While the pandemic tore at the heart and heartland and soul of the country, while news stories flashed warnings about every calamity that may (or may not) befall us, while parents struggled to educate and babysit their children while at the same time the lucky ones who held jobs tried to actually get work done and keep the household functioning, while the planet reeled from crisis after crisis after crisis, I set for myself today the goal of washing the car.
It is what you do when you are ancient and you can't care for your grandkids and you are isolating yourself at home for day number 175.
Oh, sure. First there were the animals to feed, the flower pots to water, the garden to take note of...
(love that path...)
(Yes, no kidding! Still throwing the rare lily bloom...)
And a nippy breakfast to eat outside (it was 59F, or 15C and we both brought out pillows to sit on, protecting ourselves from chill of the metal chairs).
The purpose of the car wash was not to shine it up in any way. After thirteen Wisconsin winters, it's pretty rusty. It will never look grand again. But the inside -- ah, the inside! I remember before Snowdrop was born, reading a book about how French children eat meals and only meals. They do not snack, they aren't bribed with food, they expect to occasionally be hungry and to look forward to all forms of vegetables and meats and stinky cheeses, to be eaten politely at the family table. The author compared such habits with our own, as exemplified by the interior of the typical family car. Ours was likely to have crumbs, cheerios and sticky candy pieces lodged in every crevice of the back seat. French cars, I read, have none of that.
I don't remember how the car looked when my kids were growing up. I do know that I was never big on unhealthy snacks, but the line between healthy and unhealthy is subjectively and sometimes inaccurately drawn, and I'm sure I erred on the side of goldfish crumbs rather than clean car seats. [Too, I have seen lots of French kids nibble on baguette tips on the way home from a bakery, so I do cast some doubt on the author's claims that snacks, eaten in transit ne sont pas faites (are not done) in France.]
With the grandkids, I vowed to do even better!
That was before I was charged with picking up two starving tykes after school every day. And before I was the one taking them home every day this summer. And before Snowdrop fell in love with croissants first, then apples, then the teething biscuits which her brother devoured with the speed of a hyena. And before tiny ginger snaps came to be popular lures to get them to the car for the summer ride home.
Today I cleaned out all that debris, along with the leaves and wood chips and picked dandelions and everything else that seemed to have made it into the car over the past... well, probably several years.
Job done, Ed and I set out for a hike.
It's a gorgeous, sunny day -- the kind that defines the autumnal beauty of this month in Wisconsin (in the years that it doesn't rain every single September day... we've had years like that!). The Ice Age Trail is a twenty minute drive for us, but it's worth it. If not now, then when?
Follow along with us! The fields of corn, the golden rod, tickseed and black eyed susans, the gently fading birch leaves -- all amazingly beautiful!
(the view...)
(pure gold...)
(the corn is as high as an elephant's eye...)
I realize when we come back that this pretty much ends the first week of not baby sitting for me. I've done nothing unusual or new. I did not reach for new recipes, I did not resume yoga (unless you call vacuuming the deep crevices of the car yoga), I haven't resumed my writing (Ocean doesn't count), or reading (the mystery books on my night stand don't count), I've not readied the garden for the winter season, or studied much of anything in great depth (except the number of sunny hours in various corners of the world, just because Ed and I found this to be an interesting topic of discussion lately).
And that's okay. I transitioned. We'll see what next week will bring.
Evening? The usual, beautiful quiet of a stir fry meal, prepared in the same old way. Just because it's easier that way. With cauliflower, corn, and a handful of other things found in the veggie bin.
Have a good holiday weekend. Be mindful and kind.
With love.
It is what you do when you are ancient and you can't care for your grandkids and you are isolating yourself at home for day number 175.
Oh, sure. First there were the animals to feed, the flower pots to water, the garden to take note of...
(love that path...)
(Yes, no kidding! Still throwing the rare lily bloom...)
And a nippy breakfast to eat outside (it was 59F, or 15C and we both brought out pillows to sit on, protecting ourselves from chill of the metal chairs).
The purpose of the car wash was not to shine it up in any way. After thirteen Wisconsin winters, it's pretty rusty. It will never look grand again. But the inside -- ah, the inside! I remember before Snowdrop was born, reading a book about how French children eat meals and only meals. They do not snack, they aren't bribed with food, they expect to occasionally be hungry and to look forward to all forms of vegetables and meats and stinky cheeses, to be eaten politely at the family table. The author compared such habits with our own, as exemplified by the interior of the typical family car. Ours was likely to have crumbs, cheerios and sticky candy pieces lodged in every crevice of the back seat. French cars, I read, have none of that.
I don't remember how the car looked when my kids were growing up. I do know that I was never big on unhealthy snacks, but the line between healthy and unhealthy is subjectively and sometimes inaccurately drawn, and I'm sure I erred on the side of goldfish crumbs rather than clean car seats. [Too, I have seen lots of French kids nibble on baguette tips on the way home from a bakery, so I do cast some doubt on the author's claims that snacks, eaten in transit ne sont pas faites (are not done) in France.]
With the grandkids, I vowed to do even better!
That was before I was charged with picking up two starving tykes after school every day. And before I was the one taking them home every day this summer. And before Snowdrop fell in love with croissants first, then apples, then the teething biscuits which her brother devoured with the speed of a hyena. And before tiny ginger snaps came to be popular lures to get them to the car for the summer ride home.
Today I cleaned out all that debris, along with the leaves and wood chips and picked dandelions and everything else that seemed to have made it into the car over the past... well, probably several years.
Job done, Ed and I set out for a hike.
It's a gorgeous, sunny day -- the kind that defines the autumnal beauty of this month in Wisconsin (in the years that it doesn't rain every single September day... we've had years like that!). The Ice Age Trail is a twenty minute drive for us, but it's worth it. If not now, then when?
Follow along with us! The fields of corn, the golden rod, tickseed and black eyed susans, the gently fading birch leaves -- all amazingly beautiful!
(the view...)
(pure gold...)
(the corn is as high as an elephant's eye...)
I realize when we come back that this pretty much ends the first week of not baby sitting for me. I've done nothing unusual or new. I did not reach for new recipes, I did not resume yoga (unless you call vacuuming the deep crevices of the car yoga), I haven't resumed my writing (Ocean doesn't count), or reading (the mystery books on my night stand don't count), I've not readied the garden for the winter season, or studied much of anything in great depth (except the number of sunny hours in various corners of the world, just because Ed and I found this to be an interesting topic of discussion lately).
And that's okay. I transitioned. We'll see what next week will bring.
Evening? The usual, beautiful quiet of a stir fry meal, prepared in the same old way. Just because it's easier that way. With cauliflower, corn, and a handful of other things found in the veggie bin.
Have a good holiday weekend. Be mindful and kind.
With love.
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