Sleepover

Stand back, cheepers, move away cats, I have to get ready for the guests!

And while I'm at it, bringing up and dusting off colorful nick-nacks for at least some of them, I may as well bake up some blueberry muffins for the others.

(Ed and I can indulge as well: muffins for a late breakfast on the porch today.)

What's all this? Weekend guests? Who's coming?

Well, it's not really for the whole weekend, but I am hosting three energetic young ones today and tomorrow. We're giving mom and dad a break. I hear they packed their suitcases before school. After a day of learning, the three grands will come here. First Snowdrop, followed soon by her two brothers.

We've made plans: a (chaotic) pizza dinner...

Followed by a movie night. Flora and Ulysses. Film of their choice. Fine, Sandpiper does not get to vote. And Sparrow's arm can easily be twisted. Ah, the advantages of being the oldest kid on the block!

Snowdrop has had many a sleepover here and Sparrow, too, used to spend a couple of days in the winter and a couple in the summer while the parents went away. But all that stopped with the pandemic. Add to it the birth of Sandpiper (so now there's three of them and one of me!) and we had to reconfigure visits: they're still frequent, but usually just one child comes and most often it is the older one who is especially starved for quiet book reading time. 

 

Still, every once in a while, I get all three (or, is it all four?)...

 

 

 (he's trying to nap; she's nudging him so that he'll stay awake)

 

 

... and this time they are here to sleep. Let's cross our fingers on that one. (There was quite the protracted discussion as to who should get the big bed. You'd think both older kids would clamor for that privilege, but no: they both wanted the old crib-made-into-a-day-bed.) 

Later, much later: all is quiet. The little babe is asleep in the kitchen by the wine cooler. The big two are upstairs in the lemon room. Ed and I are barely awake on the couch. It was a fine day and a wild and wonderful evening!

Thursday

Rain. Finally. The farmette lands were as dry as something you'd see in a movie about the dust storms. I worried about the root system for many of my perennials. They got what they needed today.

(Hey, I'm a cat! I don't like rain!)

Staying inside means that I do a lot of reading. Not necessarily fun reading.Tedious stuff about a troubled world. Just to make it a totally fun day, I tried out my at-home COVID testing kit. I am one of those unfortunate people who has lots of seasonal allergies, mild cat sneezing, and chronic sinusitis. None of it is a big deal, except, say, during a COVID pandemic because you feel you need to constantly make sure you're free of the virus. I mean, after three vaccines and little contact with the outside world (except for seeing the kids who thankfully have been just fine, as have been their classmates), I'm not too concerned. And still, I do the testing because that is the right thing to do. And again it's negative and again I think about how rotten it is for people whose results do not come out to be negative.

Breakfast. 

No one can work outside. Ed spends the morning on Zoom. His voice carries, even when he closes himself off in the art room, but it's a nice carry. Sort of like being in a coffee shop with people having lively conversations somewhere in the background. And before I know it, it's time to pick up Snowdrop. 

Rain, on an off. Sometimes very on!

Sometimes it pauses.

But not for long. Basically, it's a wet, wet day, with the grand smell of wet leaves and a dampened earth. October aromas. Rich and wonderful.

Toward evening, we see a bit of blue. Snowdrop is tempted to climb her tree but really, everything is just so wet...

We head home.

By the time I return to the farmette,  the clouds are bouncing off to the side. For a while. We'll get more rain, more humidity, more heat and wetness. Tomorrow.

Wednesday

Ed is on a roll. He has chipped a mountain of logs and branches (and he continues to chip away, even as one machine after the next breaks down, refusing the amount of work he piles onto it). He has mended the siding of the house. He has kept the new trees weeded and mowed. He's talking about putting in a whole in the kitchen wall so that we can vent the oven.

And it seems that when he speeds up, I slow down. My work in the flower fields is laughably slow. My Fitbit is not sending me very many messages of approval. I find excuses to do more work inside the house rather than outside. I mean, I guess it's seasonal, but more likely I'm getting my dose of the great outdoors by watching my buddy here exert himself to the max. Oh, and in case you're wondering, at the moment he is biking his strenuous two hour segment. Me? Maybe I'll take a walk. After I finish my coffee.

The fact is, I'm pretty excited about my trip next week and I am doing a lot of planning for it. Not of the kind where you sit with books and map out your trajectory, but imagining what could go wrong and working out strategies to minimize that possibility. (Today I chased down some rapid result COVID tests at the CVS for when I return. Just to be sure that I reenter cleanly.) Ed has always said that I over-plan my travels (for his tastes anyway). Well maybe, but this, of course, is the joy of a trip. The flights may be cancelled or late or turbulent, the hotel may give you their worst room, your favorite restaurant may be closed for good -- in other words, the reality may suck. But you do not know that heading into the game. You plan for a spectacular trip! You have backup options for when things unravel! You are prepared.

We start the day with clouds...

But still, it's warm out there. Warm enough for breakfast outside.

And by afternoon, the sun is out. Honestly, it does not feel like October. We had heavy snow this month just two years ago! I remember it well: Halloween was snow covered and slippery! Today feels short-sleeved and wonderful. So much so that toward evening, while Ed bikes, I finally, finally head out to the county park for an autumnal stroll. I'll leave you with a photo from the walk, not so much for the fall colors, but for the glow of a warm late October afternoon.

Tuesday

Would you believe it -- I worked on my holiday card today! Hey, to my credit, I am not one of those who recreates Christmas in September. I don't make the kids put on their thick sweaters and take pictures of them with a sled in early fall, just so that I can use a themed set of photos. I scan the year for pictures that say something and I use those. And it takes forever, because I have a lot of photos to glance at and a lot of persons whose representation in my year (and therefore my card) has to be balanced.

Working on a card this early shows you that I have faith in the remaining months of the year: they will not yield great surprises that would derail my efforts at putting out an authentic card. I am forever filled with hope! 

I picked my day for this well: it's a little cool and I am a little reluctant to spend time outside. Still, there is always the morning walk...

(The irises think we have turned into a southern state...)

Breakfast, however, is back in the kitchen.

By the time I'm more or less satisfied with the layout of the card, I have to head out to pick up Snowdrop. That's a relief. I do not want to spend all my waking hours on just one project. I don't know about you, but my days are most satisfactory if I get behind more than just one idea.

Here she is, walking slowly today. Someone's craving a big grandma snack!

(The brothers!)

Evening. The weirdest supper ever: salmon bits with scrambled eggs, stuffed into tortillas, with tomatoes, cheese, and hot sauce.  Tastes way better than it sounds! 

Now, back to editing my earlier efforts. If I get it done by midnight, I can still claim the 15% discount! (Don't you just hate time sensitive discounts...)

 With love...

Monday

You have to shake your head in disbelief when you get your camera back from repair (after a two month absence) and you realize that a whole nob is not functioning. Yesterday both Ed and I watched youtubes late into the night, trying to figure out if it was something in the settings. It was not. This morning I called back Fujifilm repair and sure enough, they tell me it's probably their fault -- in replacing one part they probably disconnected something else.

Well okay, but I'm taking a photographable vacation next week. I mean, you have to laugh.

What to do, what to do... Oh, they'll send me a loaner (if I pay for the shipping). They'll put a priority tag on the repair. In other words, they'll try to help, but it wont really help and so I'll probably keep my sweet but malfunctioning camera for the trip and make do with what it does well and not worry about all that it doesn't do until after I come back.

 

Mondays are nicely slow for me and so I allow myself to think about how to prepare for next week.  I am so filled with all the events that made the last two years what they were! So much distress for so many! So much worry! Months of interruption, and that's if you're lucky. Loss, if you're not so lucky. Months of uncertainty about everything. And of course, for me, the person who lives half her life out of a suitcase or at least thinking about packing the next one, I have had two years of no travel.

And it was so sudden! One week I was ordering a replacement suitcase, changing my flights seats around online, the next week Ed and I shut ourselves in the farmhouse and pretty much stayed there. (I may be the only one who has yet to go inside a grocery store... But on this one at least just call me spoiled. I have no particular trepidation about going shopping at this point.)

Well, I'll be testing the travel waters very soon and that will be possibly the most weird travel experience I will ever have. Nothing like what I will have done in the past.

But for today, we're doing the usual farmette stuff. Morning walks...

(remember when the pines were snow covered?)

Breakfast still outside...

And for me -- well, the gradual gathering of needed stuff for next week. An updated simcard for my WiFi hotspot. A check on all the proper masking -- colorful KN95s and surgicals, a few solid good cloth with filtration for strolling in public spaces. Dusting off shoes that are something other than the clogs or flip flops that I wear around here. And a check of my camera to see which parts still work. Most do. We will survive!

Sunday

Oh I do love some Gopnik early on a Sunday morning! (He's a writer for the New Yorker, one I have liked for a long time, ever since he wrote a book about his experiences living with his then very young family in Paris.) And I love that the New Yorker occasionally sends me articles it thinks I should reread. One came into my mailbox today and pretty quickly I lost myself in Gopnik's reflections about raising prodigies (and now you can read it here!).

As you may have noticed, I do think quite a bit about goal-driven child rearing. You get to reflect about such stuff when you're a grandparent. You've gone through the process already with your own kids. Now is the time to think more broadly. What if you had done this instead of that? What was the purpose of choosing that over something else? Gopnik's essay is beautiful, all the more so because I agree wholeheartedly with his key point (even though I admit that I had a tough time implementing much of it when my own kids were still school aged; not everyone was on board, so it was a bit of an uphill climb). Gopnik quotes the philosopher Alexander Herzen (it should be noted that Herzen lost a child to drowning): “Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what only lives for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment. . . . Life’s bounty is in its flow, later is too late.”

At the same time, Gopnik acknowledges (and I do too!) that as parents, we obviously are tasked with teaching behavior: "The trick is accepting limits while insisting on standards. Character may not be malleable, but behavior is. The same parents can raise a dreamy, reflective girl and a driven, competitive one—the job is not to nurse her nature but to help elicit the essential opposite: to help the dreamy one to be a little more driven, the competitive one to be a little more reflective. The one artisanal, teachable thing is outer conduct."

But it's not success at some adult age that should be our focus. Again, reaching into Gopnik: "If kids are happy and absorbed, in the flow, that’s all we can ask of them, in Berlin or in Brooklyn. Nothing works in the long run, but the mistake lies in thinking that the long run is the one that counts"

Childhood matters. In its own right. Every single day of it is meaningful. Just as it is for us, the adults in the room. We, the grandparents may never live to see the professional or artistic or athletic attainment of our grands. It doesn't matter. We know that the happy moments of engagement that come to them when they are young and when the adults in their lives are still allowed a look and have a say in their everyday -- are what matter.

In other news, the day is lovely and thankfully a bit cooler. Though still with a breakfast on the porch...

(My morning walk through farmette lands...)

The rhubarb is spilling out too much on the walkway so I picked it, chopped it and baked it into a cake.

Nice to have around, and, too, nice to serve to the young family...

... for dinner.

her own mind

I guess there is truth to the claim that we are constantly comparing ourselves to others and with social media, we do it more often and to our detriment. And this makes us anxious, edgy and obnoxious. 

It's easy to blame the usual big time players: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. They create the platforms and we get duped into taking part. I can agree with that. 

Still, I myself enjoy checking in on other people. I don't compare -- practically everyone I know on those platforms is younger than me! What's there to compare?? -- but I do find joy in seeing other people do fun things with family and friends. It's the comments that are often silly (to put it mildly). My idea of a perfect world would be if we could keep all the platforms going, but would shut off all comments and possibilities of likes thumbs up and approbations that seem to cause people to spin in a never ending cycle of needing more of it. Don't you think that would be cool? (And no, you don't have to send me a comment telling me that it is a great/dumb idea!)

I thought about this today because, of course, with kids you always want to see a fine development of an independent thinker who has just the right amount of social awareness without being sucked into a people pleasing mentality that has her forever scrambling to fit in. And when I met up for breakfast with my daughter and her girl and the baby of the family...

... it seemed to me that somehow these young people are striking a good balance. 

 

 

 

(Well, I don't know about Sandpiper: he seems awfully fixated on just pleasing Snowdrop!)

How so? Well, for example, Snowdrop and I were in the car, heading after breakfast to the farmhouse. We were talking about how great libraries are and how cool it is to always have a selection of new books to choose from. The girl said rather wistfully that she could read a lot of words now, but not all. To this I told her that I still had to ask about difficult words (at least the meaning of them) and she asked, surprised -- you have to ask? Don't you know about glossaries, gaga? From this we went onto languages and I reminded her that English was not my first language. Here, she demonstrated her own mind. I know I was learning French, she told me. But I decided to study Hawaiian instead. I'm already picking up a few words!

Hawaiian???

 

 

 

It is true that she has a great grandmother from the islands, but still, talk about learning a language that is not shared by many! (This was my reason for not teaching Polish to my kids: it's only spoken in Poland. You have to want to visit Poland a whole lot to benefit from knowing it.) Still, I very much see in the little one a determination to set her own path in life!

And that's a good thing, don't you think? (You don't have to answer that!)

an October summer

Ed and I went out for a drive today. Oh, there was a goal (Farm and Fleet, plus the chocolate store: we needed to resupply at both!), but it was also rather enjoyable in its own right. We rolled down the windows and let the warm air travel through the car. And Ed commented -- the trees are actually changing color, even in this near 90F (32C) weather.

You don't notice the Fall colors much here at the farmette. Not yet. The greens are morphing into gold, but not very quickly and not very perceptibly. And running around in shorts and short sleeves (even me!) gives you the sense that summer is still with us. What, fall? Oh, sure, soon. You say it's already October?? That cannot be!

Right now, Ed is definitely the busy guy. I'm doing my usual Autumnal slowdown. This morning, after breakfast...

... he watered most of the newly planted trees out back and then set to work to finish the repair of the rotted boards in the corner of the farmhouse. And I reminded him that it was his job to clean the stovetop and that it has looking nasty. So he did that as well.

Me, I'm sort of keeping an eye on things outside, and tending the spaces inside, but I am in no hurry to get things done. Besides, in the afternoon, I've got Snowdrop!

 

(lavender rebloom...)

 

 

I can tell it's Friday. She is extra tired, extra hungry, extra reluctant to spend any time outside.

But happy too. School has been good for both her and Sparrow.

And me, I'm just grateful that a month went by and there were no school closures and no Covid scares. All the tools available to us against the pandemic were, when used together, effective. How good is that!

a never ending discussion

I read a lot about travel. Other people's trips and journeys. Stories that combine personal elements of discovery with movement, with travel to some far away place where the cultural imperatives are different from those back home. And every once in a while I will come across that familiar story of the bad American tourist abroad. She or he will be described as poorly dressed, loud, arrogant. Incapable of uttering a single word in the native language. Demanding service, demanding entry, demanding perks that are typical in America but less abundant elsewhere. Snapping selfies, pushing into already crowded spaces. 

This morning, once again such an essay popped up in the opinion section of the NYTimes. Every time I read these things, I try hard to remember all my encounters with Americans abroad. And maybe I have a knack for avoiding these horrible scenes of poor behavior, but in my experience they are rare. I seem to bump into Americans who are enthusiastic about being wherever the trip has taken them. They are mindful. They snap selfies, but rarely with one of those annoying sticks that puts the camera at a distance and impedes the flow of traffic. 

The problem is, of course, that these days, there are crowds. Crowds of travelers to popular destinations. Venice or Yosemite. Giverney or the Grand Canyon. To say nothing of small islands, disappearing reefs and habitats that can't take the influx of eager visitors. It's not Americans abroad, it's all of us collectively creating crowds, destroying the peace on Barcelona's La Rambla and hiding the Mona Lisa behind heads of over-enthusiastic museum goers. We are all collectively responsible.

What to do? People have been dishing out advice for decades on how to be a better tourist. I have to say, it's stuff that applies to daily life as well. Why limit it to being abroad? Be deliberate in your choices. Be mindful. Be courteous. Listen attentively. Observe. Don't be pushy. Isn't this stuff you want to see around you, in your own neighborhood? Perhaps what's missing in our daily lives (hasn't this become obvious during the pandemic?) is a feeling of social connection, a responsibility to do well by others, to value the collective experience, to make small sacrifices so that others may have a chance at a good outcome. But for goodness sake, don't stop visiting places that are outside your comfort zone. It's far easier to learn humility when you are outnumbered by people who speak a different language, eat strange looking foods, have habits that don't mesh with what you're used to seeing back home. Seems to me that we all may do well with a mega dose of humility every once in a while.

*     *     *

The collective experience. Let me come back to this now, because I was thinking about it as Ed and I drove up once again to the Fitchburg Family Pharmacy this morning, this time to get our flu shots.

I switched to this pharmacy a couple of years ago, liking very much its approach to serving the community. It's the kind of place where the pharmacist will tell you he hopes you'll feel better after you take your medicine. They'll talk to you about your experiences with the booster the next time you stop by. They're just nice people and they are about as close as you can get to having someone local be there with you, sharing a tiny bit of the day in all its small permutations. (I used to get that sense of community at Paul's cafe and then at Finca Coffee shop, but to be close to the people who sell and who come in and buy, you have to stay inside and Covid stopped that dead in the tracks.)

As I write this, I am fully aware of the ridiculousness of our lives at this moment: we get our dose of community by going to the pharmacy to get a flu shot!  But the reality is that we here are not like Ghanaians in Hohoe (so social minded!), or Italians in Parma, or Bretons from Dinan. It's not easy to find groups of people congregating, or even pausing to exchange a few updates from our daily lives. (One curious feature of the new development is that every house has a front porch. And every front porch of an occupied house has at least two outdoor chairs on it. I have walked the neighborhood sidewalks now many many times, in great weather, at all parts of the day and I have never once come across anyone sitting in those chairs. Aspirational symbols of a life not lived.)

*     *     *

It's another beautiful day.

You could never tire of them, even though I know we're nearing the end of this warm spell. September ends, October begins. We're moving ever so slowly toward the cold months. But oh, do I appreciate the pauses of sunshine and warmth! Outdoor weather! Cafe weather, don't you think?

*     *     *

Snowdrop is here this afternoon. We have so many projects that are waiting in the sidelines! But there is no rush. The beauty of after school time is that it moves without a schedule, without must-dos. We read, we play. I take her home.

*     *     *

Evening: the joy is in the quiet, the warm quilt thrown over our laps against the cool air that inevitably comes in each night now.

For now, to my small community of Ocean friends -- good night, with love.