's strangely satisfying, like popping caviar between your teeth.

The past few weeks in animals:

• Yellow oleander aphids
• Rose weevils, knocked into soapy water
• A ferret, held like a baby at the Pride festival
• A baby goat, also held in arms at the Pride festival, looking less happy about it than the ferret
• Primary-colored birds in my garden: cardinal, goldfinch, blue jay
• A little dog named Blossom
• Swallows dancing over the pond in Deering Oaks

Ouch.

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?

 

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.

Isn't it your dream to be wholly invisible someday?

Both brothers were here, it was like a dream! The weather was mild, the walks were long and meandering, the soft serve was soft and sweet and flavored with fresh peaches. David finally won Clover over after nearly five years (she is a little heartbreaker). My brothers! My heart!

And now my parents are roadtripping up from Cackalacky for a visit, hooray!

I'm going to try to turn my attention back to bloggery, away from online time sucks, like Twitter where I get mad at people and compose angry tweets and delete them.

Actually mostly they are getting it. I just like this person's illustration.

Roundabout: paved.

Pandemic: continuing apace.

Brain: lacking focus.

Stomach: generally not terrible.

As an elephant draws itself out of the mud

In world news, I heard a few weeks ago on the BBC that China's famous Strong-willed Pig "died of old age and exhaustion." 

Remembering Mom's watch giving her a list of Star Wars movies she didn't recall asking for. 

The bright green lizard on the brick wall of the patio, Z and Isaac laughing out there when we were all three, magically, in Durham simultaneously (Adam too!).

How funny it is when you actually hear someone saying "Yoohoo," a thought I had just now when I heard someone yoohooing at my next door neighbor.

A dance class in the park, a group of a dozen people practicing their moves (salsa?) in slow motion.

Pretend it's spring

On the beach, a sweet puppy named Townes, browned butter-colored with patches of white, a white heart on top of his head. "My boyfriend just learned to play Pancho and Lefty on his guitar," said the puppy's person. "That song makes me cry," I said, my eyes welling with tears. 

I raked leaves all weekend, revealing sweet-smelling dirt and the surviving crocuses just barely peeking through the earth (the ones the squirrels didn't eat in the fall). A cluster of tiny green shoots had exploded with purple blossoms by the end of the day, like magic.

Someone in my elderly next door neighbor's house was playing the violin. I couldn't hear it, but I could see through the window.

I took off my jacket! Ate my lunch in the yard! Even made an afternoon iced coffee! Fifty-five fucking degrees!!

Thank God it's Allegedly Friday

One of those weeks when a highlight was attending a community Zoom meeting about a parking garage. 

I just remembered part of a dream last night where someone was getting ready to take my photograph but first needed to "rearrange" parts of my face, opening one of my eyes a little wider, moving my mouth down a bit, etc.

I feel seen.

Live footage from my living room at 5:30 am.

Look at the pictures and the cutlery

I woke so early this morning, to the sound of what I initially thought was workers dumping truckloads of rocks repeatedly onto the street outside, but was actually just the noise each car made as it flew through the intersection over the temporary plates covering the holes in the pavement. Flew through the intersection, I should add, because as of yesterday it's suddenly without a single traffic light (it went from six to zero). Most of the streets are closed off, but still it's very strange and dark out there.

A kind of symmetry: as I fell asleep last night, I was startled back awake by the shattering of glass (a glass shade on one of the bathroom lights, knocked gently-but-not-gently-enough by Isaac).

This morning I walked Clover in the neighborhood, while Mark recovered from a migraine, and we were invited to play in a dog friend's yard (by the dog's human companion, that is). Clover spent much of the playdate sitting at my side looking sad, and later I realized she'd been stung by a bee (I think) on her face. Now one side is swollen, so she looks like two types of dog, depending on which way she's facing. She allowed me to hold an ice pack on her face for a very long time (best girl).

I have spent too many internetminutes googling "immigrating to Canada" lately. By the way.

Okay, Tuesday, what else have you got in store for me?

What we love flutters in us

Best: That woman who runs past our house and pauses to pick and eat a rose petal did it again this morning! Also, the poignancy of the road workers we like* out in front of our house, all sitting in a row on a pipe eating their lunches today.

Worst: Did I mention the lady in the gauze mask printed with THIS IS TYRANNY at Whole Foods? Also, Zoë was here and now she's back in Chicago.

Fun fact: Elon Musk mispronounces Tesla.

*who would've thought the water guys would be so objectionable, while the gas guys are perfectly delightful?

Juney

"One Day" by Robert Crowley

One day after another —
Perfect.
They all fit.




How is it mid-June? The days were always weirdly fast/slow, but the past three months have been like no other time in my life, how about yours? 

We've slowed our baking around here as things go all summery. Those days you can step outside barefoot with your morning coffee and the yard is full of birds and flowers — how lucky are we? We're focusing more on salads, lately with bushels of greens cut from Emily's huge garden. Isaac and I made a socially-distanced visit this weekend to deliver a custom mask and left with armfuls of daisies, perfect tiny eggs. It makes me cry, it's so sweet to see friends in real life. Our neighbor came to eat in our yard with us last week and brought rhubarb pie and little toasts with homemade ricotta, mushrooms, foraged ramps. She left us bags of fiddleheads that we roasted and tossed into another big salad. 

So the days are like that around the edges, plus the working and looking for more work and other things like the rug constantly needing to be vacuumed and sour-smelling towels and waiting for someone else to clean the bathroom, and that sort of thing. We may find a way to get Zoë here later in the summer! We are slowly making room for her, the house being somewhat full of four people's stuff. Goodwill is accepting donations and the dump is open, so I'm advocating for a little Marie Kondo, personally.

Okay, here we go, it's Wednesday they tell me.

It is only a dream of the grass blowing

We were in the back yard the other day and heard a dog barking happily, clearly from a moving car — the sound was in motion. I said to Isaac, "I'm picturing a dog driving a car. Or, no — a dog in a motorcycle sidecar!" I kid you not, a half hour later I was weeding in the front yard and a motorcycle drove past with a dog in the sidecar.

I will tell you another fabulous thing that happened last week: I was at Whole Foods noticing all the "shoppers" with their carts full of upright paper bags and their phones held to their faces, when I spotted one who was wearing a kimono and full geisha makeup.

On a dog walk this week, I was walking by one of those fences that create a kind of zoetrope effect through the slats as you move past, where you can just peek at glimpses, and I saw two adults and a small child enthusiastically dancing by the light of a fire.

I feel so incredibly grateful to be with Isaac this spring, so lucky to be able to celebrate his 24th birthday with him, to bake him an apple pie and watch him open gifts and stay up too late watching him win at Settlers of Catan.

The catastrophe of my personality

Sign of the times

So I suppose I should call this "Diversions Part II." Here are some of my all time favorite favorite wonderful/hilarious classics from the annals of the internets.

The guy "submitting a vocal audition to be the new backup singer for M83."

The talking dog who wants bacon.

Pearl the landlord.

Adorable French girl talks about animals.


And here are some beautiful/specific/inspiring/scary things:

"Quarantine teaches me what I’ve already been taught, but I’ll never learn — that there are so many other ways to be lonely besides the particular way I am lonely."

People from New York are fleeing to Maine — people with fucking summer houses here.

Samin and Hrishikesh have a podcast and it is just as sweet and funny and calming and amazing as I hoped it would be (I've listened to the first episode three times now).

Oh boy, I totally want this!

Rufus Wainwright is playing a song a day on his Instagram, and Yo-Yo Ma is posting songs of comfort on YouTube.


Edna and I are baking vegan cinnamon rolls today. Mark and I found an open beach this morning where we could walk the dogs in the brilliant sunshine at low tide, far from other humans and their dogs. Isaac and Mark are playing basketball today, just the two of them, and Mark spent some hours yesterday fixing an old turntable of Isaac's. Our neighbor's son, having just driven to Maine from LA, came to our door yesterday asking if we had any rope he could borrow, and it was like a horror movie. Mark basically said, "NO!" and shut the door, which if you know Mark...is really something.

"Now I am quietly waiting for 
the catastrophe of my personality 
to seem beautiful again, 
and interesting, and modern."

It was evening all afternoon

Don't you love when you're walking at night and the people in the houses have lights on, and they're moving around, doing things that you can see in glimpses?

I still can't quite believe my luck: I get to live on this pretty planet, within driving distance of this ocean.

3. Point out beauty when you can.

This Tom Hanks Story Will Help You Feel Less Bad

My Friend Mister Rogers

It turns out that I really can't wait to see this movie.

Looking up. This building is famous! And it's slated for demolition within the next five years!

I can't help mentioning the weather, because wow it's been cold. It's truly a shock to the system when the weather goes from late October to February so abruptly. We are mixing up the dogs' activity, so that Clover gets a chance to romp off leash and play with other dogs a few times a week, while we protect Gus's achy joints from overdoing it. We all went to the beach yesterday and ran around on the sand, so today I strolled with Gus around the neighborhood while Mark and Clover went to the woods. Gus, honestly, is fine with this scenario, especially if he gets unfettered sniffing time and a few opportunities to bark at other dogs. 

It's an awkward time of year, everything bare and sparse and pale, starting to look like it really wants to be covered with a few inches of fresh snow so it can sparkle a little bit. The sky, though, was covered with those jittery little clouds, and we mostly stuck to the sunny side of the street. I was thinking about Minnow today, the way he would strut down the sidewalk and more or less ignore approaching dogs (he was polite, but we always described him as "more of a cat person"). Gus lives to interact with other dogs, but he has strong opinions and a clear bias against brachycephalic dogs (despite plenty of pleasant interactions with them, including one time he wouldn't stop licking the ears of a French bulldog). Back in the days of romping on the dog beach, he also (I am ashamed to say) gave three-legged dogs a particularly hard time.