Today's a travel day. We get up to the usual morning stuff...
(garden inspection: the Big Bed)
(the young orchard and the new meadow... we have big plans for converting every last bit of lawn into meadowland...)
The "usual morning stuff" suddenly includes paying attention to the smallest kittens (see yesterday's post).
(this is the April-born Dark Blue, still a little shocked at the appearance of the younger ones...)
[To be clear, it wasn't our goal to have 11 cats of various ages in the garage. I'm not especially a cat person and once Ed's ancient domesticated cats moved on to their next lives, we assumed we were done with cats. The problem was that the one feral dame, aka Stop Sign, who came and went as she pleased, brought her two kittens here on a cold January day. One was Dance. The other, Jacket, most likely did not survive. We never worried about it. Dance stuck around, alone, even as her mother went off as usual. Then the baby boom began! In April Stop Sign came back with another litter and this time there were six babes. At that point we knew we were in trouble. And then of course Dance got pregnant with her four. So yes, we do have 11, not counting Stop Sign who really does not live here and is impossible to catch, though we keep trying! Seven are neutered. Four will be snipped as well, but we have to wait another couple of months. Do I want 11 cats here? Of course not. But it is what it is. They all get along with the cheepers: between the two species, I'd say the chickens have the upper hand. When they come running to check out the cat food, the kitties scatter. I suppose not all the cats will survive, but since they are spayed, they're not likely to roam, as they wont be looking to mate. We'll take each day as it comes. We didn't ask for this, but we wont starve the family that has somehow inserted itself into farmette life.]
One last very beautiful breakfast with Ed...
... and I am off to meet up with the young Madison family for our next travel adventure.
There's little "adventuring" at this early stage of our trip. The young family lingers at their house with last minute instructions for house and pet sitters and then drives speedily to catch up with me, as I leisurely meander over on the bus. I'll be posting this before I reach Chicago's airport, but I assume we'll face the normal chaos there. Here's hoping the flight will be on time, relatively smooth and that the kids will sleep. I know, that's a lot to wish for!
Where are we going? Our first stop will be Paris.
Paris. Allow me a wordy meander here, because for me, Paris is like a diary of my life. Inserting itself in the thick of my frantic travels between Europe and America, it encapsulates all those moments that mark the passage of time for anyone.
I see that in the fifteen or so years of blogging, I have touched on Paris on 182 days. That's more than Warsaw. More than any other travel destination in my life (though Chicago, on account of Primrose, is catching up!). By now, Paris is not a city for me to explore. It's a city where I live as I would live anywhere else, going about my business, but in a culture that is not my own.
This quintessentially French city has been with me for such a long time! I saw it on my first trip to America, at age seven. Since then, I have seen it under all circumstances. I traveled through it returning six years later to Poland. I traveled through it with my sister and her then husband, because they bought this car there, and it needed a driver, and neither of them could drive it back to Poland. Later, I traveled through it eagerly with my own young family. And it was where we returned constantly at the peak of my obsession with good food -- in the years when I moonlighted in Madison's l'Etoile restaurant. We were in Paris, eating our way through countless good meals at the turn of the century. And I returned alone to it with my younger daughter, one terribly stormy winter week, when the airport shut down and we were forced to stay extra days.
I was in Paris one week after the attacks on September 11. I was there a couple of weeks after the Paris attacks in November of 2015. I traveled through it in giddy moments -- it was my first stop with Ed on our very first foreign trip together in 2005. And I traveled there in sick times, where phone consults with my doc were numerous and where I ignored their urgings for me to seek medical care. I didn't, but perhaps I should have, because being sick and alone and far from home is draining. Paris has known me to be lonely, to be mad -- like the time I had lost my wallet on the plane coming in and had no money, no credit card, nothing with me. Well, I had Ed!
But really, in all those years, as in life, there has been so much joy! Lovers' travels, daughters, sister, friends. Even paying companions! Twice, I offered to take random Americans on trips to France for a fee. We always ended in Paris.
And of course -- now the young families: with husbands of daughters, and thus far only Snowdrop, but before another 365 days pass, I hope to add to the list both Sparrow and Primrose. I feel I'm passing on my Paris to them. This is where grandma learned how to get a grip on life. How to lessen the impact of drama. How to sooth the senses and remain open to beauty even as I felt no peace, because there will always be times when peace is hard to come by.
So once again, we will be in Paris. And once again, I'll let myself step into this different culture, noting the passage of time as I look at the city now with two grandkids in tow.
(garden inspection: the Big Bed)
(the young orchard and the new meadow... we have big plans for converting every last bit of lawn into meadowland...)
The "usual morning stuff" suddenly includes paying attention to the smallest kittens (see yesterday's post).
(this is the April-born Dark Blue, still a little shocked at the appearance of the younger ones...)
[To be clear, it wasn't our goal to have 11 cats of various ages in the garage. I'm not especially a cat person and once Ed's ancient domesticated cats moved on to their next lives, we assumed we were done with cats. The problem was that the one feral dame, aka Stop Sign, who came and went as she pleased, brought her two kittens here on a cold January day. One was Dance. The other, Jacket, most likely did not survive. We never worried about it. Dance stuck around, alone, even as her mother went off as usual. Then the baby boom began! In April Stop Sign came back with another litter and this time there were six babes. At that point we knew we were in trouble. And then of course Dance got pregnant with her four. So yes, we do have 11, not counting Stop Sign who really does not live here and is impossible to catch, though we keep trying! Seven are neutered. Four will be snipped as well, but we have to wait another couple of months. Do I want 11 cats here? Of course not. But it is what it is. They all get along with the cheepers: between the two species, I'd say the chickens have the upper hand. When they come running to check out the cat food, the kitties scatter. I suppose not all the cats will survive, but since they are spayed, they're not likely to roam, as they wont be looking to mate. We'll take each day as it comes. We didn't ask for this, but we wont starve the family that has somehow inserted itself into farmette life.]
One last very beautiful breakfast with Ed...
... and I am off to meet up with the young Madison family for our next travel adventure.
There's little "adventuring" at this early stage of our trip. The young family lingers at their house with last minute instructions for house and pet sitters and then drives speedily to catch up with me, as I leisurely meander over on the bus. I'll be posting this before I reach Chicago's airport, but I assume we'll face the normal chaos there. Here's hoping the flight will be on time, relatively smooth and that the kids will sleep. I know, that's a lot to wish for!
Where are we going? Our first stop will be Paris.
Paris. Allow me a wordy meander here, because for me, Paris is like a diary of my life. Inserting itself in the thick of my frantic travels between Europe and America, it encapsulates all those moments that mark the passage of time for anyone.
I see that in the fifteen or so years of blogging, I have touched on Paris on 182 days. That's more than Warsaw. More than any other travel destination in my life (though Chicago, on account of Primrose, is catching up!). By now, Paris is not a city for me to explore. It's a city where I live as I would live anywhere else, going about my business, but in a culture that is not my own.
This quintessentially French city has been with me for such a long time! I saw it on my first trip to America, at age seven. Since then, I have seen it under all circumstances. I traveled through it returning six years later to Poland. I traveled through it with my sister and her then husband, because they bought this car there, and it needed a driver, and neither of them could drive it back to Poland. Later, I traveled through it eagerly with my own young family. And it was where we returned constantly at the peak of my obsession with good food -- in the years when I moonlighted in Madison's l'Etoile restaurant. We were in Paris, eating our way through countless good meals at the turn of the century. And I returned alone to it with my younger daughter, one terribly stormy winter week, when the airport shut down and we were forced to stay extra days.
I was in Paris one week after the attacks on September 11. I was there a couple of weeks after the Paris attacks in November of 2015. I traveled through it in giddy moments -- it was my first stop with Ed on our very first foreign trip together in 2005. And I traveled there in sick times, where phone consults with my doc were numerous and where I ignored their urgings for me to seek medical care. I didn't, but perhaps I should have, because being sick and alone and far from home is draining. Paris has known me to be lonely, to be mad -- like the time I had lost my wallet on the plane coming in and had no money, no credit card, nothing with me. Well, I had Ed!
But really, in all those years, as in life, there has been so much joy! Lovers' travels, daughters, sister, friends. Even paying companions! Twice, I offered to take random Americans on trips to France for a fee. We always ended in Paris.
And of course -- now the young families: with husbands of daughters, and thus far only Snowdrop, but before another 365 days pass, I hope to add to the list both Sparrow and Primrose. I feel I'm passing on my Paris to them. This is where grandma learned how to get a grip on life. How to lessen the impact of drama. How to sooth the senses and remain open to beauty even as I felt no peace, because there will always be times when peace is hard to come by.
So once again, we will be in Paris. And once again, I'll let myself step into this different culture, noting the passage of time as I look at the city now with two grandkids in tow.
