snow stories

It was the kind of snow that made the roads wet, but not in a pretty way. With the thermometer hovering just a breath above freezing, it’s as if it couldn’t make up its mind whether to stick or disappear in a puddle.

We took the back road east out of Madison.









But the landscape remained relentlessly misty wet and understated and so we rejoined the highway, speeding all the way to Milwaukee, where we turned north, leaving the wet blocks of a city that looks especially dispirited on a tail end of winter kind of day.


I was feeling apologetic. The trip was my idea. We hadn’t done enough of Wisconsin winter exploring, what with my moonlighting at the shop and my incessant case reading. It was supposed to have been sunny, so I had reason to push us out.

But it wasn’t sunny.

As we approached Cedarburg (just 20 miles north of Milwaukee, and a few miles inland from Lake Michigan), I was thinking that we’ll likely not leave the b&b much. It was that wet outside.

Cedarburg is an old milling town and it is probably one of the best preserved such towns in Wisconsin. Money hasn’ flown to the peripheries like in so many places with quasi abandoned main streets. Along Cedarburg's main drag, I counted no fewer than four bustling cafés, a boulangerie, three chocolate shops – in addition to the bars, crafts stores, barber shops and a funky rebuilt retro movie house (where the live person behind the window shouted out hello to passersby).





But I couldn’t shake the thought that this 24 hour get away (I have to work Sunday) was ill-planned. We’ve got some wet weather here – was Ed’s comment as he got out of the Geo.

Our b&b was on the Main Street – a dangerous choice if you’re traveling with Ed as he regards street noise as something to run from. But I had liked the looks of this simple but solid old structure, and its good prices (even on a week-end, $85 for two, with breakfast).





Once inside, I relaxed. The place is quiet. The kind where you expect to hear a clock tick. Ed nodded – it’s nice , he tells me.










The late afternoon. It’s a “last chance” time of day. We decide to ignore the wet thin flakes and to head out for the Lion’s Den Gorge Nature Preserve on the shores of Lake Michigan.

It’s funny how the same wet flakes that fall over the paved roads and stubby cornfields look entirely different in a forest.


The air is still and at the top of the bluff we can hear the soft ripple of lake waters moving over the pebbles by the shore.





Not frozen this year, not even at the edges.

We follow the Bluff Trail to the gorge and it is so completely quiet that even a whispered comment seems too much. Ed's hair and beard become magnets for the flakes. They hold on for a minute, then melt away.





As we descend the bluff, the forest looks pretty enough to be on a holiday card. Season's Greetings from Wisconsin!









The air is wet with mist and the shoreline quickly disappears somewhere into the same horizon that hides the edges of the Great Lake.





It’s a beautiful walk. Up the hill now and around the loop. We encounter a man and a lively dog. A real jumper he is. Yes, I’m training him. He’s getting better. Leap, wag, leap – who can blame him. The snow, the wet end of winter air, the red dogwood branches – it’s all rather inspiring. Leap, bark – I could see joining him in this.





But we move on. Birches, cedar, so completely still that not a single flake is blown off..










In Cedarburg we abandon the car and poke around Main Street. Breads, pastries, chocolate, coffee. Life's essentials. Someone has figured it out. We stuff our pockets for the critical moment when we just may need a pecan caramel cluster.









The lights are on now. At the curb, ice sculptures from some former winter event are barely surviving in the 35 degree weather.





We walk out on the old rail bridge that crosses the river here. It’s part of the Interurban rail connection that once linked Sheboygan and Milwaukee.











We eat dinner at Morton’s – a local pub. At least we’re told that this is where the locals eat. As so many travelers, we like to eat foods geared for local tastes, even if up and down Wisconsin, those tastes don’t change much – the menu will have the burgers and steaks and fried fish and cobb salads -- all that any good Midwesterner would like to see on a night out. But there’s always a twist that’ll make a pub stand apart. Here, I read we can have a fried cheesecake or Cajun friend shrimp or friend artichoke.





I stay with a good little steak and Ed puts together his own Cobb salad and we watch the Olympics on a big screen that for once grabs no one’s attention except my own. The colors and noises of a pub are such a contrast to the silence of the afternoon! But I'm not complaining. It has been such a good day.

escape

Two days ago, on a break from case reading, I looked up the weather for the week-end. Sunny! -- weather.com announced.

It seemed right to give winter a final moment in the spotlight. Sorry, -- in the sun. To get in the car, head out into the countryside, and then dive into a snowbank or two, all the while reveling in glorious light of a February afternoon.

What I appreciate about my occasional traveling companion is this: when nothing turns out to be as it had been planned, he appears not to notice.

(Today, he appeared not to notice.)

The details are for tomorrow. Though let me leave you with a hint of where we are at the moment:





No no, not the Gulf of Mexico. Here, let me add another hopeful to help sort things properly.





Tomorrow I’ll explain. For now, let me say this much: Wisconsin can offer up splendid days even in February, even when the sun stays well hidden behind puffy clouds of gray.

a wild ride

Not many obsess about the IRS in mid-February.

This year, I did.

It started a week ago, when I received a friendly note from my state benefits office informing me that for reason X, Y & Z, and don’t forget about Q, they will, for a year, impute income to me. Income that I will never see or touch, but that the IRS will be very happy to tax. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Then, today, I Turbo-taxed my way to a wee refund for 2009. Mind you, hardly even a splash of coins, but it could well have been a seizure rather than a splash (moonlighting messes with proper withholding) and so I breathed a sigh of relief.

Also today, I received a letter from the IRS (always a fright), the much dreaded final word on my audited, challenged, appealed deduction, taken back in 2007 (when I was very young and optimistic). I shredded the envelope, looked inside and discovered that the IRS ruled in my favor. I do not need to go to debtor’s prison after all.


I belong to a small minority of Americans who do not despise taxation. But I deeply dislike unpredictability and confusion and so I have to say that the governing bodies who wrangle over additions, deductions, and in general, modifications to the Code (thus exacerbating confusion in my already confused head) do not have my “thumbs up.”

It seems that this month I have traversed some pretty rough IRS terrain. Can you please relax it a bit for the remainder of the year? Please?

quiet

The week is done. Food served, lecture delivered, every last email answered. One more apartment inspected, one more conversation ended.

It’s Thursday night. I’ve switched hours and so I don’t even have shop work to fill my evening.

I know – this is just one person’s blog, one writer’s story, but tonight my story is that I only want to revel in the quietness of the moment. Nothing more to add to that.

(Photo from the afternoon -- a quick glance at Bascom Hill, still very much under a winter cover of snow.)

running for rosé

At the noon hour I walked briskly up State Street, then back down again (meeting accomplished). I didn’t have to speed along. But I had been properly labeled as over some abstract hill when a student-type offered me a seat on the crowded morning bus (second time in a month!) and so I thought that maybe I should strive for a quicker pace during the day. To make up for my perceived slowness. (I really do not mind being older. I do mind being regarded as older.)

I hurried, too, because it’s winter still and winter does not invite leisurely steps. In four months, this storefront will dump the mittens and put out sundresses, but that’s not for four months and in any case, we rush seasons here.





It could be that running from A to B is good for the mind as much as it’s good for the body. It could be. But at the moment, my mind is concentrating so wholeheartedly on other things (work) that I cannot imagine a quick sprint would do it much good. Now, maybe if it was to be followed by a carafe of rosé, preferably with bread and cheese... None were in the offering. Not at the noon hour anyway.

keeping things neat

Ed and I looked at apartments this afternoon. No, not for us. As a favor for a person considering a move to Madison.

It was instructive.

I have two comments on the experience: first, I am not surprised, but still just a little discouraged that rentals in this country, or at least in this town, continue to be of a transitional kind. These are not places where you move to and you stay way past when your kids are grown and gone. They’re places where you stay before you buy something.

And that’s a shame, for any number of reasons.

Secondly, I notice a great deal of disrespect (therefore?) for the premises that people inhabit in this transitional time (however long it may last). Messy, filthy -- these are words that come to mind. And mind you, I am looking at places that are meant for the young professional set. Why spend money on a good place if you’re going to treat it so poorly?

I wonder, is this born of privilege? Because in my years of growing up in Poland, I never quite saw anything like it. Poland does not have a reputation for cleanliness, but I never saw the slovenliness there that I see here.

Ed tells me – this is the way people live. (Meaning: this would be his preference as well.) He tells me I’m the outlier in my constant tidying and polishing.

Am I?

I’ll leave you with the flip side of this – an aesthetically pleasing, lovely bouquet of flowers from the bride and groom of last week's wedding. The buds are a comfort to me. Beauty matters. It doesn’t have to be complicated or extravagant. Indeed, I prefer it simple. And breathtakingly lovely.

sun strokes

The sun has value beyond simple aesthetics – so opined a court in a decision I discussed in class today.

Of course, the dissenting opinion strongly disagreed. That’s the nature of the game: you can always find a naysayer in court.

I’m with the majority here. Indeed, I’ll go so far as to offer up a whole week of spring days if only I can have a guarantee of one week of sunny days in late February.



Five years ago, I discovered a café that would be my café of choice for several years – until I left the downtown in favor of condo living. (Was it a good decision? Probably not, in hindsight, but few of us are born with eyes that can look beyond the moment.)

Early this morning, I find myself close by and so I stop for breakfast coffee. The sun strokes the Tuscan colors on the wall. Nice, I think. Nice.





Maybe I should have never left, I say to the café owner.

She laughs. Hindsight games.


Heading back to my office, I walk up toward the Square. The sun is gone now. Prickly snow flakes appearing out of nowhere are a poor substitute. Color? Oh, you can always find color. Earlier, I saw it in a store window. Hiding behind strips of film.






Now it's evident in a church door, and on the square itself.










But one hour into the cloudy morning, I sure as hell miss the sun.


P.S. I appreciate comments, I do, and I know that the clutter in the sidebar keeps this message well-hidden for the casual reader, but, just so you know – I’ll only publish a comment that has a name attached to it. Silly rule, considering. But I do stick with it.

Valentine's Day

Perhaps no other day highlights the difference in the temperament between myself and my occasional traveling companion, Ed, than this February 14th.

Or, you could say that this day offers an opportunity to find common ground.

Valentine’s Day. You can’t get Ed to say one good word about it. And before you swear allegiance to this anti-Hallmarkian stance, let me throw in that there are no kind words offered by him toward Christmas or Thanksgiving or even birthdays.

Oh, wouldn’t it be simple and grand if I disliked all the above as well! But I don’t.

We wake up to a beautiful day. Happy Valentine’s Day.


Working on matters of budget and taxes I come to a critical point where I realize that a wrench has been thrown into my calculations, terribly upsetting budget projections for the year ahead.

This day is not looking happy.

And yet...

I flush out my options and I have a sympathetic ear in my traveling buddy.

In the end, I'm able to put it aside. The sun is piercing. I want to head out. I haven’t much time – there’s so much to read, so much to absorb for work – and yet I feel that a few outdoor hours would be a wise investment.

Loving yesterday’s hike along Lake Mendota, I suggest we give the other lake (Lake Monona) equal time.

We start out at the edge, where the fishermen hang out.





...Where little boys follow their dads, finding pleasure in just scooping out snow and ice from the drilled holes.





Why are they all leaving now, at the height of the afternoon? – Ed asks.
Probably heading home, with roses for the women.

We make our way across Lake Monona in brilliant sunshine. It’s quiet here. The city is removed.

This is what Ed and I do well: we walk through snow in the quiet of a day. Even as I know that once off the lake, I'll have to take stock of what's around me.





Or, maybe I'll forget the rough edges. Maybe all will feel beautifully serene.







The hike back is straight into the wind. I’m okay with that. Wind wipes out angst.










Later, we stop at Barrique’s for a coffee and perhaps this should be my Valentine’s moment. Because it has a heart, delivered.





At Trader Joe’s Ed asks – do you want Cava for tonight? (Cava is inexpensive bubbly.)

In the afternoon, Ed goes back to care for his cats and I work on my law classes.

The day is nearly done. I take a moment to make soup for us and pour the Cava. The Winter Olympics are on, but Ed tunes out, as I follow my longstanding love affair with these games.

Love. Not even I can find solace in a Valentine’s insistence on it. But looking back, I find no fault with this day. Which is a good thing.

winter!

I wake up to a zesty day – well below freezing. But oh, the sunshine!

Saturday. Work? No. Not today. I may pay for this later, I may scream then at the intensity of work pressures, but when I see a glorious blue against a glittering winter landscape, I put away thoughts of a bookish day and head out.

My occasional traveling companion is on board. Today, we are travelers alright, even as we don’t really go anywhere. We are fully in vacation mode.

Which, to me, means that we give ourselves no easy breaks, no indulgences. Sure, as I watch the races and runs of the Winter Olympics, I have to think that my own push is the equivalent to another’s naptime. But hey, my typical winter hours have books and computer screens in them. Though not today. Today, we do what the northerner must do to stay happy: embrace winter.

I have a plan.

Let’s walk down to campus and see what the Hoofers are up to.

If you take the pretty route, that’s a five mile hike. But the Hoofers (UW’s lakeside sports club) are holding a series of winter events on Lake Mendota and driving down seems so terribly wrong. You want to hang with sporty types, you better work your own leg muscles. Cold temperatures notwithstanding.

At the lake, we abandon the path and take to the frozen waters.

It’s safe, right?
I know the answer, but I have to ask. What do I know about soft spots and cracking ice. (Later, an ice fisherman tells me: you need two inches to walk on it and eight inches to drive across it. Where are we at now? - I ask. Sixteen inches.)

The walk is slow. The lake has a lovely if a bit soft layer of snow.

Ed, my traveling buddy, hasn’t the footwear for this, but he never acknowledges the cold and so we stumble forward.





We come up to a pair of fisher guys.

A good fishing day? I ask
Yes, very good.
What fish?
Oh, northern pike, of course.
Of course. So you’re taking a lot home?
No, none. We can only take back fish that are more than 40 inches. Still, it’s been a good day. We took in and threw back some six or seven.
So nothing for the dinner table?
Oh, if you do catch a 40 incher, you don’t eat it! It’s entirely for the mantel!

There you have it, a definition of a good day: sitting on the ice until sunset, waiting for a fish.

He shows us how he sets the lines in drilled holes. And miraculously, at that moment he gets a bite.
They’re nasty fish. Big teeth. I’ve been bitten raw in the last couple of days.









This one’s no different. The live fish bait is still half way into the mouth of the trapped catch. They struggle to get it out. It seems a little like pulling out a piece of steak from an alligator’s mouth.





We leave the happy fishermen. Only to encounter the truly happy kite guy, Jason.

His brother tells me that since he started with the kite hobby, Jason cannot let it go.
Want to try? Jason asks.

Of course I do. But it’s not easy.
It’s like dancing with a partner. It feels great, doesn’t it?
Sure, yes, of course. But it’s delicate work and I don’t want to crash this man’s kite into the ice. How much does the kite cost – I ask, just in case.
This one, Nirvana, is French. $450.
My God. I hand back the reigns and watch Jason do an expert run at the dance.





Just off the Union Terrace (remember: we are on the lake) we come across the "submerged" Liberty.





It’s all a tad surreal: the statue, bikers taking a spin on the lake, aerial skydivers, zeroing in toward us.









I’m enthralled.

We find a Hoofer with a traction kite and he gives us a lesson on how to work the powerful wind sail.
Don’t ever let anyone come between you and the kite. It can wrap itself around the neck of an interloper very quickly.













We know to pull down the kites when the jumpers come at us.









A skydiver asks if I want to sign up for a lesson in the air.

No. Absolutely positively no.


Back on the shore, we watch a sculptor chisel away at Bucky.





The terrace is the place of the orange, yellow and green summer tables and chairs. Today, kids are pushing a puck around on a miniature ice rink.





The sun is low now and I’m feeling the cold. The walk home is a long four mile trek. We take a five minute break at the Rathskellar...









...and pick up the lake path toward home.





We heap sweet potatoes with leftover slices of smoked salmon and creme fraiche and settle in to watch the Winter Games. Or I do. My occasional traveling companion burrows deeply under a quilt. He claims he doesn't really dream, but watching him, I think his mind is running over the vectors of the kite's path.

winter wedding

People marry. More often than not, actually. And remarry. And think about marrying. (Though I know a number who would not include themselves in this group.) And then eventually, they go ahead and do it. Tie the knot. Lives linked. Voila! This is my husband. Not boyfriend anymore. This is my wife. We are privileged, legally privileged to care for each other. You are!

When I see a wedding, I think that this is so precious – this celebrated vision of toddling along in life next to your loved one.

Where there are weddings, there are, of course, rituals and traditions.

But sometimes, not so many.

Take the wedding I attended this morning. I learned of it recently. Very recently.
Hey, we’re getting married!
At last! When?!
Two weeks maybe... If we can get a date.

They got a date. For today.

When a wedding is terrifically modest and simple, it is no less enchanting. A knot is a knot. And the small things – a hand movement, a touch on the shoulder – are noticed. Appreciated.


And then onto the important eating. My Polish blood boils enough in my veins that I think of weddings as great eating opportunities.


















And then it is over. But not really. We stay and we talk grandiose talk of dreams and goals and projects and it seems to me that there's worth in these kinds of statements, because if you say something out loud, it sounds more serious and therefore likely to really take sprout. Someday.

She smiles, he smiles, and then we are not part of their smiles anymore because at a wedding, at some point you have to allow the just marrieds to take off. To their married life. As it should be.

in the heat of the night

First of all, when Madison skies are this blue in February, you know it's a cold day.





When the only booth on Library Mall is one where a vendor sells fleece wraps, and those fleece wraps are flying as if they were kites gone wild -- it's really really cold.





When Bascom Hill looks enchanting and a little remote, Canadian almost -- I'm reminded that we're still in deep winter.





And when the bus stop is deserted, but for a brave lass with a very furry hood and her ever loyal, no matter what the weather, boy, perhaps friend, it has to be a a sign. Of something. Maybe a sign that I should get home already.





Home. Such a pleasant idea at the end of the week. And it's unusually pleasant in a challenging sort of way as I have a lunch to prepare for tomorrow. For twelve people. At my house. At noon. And I cannot be home just before the first guests arrive. So that the entire meal has to be cooked in advance. I am, at the moment grilling things. At midnight.

I think it's still cold outside, but I wouldn't know. The stove has been working overtime.

les Demoiselles at the bus stop

There are, during winter, these fabulously decadent moments when you close your eyes and put your face to the sun and it feels sooooooo luxurious, because the warmth on your skin is so rare now, and because this is something that you imagine happens more in the Alpine regions, among ski bunnies. Not on a Wednesday afternoon in downtown Madison. Just off of Park Street.

But, on days that I can, I have been snatching a few seconds of just this: sunshine, hitting a small corner of the sidewalk, at the Park Street bus stop.

Today, I am not the only one.





Their eyes are not closed, but they have that radiant winter look that comes to those who love, love, love the cold outdoors (or those who wear make-up that gives such an impression). Especially today, on this sumptuous day in the Alps... well, actually at the bus stop.

wheels

In the morning, I see the snow. It isn’t beautiful – not in the downward fall. It’s rather skimpy, even as I learn that it will be a significant accumulation. But it’s my big storm of the season (I was out of town the previous two) and fact is, you can’t count on there being a repeat performance. Not this year anyway.

Which leads me to say this:

We are fifty days away from the darkest point of the year. That means 100 of the dark days of the year are behind us.

Interesting, no?

And here’s another point – we are wheeling into the good season. And some of us begin wheeling even before the tire grips the road.





And that hope, that optimism is really inspiring. Or at the very least amusing.

I can’t say that I am there, counting the days ‘til March 20th (just four weeks away! That’s 28 days!) – the calendar Spring day that belongs to... well, mostly calendars (because my mother tells me that in California, it is now spring, and I can retort, were I into making retorts, that here, in Wisconsin, we may still be months away from daffodils). But I can say this much: things are looking good!

snapshots

Love. I know, it’s too early to be posting about love. That’s Sunday talk. Valentine’s Day "nonsense."

Still, as I stop at a café to pick up a morning espresso and I see it – the love of the person who has seen it all, and still he likes best what he sees next to him – her. Leaning now so completely on his shoulder.





My instant thought is that I’ve been hanging around State Street too long. (For non-Wisconsin people, State Street is our campus-to-Capitol street, and at my end of it, there are more students per lamppost than anywhere else in town.) The cafés there are laptop places where people drink coffee to buy themselves a spot where they can work.

My second thought is more generous: because really, why does anyone choose to open a laptop at Barrique’s or Espresso Royale or Ancora? Surely for the love of being among people.

Warm flesh, or just someone to look up at every once in a while. To love at a distance. Secretly.





The flush of warmth that comes from being with bundled, busy, preoccupied, wonderful people. Such a reward after a walk alone.