from the Wisconsin River: paddling toward the Mississippi, day 3

I’ve seen the Wisconsin River referred to as the river of a thousand isles. I’ll add my own tourism promo phrase – the river that never sleeps.

We wake up and the sand bank where we landed the previous night is gone. The damn must have let some water out because this morning, we have a different river before us. Deeper, stronger looking.

I watch a man with his young boy stand and fish on a very thin strip of remaining sand.





But the weather hasn’t changed. Cloudy, very cool for the first day of July. It takes me more than a minute, more than many minutes to get going.

The river washing routine is enough to stall me for a good while. The water isn’t exactly murky, but it’s no mountain stream either. Ed pours as I pretend to get one set of grime out, to be replaced, most likely, with whatever the waters offer up this morning.

Still, I feel clean, or clean enough. Refreshed. We set out.

The wind remains a challenge. We hug the shore to minimize its force.

It’s entirely different here, just west of Lone Rock. Bluffs along a riverbank add a sense of mystery to the place. They create a certain echo, a cavernous aura that makes you want to not splash too loudly.










Not that it’s quiet here. This is swallow central – their market, their café, their territory! We look at the mud nests in the bluffs and we watch the birds fly in zigzags, with some internal anticrash radar that would make airplanes envious.





They’re not the only birds that we see on the river. Cranes (Donna's comment is correct, of course), but herons too – blue, always flying just ahead of us, as if they need to show us where to go before abandoning us. And an eagle. Stunning -- is it the bald headed? -- crossing the river just ahead and then watching our progress as we continue.

We’re better at navigating the sandbars. Most often, we find the stronger current and we avoid the sand traps. But at one point, I get stuck. And it’s my fault – I lead us exactly to where we should not go. I tell Ed to stay put – I’ll drag you out! I hurry toward him and of course, I stumble. With a big splash.



(log commemorating place of tumble)


That’s unfortunate. Getting wet on a summer day isn’t a big deal, but this is no ordinary summer day. It’s barely 60 outside. A drizzle comes and goes. Ed insists I wring at least my pants out – they’ll have a better chance of drying. For a while, I contemplate unpacking the boat and getting my spare clothes, but I don’t want to waste time.

I stand there in the middle of the river, patting myself down with a dry cloth while Ed wrings out my lower garments (how the winds are laughing...).

The man has a mighty wring in his wrist and I feel okay about continuing. By 4, we reach our next village destination – Muscoda. The good thing about this village is that it grew fairly close to the river. (The hub is up about half a mile up the road, but that’s fine by us – our legs need a stretch.)

I’m cold now that we’re out of the boat. I have no choice but to dig out dry duds. Nothing feels better than a dry outfit (following a wet one, well wrung, but still very very damp) on a cool evening.


Muscoda is one hell of a mix. Along the banks leading up to it, we see some pretty significant houses. We speculate that they may be homes of the Chicago wealthy. Stunningly gorgeous, with windows out onto the water – they’re the first riverside wealth that we’ve come across so far.

But the village itself seems to have had the fate of so many others – a sad main street, with as many shops closed as open.










Muscoda calls itself the Morel Mushroom Capital of Wisconsin which in itself is curious – it’s a delicacy that somehow doesn’t fit into the heart of this Midwestern village.

What Muscoda offers us though is a wonderful respite – the library on this day is open late and the WiFi is functional and fast. Across the street, at Ernie’s, no, excuse me, not Ernie’s, you’ve not kept pace Ms Librarian, they changed hands and now it’s Amo’s – okay, at Amo’s, we settle in for a wonderful homemakde pizza with the works. And the works include every vegetable ever thrown on a pizza. With cold beer on tap. Heaven.





Amo’s fills up over the course of the evening. And that, too is fun to watch. If you give ‘em (us) a place to hang out with good, cheap food, they’ll (we’ll) come. We need to congregate, to watch each other eat and drink. It’s better that way.

Satiated, we head back to the river. It’s 7 and I don’t mind paddling a bit longer, though I get nervous about pushing our kayaking into the evening. Sometimes, the landing spots just do not materialize when you need them. I suggest one – too weird. No growth on it. Then another island – too close to shore… you can practically hear the noises from the back yard of the house there…

Sometimes such fussiness ends in a miserable resolution. Not this time. We turn the corner and come across the most perfect island, sure to be the premier camping site of this trip, no, probably any of camping trip I’ve been on.

The island is small, but it has a nice stretch of sand, up on a slight bank, out of harm’s way (not to be covered by a sudden rise in the river). It curves at the tip, creating a nice arch, just to give you a visually stunning piece to gaze at as you settle in for the night.









We take a walk in the now dry sand and watch the water brush against the edge. I tell Ed that I am reminded here of the river I grew up by in Poland, at my grandparents’ village home. I spent the first years of my life there and all the summers of my childhood too. In those times, the water was clean and we’d find shallow parts where we’d lie down and let the ripples cool us down as made their way over our small bodies.






I’d never seen a river like that until now, here in Wisconsin. The riverbanks are nearly identical here as well – green, bushy trees, sandy inclines, an occasional meadow. With swallows and herons. In Poland, we had the occasional stork. But really, cranes look awfully similar from a distance.

from the Wisconsin River: paddling toward the Mississippi, day 2

Beautiful day outside! – This from Ed, just a few minutes ago, as I force myself to poke out of the tent. The man who at home would never say a kind word about a day until it was over and done with tells me now it’s heaven on earth out there.

I look around. At least it’s not raining.

But then, yesterday started out dry as well. Let me think back now: cloudy. Yes, it had been a cloudy morning. We aren’t hurrying. I work, Ed takes out his burner to fix breakfast: instant coffee and cereal bars. And squashed nectarines and wine-infused bread (we had taken along a small carton of wine for supper and it leaked). Then, a quick splash of soap on exposed parts of the body (too cold for the works), then more reading time inside the warm tent.

We have no daily goal – only to make progress, loosely defined: we need to get back home at roughly the time Ed’s cat sitter thinks we’re coming back.

A little after 11, we set out.

The river is wide and beautiful.





But the sandbars are a challenge. You think you’re in a deep spot and suddenly you realize you paddled right into a hidden island of sand. Several times, we’re out in the middle of the river, tugging our kayaks to the sudden drop off where the boats can float again.


We are alone on the river this entire day. Along the banks, too, all is quiet. Green. Very very green.





The clouds are messing with us. They let out a sprinkle, just ever so slight and then they move on. Eh, we’ve been lucky. Luck will hold.


Some three hours later we approach the first bridge leading into Spring Green.





This is no river town (for one thing, it’s set a couple of miles away from it). Back in Madison, we think of it as being on the artsy side – Wisconsin’s headquarters for Frank Lloyd Wright architecture and home to the American Players Theater. We’re not especially anxious to stop there, but we need water and WiFi would be handy too. (Ed had called ahead and the library was indeed open on this day, and free WiFi was readily available, though the librarian warned us that they did not permit people to use the electrical outlets. Bizarre.)

As we come closet to the bridge (and the construction of the parallel bridge), we begin to have second thoughts about pulling up. It’s so busy up there on the road!

But, if I am out to look for America, it’s here, on highway 14.





We paddle on. By the next bridge (still into Spring Green), we see a mom and two kids and a dog, trying to have a summer day, out here on the sandbank, but the weather, cloudy and cool, just isn’t helping.





I ask a guy with a fishing rod if he knows of a boat landing further down (it’s on our river map, but the river map is very very old). Don’t know. Not from around here.

We can’t decide. Pull over and hike along the road to town, or hope that landing further down. We take a bet on the landing and paddle on. These main roads are so repulsive after the quiet of the river. The idea of walking two miles each way just doesn’t sit well.

We scoot around the sandbars and keep to the shore, looking out for a place to dock. And it’s there, just as the map had indicated – Bob’s private boat landing.

We pull up on the sandy beach. A woman is standing on the deck, smoking a cigarette. Bob’s appears to be a cottage/campground kind of place. A family run business. She’s part of the family.

Windy out there?
Yes, gusty as anything. How far is it to town from here?
Bout a mile and a half.
May we leave our boats here for a couple of hours? There’s a grocery store up the road, right? We need some supplies.
What are you looking for?
Water. Snacks. WiFi.

I say it almost comically. As if I’m wistfully recalling civilization.
Got it all here.
Really? Can we get some food? And water? And use your Internet?
Sure.

Bob’s is also a bar, with, well, Wisconsin bar food: burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, pizza.
We stay for supper.

I see you have pepperoni or sausage on your pizza and then there’s a third – deluxe. What’s deluxe?
Pepperoni and sausage together. It’s frozen. Tombstone.
And for an appetizer – there’s broccoli flowerettes?
Yep. In cheese, deep fried.

We settle for chicken sandwiches, french fries and fried cheese curds. With local beer. The room is first empty, then a few men come in for a drink, then it’s empty again. We work away on our computers and eat an early supper.

And by 6, we are on the water again. And by 6:15 it’s raining. And by 6:20, it’s really raining. By 7 we’re on the lookout for a camping spot. It’s unpredictable, here on the river: for miles, we’ll pass one great spot after another and then there will be stretches of no good landing place at all.





By 8, Ed is saying – a good half hour left of daylight.

I’m wet, the boat’s wet and still no good sandbar. How about this one? Too low. That? No place to pitch a tent.

And then, just as we spot the bridge to the village of Lone Rock in the distance, we find it: a nicely elevated sandbar. You have to count on luck, no? It’s too miserable if luck runs out.

Or is it? Some people just bypass the luck/no luck label altogether.
Great day outside! Simply great – Ed says again as he looks up toward the cool, cloudy sky.

from the Wisconsin River: paddling toward the Mississippi

We’re a country that believes in the automobile. I understand that. Me, I worship technology in the form of the washing machine (I’ve lived in too many places without one).

I’m less in awe of the car. America's big love affair with the automobile means (among many other things) that if you want to paddle down a river from point A to point B, you better leave a car at point B, so that you can retrieve your stuff where you put in, at Point A. There’s no speedy little train or local bus to take you there.

And so we drive down toward where the Wisconsin meets the Mississippi (our endpoint).

It’s not a heavy use road. And it is quite pretty in a cornfields and barns sort of way. And forward looking.





And there it is – the Mississippi, the river of all rivers, not at all like what you see in that quick dart of an eye as you cross the bridge to the Twin Cities or Dubuque, but here, near Prairie du Chien, it's a wide body of water flowing past vast areas of countryside, with county parks offering boat landings and strips of beach to bring families to on a warm sunny day.





It’s not a warm, sunny day, but it’s not too bad. So far, the rain has been only a threat. We leave a car at the shore and drive back east toward Prairie du Sac.

The road tracks the river, more or less. I’m surprised that there isn’t much of a river life here though. The villages are sleepy things. True, we’re coming through on a work day, but even so, each place looks like we’ve hit the siesta hour big time.

But as we approach our put in point, we join a major road that offers more of Wisconsin commerce. Including our infamous custard place – Culver’s. There’s ice cream and there’s frozen custard. If you have never tried custard, imagine it in this way: ice cream with more of everything – milk, eggs, more milk, more eggs – the glory of a dairy state, with a near butter consistency.

We stop for a cone. Smallest, please. The special of the day!





Chocolate covered strawberry. Heavenly. We share it, wondering how anyone could manage the whole thing, let alone anything larger.


By the time we reach the boat landing, it is late afternoon. We unload. We have an inflatable to assemble. (Ed: I wonder where I put the instructions… must have left them behind) We lay it out. It’s been a while... (Ed: there was a pump for this, wasn’t there?) We make do. We blow and tinker and seal it up and by 4:30, we’re ready to launch.



(the hat belongs to Ed)


A man comes over with his dog. The pooch has been playing in the river and he is full of exuberance. His mud is now my mud as he shakes and romps in and out of the boat.

He just loves boating! How far’re you goin'?
To the Mississippi.
I envy you. My wife, she wont camp more than a night.
I understand her. What is it with men?!
We don’t mind goin’ dirty.
I sure know that…
Just watch out for the sand banks. My friends, they didn’t know about the damn and they woke up to their kayak being on the next island.


We know what he’s telling us – the power plant releases water through the damn irregularly and when it does this, the water level in the river goes up by several feet. If you’re camping on a sandy bank, you may well wind up underwater in the middle of the night. We imagine the power company dudes having a good laugh. Okay – let her flow! Wonder how many innocents we’ll sweep off their beach this time! He he!

The river is deep, the river is wide, heron – lead the way!





Well, not always deep. It’s easy to hit an underwater sandbank and get stuck. Pull me out! – I shout to Ed. Get out yourself, I have my own issues.

At the shore, the herons are laughing. Or dancing. Or mating. Or all the above.






But mostly, the river is easy. True, we have a strong head wind and if we stop paddling, oftentimes we appear to be going against current, but mostly, it is a gentle ride. And a beautiful one.





By 7:30, we’re on the lookout for a camp spot. The requirements? Low to pull in, but with higher ground (in case the river level rises). We pick an island – one of the many on the river.





We haul the boats out and settle in. I’m grateful that the rain held off. And the wind has dispersed the bugs. We sit on the beach and eat our baguette with cheese and tomato. Okay, the bread is made by a Frenchman (from la Baguette!), but the cheese is Hook’s Bloomin' Idiot and the tomatoes are homegrown.

from Prairie to golden Prairie

We’re setting out, Ed and I. We’re putting in kayaks just at the hydroelectric damn by Prairie du Sac. Ninety miles later, we’ll be at the other Prairie – Prairie du Chien. The Wisconsin River ends there, spilling all its waters into the great Mississippi.

How many days? Don’t know. We’ll camp at sandbars and go into villages along the way to fill up on Wisconsin foods and Wisconsin beer. We’ll use public libraries to plug in and I’m hoping we’ll stay above water this time. There are no rapids along this wide and lazy stretch of the river.

The weather is okay. Cool. Showers maybe. Bugs? Yes, I hear there are bugs. But, if you’re in the mood to lose yourself in life along the riverbanks, you can’t have it in any other way.

A final check of my gear, a nudge for Ed to put down the magazine… It’s all rather like a lyric out of a Simon & Garfunkel.

So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

In our case, he has the magazine, I have my casebook of landmark decisions on property rights. Off on this week leading up to July 4th. We should be on the Mississippi on July 4th. It seems fitting to be doing this now.

All gone to look for America...

oh, Madison

Every parent knows that a child can make you look at the world in a better way. I’ll add this – the child’s age is irrelevant. Adult kids are equally omnipotent: they’ll push you to recognize how gorgeous it all is.

It helps when you have a beautiful day out there to add vim and sparkle to an already lovely early summer landscape.


We take Ed up on his offer to go sailing. He’s got a tiny boat here – one that really isn’t fit for passengers, but we think it may work for a quick spin around Lake Waubesa.

The winds are gusty, the sky is clear.

Ed riggs the boat.






We help. We're the cheering squad.










Even at the dock, the boat is tossed around as if it were an insignificant pea on the waters of an ocean. Up goes the mast, down goes the boat; Ed rights it and down it goes again. And so on.

Go ahead, try it out on the open water – I tell him.





The wind kicks in, Ed hikes out to keep it from going down. The wind shifts, the boat goes down.

Meanwhile, daughters can’t get over how good life is out here, in Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Waubesa.





Ed’s back. Too much of a gust. Not fit for sailing with a crew. That’s okay. One daughter takes the kayak out, the other one helps take down the sail.

And now it’s time to haul the boats out and call it a day. I want to fix a Sunday supper before the last bus takes them to Chicago.

We pluck the first raspberries and sour cherries at Ed’s farmette and head home. And did I mention how gorgeous it all is out here? Absolutely beautiful.

markets

They’re a big deal to me. Not only because they put me in touch with the people who generate great foods, but because they come closest to providing community in a country that has too much of rather soulless commerce. At the market I can exaggerate the significance of my connection to a local grocer, baker or cheese maker. I feel they're my neighbors. (Almost.)

Of course, I switched markets when I moved. From downtown, to the Westside Community Market ("WCM"). And so my loyalties shifted. It was like meeting a new city of bakers, growers and cheesemakers. It was a tough transition.

When I occasionally go back downtown (like when daughters are in town...),






... I recognize some of the longtime vendors and we talk about growing children and the sighting of the first swarms of mosquitoes. Like old friends. (Sort of.)



Yes, all that’s interesting, you say. But are the foods any better there, downtown? Or at the WCM?

The answer is, of course, that the foods are fantastic at both.

Though I have to say this – the downtown market has cut flowers that don’t run out by the time we get there. And they are magnificent. And long lasting.











Markets need flower stalls. It just cannot be that a dining table has to rely on supermarket flowers to carry you through the week.

So I’ll grant the downtown market the flowers. And cheese curds: not only can you sample many, many different curds (so Wisconsin!), but you can feast on grilled curds every single time you pass this stall.






People watching? Oh, the same at both markets. Less crowded, the WCM lets you stretch out a little more. On the other hand, there are fewer people to watch. No kids on a bench, for example, eating market cookies.






Okay, but really, when you have a local market, you don’t compare it to the one in the old neighborhood. And you don’t cheat and run out for bread at your old bakers. You stay loyal. And I did. I bought no peas, no berries, no garlic scapes. I passed on the tomatoes, the sprigs of mint, the first potatoes.

But I did bring home flowers. Heavenly bunches of sweet peas and bouquets of white peonies and daisies.

green

It’s so uniformly green now. Days of green. Wisconsin green. Uninterrupted green.

If this day looks different from a previous or the next one, it’s only because I will have seen a friend (passing through Wisconsin, stopping for breakfast here, in Madison)…





…in green, of course, against the background of a green couch.

Or I will have read one too many cases or, more likely, one too few.



Today is also a day of summer waiting, of the best kind, on beds of flowers, with bare toes ruffling the clover…







Me, I'm waiting for daughters to pop in for the week-end, before their work forces them to go back to their lawyerly duties elsewhere.

They haven’t seen much of the spring and summer green that I almost take for granted here. They are thoroughly urban – a field of tall grasses and tiger lilies is a surprise, a delight, as if this kind of stuff doesn’t happen just anywhere, as if this indeed is Wisconsin – the greenest loveliest state of them all.



Given this summer of gentle greens and warm nights, I have coaxed Ed into a brief road trip into the very core of the state (and at the same time, into the heart of America or Americana or both) – but without the road. Oh, but that’s not until next week. For now, I’m sitting back, waiting, looking up at the clock, wanting the daughters to step off that bus now and show up with their grins, taking in the green stuff here, up north, in Madison Wisconsin.

car day

In the course of an ordinary day, I do not come even close to the inside of a car. Today, therefore, was most extraordinary, in an ordinary sort of way.

Ed’s 93 Geo finally required mechanical intervention. I think Ed believes this little clump of rusted metal is like an old person – crinkled and tattered on the outside but full of vim and spark once you poke around a little. So, the mechanic poked and aligned and pronounced it ready for the next spell.

I motorbiked with Ed to pick it up. (Looking around the garage, I could understand why the mechanic does well with Ed's aging cars.)





Ed then roared home (all motorcycles, in my mind are loud; even his tiny Honda -- which is so small, that his knees poke up when he’s on it, as if this was merely a toy, leftover from boyhood), while I drove the Geo back to the condo to pick up my bicycle. From there, I drove on to the farmette where Ed and I spent time spiffing up and making adjustments to my daughters’ 93 Corolla (daughters are coming for a brief week-end visit) and cleaning out the 93 Geo as well. Two wrecks to work with. Fun.

When it was time to bike, Ed remembered that he had left his bike at the condo. And so I drove the Corolla home.


I write this because I felt so depleted zipping from one place to another by car. And I wondered why this was the case.

Indeed, I asked myself -- if I had a car and loved it (say a Smart or a Mini C), would I feel differently about driving? I don’t know. The only car I ever loved was my first – an old Volvo that I purchased when I was a student. That car spelled freedom from the city (I lived in Chicago then). I drove it to Wisconsin, many times. And to New York. And to Canada. I drove it until it dropped oil at the speed of a salad dressing pouring out of a bottle. All subsequent cars were modestly priced and terribly functional. Nothing to love, nothing to pamper.

And now? I find city driving boring. I find highway driving even more boring. Even if I had cash spilling out of my pocket at the speed of that very same salad dressing, why would I spend it on moving along corridors of boredom?


Wait. Was this my day? A drive from one corner of Madison to the next and back again, twice over?

No no. In between, Ed and I put up more photos at my favorite café. (Ancora in Fitchburg, if you are curious. I love their space, their patio and their enthusiasm; the coffee’s wonderful as well.) And now we’re done with that. The photos will be there for three months. Don’t rush to see them – most have made an appearance on Ocean at one time or another. But I have to say, it is beyond cool to sit at one’s favorite café and look up at a photo of sheep from the Isle of Skye. Hi sheep! Here you are now. In Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

staying hot

As a kid, here’s what I was told: if it’s hot outside, you eat hot soup. And wear dark clothes. Ever see older women in Sicilian households? There’s a reason they’re not feeling faint in the heat of the scorching sun. They’re not sipping iced lattes and eating delicate salads. They’re wearing black and downing heaping bowls of pasta in bubbling tomato sauce.

I think that some person in an authoritative position was just trying to get me to eat a bowl of soup, but I have sort of bought into the mindset of not fighting the heat.

So that when the heat index yet again spiked into the 100 degree range, I’m thinking -- it’s time to make Tuscan beans in a summery tomato ragu.

And, for an afternoon break from reading cases, I bike over for a good, hot coffee. (I draw the line on black clothing. The world is too full of women in black. I want my sundresses to get their brief airing.) The café is quiet – a few souls lost behind computer screens, a pair sipping an afternoon glass of wine, a handful of coffee lovers, a scattering of empty tables.





I catch up with a friend who has been away even more than I have, and I get back on my bike. A few more stirs to the ragu. It needs a baking period still. Into the oven it goes.





We sit down to eat. I fill a tumbler with wine and glance over at the thermometer outside – 93. Not too bad.


Could it be that, somewhere along the way, I picked up a drop of Sicilian blood? It would explain so much.

everyone’s talking about it

It’s in the headlines. In everyone’s greeting – so hot today! So incredibly hot!


Oh… yes, it’s toasty warm! I’m walking to run errands and I feel my legs burning under the heat of the afternoon rays.

No… not complaining, not even a tiny bit. Feeling warm all over, without the oppressive fear that this will continue for a long time (because it never does, here in Wisconsin), walking outdoors across tracks and routes that caused me to shiver not too many months ago – nice!!!

Even as I continue to bemoan the empty spaces around me. Yes, of course it’s hot. Not that hot! Step outside! Grab a cool drink and sit out in the lovely café patios!

Well, alright, most of the café patios here look out on parking lots, but still, there are ones that can please the senses! This one’s pretty, for example. Even though it’s sadly empty.





I remember seeing cafés in Rome during an equally hot handful of days. Full. Hard to find an empty seat. Some had outside mist hoses, to keep things just that much cooler. But, so long as there was a spec of shade, people congregated outdoors. Come out of your caves, you cold-loving Wisconsinites! It’s beautiful and bright and, unfortunately, so very ephemeral.


Yesterday I met a graduate student at the Law School. He’s visiting for a few months (originally he’s from Poland, but he studies elsewhere right now) and I tell him he’s picked a fine time to be in Madison.

Oh, I know! When we at [the School where he is currently studying] pick our exchange programs, generally we pick them by when our choice classes are offered. But the word is that you pick Wisconsin for the good season.

It is the good season!

I walk down to a strip mall to return a video. And speaking of people, and stripped people no less, these young women are down to almost nothing. You can do this in Madison. We’re not prim here.





At the grocery store, I pick up some herring for supper (along with ingredients for a corn, tomato and scallion salad). Hmmm. Fifteen minute walk home… How does herring feel about waves, record breaking heat waves? The store throws some ice on it, just to be safe.

On my walk home, the ice never even melts. See? Not that hot!

inside the box

You could say that I am not an inside-the-box type. It’s not that I don’t adhere to convention (Ed more properly sees himslef as being outside the box of conventional etiquette). It’s just that I often clutter my palette with an odd mix of things. I never worry if I am a little unpredictable. Out of step with the rest of the pack.




For instance, within one travel month, I’ll sleep on a New York upstate floor, in a crisp white room of a lovely hotel in Rome, in a tent along the Great Glen Way in Scotland. That’s not so unusual? Okay, try this: in the course of my adult (American) life, I have rarely taken on just one job. Sure, there’s the parenting plus teaching thing (two jobs right there!), but in addition and without interruption to the principals, I’ve run a travel business, sold photographs, worked in restaurants, started a Great Writing Project, etc etc. And of course – blogged.

It could happen that I will eventually slow down. But, my life has always been chaotic in this way. Cluttered. Something to do with healthy energy levels and not much love for TV.

So it should come as no surprise that I am considering a week-end/evening moonlighting stint once again. As state budgets sag, I want to believe that I wont sag as well. Travel is expensive. Selling photos is fabulous, but it wont purchase a railfare across France let alone an airplane ticket across the ocean.

I’ll say more once I make decisions as to what and where. But I've already learned this much in my years of multiple work: when I do more than one full time job, only one can be cerebral. The other, therefore, has to be reasonably mindless.

I view it as my obligation to row my own boat to financial stability. Relying on someone to do it for me is not the way to get to where I want to be (even as it does appear to work for some).





But here’s the real reason for the post title which, after all, is about things inside the box. Because sometimes, what’s inside the box is better than outside the box. And the moral of my (brief) story is that, now and then, revisiting old ideas is a good thing. They may show off something quite fresh.

So here is my comment on real boxes:

It took me a while to believe that wine could be a delicious accompaniment to a meal. As a new immigrant, I moved from a country that had horrible stuff on the shelves – Bulgarian wines of the lowest quality where common. They could turn a healthy stomach into a jungle of pain in no time. Other wines? Rare and expensive.

In the States, I initially sampled wines sold at a Chicago Walgreens (or some such convenience store). They came in boxes. I learned to like beer.

Eventually, married and therefore significantly more sophisticated (at the ripe age of 23), I discovered a wonderful cheese and wine store in Hyde Park. It was uphill to bliss thereafter.

Since those years, I have never seriously considered purchasing a boxed wine.

Until this year. In Paris. I had already purchased four bottles to take home with me. Things were getting heavy and pricey. Ed asks – why aren’t you taking this home – pointing to a box of rosé.
You will never get me to pour wine from a box. Ever.
Why not?
It can’t be good.
It’s the same one you just put in your shopping cart. See the bottle? Same domaine, same wine.
Oh.

And so I brought the box home. Once open to the idea, I began to look around. At my local supermarket, a whole stack of boxed wines came with favorable reviews from the Wine Spectator.

All this to say that now, my refrigerator contains these:




I’ll not dismiss boxed wines again. For the summer dinner table, they are a heavenly solution to the shrinking budget and growing appetite for something other than what you would pick up at Trader Joe’s. Or "Walgreen's."

Father’s Day

The only difference between fatherhood and motherhood is that one is exclusive to men and the other to women, right? Yes, of course, one does a set of tasks, the other does another set of tasks, but however they are set, they do not ignore the fact that there are children out there and contributions to their welfare must be made.

Yet, over time, we have constructed such differences between the two, that each has claimed a day for her or himself in the calendar of important celebrations. It's not about parenting. It's about being a mother. And, in June, a father.

Here’s the thing – in my growing up years, I never thought much about Father’s Day. Honestly, I don’t believe it even marked a post-war Poland calendar page. Mother’s Day? Of course! And soon after (June 1st), Children’s Day. Both celebrating the challenge of the entire project of growing up (raising a child, in the case of mothers). Fathers had nothing.


In the States, I adapted. Father’s Day? Okay! It seems only fair. We celebrate both. Cool. That and the 4th of July.


Ed has been skeptical. Not a parent himself (indeed, I would guess that 90% of his friends aren’t parents; it’s as if they found each other early on and said – you too, eh?), he admires those who choose parenting over nonparenting, but he doesn’t get the holiday fuss.

So, what do you do on Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day)?
You go out and eat.
Do you want to go out and eat today?
It’s Father’s Day. We wouldn’t be able to get a table. Everyone else is eating out.

Still, in the early afternoon, we go to a local Tex-Mex place that also happens to have excellent espresso drinks (Pasqual’s). We find a table, read the local paper. He eats his huevos rancheros, I drink my latte.

I glance over at another table. Dad, mom, two kids.





Happy Father’s Day. You, all you dad types, you deserve a heck of a great day.

5:19

Faint strains of highland music make their way to the balcony. A bee is pushing at the yellow stamens of the rose. It’s become a routine: outdoors, granola with berries and kefir, a foamy coffee and bagpipes. Next week it may be folk and the week after – Italian. I have a very eclectic taste in music. But I am predictable in at least one thing: each year, I look forward to this day. And today, its beauty hit an A+ level. How many times can that happen in a lifetime?

5:19. I’m on the rooftop. Not alone. A fellow resident says – you almost missed it.
But I didn’t! I woke up without prodding, without alarm and now here I am, looking at the beginning of our longest day.





To make it perfect: what do you need to make the first day of summer, the longest day perfect?

I only need the hours of daylight. But if you’re throwing in goodies, I'll take a clear sky. And a day away from work. And some semblance of art and nature and and..

Oh, I'm too demanding!

But wait. There’s more. Regional seasonal, regional seasonal. Something to do with food?



Yes! This year the longest day, the first day of summer is not only brilliant and bright and warm and without work impediments, but it’s also market day.

For only the second time this year (I’ve been away), I go down to the Westside Community Market.



















It’s the season of favorites (so short here in Wisconsin!). I fill our basket. I would fill it more, but I’m remembering the roadside stand that we want to support.






And because it’s June 20th, having done all that – up with the sun, gym time, market time, breakfast time, shower time – all that time and still, I'm finding that it’s quite early.

The day sweetly extends itself. It’s longer by virtue of its daylight, but also by virtue of its brilliant skies.


Ed and I hang my photos at a favorite café. And we play tennis. And we zip around on the old motorbike, with a newly installed front fender.






And we do a yoga class. And I prepare a cusp of spring (or is it already summer?) meal.





And still, it’s light outside.


Oh, go ahead, Tell me you don’t care. Daylight, moonlight – what difference does it make? Today, Ed slept during portions of the day I would called “peak time!” He doesn’t function with an internal clock, nor with a sense of what’s up time and what’s sleep time. (For example, he dozed the last ten minutes of yoga. I suppose meditation and sleep aren’t that far apart.) And maybe you’re the same?

For me, daylight counts. A lot.


The sun set at 8:41. It wasn’t a stellar sunset. I stayed indoors. Too much food and yoga, in conflict with each other. Still, I'll think of it as it was -- a beautiful longest day. I'll dream about it come winter.

sudden

Most people don’t like sudden change. Seems violent. No time to adjust. Gradual’s good.

Today though, I’ll stay on the side of flash, immediate transformation. For instance, the tube in my nose is history. And, like post childbirth, all memories of disability and discomfort are forgotten. (True, I don’t have a baby to fuel my joy, but that’s okay: I don’t think I want to be a mommy to a newborn right now.) Why do we think of change as a negative? Quick improvements are life’s icing!


Still, on days like this, you have to be troubled by the suddenness. For example, we had storms today. Out of nowhere.

Last night's sky flashed repeatedly for us, and the morning came on gloomy: humid and wet. I left my daughters’ car out so that it would get a good wash.

Evening? Same thing.

But in between, I went to my favorite café to study the space where I’m to hang my photos this week-end. You may remember that my favorite café is actually just outside Madison. So I pass fields of corn to get there.

Would you guess this to be the stormiest day of the season thus far?

horses, goats and chickens

My family will vouch for this: I was obsessed with organic foods (or at a minimum, fresh and honest foods) and an athletic lifestyle way before either became trendy here. I wanted to age in good health. I had had enough of poor health in my early years.

It paid off. I am a horse in strength and a goat in nimbleness (and a chicken on high mountain tops, but that’s another story) and if I have anything to say about it, I’ll never need a pill sorter to keep my meds straight by the time I turn completely forgetful.

Still, the first quarter century of life has taught me to be vigilant about signals of potential problems. Perhaps too vigilant. I never ignore anything. And I like information.

So that when this spring, my doc told me I should have this one little organ within me measured for performance, I said – sure!

The measuring of it requires that I walk around with a tube up my nose (and then some) for 24 hours. Initially, I thought – no big deal. I’ll even teach with this. It will make ‘em look up.

But in April, I chickened out at the last minute (remember – at heart, a chicken). And put it off until now, when I don’t especially have to show my face anywhere if I don’t want to.

This morning, the tube went in. (Amazing how many things a tiny tube can record! All that information!)

And all I want to do is sit on my couch and count the hours until it’s time for it to come out again. And why not. I have an occasional traveling companion who should be happy to run errands for me while I hibernate.

Ed, I need several rental movies and a whole bunch of foods to get me through this.
Nina, you’re coming with me to pick what you want.
Ed, I am not showing up in public with a tube up my nose, strapped to my face, attached to a huge machine.
Nina, no one will notice.

Of course he’s wrong. I look awful. Indeed, in the grocery store, I am given priority at the meat counter. Probably to move me along out of compassion. I want to announce – I’ll wait my turn! I am not sick! I’m just measuring things!

You could say that I am learning what it’s like to have a disability, but I’ll answer that I already know what it’s like to be weak and incapacitated. Remember – I was once a sickly little thing. I don’t need another lesson.

Ed of course, finds the entire medical complex hugely fascinating. He doesn’t himself interact much with it. I offer insights into a world that is quite unfamiliar to him.

So, are you bothered by all this? – he asks.
Of course!
Yep, like I always said -- better to fall off a cliff.
Oh, I didn’t know that these are our choices in life – cliff, or tubes up your nose for a day.

We go back to the condo, I sip a latte through a straw and I think – good thing that I went to the gym before dawn today. I wouldn’t be able to put in my 50 minutes with this thing strapped to me. Now, please pass me the blueberries. Rich in antioxidants.


In the evening, I cook up a stew. I want the distraction of cooking.