finally

Yes, finally. A summer day that could be Any Summer Day from the past half dozen years. We did what we do best:

Breakfast. On the porch. Before I moved to the farmhouse, it was breakfast on the condo terrace, but the recurring theme is to have breakfast outdoors. So that I can confront the day with a view toward everything that's vibrant and blooming out there.








(from the porch, looking out)




(from outside, looking in)


Then, I zip downtown, for a last (for this season anyway!) meeting with Barbara, my law school friend who is just passing through and who hasn't really inspected, in her numerous return trips here,  the changes at the law school since our student days there. So I take her back to our old library reading room...






...and I show her the newer library reading room...







...and we talk about how much easier it is to be a student these days and I think afterwards -- my, but I talk like a very old person: we had it so hard! I mean, how old am I anyway?

We stroll over to the Union Terrace where the tables are nearly empty because, well, there are just not that many students here right now...






Hours pass. It's time to go home.

At the farmhouse, I take my books to the porch. How can it be otherwise! No need to water today and so when I am done with my work I am done done done with all obligations and chores for the day.

And so we hop on our bikes and we play a rousing game of bad tennis. Finally! Haven't played all season!





...and then we bike a few miles more (to pick up Thai food for supper) past fields of prairie that make your heart dance...










...and this is how I always remember summer -- days of biking this way and that, days of reading, of (bad) tennis, of not fussing with food or with life, days when our big race is to get home before the storms rumble through. Good days. Yeah, really really good days.

it's a mean world out there...

When you wake up to a lovely summer Sunday, with no pressure points to it, just the usual good breakfast on the porch...







... with a glance at the farmette flowers (through the porch screen)...






... and at the baby birds up there in the garage eves, waiting for their grub...






...and the hummingbirds coming in for the nectar...






...and the cardinal pair chasing each other without a care...






...And after all that, when you go to yoga class,  where the instructor talks in soft tones and the class breathes and moves in unison (even as each does his or her own rendition of the next move and the one after)...

...When you come home then to a quiet day and you devote yourself to rescuing flowers from weeds and from thirst and they grateful respond in their full glorious presentation...






...You tend to forget about the edge to a day, or to existence itself.

Until your cat steps outside and walks boldly and daringly past the garage  and the swallows, alarmed, swoop down on him in attack and he jumps high in the air to let them know who's boss --- this is when you are reminded that it's a tough world out there!

So whom do you protect? I say to Ed -- let's get Isis out of that path, they're going to tear his eyes out!
And Ed responds -- ...unless he goes after their little ones and tears their eyes out.

In truth, Isis isn't much of a bird chaser. It's not his thing. In younger years he'd go after the occasional mouse, just so he could assert his domain over the world out there. Mostly though he hangs low and minds his own business. But the courtyard -- that space between farmhouse, garage and flowerbeds -- is charged right now as the birds feed their growing pack and our cat parades back and forth, back and forth, exuding a threat by his very existence.


In other news -- I bite the bullet and spend a good bit of time watering (and weeding) the flowers and strawberries leading to the sheep shed. I tend to neglect the stuff growing there because the sheep shed, after all, begs for neglect, but I felt a twinge of pity today and so I hold the hose high and swap as best as I can at the mosquitoes disturbed by my efforts.

Fine. The flowers appear appreciative. But why is it that the minute, THE MINUTE I go inside, the weather predictors begin to speak of rain for the evening?

And indeed, this is no idle threat. It does rain.






So much so that I quickly convert the Sunday outdoor grill dinner to a Sunday indoor stove top dinner. Away from the rain that lashes wildly against the screens.






Oh well. The kids seem okay with it.






And no one complained about the stove-top cooking (sigh -- these are the tail end of the garden peas).


-


And eventually the rains die down and the weather people tell us that we'll have ourselves a glorious week ahead.

I can live with that.

time

I should have walked the farmers market downtown with my daughter, but, I'd fallen behind with my reading and so I decided, after breakfast...


 


... to stay on the porch and concentrate on work: I read, I take notes.  Hour after hour, I read, I take notes.

(...and I throw admiring glances at the flowers before me.)
















The humidity levels have gone down and I want so much to tend to the flowers (and veggies) in the yard! The mosquitoes are a real disincentive, but after a few hours, I shrug and go out into the beds anyway. For the most stubborn bugs, I have the zapper. Wave, wave, bang! Got'ya!

And I am assisted by the swallows. Surely this summer belongs to them -- they torpedo the bugs all day long and we forgive them their decision to build nests inside the storage garage -- their work on behalf of a mosquito free world needs our support! (We lay down sheets of plastic to catch all the bird poop we get for opening up this swallow hotel. When I scrunch my face and say things like "gross" Ed reminds me that every bird dropping here is a gravestone to digested bugs.





(How many of you know that I have an eight year old tatoo of a swallow on my lower back? When I have doubts about the wisdom of that whole venture, I think -- at least it's an image of a swallow. I had insisted on that. Yay swallows.)

In trimming spent stems and in weeding around my pots, I finally decide that it's time to replace the bedraggled pansies.

Ed, want to go to Johannsen's with me? 
It's been my go to place for gardening needs for maybe 30 years. Ed likes to go along, just so he can rib me about how addicted I am to buying starter flowers.

I'm thinking a few geraniums, maybe some alyssum  and that's it. I'm past my big planting spurt. Now it's just a question of keeping my pots brimming with blooms until, say, November.

As we drive up to Johannsen's, I see that their outside tables are nearly empty. I roll my eyes. The seasons change quickly in these nurseries. Spring explodes, summer retreats. The supply of good flowers dwindles.

But as I go inside, I'm a little puzzled. The greenhouse is nearly empty inside as well.

Ed points to a sign on the door: going out of business.

Say what?

The owners are frank: the next door car dealership made them an offer they could not refuse.
Why?? I ask. The place had been superbly packed with shoppers every time I'd come this spring.
One of the family members, a woman just shy of my age tells me -- our mom needs at home care now. That's $95,000 per year. Selling this will help.

I cried then. Really truly, I cried.

...For all the decades I'd watched Johannsen's evolve (in ways that few nurseries did). For the terrible expense of caring for the elderly. And really, for the endless times I'd side-stepped here, just to pick up a perennial, or an brilliant annual for a pot. All those years! Where do I go now?  -- I ask.
The daughter of the aging owner says  the obvious -- you'll go where we'll go. To the family run places that are still at it. And she lists names of familiar nurseries. I'll be looking for work now, but I'll tell you, I'll never work as hard as I worked here. Our father would have been proud of what we made of this place.





Yes, I agree.


We spend the rest of the afternoon chasing down chores we've been avoiding since our return: Woodman's -- the cheap grocery store,  Farm & Fleet, Menards, all that -- and then home. Past fields where the wheat has already been harvested -- that's how far into the summer we are...


 



...and past these two cranes. Hey, do you eat bugs too?







At the farmette, we spray the beds that line the path with our magic solution of diluted lemon ammonia and baby shampoo. And for supper, I reheat the chili and I pour glasses of sangria -- something we haven't had since Sorede.





Sorede. Was that truly so recent? Last month? Honestly?

Time is an odd thing. Expansive, generous on the one had -- but so tight and stingy when you just want to move quietly through a period of calm.

Funny how that works.

what are you gonna do...

The cat had a restless night. Ed was up, then down, I was awake, asleep, awake, awake...


The humidity hung over the morning, relentlessly, without a sing of dissipating. (We ate on the porch anyway. We are used to it.)
















At midmorning, I drove downtown to do weekly grocery shopping. The air conditioning in the car was sporadic. My feeling is that in a $600 car, you can't fuss about things like that. So I did not fuss.


In the afternoon, Ed and I went to the library. In addition to reading material, we picked up videos which neither of us really want to watch.


We encounter Lee at the side of the road and have the same miscommunications about her future here, on the farm fields around us. She gave us some flowers anyway.






The heat has caused some flowers at the farmette to wilt, so I watered much of the garden in the evening. When the winds kicked up, the mosquitoes disappeared. When the gusts died down, the mosquitoes came back.

Still, it is a beautiful evening. Looking toward the sheep shed,  with the new, expansive flowerbeds...






...and toward the farmhouse, always lovely, but especially in the evening in my view.






Would you believe it - I cooked chili tonight. On the hot hot day, I cooked chili. I had to! the first tomato ripened for us in our garden. I must finish the frozen batches this month!


The rest of the evening is spent on the phone with endless persons associated with my credit cards -- accounts which I monitor vigilantly. As of this morning: all was fine. As of this evening: One had been hacked into again and all my user information had been corrupted. Heh! You think you've got me? Wrongo bongo!

I persevere. I tighten security. I change identifying info.

I mean, you could get really upset by this stuff. But it is a reality and there you have it. What else are you gonna do... Continue, that's all. Continue, using your smarts as best as you can.

goldie on a summer afternoon

Is there such a thing as too many vegetables on your dinner plate? Maybe. The plan had been for me to make a salad in the style of the Nicoise (beans, tomatoes, potatoes, etc). But there was lettuce too, so there was that. And Ed chose this evening to pick peas, so I had peas to include.





Too much? Maybe. But it's all coming to fruition now! How can you say no to any of it?


Backing up to breakfast: on the porch. Despite the continued heat.





Work then. Until late afternoon.






The Fitchburg farmers market finally pulls me out of the steamy seat out on the porch. Lots of flowers there as well. And our baguette shop's actively (and happily) cooking up a storm. Who needs Paris!











From there, a sidestep to my daughter's place where Ed helps with some house repairs and I study Goldie, the cat.






Blasted adorable. Loves chasing flies. When she succeeds in catching one, she eats it.






But, we do stuff in the garage that kind of freaks her out. When that happens, she scampers to hide. In the bathtub.






Who knew cats could be so ... funny?


At home, I make supper. The one with too many vegetables. Or not. Depending on your inclination. Ours is -- not too many. Just right. Especially the peas from the yard. Coated with a dab of melted butter.

still hot

...and still humid and despite it all, we eat breakfast on the porch. A little rotating fan moves the air back and forth, shaking off a bit of the heaviness, the humidity, the oppressive quality of a steamy day.






Two weeks have passed since we returned from Europe. Two weeks?? Well then, it's  time to look forward and not look back, to make plans for the next twelve months and to stay on track.



 

And here, I should note two important realities:

First, I cannot resume let alone finish my Great Writing Project this summer. With a big new course to teach at the Law School, I am resigned to work for most of the remaining days of the summer. The new goal is to fully take on the Great Writing Project on January 3, 2014. More on that when we come to January 2, 2014.

And then -- most every summer, I think about trips that are before me. And so what's before me? I do not know. Maybe lots of quick hauls. Maybe ones at irregular times. Maybe something altogether different. It's odd for me not to know yet, but there you have it -- ever since my father died and ever since I started thinking in terms of longer cycles of time, the past predictability of trips -- always to Poland in December, and elsewhere with Ed in January, and Sorede in June -- all that is completely wiped out as I start now with a fresh slate. Which right now has many questions and proposals floating in an unsettled manner around it.






Let me add a few more notes about this hot, still very hot day: despite the weather, I agree to join my older girl on the Capitol Square for an evening concert and a picnic. To prolong the event, we meet up ahead of the concert for one of those cool and refreshing drinks -- one that fits so well in a summer mindset...






And then we stretch out on folding chairs to listen to music, except only slightly so.  Concerts on the Square aren't really for the serious music lover in you, they're for the communal, social impulse resting within us. We come together to sort of listen and to eat foods and sit back and tap tap tap with the foot and when, as in today, the summer throws one of her best evenings, you think -- life is quite the good thing, isn't it....


After the concert we walk back along the lake to my girl's place (where I left good old rosie, who is now over her hot flashes) and the night is gorgeous, truly gorgeous...






In the final stage of the day, rosie and I ride home and when that breeze hits me in the face as I pick up speed on the country roads, I think truly not much could be improved upon.

not again!

I'm surely not the only one to say today -- man, it's hot out there!

Loath that I am to live with the AC running, on days like this, I am so grateful for it! How incredibly lucky to live in a century old house with a terrific air cooling system! (Much of the credit goes to Ed, who reworked the duct system.) Still, I do not hate being outside, even with high humidity and temps pushing the mid nineties. So, breakfast on the porch:






(With such high humidity, the day appears misty and mild, with muted colors and fuzzy contours...)






And, too, I bike to my medical appointment (another check up -- of the yearly kind). My doc says -- I saw you on the schedule and I said to myself: my God, a year has passed already!
Glad to be a reminder of how age creeps up on you.

We then patter on about biking in hot weather -- as if, in our middle age (well, his middle and my older-middle) we need to pat ourselves on the back for belonging to the active set. But as I brag about biking from the farmette and he brags about biking up Old Sauk hill, he pauses and says -- I am sometimes passed by even older people who whiz by as if a hill was nothing, nothing at all for them.

An admission of our imperfections.


The ride from farm to city, then back again, is just lovely at this time of the year. There is the lake, of course.





And in the country stretch, there is the prairie, invading the strips along the path, filling them with graceful grasses and an assortment of the loveliest flowers.

This, too, is Wisconsin.






In the late afternoon, Ed and I finally get it together to head out to Paul's cafe. It's been nearly two months!
But before we go I say to Ed -- let me just pay my credit card bill. I'm fanatically meticulous about attending to this at the midpoint of each month.

I cannot get into my (online) account.
I try again. And again. Finally, I call customer service.
You're using the wrong login info, they tell me.
No I'm not. i KNOW my info on this account perfectly. (Indeed I do: I just changed all my logins when my identity was stolen in March. I keep good track of these things.)
You changed it all again recently -- the service rep tells me indulgently, as if I am just one of those teetering old people who got overwhelmed with too many security logins and passwords and can't keep it all straight anymore.
I haven't been to this account for ten days and back then, it worked perfectly!
I can almost sense his eye roll. My screen shows that you logged in just yesterday morning. At 6:45.

Damn. That wasn't me. My impersonator is at it again.

And so I spend the next hour reviewing all my accounts everywhere, changing passwords, securing my credit report, checking it all and oddly, oddly -- there is no tampering with anything, no use of my credit cards (yet), nothing except this one tiny detail -- the thief changed my login IDs. Ever so slightly, but s/he changed it. Why??

Someone out there is messin' with me!

Never mind, I'm on it! And besides, I have all these beautiful flowers to admire.






And to take care of. This heat is brutal. I spend a zen hour or two throwing water at them. Later, much later, when I come in to plate us some leftovers for supper, I can hardly remember what the issues of the day may have been. The flowers are holding their own. Life is good.