The Other Side of the Ocean

I look out the window of first daughter’s new home…





…then second daughter’s new home and I think what every parent must think when the stars are looking bright: man, they are doing okay! Soon, they can take care of me!

I asked one of them if she would, indeed look after me were I penniless and destitute in my old age. She smiled benevolently and said -- yes, even if you are penniless and destitute because you travel so much…

In the afternoon I clean the apartment that one daughter is vacating so that nothing is taken away from her security deposit. It is an old and creaky place and there is a lot of cleaning to do. I am reminded how awful it was to clean the house that I was vacating exactly a year ago. A house that overwhelmed me. A house that had dust in corners I never knew existed.

That was one of the worst moments of my days – that godawful first half of last September, as I packed to leave a house which had overwhelmed me in all ways. (Again, thank you to all those who helped me get through that move. Thank you especially Susanne and Sarah and Sep.)

I remember last year so well. On September 1st I bottomed out. I was passing through New Haven on my way back from Boston and I crashed. I sat in a bar, just under the apartment my daughter is now moving into and I flirted outrageously with some local attorney and I wont even say how outrageous I was, but it was definitely the low point of all low points.

But time passes and new things happen. And here I am, in New Haven again, looking around the spaces inhabited by my daughters and thinking – man, you two are doing alright…

And ahead of me, just a few weeks ahead, I have some returns – to places that gave me such a beautiful fresh perspective on everything – to Languedoc, to the vineyards that allowed me to let go of so much tension, to the little wineries that I grew to love, to all those places, now beginning their fall harvest, a harvest I want to see with my own eyes.

Sorry for being so wordy. I just was remembering September 1st last year and thinking how quickly a bad string of days can flip their noodle and become a good string of days.

If I could draw a cartoon of myself today it would be of a person drooping under the weight of a heavy load. Yes, I collected a few bloggable moments while flinging loads of trash into the dumpster by the curb, but now my arms are too tired to pound out the words.

I do think that New Haven has character. Too often, its many faces are overshadowed by the massive numbers of students that show up right around now. Still, they are there: the goths, the lovers, the moms with babes, the older people, eating their ice cream, smoking their cigarettes, or, just watching the world go by.

This post is for them.



with smoke




with book




with love




with child




with gelato




with flag

I am on the short flight from Madison to Detroit.

Nina? A familiar voice from the seat behind me. I slam my seat back hard in friendly greeting. Hey, it's Jeremy, the blogger friend who ditched Madison in favor of a few years in Cambridge.

Disembarking, we catch up on all relevant events of the past month.

I have a rich social life in Cambridge in the next four days – he tells me.
I just quit being CEO of a yet to be formed corporation – I say to him.

On my next flight, Detroit to Hartford, I sit down in my window seat and take out work papers.
Nina? Are you Nina? The flight attendant is hurrying toward me.
(Did I do something wrong? Did I leave behind valuable possessions? Did someone find chapstick in my bag? Chapstick is permissible on board, no?)
Welcome! We want you to sit up front! We have a seat for you!
(Is it because of Ocean? It’s my blog, isn’t it? No… it’s my Air France (now merged with KLM and therefore NW) frequent flyer status.)

For those curious about first row flying, let me just share this view from up front: (Write your own story for this photo)





So begins my trip out east to help daughters move to their respective residences in New Haven. The moving-in ritual has been a fixture of my Labor Day week-end for the past eight years. Heavy duty labor: lifting, carrying, building. I did it first at age forty-five, thinking – man, I’m too old for this. That was then. Now I’m thinking – bring it on, kids! I am so ready for you! (It could be that I understand that I am nearing the last stretch. College years will be over and done with. Moving-in rituals will change. Two Men and a Truck will replace Mommy with her Bare Hands.)

So what will I do in future years, when on Labor Day I will not have anything laboriously difficult to handle? Do people really just get out the grill, pop a can of Miller Light and do nothing?

In New Haven, the puddles are huge, reflecting what it has been like here for the past few days, centuries…

Exactly. A drippy kind of day. It had a window of light, but otherwise – the rain came down and the skies remained gray. So that even the construction workers outside my window could do nothing but hide under the shelter of the overhang.





Tomorrow I head out to the east coast. Maybe the skies will clear there?

No real post tonight. Just a photo that joins two prominent chef-proprietors together – Odessa of the first twenty-eight l’Etoile years and Tory of the last two.




Two stars at l'Etoile...

Me, I just lurk in the background and take photos and notes.

Are you a photographer? A food writer? -- I get asked, often enough, especially in places where I am a stranger. No, I just post, on Ocean. It's not a huge deal, Just Ocean -- my eyes out onto the world.

I am a law student. Pregnant with a second child, married to an academic, holding the hand of a little girl. The three of us walk up the steps of l’Etoile. We haven’t the money to eat there really, but we are celebrating, big time. My then-husband has just just been voted tenure.

Creaky steps, warm space within. Our two-year-old orders something without sauce. The waiters smile.

Seventeen years later I am in the l’Etoile kitchen, plating appetizers and desserts, popping Vesuvius molten cakes into the oven, tossing wild mushrooms over mixed greens.

Two years more and I am rolling croissants and mixing up gougers for their Saturday market.

And a year after, I am the market buyer -- picking out produce and lugging it up the steps, to the small kitchen of l’Etoile.


Tomorrow l’Etoile celebrates its thirtieth year on the Square. There will be a party is for the farmers who supply the kitchens of this wonderful little place.

Last night I went back to eat there. And so you could see this entire week-end as being sort of a l’Etoile moment: from dinner on Friday, to making the Saturday rounds with farmers whom I know from my buyer days, to the official celebration tomorrow.

A colleague posted a question on the law faculty list this past week: what restaurant would you recommend to someone coming in from New York – someone who is used to the best of the best and doesn’t mind paying for it?

We are an opinionated lot and so suggestions appeared instantly. Fresco, Sardine, Nadia’s, Magnus, Harvest. Fine, fine, I’m sure good meals are to be had at all of them. But l’Etoile is special. It isn’t just a restaurant. It is the last link in that chain of events that begins out there with creating good soil. From field to table.

I can get quite emotional about the place. People don’t typically get emotional about restaurants. Do they?

Congrats, Chef Tory.

Melon soup with stravecchio cheese stick and prosciutto:





Jim’s muskmelons



Black Earth Valley Red Bell Peppers


Jim’s Muskmelon Carpaccio with Dungeness Crab Salas, Shooting Star Farm Torpedo Onions, Black Earth Valley Red Bell Peppers, Fried Capers and Garlic Toast:







Snug Haven tomatoes


Roasted Wild Alaskan King Salmon with smoky Shooting Star Farm Cranberry Bean Puree, Stenruds Haricorts Verts, marinated Snug Haven Sungold Tomatoes and Riesling-Bacon Broth:






Ruth Lefeber’s blueberries and kids



Bee Charmer Corn


Ruth Lefeber Blueberry Crisp with Cornmeal-Oat Struesek Topping and Bee Charmer Sweet Corn Ice Cream:






L'Etoile, inside and out

It was a stormy day. Anyone living in this town would tell you that the flashes and rumblings the past two days have been out of control. I, too, felt that much of my warm feelings toward a mellowy Madison August had to be put by the wayside for now.

If you can imagine, most every time I looked out the window while at the computer I would see some variation of this:




In the evening, however, I had a change of attitude. What caused the shift? Come back tomorrow. I’m wiped for now.

They gather every Wednesday, after work hours. One hundred, maybe two, parking their cars, each week in a different place, a short drive out of Madison.

Go on the Wednesday Night Bike Ride with me this week! Ed says.
I knew it. Get a fast bike and the pressure is on to push yourself. Today a Wednesday Ride, tomorrow le Tour de France.
But I’m not ready for it! Twenty miles of hills and vales – these people are fit! They wear spandex pants and biking jerseys.
Don’t forget, I’m one of the regulars.
You have a point… Still, you like these killing challenges. I would want to take photos along the way, I’d slow you down…
Come anyway. There is a potluck at a vineyard afterwards.

Ed knows how to twist that wrist.

Dave Mitchell is one of the riders. Dave, owner of Wine and Hop – the store that sells equipment for wine and beer making enthusiasts – grows grapes just south of Madison. You want to make your own wine? Help with the Mitchell harvest this fall, press your own grapes, get the right stuff to ferment the juice and voila! You’re in business.

Dave tells me -- what I like about the Wednesday Night Ride is that it draws people from all jobs, backgrounds, ages. They have only two things in common – they’re into keeping fit and they like to bike.

This week, the ride starts in the town of Oregon. Ed and I arrive late. He has a flat tire to deal with. I'm feeling jittery.

It’s going to storm. What if it storms when we are riding?
Ed shrugs his shoulders. You get wet.

I made a map for you. Clip it to the bike. I picked a short cut if you don’t want to do the full ride. You can go at your speed and I’ll zip ahead and we’ll meet at the end.

What if I have a flat tire? I don’t know how to change a flat tire.
Someone will help you.

I watch the last of the riders set out. Me, among these?





Oh! This one’s reassuring. He can't be in it for the speed.





We set out. Ed is patient initially, but within minutes my shoelace gets tangled with the chain. I pause to fix things, he circles around, waiting.

I pause again, this time to take a photo.





Again he circles, backpedals.

Please go on. You are making me so nervous! Send for me if I fail to reach the finish line.
Are you sure? I barely catch this. He’s already pushing ahead over the next hill.

On my own, I lose myself in my surroundings. The sun is low, the colors are warm. All the bikers have long passed me. I am alone with the sunflowers and the red barns.









I am so taken with the light, with the quiet, that I neglect to pay attention to my clipped map.This is the way it looked when it was clipped on.





Sometime during a particularly brushy side trip into the tall grasses (for a photo) I managed to lose the damn thing.

Still, a loop is a loop. If you turn left a lot, you’re either going to wind up in a dead end circle or back where you started from.

I relax. I pause again to watch men work in a tobacco field.





I am not paying attention to time. My pedaling alternates between devilishly fast and carelessly mellow.

The sun is a low, red beach ball. Wait, I feel my cargo pants vibrating against my thigh. The phone! I have my cell with me.

Nina, this is Mark, a friend of Ed’s. Where the hell are you??
I’m watching guys hacking away at tobacco leaves...

My pokiness means that we reach the vineyards for the potluck just as the sun touches the horizon. The light is beautiful, though quickly fading. I manage a few photos, then give it up for the night.





Dave tells me something I already know from my spring ramblings.
There is nothing as spiritual as looking over a vineyard. To watch the vines reach into the air, stretching, as if they knew there is something up there waiting for them -- it's humbling. You can throw down a blanket in an apple orchard or a peach orchard, sit down and look around you and it will be lovely, bucolic even, but sitting at the foot of a vineyard – that’s altogether different. Nothing compares.

I study the tall rows. The soil isn’t the rocky orange of the Languedoc. The grape varieties aren’t the same either. The stubs are young, the winemakers are children, playing with grape juice. I am a child too, taken in by the magic of the vines.

I’ll be back for the September harvest. I'll probably bike over.

A full day, a late night. I'll explain tomorrow.

In the meantime, a teaser, yet again. Last time I did this on Ocean, it was too easy. This time I'll give a clue: it's not the south of France. That's not until four weeks from now. So, this evening, where am I and what am I doing? You can't guess, I don't think. Tomorrow -- I'll tell you tomorrow.

We need to talk business – I say this in my most serious voice. I am working on a project with Ed – machine stuff, if you can believe it, and it is time that we had a discussion about forging ahead or scaling back.

Okay, let me pick you up in the late afternoon. Bring your helmet.

'Bring your helmet' means that Ed intends to reach great heights in our discussion – preferably while speeding forward on his motorcycle.

I have 90 minutes. That’s it. I have to get back by 6.
That will be tough…
There are a dozen cafés within a stone’s throw of here! We need to talk for an hour at most!
Café? On a day like this?

Ed guns the engine and we are off. Past Campus Drive, past Borders, past Middleton…

Ed, we are currently surrounded by pastures and farmland! We have left the land of cafés far behind!
Yeah… I want to show you part of the Ice Age trail just beyond Cross Plains (to the geographically stumped reader: Cross Plains is a satellite village far west of Madison; total travel time between the loft and “beyond Cross Plains:” 40 minutes).

We turn into a dirt road, get off the bike, I toss off the tight helmet. The sun is less strong now, in the last days of August. Before me, a path leads up a hill, past old oaks and tall grasses.




I have always thought of this part of the country as having oak groves and prairie fields, possibly because of my readings (to daughters) of Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Oaks and prairie grasses figured prominently in the series.

It’s quiet there, on top of the hill. Butterflies and snakes move around me – the former almost touches me in a hasty flight toward a liatris stalk, the latter moves too quickly for my camera.




The end of summer in Wisconsin is perhaps the kindest of seasons. While other states are still sweltering and steaming ahead until Labor Day and beyond, we start easing into Fall.

Ed and I did not talk business. The climb up, then down, the ride there and back took time. Everyone should have the luxury of taking time like this – to stroll through grasses among old oak groves before they give up their hold on summer and move on.


Back at the loft, I sit at my computer table and look out only to see yet another ritual sign that Madison is nearing the end of a summer season.

I have lived in Madison for twenty-seven years now – more than half my life – and I have never, until this year, experienced a corn festival.

Hey, Sun Prairie (a satellite village to the east of Madison) is hosting the Annual Corn Fest this week-end!
You want me to travel all that distance to eat corn? I can eat corn freshly yanked from the fields every Saturday market day – mere minutes from the loft.

Still, I’m tempted. All that corn.

I’m not the only one. Thousands, nay millions, no, maybe not millions, but lots show up on this most pleasant Sunday afternoon.

And you gotta know Sun Prairie to understand how smoothly it all functions.

There are the rides, of the traveling amusement park type (when did these fascinating roaming fairs come into being? Were they around when I was a kid? Maybe they just never made it to Manhattan where I hung out in my grade school years). Ferris wheels and tilt-a-whirls…




But really, it’s mostly about corn. Many, many people come here for the corn eating thing. The steaming husks are loaded onto a conveyor belt...





…for $5 you load up all the ears you can fit into a cardboard box, you shuck the damn hot ears, deft hands and awkward hands…








…you hand over the whole batch to women whose practiced hands rub in the butter…





…then, shake on the salt…





…and find a spot to eat.











Afterwards, you take your little kids to the booths and show off how good you are with the darts. You win ‘em a couple of prizes…



thanks, Mom


… and you go home, full of kernels and butter, with a feeling of having lived a real Wisconsin kind of summer afternoon.

If you let me off until tomorrow, I promise to post pictures and stories on butter, husks, salt, liberally covering many ears of corn at the all-American summer fest celebrating this, well, vegetable.

I know you’re willing to wait another day. I know it. Here, I have a teaser:


where am I and what am I doing??

So what’s it like living downtown?

Take the last twenty-four hours in this place. What did they bring me? Sure, a good dinner, just a short walk up from the loft. A bit over-priced, but very good nonetheless (see post below). Preceded by a drink called la Vie en Rosé.



What else?

A loud train passing just outside my windows. A very loud train, tooting with the full force of a heavy hand sitting on the claxon.

A walk on nearby State Street, where construction has been ongoing. For years.




…and where all sorts of musicians find a warm spot on the sidewalk.





A market with the colors of late summer.





A deranged human being standing outside my apartment building at 4 am, shouting expletives for twenty minutes straight… before moving on to another building further down.

A musician playing all instruments all at the same time





Flowers at my local flowershop, going for 50 cents a stem. I’m known there by now. If they put out a street sign announcing a sale on stems, they know I’ll come in on the way home from work. Here, I took these off their hands. They’re resting at a café table. I’m known at the café as well. It's Jo's. Yes, the same: medium skim latte, extra hot.

I read with interest the Isthmus snippet about the changing Madison restaurant scene. Like any vibrant town, Madison has its share of closures and openings.

And yes, I am looking forward to the South-American-Asian-influence in the kitchen of the about-to-be-opened The Local at the tip of King Street (remember when that used to be Café Europa maybe some half dozen eateries ago?).

Perhaps even more so, I am eagerly awaiting the new Italian place on Sherman. The chef hails originally from Marsala, Sicily – one of my favorite destinations from this past summer. He can’t be bad. Everyone in Marsala Sicily knows food (unless he was thrown out of town for his wimpy approach to cooking… let’s hope not).

But I wonder if the new is going to be taking us away from that, which is already there. Mind you, there are some Madison favorites that I never could wrap myself around with the enthusiasm of everyone else. I don’t mean to knock down some of the State Street standbys, but come on – let’s not argue good food. Comfort food, maybe, but when the need for comfort passes so does the need to return to any of them.

Still, there are the fairly new spots that have too many empty tables for comfort. I do not like to eat at a place that has empty tables. It makes me feel that the entire waitstaff is participating in my conversation.

Take Crave off of State Street. Now, you may have issues with Crave. I may have issues with Crave. But I remember how it provided the one cheerful moment of an otherwise bleak November 2nd 2004. I sat in a daze, munching meat loaf, drinking red wine, hearing the quiet voices of those around me. I survived that day in part thanks to that meat loaf.

Last week, I went back to Crave. I go there with daughters sometimes when they are in town. It seems a “girls’ night out” type of place. Besides, it was Monday and Sardine and Cocoliquot were closed.

Empty. Two, maybe three other tables occupied. Oh oh. Have we shifted our fickle hearts and pointed them elsewhere?

In the meantime, it is Friday and I cannot get a reservation for Sardine. I call just as the office opens and am given options normally reserved for a New York day-of-eating conversation. “No, sorry, nothing then. Would you like to come in at 5? (no!) Maybe I can fit you in at 9:15…" (maybe not)

I have better luck at Cocoliquot. I get a 7:15 table. Is this a good thing? Well, I remember being treated to a dinner there several weeks ago on a Wednesday. The place was only half full. Half full also means half empty.

On this night it is buzzing and so I buzz with it. Come on, it’s a perfectly fine place! They have improved the menu considerably since their opening moments a year or two back.




The snails in pistou are fantastic. The sea bass is perfectly prepared and the fries (unlike at the otherwise fine Sardine) are not brittle from overfrying.





I would do something about one section of their wine list – it cannot be that you only have a Long Island rosé left for the summer! But that’s just me. A summer menu without a nice Mediterranean rosé is like a concert without the music.

There aren’t many places in Madison where four people can eat well, drink wine and walk away without spending most of that month’s paycheck. Cocoliquot, thanks for having us. We wont forget you. We’ll be back. Right after we do another run over to Sardine.



Cocoliquot: eating at the bar is also an option

It’s not true, really. I’m not a headache type. I get headaches when I neglect to ingest a latte in the afternoon. Never for no reason. Yes, of course, the biggest came with my brain explosion some ten years back. Nonetheless, if I ever use the headache excuse, there’s reason to doubt the sincerity and veracity of my words.

And I have to say, today was filled with interesting moments. Bloggable moments. Ones that point to the absurdity of life and even more so – the absurdity of my own thought processes.

Still, I am not up to the challenge. Tonight I will put my feet up, open a box of Raisinets and read Ruth Reichl’s “Garlic and Sapphires.” It’s Saturday, give me a break.

…politics on the radio. I listen to the discussion of the case decided today (concerning warantless tapping) and I look out the window. Separation of powers… Like this?




… shopping for food. At this time of the year everything is photogenic. I hear on the radio that in Russia, restaurants have great difficulty getting quality ingredients. Not so in Wisconsin.




…the rain came down today. I took Mr. B to work. Mustn’t get my new Mr.G wet and bothered. There must have been great anger and hostility within my yellow-fendered friend because he let me down. The two lattes that I balanced on his back…





…spilled. And when they did, he chose that moment to drop the chain. Therefore, in the evening, I stuck my tongue out at him and borrowed a car. It did rain, after all.

Walking home, I pass several trucks in close proximity to each other. I am mulling this one over: how limited is the marketplace? If there wasn’t a Pepsi, would Coke double its sales?







If the UPS hadn’t offered guaranteed overnight, would Fed Ex grow and grow until it became the mad fat cat of overnight delivery?





I was an econometrics major in college, some thirty-five years ago and still I don’t get competition. If you come up with a quality Cola, wont it only improve the crap that Coke pours into its bottles?

If someone else jumped in and delivered packages with greater time specificity, then wouldn’t UPS improve its delivery as well? Sure they would. And I would never again have to chase across town to pick up that which should have been delivered when I was home. Because they would tell me, precisely, when I should be home.

If someone puts out a blog that is quality, no, sorry, QUALITY, then I want to read it. I want you to read it and tell me about it. Reading quality produces quality. Eric, your blog makes me work harder on Ocean. Wow. Janelle and sixty-five, thanks for the tip. Eric, thanks for commenting.

Next to this stuff, Ocean is kid’s play.

I am sitting at an outside table at Borders, inhaling, exhaling. Breath in, breath out. Ahhhh…Only one more class to teach this summer, the sky is brighter than Mr.B’s fenders, no recall problem with my recently acquired Dell battery, no dinner to cook, no weeds to pull – life is good.

In fact, I am tempted to post this photo, taken a few hours back (it is of an outdoor sculpture), just to show how one might depict the exuberance that I feel at this moment.





Exuberance is an under-used word. It is undervalued and its power is underestimated. People talk of being happy, but even that is more of an embarrassment. God, she’s happy. What’s with her, doesn’t she get the pain of others? That’s okay, her time will come. [If this sounds remarkably like something my mother would say, that’s because it is.]

I’ve heard the phrase ‘youthful exuberance’ in various contexts. Such youthful exuberance! (What, before arthritis sets in?) Youthful idealism, youthful exuberance, mature depression, mature macular degeneration.

I happen to have been somewhat of a worrier in the course of my youthful parenting. (I was, by today’s standards, a young mom). I felt exuberant when a daughter smiled up at me, but I worried that she might trip on her own exuberant run and do permanent damage to her sweet, young little body.

With time, I got used to the idea that certainty was elusive and knees get scraped. Yesterday, for example, I felt exuberant on the bike even though the day before I fell off and gashed my knee. [Those damn toe-clips!]

Exuberance can be aspired to, nay, attained even, in spite of gashed knees.

LATER: of course, exuberance, almost by definition, lasts about the time it takes to drink a latte. It’s evening, Tex Tubb’s Tacos have settled in, exuberance trickled out, tiredness replaced it.

Until my summer teaching is done with, I will always feel like it’s me, racing against the clock to put up a post each day here, on Ocean.

Sort of like this guy, whom I watched today, on Lake Waubesa. I took a couple of hours out for an evening bike ride. I was pedaling, the ducks were paddling. From my perspective there on the shore, they had one up on him.




Sometimes I think that the day wins: I cannot keep up, at least not here on Ocean. Lucky me. My day is better than it appears on Ocean. Lucky me.

People’s relationship to Sunday is a complicated one. You hate it. You love it. You dread Monday. You dread your life. You feel like you didn’t live up to its potential.

I like not having to teach on Mondays so that Sunday begins to feel like any other day and I do not have to put much thought into what it all means.

But I liked even more Sundays in France where the village began the day with a market, tended to its afternoon hours with a nice big meal and than basically fell into dozing on and off until suppertime. I can handle that.

Today I put myself into the French mode, absent the market. (Find me a farmers market on Sunday in the States and I will personally make an appearance and shop there. Maybe not. But I would think about it.)

I fixed a biggish lunch for a smallish bunch of people. I opened a bottle of rose wine.





I cleaned up, had a strong cup of coffee to fight the post-lunch drooping eyelid problem and counted the minutes til supper.

One might argue that this is not a full day. One would be wrong.

I could have posted a break for today. I could have. And I admit it, I was tempted. But then I remembered this morning’s market and in its midst -- the garlic guy. He deserves mention. The man of the week – the guy who makes a living selling small amounts of the pungent stuff.

I once thought Madison should be the garlic capital of the world. The garlic man is taking us there, one clove at a time.

A tall, older, much older guy comes over to where I am standing.

Dance?
I hesitate. I haven’t done swing since high school in Poland.
Sure.
You from around here?
No, not really. You?
Oh yeah.
Come here often?
This and other places. Six times a week.
Like to dance, huh?
Yeah, though they don’t play the slow ones often enough. People like the fast beat.

We settle into what must be a trot or a two step or who knows what.

Dancing with a stranger is always interesting so long as his palms don’t sweat and he doesn’t wear potent cologne of a distasteful type.

I’m in Chicago only for the night. Earlier, I had gone to the Hopleaf in Andersonville, some blocks north of the Green Mill Jazz Bar. Belgian moulles frites with beer, in a neighborhood that once intended to group together those coming from the blue and yellow country of Sweden.





The Green Mill has a more colorful past, with big names, sometimes not of the music but of the gangster type, passing through it in the last 100 years or so. But on this day, there was only the music, the two older couples dancing, so synchronized that you could tell they had touched each other in this way for years, and the dozen younger types out there on the dance floor, moving fast, spinning in and out of the arms of their partners to the rhythm of Mack the Knife.

I had a full day. You cannot possibly expect me to explain it all in a post written five minutes before midnight. I'll say this much: I am not in Wisconsin. More tomorrow, I promise.

But I love Mr. B! He has seen me through tough times! I was young when he came into my life – barely forty. I have raced down streets and boulevards, with him guiding the way as the wind tickled my tattoo!

Nina, the time has come to put some kick into that pedal. Mr.B held your hand while you found your rhythm. What you need is a Mr. G, with carbon graphite composite frames, attached via index shifting gears to thin and smooth tires to put you over the edge.

I will never let go of Mr. B! Never! Fine, I will give Mr.G a chance, but Mr.B and I will forever ride to Whole Foods and to the Law School together, bags packed with supplies, yellow fender rubbing affectionately against my shin and his own tire.

That was (more or less) the conversation Ed and I had yesterday. And so, in the warm twilight of a summer day, Mr. G, red as a tomato from the farmers’ market, came into my life.

He is smooth as a marble! He sings up hills! Take me home, country roads! Man oh man, take me away!

You want to do one of the Bombay Bicycle Club rides up north of Madison, past the town of Lodi?

I haven’t eaten since morning. I was up most of the night working on my lecture. It is late. I haven’t even a loaf of bread at home to nibble on…Yes!!

It’s seven in the evening by the time we leave Ed’s truck and pedal out toward the Wisconsin River. The loop is less than twenty miles, but I slow things down considerably as I stop to take it all in.












Nina, neither you nor I have headlights… the sun is setting really quickly…
I know – gorgeous, isn’t it?

At a bend in the river, the Merrimac ferry pulls out. A few men throw lines into the river. The sun is a bright orange. I am a bright orange. Mr. G stands out with his tomato red frame.





Maybe we should take a short cut… We’re going only 11 miles an hour and we are still some miles away from the truck…





Relax, Mr. G and I can fly like the wind if we have to. My tattoo will again be tickled by the breeze. Oh, pause for a second! Isn’t that an outstanding looking pig?






It’s dark by the time we pull into the outskirts of Lodi. Outside a local bar, men are throwing horseshoes. We hear the muffle of the metal on the sand and the occasional clang when the shoe hits the pole. We pull over and watch.





Bud Lights clutter the picnic table. The men talk about how in their days they didn’t have the games the kids have today. It is a scene straight out of Languedoc, with horseshoes filling in for boules.





The moon is full, the night is breezy and warm. We load the bikes into Ed’s pick up. He stops at a Kwick Trip to buy a Heath Crunch ice cream bar. I break off a sweet chunk of it. All-American me, no?

I myself do not know and maybe that is a good thing.

Tomorrow. I'll write more tomorrow. Right now, I am barely sitting up. And the eyelids -- too heavy to focus on much of anything.

Really, tomorrow.

where am I? what am I doing?

Valid question. One that I often ask myself.

Late in the evening I let myself be educated on the issue of bikes. Like, why are there $100 bikes, $1000 bikes and $5000 bikes?

I did not know that I could punch my bike shoes into ready and willing pedals (I do not actually have bike shoes), fly like the wind on carbon graphite composite frames, attached via index shifting gears to thin and smooth tires. I did not know this.

So this evening I listened and watched and now I know. I still am attached as can be to Mr. B, but I know why he and I have such trouble making it up hills and mountains. I am like the duck who waddles along knowing her deficiencies. I admire those who have it together and can fly like the wind, even though I feel closer to the duck, staring at the faster, smoother, more together birds and bikes out there.

Do you want to try geocaching?
Geo-cashing?
Geocaching.
I’m not sure… Does it cost money? Do you make money?
It’s like a treasure hunt: geeks post on the web the exact location of a box…
A lockbox??
…you plug in the coordinates into your GPS (Global Positioning Systems gizmo) and then, using your GPS, you look for the box.
What kind of a box?
It has stuff in it. And you can add something to it, like a picture or some trivial nothing.

The thing is, you may not have known it, but there are hidden treasure chests, ALL OVER THE WORLD, many of them just a mile or so from where you live! But you need a GPS toy to find them.

It is hot, it is humid, it is Sunday afternoon. Ed and I set out.

Ed, you’re going the wrong way. Your GPS toy indicates we need to head south.
There is no road heading south from here. You have to follow roads. You can’t just trample across someone’s potato field.

Fine. The GPS eventually gets us to a path. We abandon the motorbike and head out. The mosquitoes are ferocious. We persevere.

If we ever find this goddamn box it better be worth it! There better be a treasure! I am being eaten out here in the swamps south of Madison!

Suddenly, the little GPS toy starts madly telling me that WE ARE THERE!
I’m standing on a bridge. Before me, a river.





So now what? It says I am within a foot of it. Are you telling me I have to crawl under the bridge?? There's stinging nettle all around!
I am telling you nothing. The GPS is telling you to crawl under the bridge.
(pleading look from me)
Okay, I’ll crawl under the bridge.

It helps to do geocaching with someone who is willing to crawl under bridges.

There is indeed a treasure box. I sit on the bridge and rifle through the contents. Notes, photos, postcards, little things left for others to touch, exchange, share.





I didn’t bring anything to put inside!
You have a purseful of junk…
Okay, I can part with my Whole Grains Card. It has one punch in it toward a free loaf of bread.

On the way back, I see a yellow and black bird, hiding in a field of yellow flowers. Intractable, fleeting, stunning. Chase one treasure, find that and more.

There are some things that are beyond comprehension to those who do not live in Madison.

For example, that you can bike out of the city and, within ten minutes, encounter Monet’s poppy fields. Yes, sure, it will be a black-eyed susans rather than a field of poppies, but still, compare:



(just outside Madison)




(just ouside wherever it is that Monet painted)


All that’s missing (in the first) is the person with the parasol.

And, turn your bike around, head toward the Capitol and there you’ll see Ms. Bee Charmer herself, putting out her ears of corn, picked just two hours prior. There, nestled in between the jars of honey.



"Bee Charmer" corn; the best


Come on, is this real, or is it fiction? It’s Madison.

You could put on a CD at home, or you could plug yourself up with white strings dangling from your ears, or you could zip along in a car with the radio on. All solid ways of listening to music. Very private, very shut-the-world-out forms of enjoying sound.

Or you could come to the Capitol Square on a clear summer evening and listen to the Chamber Orchestra do their summer concert series.

Last night was the last one for the season. In past years, I would do the blanket and the food and the wine bit. My daughters and I would read, listen, people watch. Truly, it is sublime to witness the light change from pink to deep navy.

This year we chose simply to stroll. Finlandia. Last time I heard it, a daughter was in the orchestra playing her violin. I am sure anyone peering at my face would have detected the same look of dreamy recollections of past concerts and picnic blankets.

Coming together to listen to music and then losing yourself in your own private thoughts. Bliss.



remembering



dreaming



strolling



playing



in the pink light of a perfect evening

It’s been so hot that anyone on campus wearing more than the bare minimum looked odd. Of course, some looked equally interesting wearing the bare minimum.





Some people get it right: an iced drink, back toward the sun -- a regular State Street moment.





Me, I’ve been madly teaching. Daily classes, daily lectures to prepare – what can I say, my cooking has turned into a rather monotonous parade of these:

Day 1:



with trout and grilled cheese


Day 2:



with crabmeat and grilled mushrooms


Day 3:



with smoked salmon and grilled nothing


You get the idea. The staple? A glass of rose wine.

Doesn’t it sound awesome to say that your child is a quarter century old (today)?

…and I remember when she was just 24…






You’ve done everything else so splendidly, little S, now just stay happy, you hear?
I love you on all days, always.