boston breaks

It's as if you had to hurry. Any minute, the storms would hit the city. I mean, we had a night's break, so that my daughter and I could run down to the South Station area, to eat dinner at the magnificent O Ya...










But after, we prepared for the worst. We contemplated leaving town, watching triple features in local theaters -- anything to stay out of the impending storms.

I should note that just past midnight, Ed arrived on a bus from New York. The trial halted for the week-end and we suggested he come up north and take his mind off of litigation. He came up north alright, but I can't say we took a break from discussing the details of the proceedings. In fact, halfway through the night I tuned out and dozed off, but even then, I would still pick up telltale snippets: could you repeat the question... on voir dire... on cross exam.... and then she said -- just one more thing...


Saturday morning. Everyone slept in. Nothing tunes out the noise of your beastly enemies as well as a whole morning given over to sleep.


Later, much much later, the three of us set out for a walk. The rain seems to have emptied much of Cambridge, and certainly the chairs colorfully scattered across the Harvard campus were empty...






But we were spared. Though the sky remained threatening, it was an empty threat. Our umbrellas stayed tucked in our bags.

We paused for a very very late breakfast (can 3:30 be properly regarded as the breakfast hour?) at the Friendly Toast, near MIT...




After, we decided to take a chance. Ignoring the dark clouds, we hiked downtown. All the way across the river...





toward the lively Back Bay area, and eventually to the Public Gardens.






Ed was clearly unwinding. Only on the subway ride back to Cambridge did I notice how tired he looked. The face cannot hide the strain of a a tough week.





Late at night, the storms finally came, breaking the silence of the skies. We made our way to a local place (French? Cuban?), Chez Henri, where the atmosphere is boisterous and cheerful, drowning out the pounding rain outside.





We ended the day with a pear tatin. And ice cream. Defiantly, spiritedly. Matching the temperament of these late October days.

to Cambridge

On the flight to Boston, I have the pleasure of sitting next to a very beautiful couple (in my estimation). She’s chatty and though I usually prefer quiet, especially if I have been up since before dawn, I find myself sort of enjoying her comments and questions. Eventually I reciprocate and ask what she does.

My husband and I, we’re funeral home directors.

It’s a family business – a fifth generation hand-me-down from his parents. Lucky thing she met her future husband while still in college. Realizing her fate, she quickly switched majors to funeral science.

Did you even know you can major in funeral science?

Somewhere in Oklahoma, in a small town, this 30 year old beautiful woman with her somewhat less beautiful but still cool enough guy and their four children hang around the funeral home. The kids go there after school. We have our home just down the block, but there’s also a little apartment above the business. You know, my husband lived there as a kid.

Huh.

So what’s trendy in funerals these days? I guess business is steady. People die in spite of the economy,..
That’s actually not true. Data show that during the depression/recession, the death rate goes down.
We speculate why this may be so, but neither of us comes up with a plausible theory.
And the trimmings, so to speak, people buy differently during a recession.

Have you noticed a push toward cremation? I’m getting really into this. I have never chatted with a stunningly beautiful funeral director before.
Quite the opposite. 90% of the families choose the traditional arrangement (she means plunking the old relative into a cemetery plot). Do you know it’s cheaper to ship your dead relative to us in Oklahoma than to bury him or her, say, in California, where plots cost a fortune?

I did not know that.

And this trip to Boston, is it vacation? I think everyone needs a break – from four kids, from funerals…
Well, yes and no. We’re going to a convention and we’re adding on a few days for fun.
A convention?
Yes, of funeral directors. We’re quite excited to see what’s new out there.


The flight circles a little, over coastal waters and Massachusetts colors...





It’s not raining yet when I arrive in Cambridge, but the predictions are ominous. The great Midwest storms are reaching the coast tomorrow.





I hurry toward my daughter's apartment. We have the eating venues mapped out for the week-end. The great thing about loving good food is that eating it is not weather dependent.

Let the rains come down.

rain

I read in the news tonight that a Northwest flight overshot Minneapolis by about 150 miles. For two hours, they were flying…nowhere. Possibly the pilots were asleep. Typically, not being a fan of delays, I would have, myself, inquired as to why we weren’t arriving where we should be arriving as the clock ticked past the scheduled arrival hour. Perhaps others don't fret about tardiness as much as I do.

I’m not concerned with a rerun of pilots oversleeping the city where we should land. Even though, early in the morning (again, before sunrise) I’m taking a Northwest flight to Minneapolis. I like Northwest. And I think it’s a good thing that their planes fly of their own accord, even when pilots doze off or lose track of time and destination.






My big challenge, though, is not in getting to Boston on time (Boston is my final destination), but in getting all my work done in the way that it has to be done before I scoot off for a (mostly) non working week-end.

Right now, it’s hard to imagine that there may come a day when I will not be counting how much sleep I missed in the past night or week or month. And there will come a day when I will regard this cold and rainy spell as pretty tame weather. For now, I can hardly stay awake long enough to report that today felt awfully chilly.

notes on a period of more or less twelve hours

Tuesday, midnight. Can’t sleep. It could be that we’re sleeping on the floor and the sheet beneath me is moving too much and the pillow is moving as well, having the whole floor to explore and discover.

We’re actually in a pleasant enough building – a quarter of a block from Union Square. One of these:





We are in a partial basement. In the morning, I see high heels walk by in front of the window.

But really, I am not hugely uncomfortable. I do not need fluff and comfort to sleep. But I need a calm mind.

My thoughts are running through the day’s proceeding. If Ed is experiencing them on an intellectual level, I am on that and ten others. At midnight, there on the floor of a building on east 17th, they’re all clamoring to be heard.

At some predawn hour I finally doze. I tell myself that this is only the second night of no sleep. I can usually take up to three before I break down.


In the morning, Ed and I have some free time. The trial is full of interruptions due to events that suddenly call away this person or that. Amazing, really.

But we don’t really have free time. Not free as in free. Free as in Ed doesn’t have to be in court until past noon.

We walk out and take note of the Union Square market. Manhattan’s big-time farmers market. Not more abundant than the one in Madison. But bigger in the urban sense: each stall is large and the buildings in the background are big and the people – well, they’re not big, they’re just you and me only wonderfully less monochromatic and less frumpy.




























We stroll through the market briefly and I remind Ed that I really would like a morning coffee. We go to Starbucks, but I see that he is worried. The small wait at Starbucks pushes him to an impatient restlessness that I never see back in Madison.

On now to Filene’s Basement. Ed needs shirts. His one shirt wont do for the weeks of trial, and I don’t care how good the radiator is for drying purposes, it’s not the same.

We pick shirts that are under $20. Ties? No. He has one that he bought ten years ago. Still has the price tag on it. $3.99. Will do. [Wince]

And now there is a short bit of morning left. Ed wants to head down to the NY Supreme Court to do some research on previous cases implicating some of these same players.

We do that. The basement, where the records and files are kept, is an amazing place. Rough, shoddy even. But with character. Of the people – from all wakes of life.

But we have to hurry. It’s noon. Ed’s case resumes at 12:15. My flight leaves at 2:29. We head toward the proper court building. Ed's good in his new shirt, funeral suit and never worn tie, even as I may have played a little with the colors and textures, given the chance. But, to me, he also looks amazingly vulnerable. Wishing to be maybe closer to Lake Mendota than to the Verrazano Narrows and the Atlantic Ocean.





I rejoin the trial, but only for a small handful of minutes. I tell myself – I know where this is heading. I know the legal arguments. There will be no surprises. Still…

But, I have a job. Two jobs in fact. By 1 I am hailing a cab. Over the Brooklyn Bridge we go.

By 1:45, I know that I will not make my flight. The cabbie wants to cut the traffic by exiting the freeway. Mistake. We are out of luck. I am out of luck. I should be at La Guardia. Instead, I am somewhere here…





More manipulations that add dollars to the meter, but cut away travel minutes. At 2, he pulls up to the Delta terminal. By 2:15 I am on the plane, ready to head home.


I have work for school and I have to work tonight at the little shop. But right now, on this dinker of a plane, I cannot work. I am just tired. I ask the attendant for a blanket. For a long long time, I sit, wrapped in it, wanting to get warm inside and out.

may it please the court…

I was, of course, mesmerized.

I was also tired. Up at 3, one flight in the dark, one just at sunrise.





I force myself to work in the air and that's good. Like taking a sedative.

In New York, I blow $29 on a cab because I have a chance to get to the Court House for the “all rise” part (i.e. the very beginning).





Why the cabbie gets bogged down in Brooklyn before crossing over to Manhattan is one of those mysteries of urban life, but no matter. I arrive on time. And he gets a fine tip. Make that then $35.


The courthouse has many, many security measures at the point of entry, ones that are at odds with security measures at airports. I wonder which ones are more effective.


I enter. Such an old, old court room...





...And then all assemble...





...and the trial begins. Except not really. The pre-lunch session is a review of motions and objections. I had forgotten about all this. I hadn’t been in court on a client case in nearly ten years. I had forgotten the dynamics. I had, most of all, forgotten how nothing, absolutely nothing beats being sharp and prepared. And honorable.

We recess for lunch and the team of attorneys ushers us to a place where lots of judges and lawyers eat. They then tactfully leave us alone, thinking surely Ed wants to take the time to celebrate his birthday with his occasional traveling companion. (Eh.. everyday's a birthday!)


We walk back amidst a flurry of last minute words about strategy, and litigation, and me asking -- why does the court allow these kinds of lawsuits to go forward?





At the trial, following opening statements, Ed begins to testify. He does well and even manages a wry laugh when asked the date of his birth. Today actually. Really? The judge is surprised. (Wry laugh.) You should have told us earlier. (Boisterous laugh now. Because what -- would they have sang a round of happy birthday then?) The judge, a no nonsense woman, has a sense of humor.


Today’s segment of the trail ended at five. Actually two minutes before five. Mustn’t run the stenographer and guard into overtime.

My older daughter is in town for her own lawyerly work and she sits with me for part of the proceeding. To compare notes and to reflect some more, I think, on the legal process.

She, Ed and I take a long walk and finally settle in for an end of the day drink: me: glass of wine; daughter: half a glass of wine; Ed (stripped now of his courthouse finery): do you have diet ginger ale? (they don’t).










My daughter takes off for DC and Ed and I walk through the Village. You know the streets – Bleeker, Spring, MacDougal, Cornelia.





At Cornelia, we stop at a place I thought he might like – Pearl’s Oyster Bar.

We eat oysters and share a lobster and I can’t say the evening feels celebratory and yet it does.





I’ll leave tomorrow, quite early actually, but I know things are moving forward and I have great respect for the attorneys who have worked so hard on this case, to do well by Ed (and, therefore, by his parents).

On a lighter note, I cannot believe that I had the opportunity to see Ed in a suit and tie (see photos above). Forget the docksiders. I know no sane person would wear brown docksiders with a bluish gray pinstripe suit, but I have to believe the judge never noticed. If she did, she never let on.

NYC – what is it about you...

You know the true sign of getting past the middle part of middle age? When you start taking out the bag to pack for a trip days in advance of that trip. Just to avoid the anxiety of figuring out at the last minute what combo of uninteresting pieces can pass as not frumpy.

So, my backpack for tomorrow’s trip is packed and ready. Which is good, as I have to leave by 4 in the morning.


To be in Manhattan again. I can’t tell you how many flirtations I have had with that city (in the way that you sometimes flirt with people who are not necessarily all that good for you)! I lived there, dreamed about it after, cried my way walking up and down streets and avenues, loved it once, hated it more than once – God, what a place.

Realistically, it’s a very brief trip. 24 hours, intensely focused on the law.

I’ll try to find a moment to tell you about it.

Oh, oh, you think I’m neglecting Ocean with my photos of the day? You are so wrong. It was a beautiful day! I biked to work in a dreamy state, forgetting for the duration of the ride all that I have on my plate right now. It was all about October trees against blue skies and blue waters and ducks waddling and shaking and generally having a fantastic time in the water.

the law

They say you never really understand how a complicated civil case works its way through the court system unless you, yourself have been implicated in one. Not as a lawyer, but as a defendant or plaintiff.

I think I agree. I remember when I represented parents in cases where they allegedly abused or neglected their children. I had a healthy amount of detachment from my clients’ issues. It’s not, I don’t think, that I lacked empathy. But, at the end of the day, I walked away and picked up my other life, my real life.


For the last four years, I have tracked a series of complicated legal proceedings involving my occasional traveling companion. Truly, they have profoundly affected the way I now regard the positioning of a client in a legal claim.

This week, a trail begins in New York, and it has elements of every kind of law – family, property, negligence even. In other words, every subject that I teach at the law school. The case is Ed’s case and therefore not something I would explain here, but I’ll say this much: Ed is as quiet in life as anyone I’ve ever met. And yet, he’s stuck in a legal quagmire that is absolutely consuming – of time and resources. He once told me that he retired early so he could devote himself to straightening out this legal mess (not of his making).

Sometimes I have wondered why he doesn’t just not try. He wouldn’t admit it, but I think he is committed to doing what is surely right out of a profound love and respect for his (now deceased) dad and mom.

I mention all this because he is in New York now and I am struggling to get work completed this week-end so that I can fly out just for a day (and a half!) for the beginning of the several week-long trial. Teaching and my little shop obligations prevent me from spending more time out of Madison, but on Tuesday, on his 59th birthday (everyday is a birthday!), the 4th anniversary of our meeting (doesn’t celebrate that either), I’ll be at the Supreme Court of New York, listening very carefully.

(Sometimes life has too much drama.)

In the meantime, today, I checked up on the cats. They’re doing well, Ed. Here’s something that’ll make you smile:










For the rest of Ocean readers, I understand that photos of two feral cats may be a little too little. So I’ll post photos from my bike ride over to the farmette and back again. The last photo is of beef bourguignon, from an Alice Waters recipe. Prepared by friends who are really really good at looking after me in times of stress and worry.

the essentials

I have, over the years, slowed down. You don’t notice it when it happens. One day, you’re flying between court cases and class teaching and restaurant baking and childcare and garden work and gutter cleaning and school newspaper editing and Nutcracker rehearsal schedules (because your kid is Clara and what a time suck that is!) and fresh and honest dinner cooking and and then suddenly, at some later date, you notice that, line by line, your list has grown shorter. Whited out over time. Down to three items. Four during the holiday season.

So that it hardly seems excessive that I should run now from one job to the other, plan dinner menus in advance, think about a post when riding the bus home. The days are, for the most part, orderly and I know that I have made them that way. By the time you’re in your upper fifties (56 is upper, isn’t it?), you have either given in to chaos or you have perfected order. I have perfected order.

Today, that order is pristine and solid. With Ed away, my day is stripped down to only these essentials: grade exams, work in shop, eat dinner, post on Ocean. That’s it.

I’m thinking -- as I wake up in that predawn hour of undefined light -- I’m thinking that I should add to it. And so, even though I have just made a Cousances pot (I have the old one, before Le Creuset bought the company) of roasted tomato soup, and hashed a truckload of brussel sprouts (with olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and white wine), I want to go to the market. I want to stare at crates of produce. Because too soon, the market season will be over.

So this is what I leave for you: a morning (one of the last) at the Westside Community Market. As the sun breaks. And the pears come out of their purple shadows and the carrots and pumpkins show off their carotene pigments in the sudden burst of early light.

leaves

My feeling is that if you can’t brag about the colors just outside your door in mid-October, then what good is mid-October?





Which brings me to a different but not unrelated point. A friend said yesterday that her aging in-laws were moving from their assisted living residence at Spring Meadows, to the next level of assisted living – Autumn Leaves. I spent a few moments thinking about which name was more likable. Which lead me to search all the names of old people’s homes in Dane County. A discouraging activity. Though I had a small laugh out of this one – the Home of Infinite Ability.


In the NYTimes this week-end, readers are asked to come forth with their definition of age (I did submit one because I think it’s cool to write for the NYTimes). And so now I'm again thinking about October: it's an old month, don’t you think? But isn’t it ironic that, living in the northern Midwest, the month you really come to dislike is at-the-cusp-of-spring March? So unpredictable!

It was an all around day of work for me.

settling in?

Finally. Half way into the semester, I have developed a rhythm. I’m in control. When I have a few minutes of spare time (on the bus ride in maybe?), I use them well. At night, I know when to turn off the light and force sleep. On Sunday, I have to work on Tuesday’s class (because there wont be time on Monday) and Tuesday, I have to imagine a blogpost in the evening hours that I work at the shop. I can’t write it then, but I have to imagine it.

So, having said that, I am about to abandon it all and hit a period of turmoil. Nothing will be as it was up to now. I have disruptions in October, in November, and really, by the time we hit December, I may as well give up, because there is nothing normal about any single day of that month.

It’s funny that I should have developed a good pace now. Useless, really, but for this one brief moment in time – deeply satisfying.

Oh, sorry. You may want a photo or two from today. Well, in between classes and meetings with students, I took a two minute break to gaze out my office window. When students ask why I have the office I do (it’s disproportionately small), I tell them it’s because of this – a huge window that looks out on Bascom Mall and the mighty trees that line its paths.





Another photo? Sure, I have one more: walking home late at night (from the lovely little corner shop), I pass, as always, the big grocery store. It’s open round the clock and I find myself going in more often than not – maybe out of a feeling of solidarity toward the late evening shift. I pick up a few needed items and I head home. It’s a deeply satisfying routine -- comforting, warming, invigorating even, because I know that soon I’ll be safely at the condo, feet up, cup of soup steaming, glass of wine at least half full.

Tonight, though, there is a drizzle that makes me pick up the pace just a little. Though I do pause. Because these pumpkins on a wet walk are too beautiful to ignore.





Cold, wet nights. Beautiful in their own way. No kidding.

stillness

Early in the day, Ed and I take a walk to the market. A typical November market. You don’t think “bounty!” Instead, you notice the empty spaces, the absence of bright colors, the chill in the air.





It’s the kind of day when you’re thrilled to see brussel sprouts.





But the market seems strained. As if the farmers had to dig extra deep to bring even this much.

I pick up squash, onions, cauliflower, garlic. And tomatoes. And brussel sprouts. I’ll be cooking for one (and only one) in the weeks ahead. It will be a time of soups, prepared, then reheated. A time of early nights, and earlier mornings.

Ed’s flying off tomorrow (court time, in NY) and I’m envisioning days of sifting and sorting. Pruning the garden of weeds and dried brush (even as it wont really be a garden, let alone one with weeds, or with dried brush).


Walking to campus, I think that even though there are colors out there, they don’t make the world more colorful. She appears indifferent to the guy, he seems indifferent to her, and the bus rolls along, unconcerned about the season, about anything except getting the pack of kids back home on time.











I am happy that people whom I care about are just a phone call or an email message away.