Florida

We cross the state today: from its belly to its shores. A real sacrifice for me, since I truly prefer getaways that have zero driving involved, but if you want to show a child even a fragment of Florida, you have to drive.

Our wake up is beautiful. Bright blue skies outside. True, the view is sort of resort-y. This is a state with a flat landscape and in places like Orlando, there are many areas of green that seem humanly created rather than initiated by nature. Nonetheless, it can be very pretty for what it is. We eat breakfast downstairs, outside, looking out on the lagoon. Is it a real lagoon? I mean, it has water. It has green plants growing to the side. The girl says it's lovely. She sits next to me just to have that view. Me, I like the birds that seem to appreciate all the cool bathing opportunities.

And now it's time to make use of the fabulous pools at the hotel. Don't think theme parks! Think warm weather (high of 84F/29C) and meandering pool waters with waterfalls, slides and all those things kids like Snowdrop just love to pieces. (Our hotel's pool is good, but it's the sister hotel's pool that's the draw. We're allowed to use it, which is a total joy for the girl. It has a crazy big set of slides.)

(going down in a tube)

(or without)

(trying out their pool)

(then returning to our own)

Lunch, by the pool.

Then, we pack up and return to the airport to pick up a rental car and from there, it's... road trip!!!

Well, almost road trip.  We inspect the car. Take photos of dinges. Load it up. I turn on the engine and get a pop up warning that the engine needs inspection. I go all the way back to the rental desk. "Oh, it's probably some routine mainetenance like an oil change." Thanks, Hertz. I don't accept "it's probably just..." They back pedal. "Would you like another car?" You bet your sweet booties I would like another car. And we do score well on the exchange -- we get one that has a mere 16 miles on the odometer.

Snowdrop is at her best at times like this. She's no wimp when we try to get help. She'll roll down the window and shout out to the attendant if we're being ignored. And when we finally do set out, she takes my phone and puts herself in charge of navigation. It is actually a very very lovely drive to Vero Beach. (One hour and 45 mins from Orlando.)

Florida, by car. Reel me back to my childhood, why don't you! My parents liked to use Christmas break for a road trip south -- from New York to Florida. How many times did we do this? Three maybe? Poles from the UN group favored Fort Lauderdale. It was cheap then and the owners of one small rental property seemed not to mind renting to people from the "Eastern Block." It would take us three days to get there. In a black Chevy with vinyl seats. How easy it is for Snowdrop now! No worries about being welcomed in hotels across the state,  no vinyl car seats, no three day drive. 

But also -- not many orange groves these days, at least not on the stretch we cover today. I know that citrus growing has gone way down over the years (disease, climate, natural disasters). Indeed, Florida's citrus crop in 2023-2024 is said to be the second lowest in 100 years. That's more than 90% down in the last two decades. (California grows now almost all orange trees in the U.S.) And yet, we can't shake that association: Florida and oranges. For my generation at least, this was the state that gave us the best of the best.

 

We cross over on the Merrill Barber bridge to get to the barrier islands, home to our hotel -- the Kimpton Vero Beach. (Kimpton hotels are part of an SF group, but they do a reliable presentation of lodgings in many, many parts of the world. They call themselves the bold and playful group and I suppose there is a recognizable attempt to go in that direction.)

About Vero Beach itself. Well, it has its virtues. It does seem more like a mix of old Florida and some resorty type stuff at the shore line. Not just highrise codos as far as the eye can see. There may be an interesting town. It remains to be seen. The hotel itself is... funky. It is so close to the water that I swear you could feel a splash of water up in your room if you lean out. (And we do get a very nice view room.)  The beach itself is a bit unkempt and at high tide, it leaves little space for play. You wonder if perhaps the hotel is just a little bit too close to the water's edge. The pool is remarkably small. True, the Orlando pools can spoil a person. My expectations weren't high, but this one is utterly tiny.

Still, we are here for the ocean and the ocean is awesome. We only spend a few minutes at the water's edge, but the girl cant resist picking up a stray bucket and digging away and, well, letting her feet soak in the moving water.

 

 

 Of course she gets wet. And it just doesn't matter.

 

 

 

We eat our evening meal at Cobalt, once more the "informal" hotel eatery. I suppose we could drive over to any number of places in Vero Beach (the town), but spending time on this is completely not worth it. She'll find something on the menu here and so will I.

(calamari!)

It's okay stuff. Friendly wait staff. Terribly expensive. I mean, twice as much as Orlando's dinner. Sure, we ordered more. That's because we were compensating for not ordering the dominant item on the menu -- beef. No matter. The calamari were fine. My bisque was good. Our four scallops were astronomically overpriced. 

Tomorrow, we fall into our beach vacation routine... Today? Sleep to the sound of crashing waves. They are indeed close!

roar... swish.... roar... good night!

to Florida

Let's pause for a sec on my thought process here: when and why did I decide to take my nine year old granddaughter to Florida?

The when part is easy: in the dead of winter. Maybe January or February, I thought about October. And why Florida -- specifically why Vero Beach Florida? Well, last year, on her Fall school break, I took the girl all the way to southern California. She loved it. She would have liked a rerun of that trip. But California is a long flight and in the end, we spent most of our time there either at the beach or by the pool. I did not want to do much more than that, given that I had just recovered from Covid and besides, I'm really not a fan of lots of driving. Just getting to the hotel was enough for me. 

Why not give her a taste of Florida instead?

I searched for many days for a place in that southern state that wasn't just a string of high-rise condos or hotels. A place that wouldn't ask of me to drive too much. A place with access to the water. Of course, all that searching happened before the hurricanes came ashore this Fall.

Vero Beach was the rare bird that seemed to have it all: a low key feel to it. A beach town, right by the ocean. In fact, the place I chose -- Kimpton Vero Beach Hotel-- is on one of the barrier islands. Yes, we know how that's faring these days, but from the point of view of the visitor, especially one from the cold Midwest, that seems like a pretty wonderful thing. (Then of course the tornadoes roared through.We'll see how things look there these days...)

We're not going straight to Vero Beach the first day. Our flights (you have to take two from Madison) have us land in Orlando, which is the closest I can get to without spending a fortune. I dont really want to drive 100 miles toward evening, so we'll overnight in Orlando and much to the girl's frustration, we will not go to Disneyworld or any of the other theme parks. Many reasons for that, perhaps the most important being that her brothers cannot be left behind on such an adventure. And, too, I am not a good companion for any amusement park since I do not like rides at all. (I finally went along with a Disney trip for my two daughters when they were younger. I wasn't a total party pooper, but nor was I as thrilled with being there as they deserved me to be. And with age, my attitude toward these places has only grown worse. So no theme parks.)

Okay, a night in Orlando, where she can wistfully wish she had a more amusement park loving gaga, then three nights by the ocean.

But first, we have to get there.

I'm up early. Too early to feed the chickens. A quick breakfast with my best breakfast companion...

 

 

 

... and I'm off to the airport, where the parents drop off the girl.

We pass security. We have about an hour. We come to the gate. "I'm hungry! It smells of bacon here..." Growing child... But she has a point: it does smell of bacon. She loves it, but has sworn off all meat. She settles for a muffin and fruit I brought from the farmhouse.

 

 

 

We catch the 9:25 to Detroit, grab a very unhealthy lunch for her there (fries and frozen yogurt -- it's hard to be a pescatarian at the airport!),  and an only slightly better one for me (a Kind salted caramel almond bar and a latte at Starbucks -- she tells me: that's what my other grandparents like too! It's old people food!), then take the somewhat longer flight to Orlando. (I do stuff her with inflight pistachios. Delta is big on packets of pistachios.)

Traveling with a kid. In their younger years, it's such a mental and physical challenge! And then they hit about 9, 10 -- all the way until they're teens, and if they have travel in their blood and an adventurous spirit -- they are fabulous on the road. They're excited by fountains, by lights, by moving walkways -- and that's just the travel part. They lap up information as if it were candy. They challenge you, they assert very tiny preferences, but they haven't yet realized how much power lies in their little hands and so they go along. 

It is true that as I get older, I worry about how many more years of travel I have in me. I have plenty of energy, but I don't like the fact that I seem more prone to catching stuff when I'm away from home. I'm not quite an Ed ("it's too much trouble to get there" -- he tells me, as he passes on another sailing crew opportunity in the Caribbean). Me, I'll go to the trouble. And yet... I'm sure you've been picking up these small threads of worry here, on Ocean: how long will I keep on "going to the trouble?"

We land in Orlando, we cab over to our hotel (the R-C Grande Lakes, chosen almost entirely for its cool pool)...

My idea is that we simply check out what's here. For tomorrow's splash and play. Her idea is that we should use the few minutes before dinner for a quick swim. Let's see who got to decide on that one...

 (elevator frolic)

 

 

Okay. She's in.

We eat dinner at the Highball and Harvest, which is supposed to be the informal  "fresh farm produce" eatery at the hotel. And it is. Informal. I do not check the farm credentials. She chooses the kid salmon, I take the southern dish I grew to love back in the days when I visited my grown daughters in D.C.: shrimp and grits. Absolutely delicious.

Dessert? They've left us plenty of sweet treats in the hotel room. We'll stick with that.

 

In so many ways, we are lucky. Florida can get the rains in the fall, but as far as I can tell, we'll have plenty of sunshine and warm weather.  It's not a place where I'd like to be with her in bad weather. The success of a Florida escape, fortunately or unfortunately depends on warm and dry days. I am so grateful for what we have now.

Tomorrow we head east!

with love...

Tuesday

Ed rumbled around early in the morning (Or was it night still?), bringing the cat into the bedroom with him ("I can't have him scratch at the door! He's lonely!"), then Snowdrop's watch, left behind yesterday during her change to ballet clothes, began ringing (first a "wake up" call, then a "get going" message) - guys, cats and watches, all conspiring to get me up and out to the barn just before sunrise.

To add insult to injury, Ed then had to leave for an early morning eye check, so breakfast was like this:

Alone again, naturally.

We, of course, need rain. And at noon, it does finally, at long last, rain. For two minutes. Lightly. That kind of shower just irritates the animals. It does nothing for the soil and the plants trying to grow in it. 

Well, what are you going to do. It's pretty outside. I'll grant it that.

I pick up the kids today and after days of indulging them with a drive up to Culver's for their french fries, I finally hit the brakes on that one. Yes, they get healthier foods once at the farmhouse, but must that first pang of hunger be treated with utter junk? Oh, but they are hard to refuse! Especially since we pass Culver's on the drive home. But today I stand firm. SO firm! Um, we do stop for ice cream at Tipi's instead.

The farmhouse visit is a tiny bit shorter because I need to get the kids back home and indeed, I need to be there with them, because it is my task to pack the older girl for her trip tomorrow. (Otherwise there's not enough of one thing and too much of another in her suitcase. Or, that's my prediction.)

We pack, I take her suitcase with me and drive home.

Home. How Ed and I love our home! Even as he is sending emails to various boat captains to potentially join their crew on a sailing gig and I'm printing out boarding passes for my own flight out tomorrow. It's difficult to explain why things pull at us in the way that they do, and which ones we resist and which ones, in the end, we indulge. But to be clear -- we both love with a fierce passion our time at home together. 

Our evening. On the couch. With reheated chicken soup, a square or two of chocolate. And so much love...

Monday

Just call it what it is: a hot October day with plenty of sunshine. Once again. Everything is dry. Not unpretty, mind you, but strangely dry and of course -- very warm.

Warm enough to once again eat breakfast on the porch.

 

Windows open, breezes blowing -- where am I anyway? This isn't Wisconsin, is it? Is it? By now I should be thinking hygge thoughts. Warming up in my comfy sweats, perhaps with the sheep patterned throw casually thrown over my lap.

Not so today. We're reaching 79F/26C this afternoon. 

 

(why does a chicken climb a tree?)

 

I spend the morning indoors anyway. A zoom call, an internet task -- these take time. But by noon, I'm ready to head out and so is Ed. We go to our favorite park. I have to admit, I find it stunning in its dry state. I'm mollified by news of a weak La Nina weather pattern this winter. Perhaps worrisome to regions to the east of us, but for the Midwest, it means we'll likely have a wet winter (snow?!). A sigh of relief for sure. 

(Walk photos)

This week will be a bit out of the ordinary because it comes with days off from school for the big kids, and those old enough to travel with me (currently only one qualifies) are on board, well, is on board to take a small trip exploring corners of this country that she hasn't yet seen. Last year we went to California. This year I'm less ambitious, but still aiming toward warmer weather. (Usually by the end of October we're all missing the warmer weather around here, in Wisconsin.) Our small trip begins on Wednesday, but already I'm feeling like I should get ready for it. And I am. In my head if not in real time.

For now, I do the usual Monday big girl baby sitting...

Ending with taking her to her ballet class. And from there, I go on to grocery shop. Dinner -- a chicken veggie soup I cook up afterwards, is very very late.  

Tomorrow, I'll get myself ready for travel. Tonight? Rest, for sure.

with love...

on this day, for the 19th time...

Nineteen years. Not a round number, but a solidly good number. A remarkable one, unimaginable to me way back when. A happy number. Ed and I have been together for nineteen years. 

If you are a steady Ocean reader, you'll have read the story of our beginnings. Of our first date that was so successful that we never paused, we plunged into a life with each other thereafter. Of my move to the farmette. Of his sailing, of our travels together and then not so much together. Of our bikes, hikes, of breakfasts on the porch, of farmette projects, of couch time in the evenings. You'll know Ed is calm and that I mimic that calm, because he makes it so easy to do so. You'll know he hates stuff and I don't quite mimic him there, but I do try. He's so frugal it hurts. I smooth out some of those rough edges. 

What am I doing! Repeating things you probably know too well!

But the fact is, we are getting older -- he even more than I (it's his birthday today as well, so a year suddenly got added to the tally, and yes, same date as Kamala Harris) and if I had never really thought about growing old together when we first plunged into this incredible adventure (19 years ago!), well, here we are, stumbling into it full force, discovering what it's like to climb stairs with fake knees, zonk out after a bike ride, cough forever once a cough gets started, feel full after two bits of dinner, monitoring sugar intake because one should, but caring less about details such as unkempt yard corners and dusty frames on hanging pictures. 

I love my life alongside this person who is not at all like me, but who meshes well with me anyway. I love what we've built together and separately, but next to the other. It is such a happy moment -- to realize we've been at it for 19 years. Incredible.

Morning walk to barn...

 

Breakfast -- would you believe it -- on the porch!  An anomaly to be sure, but not one we'll pass up!

In the afternoon, we go for a walk on one of the many good trails within a few minutes of the farmette. This one is a tad overgrown in places, but oh, so lovely at this time of the year.

Look! We have company!

Not for long...

(the birthday boy)

My job for the day back at the farmette? Finish the bulb planting! And I do. Done! Now, could we please have some rain? No? Stubborn skies...

In the evening we're out to dinner. At Sardine's, which we've recently called our own, only because the place that was really our own for so many years (Brasserie V) closed. Sardine has been more of a "family celebrations" place, but he likes it and I like it, and he orders the same thing he would have ordered at Brasserie V -- moules frites. But with a special addition today: a half dozen oysters to share. They go back to his younger years in New York,  when his father would share a few with him on a special occasion.

(can you believe it -- we eat outside!)

Happy Birthday, Ed. To you, to us, with gratitude, with so much love...

 

 

 

October Saturday

I began the work of designing a holiday card today. Usually this is a joyous event. I study art, I think about love. This year, however, poses unique challenges. First of all, for some people on my list a message of joy would be an affront. There was not a whole lot of joy in their 2024. Meager scraps of it could well be sucked dry if the outcome of the election doesn't go their way. Secondly, I am often inspired by woodland themes. Animals figure prominently on many of my past cards. This year, deer have decimated our peach orchard, just this past week, striping three year old peach trees of bark and life support. Should I included woodland deer on a card? Ed is feeling grumpy about their visits to farmette lands. Yesterday I heard him compare the deer to mice. A stunning putdown. Animal lover that he is, Ed is not a fan of mice.

In general, playing with themes of unity and love seems especially hard now. I look at the headline in the Economist today -- Why Passive Aggression Took Over the World -- and I think: am I to ignore the cruelty that I hear coming out of the mouths of young and old? Are we all to turn a blind eye to the rampant hurt that's freely bestowed by some onto others? 

Meanwhile, our neighbor (distant, to be sure) is practicing with his semiautomatic rifle, so I sort through cards with messages of peace, at the same time that I hear the horrible sounds of pop pop pop somewhere across the road. 

Nonetheless, it's getting to be the end of October. My "discount deadline" has long passed. My November is busy. I tally forth.

The day itself is stunningly beautiful: warm, sunny. And dry. Ed does the animals this morning. I start in on breakfast. Let's see... fruit and what... Mmmm, would be nice to pick up some Kuign Amann... Off to the bakery!

So yes, we indulge in richness for breakfast once again this weekend, but I promise myself that this is not a new normal. That the day of oatmeal in the morning will return. Soon.

I work on bulbs today. The weather is both perfect and impossible for it. Beautiful sunshine, impossibly dry soil. Still, at the end of the day, I have only 26 bulbs left, all crocuses and snowdrops, requiring very shallow digging.

What's been missing in my days? Movement. Pneumonia does that to you: it slows you down. So that when Ed suggests a bike ride I don't hesitate. It may well be our only real look at local fall colors!

(he does pull up ahead; I dont want to overdo it...)

In the evening, the young family was to be here for Sunday dinner. We chose this day for it because tomorrow has to be clear of all scheduling. I'll tell you more about that when the time comes. For now I start in on dinner, only to get the call that a string of unfortunate circumstances confounded everyone's schedule for tonight. So it's just going to be me 'n Ed after all. With reheated soup. Contentedly, on the couch.

 

And let's please remember that for all the gripes we have stored in our souls, we still have life. And a chance to live it well. Generously. With acceptance and love...

Friday

Remind me next time I plug up a whole week with appointments, especially if that week is in bulb planting season, that perhaps I'd do better spreading things out a bit. Remind me that I actually like having the occasional free morning. That I can get a real thrill from just watching the leaves, or rather the dappled shade of leaves dancing on the floor or wall of the farmhouse as the sun comes in, and that you can't do that when you're trying to fit in as much as possible into a very small box of time, because you have an appointment. (Today's culprit: a haircut.)

Lovely morning once again. The chickens agree.

Colorful breakfast, due to yesterday's market flowers. Dahlias are utterly gorgeous this year (so much sunshine!) but this is the end of their bloom time. You can't expect market flowers in Wisconsin past October.

Breakfast has to include some of the apple cider doughnuts, also from the market. (Are you also of the opinion that apple cider doughnuts sound and look a whole lot better than they taste?)

And then a tight squeeze: a few bulbs into the ground (25 anemonies to be precise, 20 to go in later in the day), and I'm off for that hair trim.

My haircut person has been snipping away at my hair for maybe ten years now. She runs her own salon, and she mothers a four year old son and she plays lots of competitive frisbee. So it's a good guess that she keeps herself tied up in knots over time. I ask her about it, and, too, what's the one thing that guarantees relaxation for her. 

She has to think about it, but finally acknowledges that it's acupuncture. Not necessarily because all those needles relax me, but when you're pinned down like that, you have nothing left to do but let go of everything. For half and hour anyway. 

We are that out of control with demands placed on us! But, she hit a point there for me and perhaps for you as well: nothing is truly relaxing if your mind is spinning about what it should be doing at that moment. If you're halfhearted about your efforts to let go. What relaxes me exactly? It's inconceivable to me to go so far as to pin myself with needles to "unwind." Massages are great but that's an expensive way to go limp, in mind and body. So what is it?

I come back from the haircut and instead of rushing to add more bulbs, to frame a post for this day, to do my budget for the month -- oh, you know, the million things that are on everyone's to-do list, even among those who are retired, would you believe it -- instead of doing any of it, I sit down in our brightly red plastic Adirondack, the throw away chair we picked up at the curb last year, and I turn my face to the sun. Call it a ten minute infusion of vitamin D. Totally relaxing.

Pretty quickly afterwards, it's time to pick up the kids. Pajama day in school for the little guy, lolipop treat from the teacher for the older girl.

And the day would have continued, very much on track to be ranked up there with all other quiet October days. With reheated soup no less. Comfortably, on the couch.

But it did not end like that. It ended instead with an email, from the husband of a very special friend. Maybe you noted her presence in my life? I would on rare occasion refer to her -- my friend from Australia.

My friend died last night. Pneumonia no less (I'm quite certain she would not mind if I gave her this moment on Ocean tonight -- she was so very, very accepting of my diffuse style of writing about the everyday). 

Over the years of Ocean writing, I've met a number of people. Not in person, but through a correspondence, born of some post that inspired a first note from someone far away, but did not end there. I'm old enough and Ocean is old enough for us both to have lived through the death of at least two solidly good connections made that way. But my friend from Australia was in a class of her own. A post card writer, she sent me many. Sometimes she would have me release photos from Ocean, so that she could make them into cards and I would find myself staring at an image of daylilies in the mailbox.

How she would fill that card, always squeezing out every last possible space! She wrote densely, beautifully, intelligently.

Not all days can end with a smile. Though maybe this one should? For her? Jean, you will forever have a place in my heart. This smile is for you.

with so much love...

who knows, yet again

Back in June I posted a fragment of the song Who Knows Where the Time Goes, and now here we are, four months later and it's on my mind again.  (Lyrics, btw, are by Sandy Denny, 1966, but I know the song as sung by Judy Collins, 1968.) Before, I thought of the reference to spring. Now? It's this:

Across the evening sky
All the birds are leaving
But how can they know
It's time for them to go?

 

Before the winter fire
I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

 

Before, in early June, my mom was still  occasionally reading Ocean. I wrote my post thinking of her influence on my life. I often did that. 

Now, in mid October, I am free of the worry of how she may read my words. Back then, I wondered if I could perhaps convey a theme that explained me in some way to her. I'm free of that as well. I'm glad. It felt like those years of courting my high school "boy friend" -- I'd be sending light signals all the time. He never got them. I doubt that my mother got any of them either. 

Have I stopped being subtle here? I suppose with age, we all do.

 

Sad, deserted shore
Your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know
It's time for them to go

 

But I will still be here
I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

 

I've never played that game with Ed. We are both so blunt in our messaging. It's less stressful that way. And we do not (usually) abuse the privilege that it confers. We don't just speak our minds. We are careful. That, too, comes with age.

 

And I am not alone
While my love is near me
I know it will be so
Until it's time to go

 

It's another rush of a day, with the same cold morning and bright sunshine and the colors of the few remaining basket flowers...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Same need to get to an appointment. Same late breakfast (with a granola that is the opposite of too sweet!)

And same rush to plant. Today -- 30 bulbs. Only because the soil was easier to work in the areas I planted tulips. I have 115 bulbs left, which tells me that I had way more at the beginning than 325.

 

So come the storms of winter
And then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time

For who knows how my love grows?
And who knows where the time goes?

 

And yes, then it is time to pick up the kids.

We go to the last market of the year. There'll be another one next week, but I wont be here for it.

Ed joins us. And it is a radiant time of sweets and veggies and cheese curds and flowers.

Bye, farmer friends! See you in May.

We are just a block away from the City Hall. Ed and I have prepared our election ballots. We drop them off today. The kids hold on to mine along with me, so you could say they helped cast my vote!

At home...

And in the evening, I cook up veggie soup. Ed puts away the chickens, but he calls me outside. You should see the harvest moon! It's enormously brght!

Shining fully here, over you as well I hope...