Tuesday

I'm sure you've had this kind of event: a technology failure that makes no sense whatsoever, one that sucks you in so hard, and neither you, nor your technologically savvy partner, nor even the IT experts at your home university can get you out of the techie hellhole. And it takes you the whole half day to figure out that there is nothing to be done. You develop a wrap around and then you move on. After wasting hours on trying to understand it. At least when you are retired, you can tell yourself this much: time wasted now is just a matter of reshuffling your priorities and activities going forward. It's not the same irritant that would have once ruined a work day for you, leaving you behind and struggling. So I didn't water the garden! So what! In the scheme of things, it's little more than a fly stuck in a jar of honey. Eventually, you get the fly out, the honey remains.

Let's take a look at some morning walk flowers. It's pretty much a white and pink world out there right now!

Two old Clematis plants starting their bloom:

This strip of plants isn't really a flower bed -- it's a ground cover that I put in behind the garbage cans, just because!

White peonies, having their moment.

Breakfast, on the early side, because I have a haircut appointment. Back to oatmeal!

Talk about someone who is all pink and white!

Time to drive the seven minutes to Bang Salon. 

I admire the haircutting professionals who try to devise interesting styles for women with Slavic hair (fine, so fine that a silk thread doesn't even compete). No matter what you may want for your head, the hair always falls neatly into the same nothing style, doing its own thing in the same stubborn Slavic way. Well, at least it's shorter now, which I suppose is a good thing.

Now comes the time suck! A blank set of hours trying to understand the reason behind an important undeliverable piece of email.

And at around lunch time, I have a date with a former student of mine -- a woman who was in my class when I taught law briefly in Kyoto, Japan. She was (by far) a the head of the group and she decided to follow me back to Madison to complete her legal studies there. This was no small feat for her: a single mom, with a young son, and though her English was pretty decent, the whole English legal terminology was new to her, and of course, the demands of law school can be brutal, especially for a parent, especially for a parent without partner support.

Since then, she has had a successful legal career, working as chief legal counsel for large company, sometimes in Japan, sometimes out of their US offices, and she is herself nearing retirement. (Did you know that Japan has a mandatory retirement age of 60? And great benefits thereafter? No wonder the French are up in arms about raising their own retirement age to a hefty 64!) And it was lovely to see her! With her son now finishing studies in the UK, she reminds me of all us who have split our lives between cultures and countries, with offspring testing waters in one place, while you yourself are trying to shape an identity that transcends national boundaries. 

I haven't seen her since she left Madison nine years ago. Will I ever go back to Kyoto and see her there? Will our paths miraculously cross again? You never know.

And then I rush off to pick up Snowdrop. Two more days left of school!

(A rain cloud passed over the farmette; we check to see how much water we got. The answer: "scant" is too generous a word for it.)

We have such an established routine for her farmhouse "layovers!" They always include snacks, with fruits -- and double cherries are always highly celebrated!

And nearly always she spends a few minutes with Ed, on his computer.

And in the evening, Ed and I eat leftovers and I feel luxuriously unperplexed by anything. I dont have to solve any problems (at the moment)! And that's such a good thing.