At the starting block

Sunday’s the big day when we turn our shivering backs on the north and gladly opt for two 12-hour days in the car.

Post Christmas Epiphanies

1. Who needs a Roomba robot vacuum to deal with the steady rain of dropped food from the grandchildren when you have a tiny dog snuffling across the floor.
2. It sharpens aging reflexes to have kids exploding from closets and behind furniture during ongoing three-day games of hide and seek.
3. Your trash is your friend. No one benefits from finishing up the leftover garlic bread.
4. Latkes (multicultural here) perfectly represent Hanukkah’s eight-day miracle since the smell of the oil they’re cooked in stays in the house for about that length of time.
5. Follow up behind your departing guests as they gather their belongings if you want to avoid an emergency trip to the post office to overnight missing car keys.
6. Dim the lights and fake a clean house before the holiday since after everyone leaves you’ll be getting out the industrial vac and that big new bottle of PineSol.

It's Almost Here

The second refrigerator is humming in the basement, the holiday cookies have been pulled from their hiding place, and the dog is looking nervous.

Night Maneuvers

     One thing you don’t usually learn about being a parent until it’s too late is the amount of time you’ll spend in the dark.

Keeping a grip on that holiday spirit

Today found me at CVS looking for a Christmas card for my fella.

A slippery slope

7:30 a.m. and Mamie and I donned our morning ensembles: jacket, hat, scarf, gloves, boots for me and parka for her.  We crunched outside across the deck to the back yard.

Last week in review

     We were madcap social butterflies last week.

From cats to dogs

 Never mind that the Chinese calendar says this is the Year of the Monkey.

If my refrigerator could talk

     If, through some unlikely series of events, a person had lost his calendar, all access to the internet or any other media, and had been living on an uninhabited mountain top, he would only have to check my refrigerator to know that Thanksgiving is coming.

Shaken

     Our son and delightful daughter-in-law are on their honeymoon, delayed a bit from their June wedding.

Porlocks and Snidgets

     Considering my husband’s pack-ratting tendencies, the day we ever have to move from this house will truly be enlightening. 

Confessions of a Writer

My former high school English students have nothing on me. I’ve sunk to levels of procrastination they could only dream about.

Identity Search

In the years of our acquaintance, my hairdresser has

Forgiven

For those of you concerned about my little dog Mamie, who was pining away for me when I went to a conference this weekend, this video of my welcome home proves that she seems to have bounced back just fine:
 
                 Rocket Dog

A weekend of crime

     This weekend Mamie's been on strike.

Where were you?

          I remember the announcement at Stratford Junior High in Arlington, Virginia that November day in 1963 and walking home through the leaves with my friends Sheila and Anne.

Have a Nice Day!

 I picked up my last farm share portion on Wednesday. It was a pretty good haul and inspired me into all kinds of culinary enterprises. That night we had Swiss chard sautéed with mushrooms and roasted red onions with rutabaga. Both were glorious. Thursday night I made Italian wedding soup with the big head of escarole I’d brought home – also a success.

          Still, we did need a few more vegetables so today I went to one of my favorite places, a local farm stand on steroids. I imagine it once just sold apples or pumpkins, but these days it offers a selection of wines, a whole aisle of gluten-free products, an excellent deli, and oh yes, vegetables.

          I carted my loot to the check-out counter where I drew a cashier I’ve seen before. She’s a woman of a certain age (or past) with Morticia-length brown hair, stark white bangs, and capital P personality. She greeted me with enthusiasm and joked about my butternut squash’s refusal to stand upright but the mood went downhill from there.

          She had difficulty with the register, since it was driven by fingerprint and she was wearing a latex glove. My sunny mood on this beautiful autumn day began to dip as she launched into the explanation for the glove.

 There’s apparently “all kinds of things” going on in the fruit-producing countries, so it was anyone’s guess what was coming in. My mind immediately turned to the grapes I’d snitched 5 minutes before right out of their bag.

Next, she informed me that there are drugs on dollar bills, and not only that, “some virus is out there killing little kids. Six-year-olds are dying!”

By now, thank heaven, my purchases were bagged and paid for and I eased out of there as she continued her diatribe with the unsuspecting woman in line behind me.

Channeling Sisyphus

       All we needed for true realization that our Florida days have ended was a glance out of the window. If we ever had grass in our yard, you'd never know it, thanks to the six-inch layer of leaves out there. 

Today we played beat the clock – or, more accurately, the rain.With a forecast of showers by noon and a yard untouched by a rake since fall began, we were on a mission. 

 

          One year, when My Guy was laid up with a broken leg, I attempted to make a dent on my own but we ended up hiring a landscape crew. It was magical. They descended on our yard with blowers galore and struck with surgical precision. Not one leaf remained entwined in a bush, and all acorns disappeared as though they had never fallen. It was all achieved in one afternoon.

          Today we worked on the “Well, it’s better than it was” premise. 

       

           Mamie was useful as a depth gauge for a while

        

 

  But soon decided she’d rather serve as a supervisor. 

With several yardfuls still in the trees there wasn’t much point in perfection; it’s only a matter of days before we start all over again. 

Clean Living

It seems counterintuitive in a state filled with Buick-sized insects and weapons-grade mold, but so far, life here in the Sunshine State is practically antiseptic.  

Unlike our 50 year-old house back home, with the on-going war with mice in the basement, here we're sealed off from encroaching reality. Anonymous men appear outside on a regular basis and spray our building to beat back nature, and the central air silently dehumidifies away any lurking mildew. 

Our evening walks are on freshly swept sidewalks under groomed palm trees, and the only wildlife we see is the resident bunny, who so far has managed to dodge the rumored alligator in our pond. 

If our building were a person, it would just be starting  solids and learning to stand. It hasn't even been around long enough to accumulate dust over the door jambs. In contrast, our Bay State house has bathroom linoleum beginning to curl at the edges and windowsills still scarred from the previous owner's dog, Sparky. 

Here, emptying the garbage only requires a brief walk holding our one little white bag from  the front door to the artfully concealed communal dumpster near our garage. At home, we gather a week's worth in big black bags so we can transport it in our car to the town waste disposal area, aka the dump. 

We're also unburdened by the flotsam and jetsam we accumulated over 47 years of marriage. Here we have just what we need for day-to-day living. Four plates, two sets of sheets, one laundry basket. It's remarkable how restful clear surfaces can be to the eye, not a tchotchke in sight, no need to move this to get to that. 

I think I'll go make tea now in our one mug and try not to think of the piles of leaves on the lawn at home awaiting our return at the end of this week. 

Life in the Commune

Tuesday was my introduction to shared financial planning. We all met in the clubhouse by the pool at ten in the morning - apparently on the assumption that no one who lives here has a job to get to - accurate based on the expanse of white and gray hair of the15 or 20 people gathered ( except for a few like yours truly whose vanity prevents them from surrendering to nature). 

The condo board was only half there physically. They weren't missing body parts - the other half of the board phoned in, not having yet made the migration south to Florida.  

The gist of the meeting was that while we still have one more new building going up, some here in the complex are ten tears old and haven't been maintained due to lack of funds. Additionally, the company hired to keep up the outside of these three story units is woefully underpaid. 

Unless we seniors want to get out there with our own pressure washers and telescoping brushes, we're going to have to bite the bullet and vote in higher association fees. 

Along the way to that discussion we had forks in the road like the comment from the man in the oddly military patterned shirt and matching cap. "What about licensing? Better make sure these contractors are licensed.  They get hurt and we're all in trouble!"  

The moderator got him simmered down and we returned to issues like building paint colors, spraying for weeds during a summer that rained every single day and so washed off all attempts, and interlopers who sneak into the pool area and unscrew the light bulbs for a midnight swim. 

Fortunately, we have two gentlemen with financial resumes who have begun guiding our complex down a sounder fiscal path. Most of the people in attendance sat passively, contributing little and one of the phone-in board members was all in favor of increases in labor and landscaping, but voted against any increase in fees. Maybe he was planning on organizing a bake sale to fund the needed work. 

Morning walk

Yesterday evening we invited the next door neighbors over for drinks to thank them for watching our place while we were away. Four hours later My Guy and I finally scarfed down some scrambled eggs at 9:30. I'll need to tone up my imbibing skills if I'm going to survive when we return in the winter. 

A walk this morning seemed like a cleansing way to begin the day. 

Not quite the same as my morning stroll in our small New England town. 

There were plenty of locals:

And the sidewalk next to the undeveloped land in back of the complex can make me walk I little faster - sightings of bobcats and alligators and rumors of wild pigs aren't uncommon. 

Instead of gold and red maple leaves, the sidewalks have discarded palm parts like this pre-historic looking husk. 

And instead of strands of ivy, trees become home for opportunistic ferns and vines.  

But the sign at the pool house woke me up faster than my morning cup of tea. 

We're not in Massachusetts anymore . . . .

We've left the land of apple cider and sunset colored leaves for two weeks. 

I didn't even need to see the palm tree outside our window to know I was in Florida. 

Two ads from the local paper were indications enough:

Two Dinners

          Life feels as though it’s zipping along, although I’ve had large swaths of downtime so I fear my absence here is due more to lethargy than pressing obligations.

          The past week included a visit to the hills of New Jersey to visit grandchildren (and their parents) where we stood on a succession of wet soccer fields in unrelenting mist. Still, it was pleasant – isn’t that what the Irish call “soft” weather ? -  and brought back memories of other fields with my own children galloping up and down.

          We also managed a grown-up dinner at a newly opened local restaurant that, sadly, was so excellent its success will likely move it on to a larger venue.

I mean, pork chops with an expresso hazelnut demi-glaze and mustard spaetzle, heirloom carrots and baby kale? Or my chkoice: wood grilled shrimp with creamy heairloom grits, smokey bourbon butter, braised greens, and jalapeno jelly?

Hackettstown, New Jersey never had it so good.  

          This week I met for dinner with a newly-formed gathering of mystery writers of Western Massachusetts where I found myself becoming uncharacteristically quiet, surrounded as I was by writers much more accomplished than myself. “Unpublished” felt as though it was tattooed across my forehead.

Among those in attendance –

Lisa – cultural and intellectual historian, author of at least six books, subject of

          several interviews on National Public Radio, and absurdly pleasant and

          self-effacing. 

Lee – former television writer and producer (Edgar Award for best television

          teleplay, author of several fiction and non-fiction books.

Glenn –author of 15 mysteries, professor of philosophy

Ray – our organizer and representative from the Boston branch of Mystery

 Writers of America, author of God-knows how many Boston-based

 mysteries, winner of this award and that award. Also absurdly pleasant and self-effacing.

          I just tried not to use double negatives and pick my teeth. My degrees, years of teaching English, and 2 ½ (mediocre) books were mere foothills to their Mt. Everests. Still, it was helpful to be surrounded by writers and be reminded that this was something I enjoyed and should stop neglecting. And my pasta was excellent.

Gult, defiance, and weather control

          In one day, my laundry went from shorts to jeans, and evenings of walking the dog in tee shirts and sandals faded to a distant memory. I woke up Sunday morning to a chilly bedroom in a chilly house. Fall had arrived but our heat hadn’t. I still have a knee-jerk reaction to the first round of cool weather, telling myself to dig out my socks and sweatshirts and get on with it. The house was 62 degrees but I hadn’t turned on the heat yet because our storm windows weren’t down, thus resulting in all that oil-burner coziness leaking outside.

On the plus side, I was driven to make a really good batch of impromptu minestrone and onion/dill bread.

          All those years of watching pennies make me feel really guilty if I move the thermostat past 64. This year, however, I declare to the world that like Scarlett, “I’ll never go hungry cold again!” I am no longer going to shiver under a lap blanket while watching TV, or sit on one hand to warm it while the other holds the book I’m reading. At this point in my life, I deserve to be comfortable in my own home.

Another factor is that we have a house sitter coming while we’re away for a couple of days, and while I might be willing to shuffle around in fleece, I won’t ask that of someone else. For all I know, she’s that delicate species, an apartment dweller, who lives in a blissfully steady 72 degrees year-round..

And of course, after four hours yesterday of scraping the window tracks where sadistic bugs build small empires for their cocoons, then washing storms and screens, and finally battening everything down, today it’s in the 70s. It’s the same phenomenon that occurs in the spring when I pack away all my sweaters and boots and nature piles on a last-minute snowstorm. I’m beginning to believe that I possess the power to control the climate – even if it is in the opposite direction.  

Amateur-in-Chief

Last night we watched the first episode of Designated Survivor, the new series starring Kiefer Sutherland. During the State of the Union address the Capitol is bombed, killing everyone attending the speech except for the one member of the Cabinet who is parked in a safe location for just this event.

          Sutherland plays the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a position with little glory and in this representation, even less respect. After everyone in the government is wiped out, he’s hustled off to the White House and plunged into a war room with trigger happy generals and officials who are making little attempt to mask their dismay at this new head of the government.

          It’s a compelling premise and I think Designated Survivor has found a place in our DVR line-up.

          However, a warning bell went off as I thought about it. Sutherland’s character begins as someone with few skills for the bump-um cars of political life. It’s easy to see where this will likely go. He’ll fumble and fall occasionally, but will ultimately rise above the backbiting, and with his Everyman integrity, he’ll be a success.

          Granted Sutherland’s unassuming academic bears little resemblance to one of our candidates, but is there a possibility this a certain segment of the American voting public might thump the arm of their Lazyboy, gesture at the TV with the remote and say, “Well there ya go! He’s no politician and look how swell he’s doing!”

Squats of Joy

 We’ve acquired a 6 year old dog with unconventional bathroom habits.

Commerce

          The past two days have been exercises in optimism that didn’t always connect with reality.

Welcome to the infirmary

          No more trips for Mamie and me up to the mailbox, or anywhere else for that matter in the near future. This is now a house of rehabilitation and pre-dental care.

Morning signs

How did your day begin?

Score!

     We had company yesterday for lunch, an agreeable group of people, and it was a fun afternoon.   It’s been a while since I’ve hosted anyone other than immediate family and I’d forgotten the side benefits of entertaining.

          Sure, you do have to get the house clean and hide all traces of the squalor that you usually live in. Shoes actually go in closets, the butter dish finally gets washed, and the newspapers get picked up.

          But all the major parts of the house are clean and tidy all at once. It’s a heady feeling.

          Then, you have entertainment delivered right to your door in the form of nice people with good conversation (if you’re lucky, that is).

          And after several pleasant house during which you all eat delectables you don’t usually buy just for yourself, they go home.

          I now have a clean house, two bottles of wine I didn’t have before, and half a cake. Not a bad afternoon’s take.

Meditation on a telephone pole

Before

Friday was groomer day and we have still another new dog to get used to after 

Mamie's major trim. 

Oh well, it will grow out.

Sanctuary

Our household is about to experience a seismic shift.

          Today we’re opening our door and our hearts to someone in need of a witness protection program.

Heaven in a can

After all that virtuous talk of vegetables, it’s only right that I own

up to a few guilty pleasures.

Basket Case

The weekly farm share allotment - and therefore the weekly challenge of what to do with this latest batch of vegetables.

Morning Poetry

Ode to a Mug

The face never lies

Donald Trump is that last person I expected to feel sympathy for – ever.

Hoarder or Scientist?

     

What? You don't have a rhinoceros skull?

     The other day I was casting about for a venue for a day out with a friend.

Snap Judgment

Hung Up

 

Joan Crawford aside, I could use some more old-fashioned metal coat hangers. 

Art Ownership

          Today’s morning visit to blog land left me thinking about the impact of art on our lives. Thank you, Steve, at Shadows and Light .

Where did the week go?

So we’re back from the shore. The sand is already vacuumed from the car – a land-speed record for us. I usually drive around for at least a week with my sandals nostalgically grinding over my transplanted portion of First Encounter Beach.

Leaving Reality Behind

 



We’re all settled in for the next week here in the brachiordiaradialis,

or then again, maybe the pronator teres of Cape Cod. Just above the elbow, anyway.

Transformation

We must be getting better at this because I haven’t woken up once thinking, Shampoo!

Thanks, Donny

Again I find myself grateful to Donald Trump, although sadly, the first time my gratitude was premature. (Bless you, Donald Trump)

Livestock and Projects

      I glanced over the kitchen sink last night and saw movement below the window.

Oxymoron

Really?
Does this make sense to you? 
Do my "native" hot houses differ in some magical "local" way from hot houses in say, Virginia or North Dakota?

Sweet smell of pollution

        I am the Keeper of the Windows at our house.

A day gang aft agley

     Today I woke up with no real agenda and spent the morning drifting about watering plants in the yard, reading emails, and out on the deck drinking my tea with the newspaper.

Table for one

          In the course of today’s errands I slowed down for a moment or two of reflection. 

Horror in the dentist's chair

You could say last week was a festival for my head: first the ophthalmologist, then the dentist.

All of life is learning

  

        This week included my third visit to my eye doctor. 

Brexit Exit

I’ve always been grateful my husband never went into politics. Maybe, just maybe, I could have managed being charming and fully dressed on a fairly regular schedule, but introductions have me completely beat. When I meet someone for the first time, I do the whole ‘repeat the name back’ thing and even try creating a picture in my mind with their name. No dice. Seconds later that name is wiped as clean as a school blackboard at 3:15.

Pity poor Mrs. Cameron. All that time shaking hands, asking after each child (by name, no less) of a constituent she hasn’t seen since hubby last ran for PM in 2010. And where did it get her? Frantically rounding up the toothbrushes and Larry the cat’s food bowls.

Last I heard, David Cameron was sticking around for a couple more months to help smooth the Brexit transition. Then out of the blue comes the announcement that today is his last day in office. Now David and Samantha are reduced to calling relatives to see who has a spare room.

Do the furnishings at 10 Downing remain for the next tenant as they do at the White House? At least that will simplify a move so sudden that you can’t help but check to see if the First Couple is being trailed by creditors.

And how does taking up residence at one of these stately homes work? Is it similar to the house we rent every year at Cape Cod? You know, couches (saggy) and dinette set (a bit worse for wear) are provided, but you have to bring your own sheets and towels.

My husband only ever reached the lofty position of Finance Committee in town, thankfully an appointed position. Looks like I came out ahead – we’ll have been in our house twenty years this January.

Caught between a litter box and a leash

We’ve been mired in a quandary here for weeks, asking ourselves – should we pull our feet out of our big metaphorical boots into the sloppy world of risk and commitment?

Bean Binge

          The email from L.L.Bean trumpeted “20% Off!” so in an idle moment I scouted through the sale section to see if it might be possible to acquire a swimsuit for less than the cost of a week’s worth of groceries.

Christmas in July

     While we're on the subject of bike rides, here's a picture from another outing last week.

Slip of the mind

          The goal yesterday was a chunk of the bike trail from Easthampton to Northampton, about eight miles round trip. Biking still doesn’t come naturally to me - I only finally learned how to ride about five years after my kids did. But the sun was shining, a breeze was blowing, and more importantly, there was the prospect of a nice lunch afterwards. What could go wrong?

          The ride was like many before. Trees swept by on either side, we caught glimpses of backyards, and even went by a riding academy with the students in a row on their horses. We passed bicyclists going the other way, some riding two abreast, blissfully ignorant of my tendency to wobble unexpectedly into the other lane. I was still drawn like a lemming is to the sea to the four foot posts in the middle of the path marking intersections, and I almost ran into the sides of a bridge over the highway twice.

 At one point I had the bad judgment to release the handlebar long enough to adjust my tee shirt, nearly capsizing into the poison ivy creeping onto the asphalt. By mile five, certain parts of my body gave new meaning to the term “pants of fire”, and I marveled at how my husband, the man who causes me to hold my breath every time he descends our basement stairs, could swing so effortlessly backwards to check on me.

So lunch was well-earned and quite good – I had a grilled cheese sandwich mounded with fresh spinach and fat slices of tomato – but on the way back to the car we realized that our favorite water bottle was missing. I had a sinking recollection of parking it on the bumper ‘momentarily’ while we strapped the bikes to the rack. Instead of heading to the highway, back we went to the car park we had started from. 

We were halfway there when bone chilling noises filled the air. “This is it!” I thought. “Our 19 year old SUV has finally dropped an axle.” Fortunately, we were on a quiet road and we able to pull over immediately. 

The long arm of the Thule bike rack had dropped 90 degrees, dragging the bikes behind us on the road for at least fifty feet. After much untangling and assessing of damage, we managed to anchor the rack back up, tie the bikes on with some rope we had with us, and limp by way of back roads to our bike shop 45 minutes away.

Note the unnatural bend at bottom

They assured us the patients might survive and it might be no worse that a few bent wheels. 

Somehow the clip that holds the whole shebang must not have been securely in place. Hmmm. Makes my forgotten water bottle seem like not such a big deal after all, particularly since we could have been sailing down the highway at 60 miles an hour when disaster struck.