The Other Side of the Ocean

The next twelve hours are in flight and so posting will be a touch delayed. But I'll come back to Sunday for sure, the minute I touch down in the States.

A hint -- on this day, I did what hundreds, nay, thousands of Parisians (and others) did. Picture it: a perfect, lightly sunny day in the Ile de France. Where might you go? What might you do? When might you eat?

Another hint: I kept seeing, intermittently, this:




More later.

I never had the time to set the context for this trip. There’s the work part (trivial, consisting of one meeting, to the point that even IRS would not regard the hop over here as ‘work related’ and as far as I can figure out, the IRS is generous in its definitions). And then, there’s also the week-end part.

I’m not alone (no no, my occasional travelling companion regards this as a perfect occasion to stay home and do guy things – oh, like clearing barns and repairing crankshafts, so I am not here with him) and so I am looking at Paris through the eyes of others.

This is, by the way, an unusual time to be in Paris. France is hosting the World Rugby Tournament. It is a BIG DEAL event. I knew that when I booked a room way back in April. Prices are adjusted to reflect this golden moment in sports history. Uff! And there are banners and balloons and rugby t-shirts and special rugby menus in most places. And big screens showing the games.

So there’s that.

It is also fashion week. But I know very little about what’s at stake here. I have seen no model or designer of note and I say this in part because I would not really know how to spot one. All French women look to me like they have stepped out of a magazine page.

That’s the context.

A commenter asked for a photo of wine. I’m obliging. Here it is. Though not of our wine – this one is of a bottle shared by two, enamored with each other, on a quiet square in the middle of the island (Isle de la Cite) right there on the River Seine.




And, while we’re on the subject of lovers – at a distance, and on the river Seine, here’s another shot, reflecting the pink of adoration and of a perfectly beautiful late September evening:





These are unusual shots. They show off the quieter spaces of Paris. I’m going to flip over to the morning now, spent chasing one masterpiece after another. So, any idea why there’s a small crowd here?





Sure, it’s too see the Monalisa. I did not take a photo of her. And you know what she looks like anyway. Indeed, you were not permitted to take a photo of her, though not a single person followed that rule. The guards shrugged. The sign had said the photo ban was there for the most popular canvases, so that everyone could contemplate them in peace. Right.

In another museum, next to another small masterpiece, a solo visitor had a chance to take his own private photo.





And in the next room, a guard was listlessly staring into space. How much can you take of a waterlily canvas in a day?





Outside, the streets were filled with late Saturday shoppers. Nothing draws as big a crowd as a bakery with the afternoon allocation of baguettes, or a pastry shop where you can pick up something for le week-end. I regard Pierre Hermes as the best of the best. So do others.





A week-end in Paris. To be licked and savored and stored, so that on a more placid day back home, where it’s bike, work, bike, cook, work, sleep, I can think back to the taste of deep chocolate or cassis icecream.





Or to thoughts of dinner, across the table from other traveling companions…





…enjoying this gingered apple dish, with a crème brulee topping.

…do you say I love you? And how many ways can you say it rained today? Some possibilities (in reverse-chronological order, for a change):



dinner: dessert




evening: sent to the store




gray riverbank, turning leaves




empty chairs

A post scriptum: Paris Notes

Why are the mayors of New York and Chicago visiting Paris this week? To study the launching of free Wi-Fi in all the major Parisian parks and other public spaces (at noon today). The service, according to Le Figaro, will be available until the closing of the parks each evening, except on Le Champs du Mars, where it will be available round the clock.

And so the empty chairs will not remain empty today (it helps that the weather has improved).

But it leads me to wonder -- where are the great public spaces in Chicago? Or in Madison, for that matter, where the launching of WiFi has been a bust, both for technical reasons and, well, because it was never to be free.

In another unrelated piece of news, I read that Starbucks has been a complete failure in Paris. Dubbed here the McDonalds of coffee, it is mostly shunned, scorned and ignored. No comment. Or, okay, one comment: who the hell needs Starbucks in Paris?

Too hard? The previous post was from the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. And the sauce in the second photo is, in my opinion, a give-away. Mmmm.

But, for the traditionalists, I'll throw in the photos that tell all. [Just photos for now. My meeting is about to begin.]



fall trees




sea of cars on the Champs




bicycles tour and the Louvre




city bikes




in front of Les Deoux Magots




woman and dog




Paris metro

So where am I this week-end? (You can't show off your superior knowledge if I happen to have told you in advance).

A hint (no, it's not Madison, shot from the Olbrich Gardens):





Still too hard? Okay. For dinner, as a first course, I had this (it's a mushroom and eggs dish):





Give up? Come back later. I'm bound to spill all.

definition of minimalism: a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity.

See you tomorrow.

Expect minimalism here, on Ocean. Today and tomorrow. I have a long week-end away ahead of me and an endless number of projects that need my gentle touch before I leave.

The reasons for this particular trip across the ocean are not of importance here. I will say that there is very little work involved and what work there is will be most pleasant indeed, as it will be conducted in a café.

I have been asked if I mind the long journey for such a short, short spell over there, you know, where I’m going. I should mind, I know I should, but I mind it no more than I mind a ride on a cold bus or a night with too little sleep and too much casebook reading. Besides, fewer nights there means less spent on hotels. So it’s a bargain! Of sorts.

But really, there isn’t a lot these days that bothers me. Rudeness, meanness – the usual culprits, typically coming from the usual suspects. Other than that, days are filled with a mixture of gentle inclines and downspurts, like an a bikeride across the hills of south-central Wisconsin. All you can hope for is good weather and a huge supply of energy and recently, I have had both.

[Though today, the weather turned on me. That’s okay, I was working. At home. Inside, looking out:]

Yesterday, having in complete laziness taken multiple hours to cross a small lake by canoe, I began to think that this cottage by the lake thing wasn’t such a bad idea. I pictured week-ends “up north,” summer, fall, even winter breaks up around here, maybe with snow shoe hikes and midnight skating on the lake. Berry picking, too. This is Michigan – land of the blueberry, right?

It has been said of me that I fall for things with reckless abandon.

Ed burst that bubble fast enough. Vacation home? That’s rich people’s talk.

He is, of course, correct. No matter. I had only been daydreaming about how to treat the million I’m likely to get for publishing my book. The one that I need time to write. The one that crawls along at a sentence a day. That one.

But a few hours out on a lake, two lakes in fact, joined together by this stream…




… does funny things to the mind.

In the late afternoon, we turned off the electricity, the water, drained the pipes, locked the doors and turned south, following the long trail of cars home. With only an occasional pause, to let the important residents of this region get to the other side.





Today, it’s back to the books. And the routine of bike, work, bike, cook, work, sleep.

I did note that I’m not the only one especially attached to my bike routines. It seemed this day was “take your bike to Bascom Mall” day. Who needs a bike rack on a day like this…

[That’s Bascom Mall for you: to the left, to the right, looking up, looking down. The first photo includes, of course, the buildings of our Law School.]
















It’s the persistently hot weather, I tell you. Can’t get tight about anything. Ride, rest, read, rest, read, ride. The patterns of a late September summerlike day.

Idea: if you want to take someone to a cabin that may or may not be up to her neat-freak standards, drive up near midnight, after a storm, and say things like “thank God we found the dirt road that leads up to this place.” She’ll likely collapse with relief and when she wakes up the next morning, all she’ll notice will be the beautiful lake and maple forest.

Clarification: no, I do not photoshop color into my photos, to make them look like the canvases they sell by the roadside at $5 a piece. With black velvet trim. I cannot help it that we chose the most perfect week-end to be up north. Deeply clear skies, maples, exploding with brilliance, I mean, what can I do – mute my camera?


Chicago, Detroit and the UP -- linked by big time iron and big name boys, zipping up here for a break from city life. The McCormick and Ford men, the Firestone boys – oh, the whole lot of them. They bought land and settled in and the ones with a conscience handed it over, eventually, to the government, so that the likes of us could download maps and make our way up here to admire the views.

Ed and I hiked the McCormick Wilderness (I read that moose were airlifted here from Canada and now there are hundreds roaming the UP; so how come I saw not a single moose hair, let alone moose paw print the whole while I was here?) – up to the remains of the McCormick retreat.

You could not imagine a more beautiful fall day. Let me stay silent on the details and put up a few photos from the day, shown chronologically.




to the McCormick Wilderness



color



stream to jump over



path



brilliant



Ocean author, getting into the Yellow Dog River falls



at sunset: Marquette lighthouse on Lake Superior

Cranes? Pull over. There, in the wetlands.
A hard maneuver and still, no access road.

We abandon the little pink-striped Geo, pick up trails that go nowhere and smell, for the first time, the autumn air of the north.





But we cannot get to the wetlands.

Loop around and let’s see if we can find a path from the highway.

Yes, they are still there. We try to get closer, but birds have this habit of flying away when they see my camera. Shy creatures.





The skies cloud over. Rain. What rain! And lightening. And the winds, pushing us up toward the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

In Iron Mountain, just over the border, we look for one of the three traditional Italian eateries. It’s very Italian up here, in Iron Mountain.

Let me call. Maybe they’re closed because of the storms.
They’re closed alright. Burned down in a heap of embers not too long ago. Oops.

Discouraged, we head for the next – Fontana – and it’s hoppin!’ Becky, the owner (I would put her at around ninety), shows us to a table. All you can eat fish fry, if you want it. $8.95, she tells us. No, no – we want to pick up on the Italian theme.

Four women, in ages somewhere between Becky and myself, all with very poofy hair, are reviewing the day’s weather. We’re under a tornado watch. It's a mess out there, Edna.

We get drinks, we get menus, but Becky makes no effort to take our orders. Becky isn't feeling warm toward us. Possibly we did not show excitement at the mention of fried cod. Oh, to be liked by the head of the Italian family that has served food here for generations! Ed shrugs, but I smile at her, a big toothy grin, everytime she looks our way (which is rarely).

We’re hungry. We ask the bartender for a plate of sautéed mushrooms. People have those with steak, you know, with dinner. That’s fine, but could we have some anyway? We have given up on the elusive intractable woman in control.

But eventually she comes over, poised to write down all that we ask for.

I ask my usual. I don’t mean to be difficult, it’s just that I really really care about these things:
Where are the shrimp from?
She looks at me over her thick glasses.
Randy’s distributor, like all our seafood.
I’ll have the Canadian scallops over mushrooms, with a side of gnocchi with marinara sauce.

We’ll seat you at your proper table when the salads are ready.

Ah, so there is a procedure. I see that the four women with poofy hair have made their way to the second room. In another hour or so, we are there as well.

I’m ready to eat anything and everything, even very average food.

Except that the food is not average. The homemade salad dressing, pungent with olive oil, is perfectly herbed, the scallops are picking up the flavors of the garlic mushrooms, the gnocchi are clearly home made.





Welcome to the UP.

It’s very late as we make our way down the dirt road to Little Squaw Lake. An A frame cottage at the water’s edge. We fall asleep in the utter quiet of the woods.

And in the morning, as the sun throws its first light on the trees across the water, we push the canoe out onto the lake and watch.

..a blurr of fun last night (with students -- truly a brilliant bunch!)...




...and out the door I go this afternoon, heading north. With a smiling traveling companion. And Lysol.

...late in September, no less, I mean, really, who can blame them?

It was the kind of day where every living being in Madison wanted to take in those last warm rays.





Me too. On my balcony, my work in my lap, squinting against the sun.

Looking up from my text, though, I could tell: these are autumnal colors. And I don’t mean the turning leaves. Every month has its distinctive light. This tree has late September written all over it.




[Yes, bingo! Correct. A day of work and a bike ride home and then more work. You expect a longer post? Something tells me that the week-end will offer material. But not until then.]

So, my friend has this house up north…
(translation: a pal who professes not to see dirt, ever, has recently purchased a summer home from a very old couple whose eyesight and physical stamina were such that they could hardly care for themselves let alone a place they hung out in occasionally; said house is a good five hour drive up from Madison)

…and he’s letting us use it for the week-end!
So what state is it in?
Great!
Says who?
Well, I visited there last month, as did his son, as did another buddy of his…
(translation: four guys, none of them ever noticing any dirt anywhere, as opposed to me, who notices it even where it doesn’t exist, recently went up and had a good time hangin’ out in a shack which probably has not seen the likes of Lysol in the last, maybe forty years)

Has the bathroom ever seen the likes of Lysol?
What’s Lysol?
(case in point)

So anyway, we could hang out there and you could write…
(translation: I could write if it didn’t get too cold or if the animals and/or bugs that have probably taken over in the absence of a human scent don’t absolutely get to me, and I could then post things on Ocean about it all, only not while there because, nat, there’s no Internet)

…and we could go swimming in the lake and take some hikes up there and we could take nuts and stuff…
(translation: there’s no store within miles and not only would I need to take provisions, which I then would not cook because I don’t even want to contemplate the state of the kitchen, but I would have to take coffee and that means milk and of course, the refrigerator is likely to be turned off, possibly taken over by a family of mice because it’s warm and comfy and snug in there, when it’s standing empty and turned off)

Are there linens and towels?
Linens and towels? (here, my occasional travel companion, Ed, pauses and rubs his chin, trying to recall his very recent visit there) I’m sure I slept on something and wiped myself off with something…
(translation: one of the guys had a towel and they all used it and then “forgot” to wash it, most likely)
…Anyway, we can wash up stuff there. And take Lysol.
(translation: said week-end will require a half-assed cleaning job, of the type that leaves the strong smell of cleaning product on your hands)

So, I said no to the idea, right?

Oh, but the sun is warm outside and Ed is so eager and excited about this quick jaunt into the northwoods. I imagine that for him, staying up in his buddy’s cabin is like me spending a week-end in Paris. I’m not that unkind.

In the meantime, I’m reveling in the weather and appreciating, while I can, a nice skim double cappuccino. Outside. At a café. In a clean cup, with a yummy scone. You appreciate the things that are soon to be in short supply.

Is there anything as important? Okay, love. Warmth. Yeah, I need a warm abode.

But as it’s well documented that I am rich in the latter two, so let’s just focus on food and water. My twenty-four hours had so much of it! Let me go back to Saturday night’s dinner and run through the next twenty-four hours, chronologically:



Dinner:
Corn bisque with a shrimp



Breakfast:
French toast




Snack:
fresh and honest cupcakes




Canal:
The C&O, again. This time running through Georgetown




Canal:
taking water from it




River:
The Potomac, again, at the end of the day




Canal:
…and back to the C&O




Dinner:
ending with a berry pavlova

Early in the day, I go to the White House. A pleasant half hour walk. A march is scheduled for noon. I watch people assemble, I listen to speeches. I take photos. It's been a while since I have been to a peace rally.


























In the late afternoon we set out for a hike along the Capital Crescent trail. We leave DC behind and make our way along the tow path of the C&O Canal. Between the trees, we catch glimpses of the Potomac. The greenery is different here. More southern. Though the birds could be straight out of Wisconsin.









We march along, briskly, engrossed in each other’s stories, and in the deep warm colors of a fading sun.




And so we lose the trail. Somewhere, on mile 6.5 we should have turned toward Bethesda. We are, instead, by the water’s edge. How far can we continue like this? Hundreds of miles. The canal is long. We’re already in Maryland.

We turn in search of a metro stop. There aren't many out here.

It’s good and dark when we get home. Thankfully, at the end of the day, there is always a terrific meal to be had here. With a side dish of goat cheese grits. Because, well, it’s the south.

Oh, do I appreciate the challenge of taking photos of people! I have, in fact, a hugely complicated explanation in my mind as to why I like it as much as I do, but I wont spell it out here. Ocean readers know this about me anyway. I’ll risk being banged with my camera over my head but I’ll try for it. I’ll take the picture that, in my mind at least, is an interesting statement about the place I’m visiting. It’s especially rewarding if I am in a setting far from home.

So in the short while I had before setting out for dinner, I took a stroll. These were all taken within a few blocks of where I’m staying. Chronologically:

My day is that. Immersed in the quiet of work. And then, a ride home, by the lake.



[oh, by the way, Madisonians: you need no longer say that you have to travel to France to get a good steak frites; but shhhhh! I want to be able to get a table when the fancy strikes me; you can go there, but only on the weekends, when I’m likely to be elsewhere. You want the name? Okay, okay, Brasserie V. On Monroe. Damn close to perfect. And get the endive salad. And the rosé. What a place. But shhhh!]

And again work intrudes into just about every waking hour this week. The pay off? Enjoying doing things not haphazardly. Enjoying work. Working ahead. Looking ahead. Including to four out of the next five week-ends poking around interesting, distant places. WAS, UP, CDG and BOS. Three out of four promise good food. One out of four promises quiet. Four out of four suggest great company. And time to write.

For now, I battle the cold in the morning (it was in the low forties and very shady) and the desire to fall asleep before I want to in the evening.

Oh, wait. I did take a ride to the airport. To pick up a friend. On the way, I stopped at Madison Park. Who wouldn’t? The most brilliantly blue (but cold) day turned into a waterfall of sunset colors. So at least you have that.

It was such a windy day! The waters of Lake Mendota looked like the Baltic on an especially choppy day. Perhaps I exaggerate. But only slightly.






I may have had time to write an interesting post today, but Jason laid claim to a substantial chunk of my afternoon hours. Yes, yes, long-time Ocean readers, my man Jason continues to be a significant force in my life. The man of color and conviction.

Ed (another force to reckon with) asks me – why do you color your hair?
And I respond – I do NOT color my hair. I only touch up the roots.
Why?
Because they are of the color a mouse would be, were she to live to a ripe old age.

Ed studies the roots. They seem fine to me…
That’s because you are not seeing them as they would be, were they not touched up a bit.
To me, it seems like your roots are brown with highlights. So, you pay Jason huge sums of money (for Ed, anything done at a hair place that costs more than $12 is a huge sum of money; particularly if it does not even include a beard trim) to turn what’s brown with highlights into what’s another shade of brown with highlights.
The highlights are the sun’s doing! They are entirely natural!
…Besides, I like your hair when it’s longer.

What’s the matter with men?! in my experience, they all say they prefer longer hair. Hair that gets in the way of most everything. Hair that looks ridiculously unkempt when it is on my scalp (because, truthfully, I run a comb through it just once in the course of the day – when I am straight out of the shower; otherwise, I can’t be bothered).

Jason, it has been suggested that I should stay with longer hair.
Jason regards me with that a look of great benevolence, which is only slightly better than an eye-roll. You mean, you don’t want me to take off more than, say, an inch?
(I have just visited Jason 4.5 weeks back; it is nearly impossible to imagine that my hair grew by an inch since then; so let’s interpret this for what it is: my man Jason is flexing his tattooed arm against my occasional travel companion, Ed. Fine, he is saying. Grow it out. Slowly. So slowly that it must get shorter before it, in a decade or so, gets longer.)

I stay silent.
Okay, three fourths of an inch. Jason is no fool. He knows and I know that generally, I tend to tip big (a relic from my upbringing in communist Poland). Generally.

Of course, tomorrow, when I bike to work, it will all look terribly unkempt, but tonight, my scalp is aglow with the Jason touch. The man’s a genius.

I wake up and, for the first time since maybe April, I get up to shut the window a bit. Because it is cold outside.

Biking to or from work is not an option. Not for me. The rain is coming down hard. I’d look bewitching with strands of wet hair plastered to my face, clothes dripping the dirty puddle water, fingers purple red from the cold.

Still, poor weather is sort of liberating, isn’t it?

I finish teaching, I look out my office window – this one, right here:





…and I see no reason to exert myself. Biking, hiking, sunning, dashing, accomplishing things that require movement from one place to another? Forget it.

I settle in for a comfortable, long period of writing.

Who knew, three months ago, that the dry, caked soil would be water logged? And home to an exploding population of mosquitos? Who knew.

And what if, in spite of it all, you kept working at it?


I watched this noble group of farmers swipe (at the bugs) and heave and swipe and heave.




It's going to be a magnificent harvest for them. Incredible.


At the end of the day I went to the grand opening of the westside Tex Tubb’s. Madisonians will reco0gnize the name. Tacos and such, done fresh and honest.




Otherwise, my day was so completely full of work. And writing. A swiping and heaving of sorts. With no guarantee of a good harvest.

Camera remains intermittently broken. Bats cannot take care of all the bugs that are out there right now. Riding on the roof of the car is fun. The lake is too murky to swim in. Really, the mosquitoes are horrendous. Moonglow pears are back!

My day in a nutshell.



The Westside Community Market was the place to be if you wanted a real deal on the freshest and the most honest foods. Oh, I can rave about the corn, the oysters ‘shrooms, the soy beans. And the onions and the cukes. And the goat cheese. With garlic. And sticky buns. (All made it home with me). But the stars of today – moonglows. Unquestionably. Reason to celebrate. Get some in the next weeks. They’ll make the nonfunctional parts of your life suddenly appear like a piece of cake to zip through.





A good weather week-end.

I asked Ed to come up with a place for us to explore. Preferably with a smaller ratio of mosquitoes to person than 1,000,000 to 1. Oh, and not too far from Madison.

The man tried. He suggested Yellowstone Lake Park. (Yes! In Wisconsin.) Here’s a DNR blurb on it:


What makes Yellowstone Lake unique is the lack of mosquitoes and a glossy-eyed mammal with wings.
The 968-acre park is the summer home to more than 4,000 little brown bats. The bats roost in 31 bat houses throughout the park. The houses serve as nurseries, where the bats raise their pups.

The bats love a meal of mosquitoes. They'll eat the bugs and thereby we, the hikers will be spared. That's the theory. And it works, I'm sure, in periods of light mosquito infestation. For example, last month, when there were very few mosquitoes in Wisconsin, there were probably very very few mosquitoes at Yellowstone Lake.


We set out toward the park. Through backroads, where the photo ops were tremendous. I was especially thrilled with the view when Ed suggested I relocate to the roof of the car. (He explained that he traveled through Central America that way and the views from up there were better than great; I rode -- okay, crawled, okay, inched, okay, basically stood still -- a more modest distance of maybe 300 yards). Unfortunately, my Sony SLR, after a brief hiatus at the Repair Center in Texas last month, failed me yet again. Out of the several dozen shots (there's only so much time I will spend on the roof of a car), only one, the worst one, of that I am positive, came through:





Not that I knew this at the time.

At the Park, we inspected the bat houses. No action there. Ed tells me they’re sleeping. I’m thinking they better get with it. You don’t sleep through a grape harvest in France, you should not sleep through a mosquito invasion in Wisconsin.





We hiked. The camera worked, on and off. The bugs? I'm alive. That's all I'll say.

Here are some off photos from when the camera was on board with me. I know, I know, I have a note of bitterness and resentment. Don’t read too much into it. It was such a beautiful, warm and sunny day.

Ed, my occasional travel companion, has taken to watching clips from the NYT food section on the Net. It didn’t take long for him to start salivating for the food that was being prepared in that tiny little video box. Look here, tomato paella. Now, doesn’t that look just fantastic?

I can take a hint. And indeed, I have a paella pot that I brought home some while back from Spain. And so last night I made the tomato paella. Ed was blown away by it. Nothing I had ever cooked previously was so quickly devoured.





Great. At least it gave me something to photograph aside from weather patterns on Bascom Hill.

But could it be that I am supporting the creation of a monster? Today I see him poring over further video clips. Stuffed artichokes. Eggs with shrimp. Pan-seared salmon.

I say to him: Ed, I have a million cookbooks and a second million clipped recipies carefully taped into fat notebooks. You want me to cook something, go ahead, ask me. I have favorites that have become family legends of goodness. I can cook up a storm that’ll rival all kitchen storms.

I may as well save my breath. Ed relishes the act of discovery. If I come up with twenty great things to make, he’ll eat them in a distracted sort of way. But if it is of his own finding, his whole being lights up.

And so tonight it’s back to the NYT clips. Salmon in curry sauce this time. May this new love of food video-ettes end there. I mean, while I have no objection to making fried falafel (the clip he had me watch just today), I remain loyal to the cookbooks that have been collecting dust on my shelves for months. Years, perhaps.

Now, back to commentary on my ride to and from work and to observations about the weather on this busiest of busy work weeks: it was windy today. Nicely so. At least I thought it was nice. The sailboats by the Union? They were having a tougher time staying upright. Blown away by a hefty breeze.

It pretty much describes this week.

And since I do not, anymore, blog about work, you are left here with posts about…the weather.

It is an interesting topic though. Partly hot, partly wet, partly cloudy, it offers variety. It’s spicy, you could say.

Walking to the bus stop from my office, I noted that the grass was too damp for student lolling. But, Bascom Hill is crisscrossed by solid walkways. A good place to exhale and think green thoughts.





UPDATE:

Mixed up weather means you can't expect much. But, this is Madison! Land of sky! One quick trip to my rooftop shows it off perfectly: downtown, ensconced in green, protected by a rainbow.

That’s it. Storms tomorrow will push this bubble of hot bliss out of reach until next year. The temperature outside or inside a room is not something I ever even thought much about forty years ago. How could that be? I lived in Poland, damn it. Wasn’t I ever cold?

There is cold and there is cold. Crank up the (Warsaw) radiators and the internal space becomes toasty pleasant. None of this forced air stuff, or thermostats that become a battleground for people who cannot agree on what’s comfortable in life. Did you notice that cool trumps comfortable most every time?

Outside? I can handle outside cold, so long as we’re not all sitting huddled over a mug of cocoa, in five layers of sweaters afterwards.

I mind Wisconsin’s weather less than I mind her residents’ fixation on keeping the interiors cool in the winter and frigid in the summer.

Oh, but why am I even writing of this… Today, we hit the nineties and I am over the top happy. As was she, the student outside my office window. Only notice the telltale signs. It’s fall alright. Pushing in on summer.

Interestingly, in coming up with something to say about myself to my first day, first semester, first year law students, I said (among other things) that I bike. Now, that’s curious, because I wouldn’t typically focus on this as a defining characteristic. Real bikers bike. Or they do biker things (I can only imagine what). Quickly, I balanced this disclosure with cooking, neglecting to remember that I do not cook nearly as much as I did, say, two, three, four years ago. At the tail end, I lamely added that I also write. I mean, write non-law things.

I mention this for several reasons:

1. I truly deeply love the first day of classes;

2. One tends to obsess about things that one did yesterday over and beyond what one did, say, last week or last year. This is a good thing. Sometimes.

3. One tends to hide things that are truly important.


So long as I defined myself as a biker (!) I may as well post about my bike ride home. Excited yet?

For those who no longer live in Madison but have nostalgic leanings toward the place, you will cry (as opposed to, say, on January 29th, should you live anywhere south of here).

It was a sunny day. I was biking down Park Street and looking up, I saw the frisbee pair. There is always a frisbee pair on Bascom Mall on days like this.




Turning toward the lake, I caught sight of these studious types. Oh, come on. Suspend judgment. They probably had classes earlier in the day.





Finally, a comment on water. There’s a lot of it after the rains of last week. So much so that sometimes, even the ducks have had enough.

So who asked the mosquitoes to come to this party? And don’t they believe in reproductive restraint? Unbelievable.

I wanted to photograph a dragon fly snacking on a mosquito, but restrained myself admirably at the last minute. Not for humanitarian reasons – I was simply unwilling to get devoured for the sake of a good Ocean photo.

It’s been a week-end of work. Surely you can tell. Culminating in a labor day full of...labor. And, consequently, light postings. Ocean Lite -- easy on the brain, not entirely satisfying on the palate. Ah well...

Because it is Labor Day, my moment of rapture and joy (sitting at Ancora and going over the pages of my unnovel) could not be. Ancora was closed. Still, when biking in search of a small nonfat cappuccino with a double shot of the strong stuff, I came across this: a sudden and fleeting view of corn stalks, late summer greens and the Capitol dome. Fitting for a Labor Day post from Wisconsin.




[It’s September 3rd. Thirty years ago today, I leapt into an act of adulthood. That I survived is remarkable and not entirely of my own doing. How could I not say -- thank you. ILYAFA. ]

What would you consider the unusual, here, on Ocean? A season with very very limited travel? Posts that describe in great detail the purchasing of a bathroom scale? So funny, so very very funny and yet – so un-Ocean like.

I was reading articles for my soon to begin semester and I was especially amused by one that talked of the proliferation of on-line dating. The author raised the usual questions: what’s binding about the blurb you put out there, describing yourself as being basically better than you are? The article also mentions the phenomenon of the disappearing relationship – the one that vanishes without notice. One day you’re emailing and building your future together, next day one of you skips out and is never heard from again.

And so I wondered: what if your blog switches gears and becomes something inexplicably different for no good reason?

Not likely, here, on Ocean. Predictably, I travel. Predictably, I get busy around the teaching months. And predictably, I post a photo, more than one oftentimes, taken sometime in the course of my day.

Today I biked a familiar path between Ed’s sheepshed (yes, Ed lives in a sheepshed) and an Ancora in Fitchburg that, believe it or not, I favor over and beyond most any café in Madison. It’s a 3. 67 mile trip between the two. A perfect back and forth.

And today, I came across these two characters, trying to find a safe haven in Fitchburg. Forget it! Move on!





And on the way back, I passed this person, diligently working a field. You have no idea how bad the mosquitoes are this week. Every few seconds, she would raise herself and swat away. I could hardly pause the minute it took me to take the photo. The world has far far braver people in it than I can even imagine.






Finally, just meters away from Ed’s sheepshed, I passed this field. No comment on it. Just that it’s beautiful, especially when the sun lets you know that in a second or two, shadows will replace light.

How would you describe/title (any or all of) the three photos below? They’re from this morning, from the Westside Community Market here in Madison.

I’ve come up with stuff: two-toned… or, all that glitters is not gold… but all that’s rather conventional. And, actually, quite revealing. Surely, there are other ideas out there?

If you have thoughts, pass them on. Comments are fine, but, as always, email is great for the shy at heart.