sky of blue, sea of green

Well, the eating has plummeted for me here, in Lexington Kentucky. Hotel conference food is the same in all parts of the country so perhaps I shouldn't blame Lexington Kentucky, but, instead, the Marriot. So let me rephrase that: it is remarkable how unhealthy Marriot hotel conference food is. Breakfast at least had bits of melon adorning the platefuls of sweet cinnamon rolls. Lunch is a white bread salami sandwich, with macaroni salad, potato chips and cookies. And because you're sedentary all day, of course, your hunger disproportionately soars. As if you swam the English Channel. You deserve it! Entitled to eat by virtue of sitting in a conference chair without interruption. Bring it on! Any snacks between sessions? Yes? Pretzels you say? Let's see how many I can eat while pounding out a page of notes on my computer!

Between 11:30 and 1, there is a pause for me. The material is beyond the scope of what I could possibly find useful, and it's followed by a general break.

So, horse time, no?

A few phone calls reveal the bleak truth: no public tours are offered until the afternoon -- that's no good for me. The sessions are packed with important stuff then. And here's the other obstacle: the farms are far for a person who has to rely on her feet or on cabs. The lovely tourist office staff does some calculations for me and comes up with a shocking total were I to cab my way to horses.

So I call back Enterprise and have a "what if" conversation with them: if you can let me have a car for $35 tomorrow, and you have cars available today, what if we pretend that tomorrow is today? And since you're not too far, why not pick me up at the hotel? And then drop me off at the airport on Saturday? True, it's lousy to negotiate when, in fact, you want something that they have and they know it, but for some reason the manager relents and so I find myself at noon, zipping around in a little Chevy, pausing here and there to take in the beauty of the green blue grass countryside.






I can't quite get beyond the big gates that lead to the farms -- you need an afternoon (and an appointment) for that. But at least I get a feel for life here, among the thoroughbreds.






I have to say, it feels odd to be in a place that focuses so much attention on only one animal. It's as if we could not stop pushing the cow back in Wisconsin. Cow everything. Famous cow hoof prints on plaques for conference presenters. Paintings of cows in every hotel room, cows in the hallway, cows in the elevators. Cow shaped cookies, cow monuments, cow mailboxes. Cows, everywhere cows. Like that, only substitute a spotted Bessy with a thoroughbred filly.






But it's all oddly beautiful, too. True, these horses are not what you'd find at the animal pound. Royalty travels to Lexington to walk among these majestic animals in their beautiful stalls. The gates to the horse farms are works of art. And acre upon acre of land, devoted to paddock.  Remarkable.

Even as it is all rather inaccessible. Gates, fences -- to keep horses in and a curious public out (though most places welcome prearranged visits). It's not as if you can hike through the Kentucky horse farms. This land is not my land.

But it is gorgeous stuff to drive through. For an hour or so, I stop and get out of the car often enough to frustrate most anyone driving behind me.






And then I'm back at the conference and the day stumbles along and I can't resist the potato chips and the free chocolates lying around at all the tables of financial services sales reps who always show up at these kinds of workshops (they don't so much bother with academic conferences; no one buys anything at academic conferences).


In the evening, now that I have the car, I decide to keep the theme of the the horses in place. Rather than go downtown for dinner, I head out deeper into the countryside. There's a place called the Windy Corner Market that claims a great commitment to Kentucky foods.







In the early evening, you put in your order at the counter and with great speed and alacrity your food is delivered to your table. What food? Well, Kentucky food, I guess. I order their Kentucky Po'boy (we are not that far from the Gulf states), which is stuffed with pulled pork, fried pickles, bourbon barrel cheese, red onion and a "special sauce." I know, I know: where have all my beloved summer vegetables disappeared to? I do get a side of lettuce and another side of corn and beans, but that hardly counts!






The place is crowded and the food is really good, even if I haven't eaten pork in maybe ten years and I feel today has been one huge nutritional calamity.







And here is my other troubling reality:  I want to walk into this land around me, but that's not an easy here among the blue grass hills of eastern Kentucky. So that an after dinner trek (I MUST move, I MUST!) has to be along a road. I pick a fairly narrow, quiet lane, but I cannot escape the occasional roar of the truck. Or the BMW convertible. Really.






...Because there is a lot of wealth in the horses here. This is no small time operation.

Horses on signposts, horses on license plates, horses horses...






And again, the flip side is that it's a beautiful countryside, this land of the blue grasses, neatly trimmed for the bay toned slender mares and stallions grazing there.

In a lesser paddock (you can tell), I watch a horse off to the side. Let me call her Loner -- she is in fact without a companion. I have this habit here of humming Kentucky Babe everywhere I walk and she hears me.





She moves tentatively. I know better than to reach out to these hot-blooded animals. Every horse farm that permits tour visits warns not to go near the animals. But Loner looks like she's a passed over horse. Somehow left to her own devices. Maybe her days were glorious once. Maybe her history is less noble.

She has a sharp gaze though and as she comes to the fence, her eyes follow my every move.






She allows herself to be nuzzled, then she changes her mind, then she comes back for more.






This continues for a while and as I stand and wait, humming all the while, I think -- someone really does love these horses. For the money they bring, yes, sure, but also for their splendidness.






I walk away as Loner watches still, not bothered by my coming or going.






I get in my little white Chevy and head back to the conference hotel where I pop open a Kentucky Ale and sit down to write.

a quick explanation

Flickr, my Internet photo storage site, is down for evening maintenance and so I cannot post until the morning. Sorry for the slight delay!

fly away Kentucky babe...

I'm scribbling this at Ramsey's Diner, waiting for a Hot Brown and a side of corn, tomatoes and okra. And a beer.  A typical Hot Brown has turkey and ham and melted cheese on top, but I went with the vegetarian version, which, I'm sure, is an insult to a Kentucky tradition, but hey, I can only do so much to follow local custom.





I'm in Lexington Kentucky.

Why here, why now? Well, last week, in working on my fall classes, I felt a deep longing to stop reading academic texts and start talking to some real lawyers. So I googled and found a workshop for attorneys practicing in my area in the Midwest and South and I signed up. Yes, there are renowned conferences taking place as we speak in such hot spots as California and Florida and Colorado -- all beautiful destinations, but honestly -- this Lexington, Kentucky workshop is, substantively, hands down the best of the lot and so early this morning, very early, like 5 a.m. early, I drag a half sleeping Ed out of the farmhouse so that he can take me to the airport.






I drive as he proceeds to slowly come to a safe, wakeful state.
Nina, hands on the wheel!
I roll my eyes. I can't take seriously directives from a guy who more than once has driven a car with his elbow. Or knee.

But he has a point: I'm zigzagging on the empty road, distracted by the beautiful light of the predawn sky. It is so gorgeous at this particular second that I risk being late for my flight so that we can pull over by Lake Monona and admire this:







The flight combo to Lexington is easy cheesy (sorry, I had a lot of cheese for dinner tonight): under an hour to Detroit, then under an hour to Lexington.
Why not drive -- Ed asked earlier, though he knows better. Me? Eight hours at the wheel on America's ribbon of highways? I'd fall asleep before I'd cross our border with Illinois. Guaranteed. Pulling off to rest wouldn't help. I'd only sleep longer.

Breakfast today for me is of the Starbucks oatmeal kind. At the airport gate in Detroit. Not worth photographing.

I work during each flight segment, but I pause as we approach my final destination. Landing in Kentucky is so lovely! It's all pastureland here. Blue grass country. Lexington Kentucky is the horse capital of the world.


But here's the problem: my workshop hotel may as well be on the main suburban drag of anytown, USA. (Reminiscent of Mineral Point Road, for you Madisonians out there.) Renting a car would help, but cars are in short supply this week and therefore expensive. Besides, I only have this half day to fully explore. The workshop will chomp away at most of the good hours in the next two days.

In the free time that I do have, there are two things that I really would like to see: first the highlights of Lexington and then, if possible, later in the week -- the horses. You know, those grazing thoroughbreds behind white fences. And if I can work it in -- a bourbon distillery. In France, you visit vineyards. In Scotland you visit scotch houses. In Kentucky, you visit bourbon distilleries. 95% of the country's (and thus the world's) production of bourbon is done right here, in Kentucky. I don't really like bourbon, but I do like listening to people take pride in what they create and in Lexington, they are proud of their bourbon.

So I take a cab to the downtown. Bite the bullet and ride the cabs. There's no other way to move around here. No sidewalks. No bicycles. No buses (toward my hotel). No trains.

And before I go any further, let me tell you -- in case you've never stopped in Kentucky -- this place feels southern. Or at least southern friendly. They all want to chat, help, and sing high praises for their home town. They give it glowing reviews, as if anyone for a minute would see them as impartial. And of course, you can hear that accent:  the "ah think ah know where that is!"

I ask the cab driver to drop me off by the house where Mary Todd grew up. Along with her 14 sisters and brothers. Before she went off to Illinois to visit a sister, met Abe and stayed there until they moved on to D.C.





It's a great introduction to the former two faces of Kentucky and especially to Lexington  -- home for a while to Jefferson Davis. But, too, to the wife of Abe Lincoln. Her family was split in their support of slavery. Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, Maryland. Border states.  Lincoln said -- I hope to have God on my side, but I have to have Kentucky! And he held on to it: in the end, these four states never left the Union.


I did a walking tour of the city and I took a photo here or there, nothing consistent, nothing especially compelling. My mind was on this place, this southern outpost of northern ways of thinking. Or some such combination.



overview (Lexington is exactly the size of Madison)




older/newer




boots



And I learned that there is a very popular expression here -- the biggest/best/oldest/finest X (insert what you wish here) west of the Allegheny Mountains.  So here, for example, is the oldest American university west of the Allegheny mountains. Transylvania College, established 1760. Boasting among its graduates 50 US Senators, 101 Representatives, 3 Speakers of the House, 36 governors and 34 ambassadors.







Who knew.


And I did stop also at the bourbon distillery in town (which also produces Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale) and I signed up for a tour there as well, lingering afterwards with the tour group (these people were on their third distillery tour)...










the owner giving an interview to the local TV station


..until it was a decently late enough hour for dinner. At Ramsey's. Where they're celebrating corn and 'maters.  No one in Wisconsin has, to my knowledge, ever used the word 'maters.


 








The day ends with pecan pie. They say, proudly, that it has just a hint of bourbon. A nightcap on a plate. You is mighty lucky, Babe of old Kentucky, Close your eyes and sleep . . .

salvage operations

To wake up to a beautiful day, no, more than that -- a stunning day and then to let it sputter, sputter, and fizzle away is, well, it is how life occasionally proceeds.

So, let me pay tribute to the good moments. I baked a new batch of granola and we had our porch breakfast. A grand meal that was. It's always grand. Especially when the sky is all blue and the air is clear and crisp and the wind gusts tell us that the mosquitoes out there will be struggling.






Walking the farmette land, inspecting the flowers -- can a day be more sensually satisfying?






That's the good stuff. But there is another side to the morning. The Fed Ex guy comes and delivers a big, brand new blender from Walmart.

The problem is that I did not order a big, brand new blender from Walmart. And upon calling Walmart, I find out what else I did not order -- the remaining $313.62 dollars worth of merchandise -- on its way! And, if you can believe it --  someone ordered stuff for that amount, three separate times (therefore $940 worth of Walmart merchandise, in triplicate, coming soon!). They did this on a newly established "Bill Me Later" account. In my name.

The funny, absolutely funny thing (I use "funny" to mean something other than ha ha funny) is that apparently the impersonator could not get it to ship anywhere but to the home of the cardholder and so try as they did to get their goods, all that happened is that it was shipped to me. (This is conjecture on our part. I mean, it's like the mysteries surrounding the universe -- there is much that is beyond our understanding.)

Are these thieves just too new at the business of stealing, or are they messing with me in ways that are beyond the beyond?

And I would love to know (so much would I love to know this, that I outright asked them) how Bill Me Later allowed for the creation of a new credit account in my name, when I have Fraud Alerts! up and down the three Credit Reporting Bureaus, and with all credit card companies, and the IRS, and even the State of Wisconsin for good measure. (Seeing as my otherwise beloved state's small blunder is the source of all my troubles here, I am in contact with their staff to let them know how I feel about all this. Feelings are important. So is the time wasted on monitoring this stuff.)

On the assumption that the thieves google the name of their identified cardholder, I consider the possibility that they are lurking here, on Ocean. In which case I would also like to say that I do have the police chasing your tail and since you've left a tail long enough to be seen from here, in Wisconsin, perhaps you might want to consider other, more noble ways of acquiring a blender. Have you tried craigs list? You can bargain your way down to some cheap stuff on craigs list. And it involves no jail time. Where, nota bene, a blender will be of little use.

Okay. Got that off my chest.


So long as the morning is progressing in the way it is progressing, I tell Ed that the cool air makes it possible for me to put on the mosquito net protection clothing (it's hot in that suit otherwise) and begin my attack on the once-raspberry-now-sadly-weeded-over plot of land. I can't drive the big powerful mower there -- too many trees, bushes, low hanging this and thats. So I take the regular old push mower and attack.

I create a maze of zig zag paths, taking down everything in sight. It's tough, tough work and I should add -- also really unpleasant work, because the mower is loud, the bug garb makes me sweat and pushing that machine over bushes, bramble, vines, five foot tall weeds is just plain brutal.

I go at it until the mower uses up a tank of gas. (Just so you know, this only makes a small dent in the jungle of weeds. A wee dent.) To be continued in another season.


A far more pleasurable task is the setting of stakes for the fledgling grape vines we planted in spring.






There, it's all about good, controlled plant growth. In the battle of us against the weeds, we're winning. Not surprisingly, the grapes are doing well, as is the corn, as are the cucumbers, as are the tomatoes. (The fruit trees of the young orchard -- well, maybe. The animalia remain a constant threat.)



cukes



corn


Now, you could let this kind of a day really slide into not much of anything very quickly. Tired from the phone calls, from the mower work, from all that, I could retreat and be done with it.

But, we egg each other on, Ed and I, and sure enough, before the evening sets in, we are on our bikes, going over to play (bad but better) tennis, returning in time for a dinner of all the vegetables I could bring to the table. Which are many: cauliflower. asparagus. spinach and lettuces. mushrooms. garden tomatoes (yes, they're just starting!). garden cucumbers (exploding!). garden peas (ending..). Throw in eggs (with garden chives!) and we have one of my favorite summer suppers of no particular denomination. Simple, good and fresh stuff to eat.


 


So that if you measure a day by how beautiful the skies are and was how satisfying your meals are (I should include lunch here: a pb&j, on the proch, with my school work)...


 


...I'd say we did extremely well.

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.