(Insert bebop style scat singing here)

On the equinox, a cold day with heavy clouds that blew aside periodically so the sun could remind us it was still there, we listened to music outdoors, bundled into hats and coats. Mark even got his photo in the newspaper* (he's a small face among a cluster of small faces, and I am half a white hat to his left). I turned away from the music to photograph our long shadows on the dead, gold lawn behind us.

What else has been going on, according to my "notes," follows below:

Mark, on daylight saving time: "So it's 6:15 but we're pretending it's 7:15?"

I've been forgetting my dreams lately, but last night dreamt a menstrual products company called "Bulletproof Femininity."

An elderly Hannaford employee to me, a shivering 56-year-old woman in the parking lot: "Since I met you I’ve turned my life around! You — your aura — you’ve got a million dollar smile!"

A radiology tech to me on the phone: "Our breasts aren't twins — they're sisters."**

Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen worker, after we placed our drive-through order: "I appreciate you."

An unclaimed belt, abandoned in a bin at Logan Airport security. Why did this seem so poignant? 

Lines I liked:

“I like a little sand in my oyster.” — Joan Acocella

"If there is anything I’d enjoy before I die, it’d be not having to see your fucking horrible bastard face wandering around my garden." — Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera, just before having her leg amputated

"Calm is a form of resistance." — John Berger

“It is a moral failure to miss the profound beauty of the world.” — Lauren Groff

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." — 14th-century mystic Julian of Norwich

"Quel est ton tourment?"*** — Simone Weil

*DM me for a link

**All is well in the mammary department

***"What are you going through?"

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes

• Last week (the week before?), Mark and I went to the pharmacy to get the latest in booster shots from a youthful pharmacist. When she asked me to confirm what shot I was getting, I said, "The...Covid...super duper booster?"
• Later we met a dog from Topeka, a golden retriever named Jersey with a pretty white patch on her chest. Her person (name unknown) went to grad school at K.U.
• I think I want to be composted when I die. I just have to hold off until they offer that option in more places (LIFE GOAL).
• Here's a tip: don't look up scalding on Wikipedia.

And now onto an actual adventure we had, visiting Isaac and Edna in New York for a whirlwind weekend. Thanks to Janet, we had a luxurious Washington Heights apartment as a home base. We also had such great luck with everything: the subway, the weather, and (knock on wood) the Covid. Highlights:

• A brief glimpse of Jonah (including hugs)
• FOOD. Ramen at Minca. Breakfast sandwiches and donuts at Win Son Bakery. Coffee (and art) at Amant. More coffee at Buunni. A Chinese feast at Birds of a Feather. Breakfast and treats at Dutch Baby. *
• Finally getting to be in Isaac and Edna's totally charming and cozy apartment and meet their even more charming cats, Kiki and Ilya. 

TBH as we drove out of Maine I thought "WHY?" but it turned out I was really glad we made this trip.

I mean, obviously I was glad. Being with these two in their natural habitat made me deliriously happy.

Isaac is magic.

Edna and Kiki at home.

*bonus: these were all outdoor dining situations, except for Birds of a Feather, where we sat at an indoor table beside a huge door open to the back patio.

Small reprieves of coffee and birdsong

The Last week in animals!

A small dog dozing in a wagon, by the beach, half covered by a blanket, the sun warming its old grazing muzzle.

This little brown bird, landing on the feeder with its mouth full of paper or tissue for a nest, conflicted for a bit before dropping it to gobble up birdseed: we've all been there.

A duck couple in a little mulched area of urban shrubbery, beside one of the busiest Portland streets.* Another duck couple, identical, in a video sent to me from Isaac, who filmed them paddling around a canal in Paris, France. 

THIS week in animals!

So many birds, brown ones and starlings and that one dove and chickadees, robins, possibly a hummingbird, purple finches and a goldfinch and my catbirds and more.

Things I Found Online!

I don't think I want to go to here.

No lie, just look at those two.

Hmm I'll go to Lowe's I guess

He's not wrong

LOL

*At least there were no babies, like that time on the highway heading to Ikea.

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! 

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

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.

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.

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.

17

We're going camping on Friday!

Mitchell loaned us this lovely big tent, and we practiced putting it up in the back yard. 

We used to camp, and we even owned camping gear...a tent, metal plates, that sort of thing. And we always talked about taking the kids camping. But then 25 years just went by somehow. Mark found our tent in a big plastic bin in the basement. It smelled terrible.

Our pal Mitchell's tent is all newish and color-coded, for nearly foolproof pitching.

We will see if we remember how to do it (camping, that is). "What if we get bored?" said Mark. But we're bringing things to eat and drink, a stack of New Yorkers, hiking shoes, and two goofy dogs.

I'll call this one "Indignities of the Flesh."

In medical news, all is well and mammography has gone 3-D.

22

I drove to Chicago (all things know, all things know) and back. Mom and Dad and I are great road trip companions, and we had only as many adventures as we wanted to have.

Saddest little rest area shop display in Ohio.

Zoë doesn't officially start classes til next Monday, so we got to do a lot of fun activities with her, including the architectural boat tour on the Chicago River.

They would be cool even if they weren't iconic.

Mom, Zoë, and I also got to spend an afternoon at a giant, wonderful, strange Korean spa. There were two sections, one with "baths" and lots of naked ladies (including us), and another with dry saunas, nap rooms, a movie room, a restaurant, an "oxygen room," a freezing cold "ice room," game rooms, and more. Also there were people of every gender clothed in what I thought of as prison jammies.

Illicit locker room photo, featuring me looking slightly hysterical. Later, I was disconcerted enough at the being naked part that I kept leaving my locker open with all my worldly goods inside.

If you ever get to go to a Korean spa, I recommend it. There's one in Dallas that has a waterpark attached to it.

27

Reporting live from Chicago, where I'm visiting Zoë with Mom and Dad, my trusty road trip companions. We have eaten and coffeed well, and seen some Chicago sites, finally met Z's sweet petit ami, and I've gotten to spend time watching BoJack Horseman with my girl, which I've been meaning to watch ever since I saw this great talk by Lisa Hanawalt. It is so good to be here with her.

Because it is such nice landscaping.

Rabbit rabbit!

July already, friends! I hope your summer is glowy and soft and sweet.

Theo Loves Me So Much

No, really, he does.* Mark was very happy to see me after my ten days away, and Gus was moderately interested in my return, but when I walked in the house, Theo came running over and threw himself at my feet (he flops over on his side and gazes endearingly up at you when he wants to be petted and scratched and kissed on his head). He is the nicest cat.

Keeping an eye on me at all times.

As happy as I am to be home (I missed Mark. I missed my furry boys, and I missed my routine/life, which is a pretty good sign I think), now I am nostalgic for my time living the hotel life in Zoë's neighborhood, with Mom and Dad for roommates, and Zoë just around the corner.

Hotel lyfe.

Best parents.

A sweet scholar I know.

*Although there is no doubt, he ADORES Isaac.

Home

Or nearly home, paused in Cambridge until I get fetched (along with the loot I bought at Ikea) in the car by Mark. Mom and Dad treated me to so many delicious meals on this trip, and the sweet potato sandwich I just ate at Clover was one of them.

Overhead, at Clover Central Square. Why oh why don't they come to Portland?

Hyde Park

I tried on a shirt yesterday covered, subtly, with tiny birds.
But...Peter Pan collar.

It was a warm day, so the thermal layers of undershirts, socks, tights, vests, and jackets were less appealing than they had been on the chilly Thursday previous. Still, I was able to buy Zoë some early birthday presents, toasty layers of warmth and flannel for when it gets bitterly cold.

This morning is my last in Chicago--it's been incredibly luxurious to have a whole week to visit the girl (thanks to my mom and dad, who got us a hotel room right in her neighborhood, just a few blocks from her apartment). She's been busy every second, but we've eaten many meals with her, seen where she lives, traced her route to campus and work, and she and I even got to work together a few times (me on billable stuff, her on grad school stuff). Hyde Park is lovely, comfortable and neighborhoody. We are leaving her, not just with warmer clothes, but her winter things, her banjo, many books and kitchen appliances (pressure cooker, idli maker--the essentials, if you're Zoë). Also, again thanks to my sweet parents, a bedside table and a dresser, a floor length mirror, new towels, bathmat, and other goodies from Ikea.

Miss her already.

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.

Road Trip

Mark and Gus and I drove fourteen* hours south of here, and there we found spring! We spent a deluxe long weekend with David, Ellen, Stella, Ben, and their good dog Miles. The day we arrived, it was actually hot, hot enough to wipe Gus The Furry out after short walks, hot enough to make us strip off our jackets and scarves and remember what it feels like to sweat a little bit, hot enough for David to present us with the first iced coffee of the year on their sweet front porch. There is a huge pink cherry tree in their back yard, and as you drive along the highway, there are pink and purple and floaty white blossoms mixed in with the pines.

Our host.

I got to spend a whole day with Ben, taking walks and eating snacks and visiting a coffee shop and a comic book store.

Blue skies, grass, trees, Ben.

Ellen and David treated us to live music, too--Sylvan Esso outdoors under a starry sky on a night that felt like August in Maine, and The Mountain Goats--both hometown bands, and great shows.

We ate amazing food, including food truck crêpes outdoors on Easter, tapas with David and Ellen at Glass Half Full before The Mountain Goats, biscuits with eggplant "bacon" and incredible donuts at Rise, more donuts (also incredible) at Monuts, handmade chocolate at Videri, homemade Indian food at Vimala's, and so much more.

We came home knowing it wouldn't actually feel like spring yet, but still it was surreal to drive northeast watching the landscape get increasingly brown and gray, patches of snow start to show through the trees, to get out of the car at a rest area and remember suddenly what it's like to feel freezing (and this happened in Baltimore, not to mention Massachusetts).

I said it on The Book of Faces, and I'll say it again: this is what April 10th, also known as February 69th, looks like in beautiful Portland, Maine.

Ahh, home. I brought a miserable cold/cough home with me, the cough tubercular-sounding enough that Mark dropped me off at the Urgent Care place as soon as we pulled into town yesterday. They did not cure me of this stupid cough (they prescribed some useless medicine, in fact, I say after a sleepless night of croupy coughing), but I did get to have my very first chest X-ray, which didn't reveal anything fishy. And so I cough.







*my lucky number