at the end of the day

At the end of the day, I drive to Ed’s place. A dozen minutes from city center, it has the feel of deep country, just as he likes it. I like it to an extent. For instance, the farmers – I am forever mesmerized by the work of the Hmong family that has been farming next to his land this year. Today, they made the final rounds. Flurries this evening. Frost. Last pickings.





The school bus drops children off. A cluster of girls. The solo boy trails behind. Not city children, not suburban either. Stuck in a strip of countryside that attempts to remain rural. By a hair’s wisp.





Ed’s shed is as he likes it. Cats pace, waiting for a feeding. I pace too. I think how different he and I are. And I don’t mean at the level of lifestyles. Sometimes our differences are adventurously challenging, in a good way. Sometimes.

I want to go for a walk. A quick one. Before the sun disappears.

We head toward the old railway tracks. Abandoned and overgrown. Who do they belong to? The sign says C.&N.W.R.R.

They considered making this a rail corridor, linking Madison with Oregon and beyond. But it was voted down.

The tracks look irreparable. For rail. Maybe a future bike path? (The Badger State trail comes to mind). But, you cannot walk far now. Private property. Whose?





The remains of a farmland sunset. Tinted sky, splashes of light and then dusk.










I drive back to my warm kitchen in the condo, where irises and lilies are blooming and Stacey Kent is singing about the ice hotel.

partnership

Not too long ago, when still in Poland, I looked upon Americans as being wedded to the idea of rugged individualism. You did it on your own. You rose, you fell, you conquered, you succumbed, but importantly, you asked for help from no one.

I never bought into the idea fully. Bootstraps – great myth. But in my young mind, most (not everyone; most) were strapped to the success of another (a relative? a partner?), not to their own boots at all.

Of course, one could accuse my own (Polish) country men and women as being too stuck on anti-individualism. So much so that, given recent democracy, you could hardly get a Pole to the polls at election time. Why should I vote? An individual vote hardly matters. Campaigns were levied against that mindset in the last election. Your vote counts! Move your individual ass to the polls, already. Collective action? Oh, give it a rest.

Could we compromise and put in a vote for, maybe, partnerships?

A comment showed up on my post on the Badger State Trail. (I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the Trail: it’s a microcosm of the world out there! Life! Replayed on the BST!) It goes like this (pardon me for not editing out the niceties. I am not above niceties):

Very nice photo essay. You've really captured the beauty of the trail. It's a shame that the Badger Trail will probably be converted into an ATV freeway in the near future, seeing as how the Friends of the Badger Trail is staffed almost exclusively by members of the Wisconsin ATV Association. You CAN do something about this by attending the November 27 annual meeting of the Friends of the Badger Trail, 7:00 PM at Belleville High School, join FOBT and VOTE in the elections that evening. I can assure you that the ATV lobby will be there to vote.

The collective action mindset in me stirred. By God, let’s all show up there and give them a run for their vote, those ATV-ers! I was on that trail. I saw the damage mechanical devices did to the bridges over creeks and rivers! And, perhaps more importantly, I reveled in the quiet of the trail. The only reason you do not see photos of birds here, of the deer that crossed my path, of the frogs that croaked their way across is because they, the creatures of the wild, were faster than me.

[A conversation with Ed:
Can you ride behind me so that you do not spook the animals that I may want to photograph?
I think by the time you reach for your camera, turn it on, focus, curse it for not responding, focus and press and finally fire, the animals will have retired onto another planet…]

Join me and we'll be FOBT members for life! Partners! And come to Belleville on November 27th (don't bike down -- too cold)! I’ll treat to you to a pancake and a cup of tea at Bleoni’s, okay?

[I would post a photo from the trail, but that would be cheating as all my photos are from the day of the post. So here's, partnership today. From my dining table, one not more beautiful than the other and both made more beautiful as a result of… you guessed it, partnership:]

seeing red

I first knew of these words ('seeing red') as indicating communist inclinations. And if you do a search, you’ll find others documenting this interpretation as well.*

But later, I heard it more as expressing anger. I remember someone speculating that the expression may have come from the fierce attitude a bull has toward this color.

Today, I’m more in line with the second interpretation (though the first is probably closer to the true one).

Blood boiling – that’s my image at the moment, even though blood is, well, blue.

I'm not used to seeing red these days. Calm, in my opinion, has supreme value. And so looking for calming devices becomes a daylong project.

A nice note from a DNR rep was a nice distraction [re: the Ocean post below on the Badger State Trail. And by the way, I now consider it my mission to publicize the trail. Because they’re missing a crucial link into Madison, damn it, and need support to get it done! Oh, knock that ‘damn it’ out. That’s too red. But do click on the DNR link that I subsequently included in the post -- it gives you directions and you need directions, because it starts south of Fitchburg and Fitchburg is exasperatingly, infuriatingly sprawly. Okay, okay...]. Calming notes. Let me think. Ah: George’s comment to the post below. So good for the soul. And I can't forget the chatty phone calls from loved ones. Pure tranquility and peace.

And walking home, I made sure to look at red not as fire and rage, but as something beautiful, with style,





...giving light to my new, favored café,





...or good eating possibilites at home.





So there.


* Here’s one:
The phrase "seeing red" is from none other than former Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer of the infamous Palmer Raids.

When Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, in late 1919, submitted to the Senate
a lengthy report on the Investigation Activities of the Department of Justice,
he warned that America stood at Armageddon: Bolshevists, anarchists, and
seditionists were besieging the nation. As part of their diabolical plans,
"practically all of the radical radical organizations in this country have
looked upon the Negroes as particularly fertile ground for the spreading of
their doctrines. These radical organizations have endeavored to enlist the
Negroes on their side, and in many respects have been successful." As a
consequence, "the Negro is seeing red." (Kornweibel, Seeing red:
federal campaigns against Black militancy, 1919-1925, xiv)

the fleeting and the solid

A leaf lands on the window sill. I am in my office. I reach for the camera, I take one picture, push the camera away and continue to stare out on Bascom Mall.




Phone rings. Someone needs a referral. Custody dispute. I give them several names.

And I continue to stare.

An email. Someone wants me to review a contract of employment. I look at it. Puerto Rico? You are moving to Puerto Rico? With your partner? Wow.

In a few minutes I will pick up the phone and intrude on the lives of people who I am concerned about but I dare not disturb too frequently.

Soon I will head home. I’ll think about the idea of caring for another – when it ends, if it ends, or if it continues forever. (It does, if you want it to.)

Good-night, rock solid heroes of mine out there on the sill: Japanese owl, Polish sparrow, Florentine goose. And others...


In the alternative (if your disposition leads you to prefer the fleeting), does it last from one day to another, and does it disappear as elusively as the leaf that lands on your sill one minute and the next minute is gone?

two sunsets, many mommies

I drove out to the country this evening to return Ed his car (don’t ask; pretend I like occasionally driving a red '93 Geo with pink peeling stripes). Twice I stopped to take a photo of the sun, receding over the Wisconsin countryside. You could not ask for different results. Same sunset, different images.











It’s often like that, isn’t it? Something appears one way and then, two paces later, it looks quite different.

Onto a different topic: I have many mommies! They pop up in the comments section of Ocean and they remind me to wash my hands and wipe my nose before sitting down to dinner. Or some such encouragements.

If only mothers the world over would have daughters who ate their veggies and attended to their physical health as diligently as I do!

Relax, mommies. I twirl and spin the details of a ride, but really, I do take good care of myself. Last week, my doc asked me if I train for the triathlon because I appear so…fit.

[A small btw, Bascom Mall was full of these today:]





Small risks, impulsive forays – I admit to both. My real mommy has used the term "irresponsible" to cast doubt on what I do more than once. But give me a break! I attend to my work and I clean my house and pay my bills on time.

And when I believe a bullet has more than a one in a million chance of passing near me, I promise, I’ll wear an orange vest.

hitting the trails

It seems that one ought not slow down in life unless there’s a good reason for it.

Ed and I have taken on traveling adventures, etc., for over two years now. Sometimes, I think we’re slowing down. I tell him this, but it hardly matters. The man moves with whatever rhythms guide him at the moment. You cannot argue long term trends.

Still, earlier in the week I suggested that I'm happy to consider another Wisconsin adventure. (Yes, I said it. Wisconsin. I love my surroundings.)

You’d be cold. I believe he thinks I'm getting soft.
I’ll buy warm gloves.

And I do. I spend huge sums for windproof gloves from North Face.
Ed’s response: you’ll be cold.

Nonetheless, on Saturday morning we set out on a biking week-end. The plan is to find the Badger State Trail just south of Fitchburg (they're working on getting the funding to link it all the way to Madison) and follow it south to the Sugar River Trail, which, in turn, will take us all the way to the town of Brodhead. Ed knows I like the old rail beds-turned bike trails. The surface is rough, but the inclines are gentle.

It is, well, cold. Biting wind. Don’t like to slow down. Must keep warm. But the trail is so pretty!





It makes its way past the backsides of grainaries and villages. Large graneries and really tiny villages.








On the nineteenth mile, we stop. We’re in Belleville.





Significant fact about Belville: it has an open coffee shop. More of a diner, really. We order pancakes.





Rib-sticking food, Ed says.
I picture the pancake warming my bones inside, like a layer of insulation. I drink endless cups of tea.

I add a sweatshirt to my layers. And felt handmade earmuffs. Much better. Ed, on the other hand, is in shorts. His legs look a beet red to me. Verging on a deep shade of grape purple…

The path is empty of bikers. One. We pass one, the entire day. But we do encounter the occasional hiker. In orange.
Are they wearing orange so that hunters will see them?
Maybe.
Should we be wearing orange?
Ed looks me over: you do look like a deer. Brown, prancing along…
Should we be scared?

As if on command, we hear gunfire. Repeatedly. Continuously. From Belleville all the way to Albany.

Still, it is so fresh and lovely here! Who would believe that November could be strikingly beautiful?





Beauty is fleeting.
We are approaching a tunnel.
No, we are not going to enter this cave of nothingness without a light! Je refuse!






Ed, did you know about this tunnel? I don’t handle dark, closed-in spaces well.
I read somewhere a flashlight is needed…
My headlight isn’t working!
(Famous shrug.) It’s just a tunnel.


Ed bikes forward. My options? I have no options. I follow. Very tentatively. With many many repetitions of 'I cannot' and 'I will not,' interspersed with moans. For emphasis.





Within a few feet we are in total blackness. We get off our bikes and step forward. Slowly. Intense silence. A cry of a bat, nothing more. I close my eyes, open them – there is no difference.

Of course, there is always light. Eventually, you turn a corner and you see it – you are not buried yet, you are raised from the pitch blackness of the earth. Another chance!





I had a flashlight... Didn’t think I should dig for it.
Oh Ed.

We pass the Sugar River and pick up the Sugar River trail.





Old bridges, new bridges, elevated byways, once meant for trains, now pedaled over by determined bikers.

Why aren’t there any cyclists though?
Too flat for serious cyclists, too cold for the recreational bicyclist.

Where does that put me?

A hunter of the bow and arrow kind comes towards us. I am grateful that no animal is draped around his shoulders. No little bambi nor her mother.





A minute later a van comes after us. With lights. Of the official type.





We are busted! Ed says.
I paid. I have a permit. I’m not spending a night in jail.
The DNR official looks mine over, writes in various details I had left blank (color of hair, weight).
Can hunters shoot on the trail?
Yes, they can. It’s a recreational trail.
Can they shoot at me?
You should definitely give us a call if you see arrows whizzing by.
Do I look like a deer, do you think?

He doesn’t crack a smile.

Nor does he charge Ed a penalty for forgetting to pick up a permit. This is so typical: money runs away from me and it clings to people like Ed. So that he can laugh in its face and walk away. Sigh…

The DNR official retreats. Remember, call 911 if you have problems. They’ll get in touch with us.

Such comfort.

But we do not encounter problems. Just hunters.





And utter loveliness.









Remarkably, we pull into Brodhead before dark. After a mere 47.5 miles of roads and trails. Child's play. Except my limbs no longer feel like a chuild's limbs.





Our b&b (Earth Rider) is supremely nice. Tasteful, uncluttered, right on the town square, over a bike shop.



Rooms with a Tour de France motif.




An early dinner – hearty manicotti – and by 6, Ed is out solid. I struggle for four hours to stay awake to do a post. Four hours of fighting sleep, only to give up in the end.


Sunday morning. The skies are gray. We're facing the trails again. And a tunnel. Big difference: the flashlight stays in my hand.




And at the end, a bowl of soup. Burning hot.

from Brodhead (in southern Wisconsin)

Gunfire. Interrogation. Groping my way in complete darkness. Cold, five hours of it.

One pancake (and whose fault was that?) and a cup of tea.

Finally. A quilt. Three hours later, chill is gone. Sleep.

Images from today. Nice ones, actually. Too tired to amplify. Tomorrow, once I make it back to Madison (they say rain...), I'll supply more details.

potluck update

The hardest thing about being the prof and not the one professed to is that, at social events, you have to know when to leave.

Even though leaving in the thick of laughter and fun is always very hard.

Here they are: my small section of torts, learning that there is quite a lot to be gained from this whole law school thing. Friendship, for example.

briefly

Day spent working and peeling 100 + shrimp (which is also work) for this:



I take pot lucks seriously. And no, I did not use the road-fatigued Meyer lemons. I set forth to procure new ones. On foot.

Tomorrow, early, I'm off adventuring! I'm told there's WiFi at the end of the day. We'll see.

a pack

Bicycling home on Tuesday I had a spill. Luckily, it was not while I navigated, just seconds before, a crossing of University Avenue at rush hour. Instead, it was on a quiet street. And, even more fortunately, the spill was not of me, but of my grocery bag: it bumped and rocked against the wheel of the bike from the moment I pulled out of the Whole Foods lot, until it could not take the abuse, exploding right there, in the middle of a hill, so that I would watch the Meyer lemon roll down and split in half. I’m not going to even mention the fate of the five pound sack of purple potatoes and the three pound bag of fuji apples.

I thought for a while if a dirty Meyer lemon is better than no Meyer lemon, deciding finally that the answer is yes, and pedaled after it.

I need a bigger pack, I told pretty much anyone I encountered the next day. And I want it to be funky cool.

Why is it that now, when I am not at a funky cool age, would I even care?

Style. We all develop it, whether we want to or not. Even Ed has style. Of a kind. And whatever mine is, I do not want it to wear the “sensible” tag. Because I am not that. Not much that I have done is sensible (with the possible exception of going to law school), not much that I envision for the year ahead is sensible either. I’m not saying this to put down “sensible,” but, as I have paid the price of being not sensible in so many decisions that I have made, I want to reap the benefits too. By wearing a not-necessarily-sensible-looking pack.

Get a Chrome – one student suggested.
No, a Crumpler bag. It’s great for biking.
North Face. Everyone wants North Face.
In Walmart, they have packs for under $30 – this from Ed.

I didn’t pick up any of the above because ones that seemed funky and cool were the equivalent of one night’s stay in Paris, even at today’s dollar value in Europe.

But I walked up and down State Street after work and I hoped. Not that the pack of such artistic merit would irresistibly come before me, but that I would come to grips with the fact that we are about to embark on a cold season that will not require a pack, because it will be too cold to bike to work. It already is too cold.

But you could not tell this on State Street, where the late day sun made things seem gentle and quiet. Almost warm.

miss UW? you should.

My days have been variously touched on (caressed? punched at? both?) by this university since 1979. Initially I came as a lecturer. And as a spouse of a prof. I continued as a law student. And as a mother of an occasional class-taker. I came back as a law faculty member.

On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin!

For nearly thirty years I’ve made my way to campus, back and forth, back and forth, by bus, by car, on foot, motorcycle or bike, back and forth.

UW, blending into Madison. One, impossible to imagine without the other. As if there wasn't a boundary between the two.

Yes, sure, I’m feeling nostalgic with the onset of a Madison late fall/early winter. (And happy to be home and warm after a blustery ride back.)

Let me take Ocean with me on that 23 minute ride, forgetting about the usual lake path. Working my way from the hallways of school life to the gardens on Observatory, past a practicing band, finishing in the newly opened café (just today! Because I have a nose that's viciously long for new and sparkly cafés) within a stone’s throw of my condo.

First, the Law School. Fall colors, pouring into the library:





Onwards. Past Centennial gardens. Quiet. Monochromatic. But not dull.





Then, past a practice session of the marching band. Men, women, almost oblivious to the biting cold. Almost.








Finally, a quick pause at a new bakery and coffee shop ("Gallup"). Warm colors. Great coffee. Good ending to a cold ride.

credit

I’m not referring to credit cards. Go elsewhere if you want to read about those. I’m thinking of credit of the type where you say “you gotta give the guy credit…”

And I will.

A day of work and so much cold out there – lonely cold, the kind of cold you hate to feel while biking home just before the sky turns black. So let me turn away from the world out there…



Bascom Mall

…and say a word or two about the warmth within.

A student asked in class today – why aren’t you bringing your boyfriend (she means occasional traveling companion, but I do not expect others to be keyed into terminology that only makes sense to me) to the potluck this week-end?

Because Ed (who is at once a boy at heart and a friend, but really, best referred to as an occasional traveling companion) has a hearty appetite and an inclination to doze afterwards. I’m not sure inviting him to a torts small section event is a great idea…

I recount this exchange to Ed later.
You told them I’ll eat too much and sleep? I could almost hear him asking – did you tell them I once bought you a vacuum cleaner?

I smile.

Ed calls later this afternoon.
My business partner asked me how my new refrigerator is doing.
You must have mentioned that your old one broke down...
No, his wife read that on your blog.
Did you mind?
No. Only that you posted that I bought it for $399. You know I got a 10% discount, so it was actually less.

Who else would tolerate me posting about this? Open blogging, not anonymous, who else would not mind?

Ed occasionally comments here under a pseudonym known only to me (and possibly previous match.com readers who corresponded with him before my time, but how likely is it that they read Ocean…). But it’s rare.

I remember two years ago when I asked him what he thought of Ocean.
Too tame – he tells me.

Tame?? I am writing daily, under my own name, to an audience composed of family, friends, students, colleagues, bosses, you name it – a multiple audience of those who wish me well and those who’ll throw darts if only I provide a window, and he says I’m “tame?” (I believe “boring” was also used, but the email apology that followed took away the sting of that; it was the kind of apology you get only in the first months of your dating sequence.)

Fact is, if Ed minds, he’ll not tell me. He would not think of placing constraints on what I do or say. He deserves such huge credit for this and so here it is – to you, Ed. Credit.

gusty

If you want to step up physical activity in Wisconsin at the onset of winter, you have to be prepared to suffer. I mean, I assume you’re already doing as much as you find reasonable. And then something prompts you to want to turn it on a little more.

So you bike, even when w(eather)underground notes that it will blow hard at you, and spray snowshowers, and be hugely cold out there.

It was hugely cold out there. And did I mention the wind?

I stopped at the Union Terrace on the way to work. Just to look. No one there. What a surprise.



Wish I wouldn’t feel compelled to step up the physical activity. I welcome winter. In moderation.

love it

I met a person tonight who moved to Madison (to my condo building) just last year, after spending most of her adult life in D.C.

Miss D.C.? I ask her.
Well yes – the weather. But not the politics and the terror alerts, and not dumping the contents of my purse every time I go to a museum.

What I did not ask is this: so what do you love about this town? Because she did profess love for it – if only through her dislike of the alternative.


Here’s my Sunday in Madison – right there for you to consider. Love it or leave it?

In the morning, I drive over to Madison Sourdough bakery. I am not as nuts about sourdough as so many out there, but I am nuts about a good bread and the website said they had Parisian baguettes.





No Parisian baguettes. Dated website. But very excellent sourdough, if you like sourdough. But I am like the lover who cannot fake it. No love. Just like.


Next on the list? An orchard, to restock apples. Nice drive. Past longhorn cattle licking each other in total Midwestern cattle bliss.

My occasional traveling companion Ed asks - you can eat that? They’re in love.
And I answer – my dietary preferences are what lead them to be born in the first place. Were I in the wild, I’d fully expect the beasts out there to devour me. Such is the food chain of life.






But in fact I could not eat this particular piece of beef. Though I long for meat in the same way that I long for pastry. Deprivation plays dangerous games with one’s senses.

The orchard is closed this Sunday. We are appleless. Should we pick and leave money? What if they shoot at us for trespassing? Is it permissible? You need a permit to burn leaves on your property in Fitchburg. Do you need a permit to shoot intruders?

We leave without apples.

In the evening I go to a condo potluck. I bake dozens of gougeres, relying on the l’Etoile Restaurant way of baking gougeres. A recipe that I used in my years there. Is that permissible? Is it stealing to use knowledge procured elsewhere for your subsequent wellbeing?

We eat.

Good neighbors. Musical neighbors.





Back home now. Outside, it’s dark. Midwest dark. Post-daylight savings time dark. I check the thermostat to make sure it still is as warm as I set it to be. It is. On paper.

I put on Stacey Kent and listen: Let’s you and me go away to the ice hotel…

Is it true that only Europeans like Stacey Kent?

Hard frost coming for the first time this week. Gotta love it, right?

hard work

I’m looking forward to winter. There, I’ve said it. And I’m not the only one.

I wake up at five, but only for a moment. Enough to think – were I a Market farmer, I’d be done loading the truck and I’d be heading for Madison. And each Saturday and maybe Wednesdays too, the early drive would bring me to town, so that I can stand behind my table and hope that customers would understand just how good my vegetables (or cheeses or biscuits or fruits) are.









By November, I'd be ready to stop. On the second Saturday of the month, I would wake up and think – I’m done for the year. Let me pull the quilt under my chin and forget about the world for another hour or two.

So, I am ready for a break too. Because it’s a farmers' break and, along with them, I’ll be looking out for the cold and studying the frost and the effect of ice on the soil and water, even though I have nothing to lose or gain by it. Except maybe a few photos marking the change in the air.

The Westside Community Market felt different on this, its last morning. Farmers, bakers and cheesemakers, some selling out early. Some collecting gifts from their vendor friends.

















A crazy season of drought, of rain, of bugs – all of it. And for us, the buyers, of week after week of brilliant Saturday sunshine.

It’s such hard work. Dangerous.

Farmer stories, of injuries, of death even.

What I like is selling the plain, simple foods, that common people buy.

Oh, but they’re not plain. Plain is what’s there in the supermarket, in boxes, cans and behind cellophane wrappings. I know plain -- in a rare move, I went to Woodman's late last night. Necessity drives plain. But there's nothing pleasurable about it.

Hard work. Long as my hours are in some weeks, I don’t regard myself as a brutally hard working person now. Not compared to years where I mothered, and taught law, and cooked at home and at a restaurant.


I go with Ed to buy a new fridge for his sheep shed. The old one died. It’s an easy purchase – he’ll take the cheapest model on the floor.

The salesclerk has a mountain load of typing to do to process the sale.
It’s hard work for you to get this ($399) thing sold, Ed comments.
I’m new here, but I like it, the clerk says. I was a stay-at-home dad for seven years. You know, I was in the Marines, I was a farmer before that and nothing compared to the hard work of staying home with the kids.

We drive down Lacy Road, Ed and I. Out in the field, there's a farmer, working the tractor, back and forth, slowly, patiently. Birds swoop down and pull out what they can from the turned soil. November work. Winter quiet. A nice balance.

zero

It’s a rare day that I can’t produce at least one photo for Ocean.

Today is such a day. Working at home all day is terrible for Ocean and chilling for the soul.

My most challenging moment? Deliberating whether I should put up a link to a website that promotes, indirectly, alcohol consumption. I decided against it, even though it offers fascinating daily tidbits on various aspects of wine (and also beer, spirits, etc) production and sales.

My most amusing email? This, from Borders Bookstore. Let me paste here the subject line:

You've Earned $0.00 in Borders Bucks!

Followed by this text:

Just print this email and bring it to any Borders, Borders Express, or Waldenbooks and redeem your $0.00 in Borders Bucks any time before November 30, 2007.

I have only 28 days left. I should hurry.