to Berkeley

California. Who would think that I have such strong familial associations with the state! I tout my ties to Europe, to Poland, to New York -- all to the east of me -- but California to me feels remote. I admire aspects of it. I like its magnificent coastline, its tolerance for a funky lifestyle. I like the fruits that come to Wisconsin from there when we ourselves can't grow much in the winter months. There's a lot to like. From a distance.

Not so for at least a handful of members from my family. My uncle, my grandma and my mother all eventually settled there, all in the Bay Area, all choosing the good climate over whatever ties they had to places in the east. Until now. My mother is 94 years old and the time has come for her to give up on the year round sunshine and move closer to where I can keep tabs on her.

A downtown Madison apartment became available and it's more or less ready for her arrival. Today, I'm flying out to San Francisco to pick her up and bring her back to the Midwest. If all goes well, this will happen tomorrow.

So, this weekend brings with it a quick trip to the west coast.

An early predawn departure (with a lovely view of a morning  Madison skyline on the drive to the airport)...






A quick layover in Minneapolis, and then that magnificent flight over a land that is so vast, so plentiful, so endangered...











My travels are without issues. The weather is magnificent: you could not ask for more sunshine on either end of the trip. Though I haven't much time for actually doing anything that smacks of tourism, nonetheless, I do ride the BART train from the airport to Berkeley and it does pass through downtown San Francisco and so I disembark for one last walk through a city that I've visited so often, but am not likely to come back to in the near future. Hello pretty and hugely expensive San Francisco!






I turn my back to the downtown proper and head for the ferry landing. There is an indoor-outdoor market, with a view toward the Bay Bridge. Even though much of it is overwhelmed by tourists (I know, I know -- I'm one of them!), it's still rather lovely here.

I realize that I'm actually quite hungry. That Minneapolis Starbucks oatmeal didn't have the staying power I would have liked. But even though this city is prohibitively expensive, there are cheap alternatives and they're good alternatives! At the market, I pick up a combo lunch of carrot-ginger soup, with a side of seaweed, burdock, daikon radish, soybeans and who knows what else.  True, I eat it on a bench outside and out of a box, but the views over the water are splendid and I feel I'm eating stuff I could not find back home. The tab? $10 for what is a copious lunch.

The outdoor market is not unlike a summer market in southern France: there are a lot of ripe, exquisite peaches, nectarines, apricots.





I try not to be jealous of this. We do have plenty of peaches in Madison right now, but California ships them when they are very unripe. Sometimes they'll ripen to perfection on my kitchen counter. Sometimes they'll shrivel and give up the ship.  Here, peaches are sold at their most perfect moment of sweetness.

(They offer free samples. I eat many.)






The indoor market has a ceramics shop that I've grown to love because, well, a daughter loves it. My farmette breakfast coffee cup is chipped. Time to replace it with one from here! (No one could possibly afford more than one cup from this place. This is fine: we need only one. Ed does not drink coffee.)






I turn back toward the BART train stop.  Oh, yes -- funky California. You can ride your bike creatively here.






And I have to smile at the act a couple of guys do on the train itself. In Paris, the commuter train may have a person playing the violin or accordion for money. Here, someone is blasting rap and his buddy is doing acrobatics. He tells his train audience -- if you'e scared of black people, this dance is not for you. So clever! The car has a lot of white people returning to Berkeley. They demonstrate their absolute enthrallment with the "dance" by giving generously at the end of it.






I, too, get off in Berkeley, though I touch just the edge of it, bypassing the downtown, the campus, the commercial end of things.

I walk instead past the small cottages, all valued at perhaps several million dollars because, well, that's how things are in the bay area. On the upside, the flowers in some of the gardens are beautiful.










You get the feeling that people here really love color. And why shouldn't they -- it's with them ten months out of the year.






And, they have no mosquitoes.






My Holiday Inn Express is the same as every other motel of this sort. But I am grateful that if there is a view to be had from any of its windows, I come close to having it -- toward the campus that lies just at the base of the hills.





I feel I've come full circle. I first traveled to this town on a family road trip when I was a kid (we saw the USA in our Chevrolet), then returned as a young adult as I considered my graduate school options. (In the end I rejected Berkeley because it felt too far from my home base which, at the time, I still considered to be Europe. )

I'm glad I didn't come here. As I told my shocked mother -- I think the fact that the weather is the same ten months out of the year is such a drawback! (Our exchange on this point reminded me of the David Sedaris article I read while flying here: in it he tells some gun dudes in North Carolina that in England, where Sedaris lives, someone was arrested for shooting a burglar in his own home. The gun dude said -- I can't believe it! What is this world coming too!  Same story, different reaction depending on your mindset.)

Still, I understand that my mom has grown both used to this perpetual sunshine and very fond of it. Moving is never easy. Moving away from a place where she developed her patterns of a senior life -- ones that have served her grandly since, well, she's 94 and still explaining the ins and outs of life to her younger daughter (Mom, go to sleep. you can read my blog in Madison!) -- all this is hard, even for someone who has crossed the ocean many times in her life (though not as many as her younger daughter).

She has packed and shipped stuff earlier in the week. Today we just close suitcases (no small task) and make sure nothing's forgotten. And then we go out to her favorite place for dinner -- Luca's, just a few blocks from her home, my grandma's home too, and so a family home of sorts...





And I walk her back to it, this home she chose for herself for so many years.

We'll meet up early, because, well, most people who are moving across the country when they are 94 want to get to airports early.

reset

You can't plan out your day without allowing for the possibility of a reset. You may think life proceeds along a well laid track, but stuff happens. You have to be prepared to shift and even consider taking a different route.

Today was absolutely brilliant: beautiful to the core. So perfect! I'm thinking -- I'll tend to the garden (no, scratch that! the bugs!), shop for food (yes, definitely, we're low), pick up Snowdrop, take her to the park, shuttle her home and finish the day with a veggie seafood stir-fry at home with Ed.

First, a very quick look at the garden...

(An older day lily, with many buds...)

(A brand new day lily, with just a few...)

And I greet the little girls. Here's Tomato, looking oh so pretty these days!

And now, still early, I sit down to a breakfast with Ed, who wants to be kind and so he agrees to the porch, despite the noise of the trucks...

And then I get the phone call. Snowdrop appears to be under the weather. The school is asking for someone to come take the girl home. The parents are on it, but clearly my afternoon will now shift to a different track.

After a speedy run to stores, gas stations and the like, and ignoring the terrible sounds coming from the car's engine, I go to the little girl's home. Such a serious face!

We play. Low key stuff. Magnet dolls, books, drawing. She is hugely into the Angelina Ballerina stories (it's a British series; Angelina is a mouse and guess what -- she loves to dance) and when she draws, she does a very credible sketch of the dancing mouse. With sunshine streaming in through the window. And so Angelina has to wear sunglasses. Why not.

Sparrow is in a dozy state this afternoon (thank goodness). His sister reminds me to be quiet (as she herself smothers him with kisses).

Toward evening, the three girls in the house all have refreshing pink beverages...

(does Sparrow feel left out??)

And then the little guy's mom tires on a pair of dock siders on his wee feet, so the boy can run around on boats if he wants to...

... And Snowdrop appears to have rallied and bounced back from her bug, dancing away in the sun filled room.

And we, the captive audience smile and stretch and smile some more!

Evening. I do make the stir fry, though it's good and late before we eat. While I chop and cook and stir, Ed checks the car manual and, too, we talk about bringing down more boxelder trees.

The air outside remains brilliant: sunny, warm, breezy, perfect. We can't really linger in the garden for long (you know, the bugs), but we throw the windows wide open and take in the lovely colors and scents of summer.

kids

When Ed asked last night if I'd like to go to a chicken competition early in the morning, I balked. I have a day off from just about everything (grandkids are otherwise occupied, my mom's apartment is nearly ready, the garden -- well, you know, the bugs keep me away from it). Do I really want to fill my morning hours with more chickens?

I was being a little unfair and a lot cranky. My idea of a fine day would have been to look at available land in places where bugs are not a menace. (Madison is very uneven in its bug population. One place will record thousands upon thousands and another -- a handful.) We could dream of buying and building. Fantasize about summers out in the yard. About evening strolls and morning yoga in front of a flower bed. (I have a vivid imagination.) But Ed reminded me that a move would be a very big deal. A huge deal. Not something that he would even consider unless we first exhausted all possibilities.

We discuss this over breakfast.






Realizing that a miracle solution (a search for a new home) is not right now in the offing, I take the next best thing: the morning with chickens.

Let me clarify: it's not really about the chickens. The event is the Stoughton Fair. Stoughton is a small town about 13 miles to the south and the Stoughton Fair is an annual event that brings the usual fun stuff to a small town (the carnival rides, the junk food) and, too, it has that small town sweetness to it (pie eating contest, tractor pulls) and an important agricultural component: poultry, cow, swine, sheep -- all displayed by proud kids, typically through their involvement with any number of local 4H groups.

And this I do like: watching kids present their coddled and manicured farm animals.

Before we set out, I do spend a little time in the garden -- so beautiful, yet so inaccessible at the moment!...






(A dragonfly! Welcome to our gardens!)







And then we take off, in time for the Stoughton Fair early morning chicken competition.






Kids care for their animals, but the mentorship and assistance from family is obvious.






Many, perhaps most of the girls have their hair in braids. Don't you wonder why? Is it a cultivated farm look? Or merely a good pairing to the groomed look of the animal they care for?

(Mom does the girl's braiding, little brother looks on...)





Another mom looks over the chicken claw to make sure it sparkles.






The judges in the competition can be brutal. Oh, the disparaging things we heard from the judge who looked over the seemingly lovely chickens in each round!

Here's one winner! The hen is the same breed as our Peach -- a Buff Orpington, but my oh my, does this one look huge!






And another. Hey, that's our Pepper! (A Barred Rock hen...)






Of course, not every chicken can be a winner...






Never give up hope!







 And now we change venue. So many other kids to admire!






Without question, the young showmanship competition is a big deal here. The focus here is on how well you present your calf.

I can't help but think that the Snowdrop would like this girl -- pink hair, boots with pink trim -- a winner for sure, no?






In the end, pink does win. This girl, also in pink trim boots, gets high praise for her composure, her smile, her superb way of handling her calf.






The older kids are next and I really see the step up in the poise and sophistication in showmanship...






We move on. There won't be other competitions this morning, but you can still inspect the fairgrounds and all the fantastic animals, all cooling off, with the help of water...






... in shady spots...






... and always under fans brought in by the caring owners.

After looking at the two swine pairs below, can you really still enjoy bacon?


 








Unlike at the Scottish fairs I attended, there is only a smattering of sheep at the Stoughton Fair. Here's one just after a shampooing of her wooly legs.






Goats are far more common. This kid got in trouble checking out a bucket. Ed stepped in to rescue him.






You know the saying -- goats eat everything? They do! At two separate times, a kid would wiggle her head out of the pen to reach for my flowered dress.






Despite the now somewhat oppressive heat, we leave the fair refreshed and energized. There's something uniquely special about a kid learning to take special care of a "kid." Or cow, or pig, or duck, turkey or chicken. Too, it's good to step out of the farmette's current fog of wetland bugs. We take a longer route back -- along rural roads that are Ed knows all too well from his Wednesday night bike rides.





He points out a number of wildlife refuge areas and we stop at a couple, just to admire the prairie growth and the beneficial bugs they seem to attract.






We spot any number of monarchs.






It's reassuring. Surely they aren't suffering from a lack of milkweed or flower nectar.






Time to head home.

In a field not too far from the farmette we spot a pair of sandhills. I suppose there are upsides of living close to wetlands.






Home. The place of a thousand day lilies.






Of flowers that line every path, every bit of the courtyard, and the long stretch of the road...





Would we someday pack up and leave all this behind? I'm not sure. These flowers were my babes before there were grandbabes. We put a lot of work into making them happy campers here. For now, we talk about other steps we could take to make outdoor work possible again.

In the evening, I put out some extra food for our cheepers, sit back on the now quiet porch, and take in a deep breath of summer evening air.