a day

There is no such thing as a day without small, perplexing, sometimes annoying, oftentimes tedious little issues that crop up and require your patient attention. I find that if I do not have the expectation of an easy and quick fix, then they aren't nearly as annoying or exasperating as they otherwise might be. Let's take this day as an example.

I went to bed last night with summer sniffles. I blame the air conditioning in D.C., but really, if you move around in the way that I do, you're going to expose yourself to stuff. Sooner or later, you're going to be too tired to fight off every bug that assails you. I lost the fight this time. Ah well. It's just sniffles. Still, they're here to stay for a while. May as well get comfortable with that fact.

But they aren't so bad that I can't enjoy a breakfast on the porch. (Did Ed miss the daily photo when I was away? Probably not.)






Or to walk through the garden, to take stock of where my attention should go next.

Flowers?








(the awesome daylilies)




(more awesome daylilies)


Or raspberries?






The berries have it. They're practically falling off the canes, begging to be picked. Ed froze a big batch last week. Time to start baking with what's left (which is a lot!). I check the fridge. Low on butter. No yogurt or lemons. And to think I did a massive grocery restocking yesterday! I take out my list of things for today and write in: buy forgotten groceries.


In the meantime, I place my energies elsewhere. First -- the phone calls that have piled up over the weeks, including my *favorite* - to the Polish Consulate, still in pursuit of documentation verifying my existence or some such silliness. (You may remember, I started the process last May -- we're nowhere near being done, despite everyone's best efforts.) I decide to call the New York-based Consulate. Ah! I need to speak to the legal department! Well, the legal department is not in her chair right now. Could I call back at another time?

I mull over the difference between Polish and English.  You'd say "not at her desk." Poles apparently say "off her chair." I think the Polish words are a tiny bit funny.

I try several times and I finally do reach the legal staff person (so she must now be on her chair), only to learn of a new court document, certifying that I never appealed my divorce is needed to move things forward.  I call the Clerk of Courts in my home town. She has never heard of such a thing. And I've been working here a long time!  I tell myself that I didn't really expect the end to be in sight, did I? I write an explanatory letter to our Clerk of Courts and wait so see if they can come up with something that will satisfy the Poles.


Also for today:  my daughter needs help with her garden and so I take Rosie the moped out to her place. And I say hello to her fighting cats (the two new ones are being challenged by the presiding older cat, who was used to having total control over the entire house). Here are the two newcomers, hiding -- which is another thing they do superbly!










My daughter takes all their difficult personalities in stride. I admire that in her. She assumes the cats are here to stay and eventually they will come around to some common (if not necessarily affable) ground. Eventually.


Back at the farmette, we have a visitor. Long time readers may remember farmer Lee who worked the fields across the road from us before they were taken from her and handed to a corn/soy farmer. In the end she had nowhere to plant and she comes to us asking for use of land. She is struggling to find a place to grow market produce. She asks if we can let her work the land that is currently being planted by her "sister." Ed protests -- we can't do that! And so Ed and I talk about clearing more land to free up additional space for Lee's farming. It wont be much  -- maybe a quarter acre, but it's better than the nothing she now has. 

But it will take a while to do this. I listen to Ed chat up a guy who helped us by plowing the first field for Lee's "sister." There is much to be learned from the tenor of this exchange. Me, I'd have been tempted to push for everything to happen now! Or soon! Ed takes his time and presses no one. In the end, the guy with the tractor may stop by this week. Maybe farmer Lee will be growing market vegetables and flowers again. We're working toward that goal.


So you could say that of the things I started with today, only the weeds at my daughter's had a brilliant resolution: they're out! Everything else just progresses to the next stage, to be picked up and carried forth at some later time.


Later, much later in the afternoon, Ed suggests we pause for a nap. I can't do that very well, but I try. I listen to him breathe rhythmically and I tell myself that someday I'll move even closer to that state of acceptance of what any one day has to offer. Someday. For now, I just listen to him breathe in, breathe out. In, out.