pantyhose

Like so many women, I dislike wearing pantyhose. I was lucky that my work life did not require it. On the occasion that I'd wear a skirt, I'd search out a pair of tights. There is a difference, for those of you who haven't a clue as to why I should be fussy as to one but not the other.

Still, for a wedding, it seems fitting to look for the sheer stuff. And so two years ago, when my older girl got married, I bought two pairs -- in case one ripped (the cursed things are more fragile even than my chickens' eggs). Well, the first pair didn't rip and so I thought -- great! I'll save the second for my youngest girl's wedding!

...until I found out just this weekend that she's not wearing them and if she isn't wearing them then surely I don't have to! Moreover, when I queried a friend as to how unusual this would be, she informed me that women these days don't wear pantyhose. Sheer stockings, especially at weddings, are sort of passé.

Well now, how does this happen? You continue with your rules and habits as if they were there, scripted for everyone, into infinity (because surely pantyhose are a modern improvement on stockings and garter belts and I remember how much I disliked those! ).

So what else has changed and why isn't someone keeping me informed?! Like texting and Instagram -- both of which became de rigeur sometime when I wasn't looking and suddenly my old fashioned adherence to the blog just seems so quaintly archaic! My mom, she blogs -- my girls probably explain, benevolently looking my way in that special way you reserve for the very old.

That's okay. One has to distinguish oneself from the next generation. I guess for me, it'll be that pair of pantyhose that now has no future except to rest in my drawer as a testament to my antiquity. Let me show you what my great grandma has in her drawers. It's something called panty hose! Isn't that weird? 


In other news -- well, there was sunshine and plenty of it.



at dawn




at breakfast


All day long. Since it's Friday, I took time out to do weekly grocery shopping, realizing that I wont be doing it again until late July, as I'm leaving soon after my daughter's wedding. So I stocked up.

And though I am now getting jittery about all that I still have to do in the days before the wedding, I did take the time to go for a walk with my older girl. Two things worth mentioning from my time with her:

First, there is the matter of cats. That girl cannot say no to the sweet face of a needy cat online and so as of this week, she and her husband took in two foster cats (in addition to their permanent cat Goldie, who has been featured many times on Ocean). The two newcommers are brothers and they cannot find a permanent home easily for the simple reason that they are incredibly shy. I mean, over the top retreating. All day, they hide in the darkest most enclosed space, one on top of the other, refusing to come out until everyone in the house is asleep.




virgil





lucas


Whatever trauma they endured in their first years of life surely has left a mark. Beautiful cats. Hiding.

(I did warn my girl that just because you think you are a temporory "foster" caregiver to an animal, doesn't mean that you're likely to ever hand that animal back to wherever she or he came from. I should know. I think my girl muttered uh-huh, or some other such phrase that you use when you're not really listening.)

The second thing to note is that there is a world out there beyond the farmette, even if I haven't really focused on it much in recent weeks. For instance, as we walked by the lakes, I had to pause and admire the skyline.





I suppose I'm not really a Madisonian anymore, since I live in the country outside the city limits, but I still find this view of our city to be quite special.

Alright. Back to the place that catches most of my attention at the moment: the farmette. Not many photos today. I worked awfully hard at something no one will ever even notice -- clearing the weeds under the old orchard trees. My theory is that the guests would have noticed had I left them there and, too, I'll do anything to make the place less inviting to bugs and mosquitoes. And so I pushed a mower and clipped and pruned and did the dirty work that actually is what the farmette needs most to look her best. Flowers are all well and good and I did plant my day lilies in the evening, with great care, but planting doesn't occupy one tenth the time that clearing, pruning, weeding do.

I feel about the farmette now like I do about clothes just after all the laundry has been washed, folded and put away: it's great to do this massive cleaning. Even though I know darn well that in a short period of time, like the clothes neatly hanging in your closet, the farmette will all get disheveled and overgrown again. But for one fine moment, the weeds will be cleared, just like the laundry that will have been done, with the scent of clean cotton and line dried linen hanging in the air and all will feel right with the world, or at least your small corner of it.


Honey moon tonight. Big, orange, full. Rare. Beautiful.