Tuesday

It's the unexpected that often unravels your sense of quiet and well-being. But sometimes, it does just the opposite.

No one talked of snow -- at least not in any amount that would transform our frozen splotchy landscape. And so waking up to the unexpected -- several inches of gentle loveliness is wonderful indeed.






I let the cheepers out and pause to admire the farmette trees...






How could something so plain as white snow be so pretty?






Of course, it comes with its own headaches -- an iced over car, slushy streets in the city -- but I'll take those, just for that walk outside, or the glance out the kitchen window at breakfast.






But not too long of a glance. I'm with Snowdrop early today.

She wakes up to a great mood and we fly through the morning rituals. Here she is, bathed and dressed, running around with music sticks, just because.






Impishly showing off that she knows darn well what a tongue is.






Having a wild hair day?






Nothing a hair clip can't fix. This is one of her favorite books. I think she thinks one of the girls pictured therein is her.






Still, I can't resist the snow. I bundle her up and out we go. She's tentative. And that mitten! Where did you lose it, Snowdrop?






Well, never mind. We're not out for long. Just enough to take those steps in the snow.






Back to the puzzles of home.






And the satisfaction of getting something to work.






And so the hours, like the flakes outside, fly in unexpected directions, most often with beautiful results.


My evening is a bit unusual, in that I join Ed for a semi techi-work dinner for out of town Tormach visitors. Importantly, the restaurant served a special of Bouillabaisse. I don't say no to a good bowl of Bouillabaisse.

Monday

A gentle beginning to the week: like a cornflower blue sky, so, too, a morning can be cornflower blue. Not intense, not splashy. A bit slow, a bit meandering. With, of course, a slow breakfast. In the sun room this time.






We are back on schedule now and if it's Monday, it's time for Snowdrop to spend the day at the farmhouse.

What's her preoccupation today? Well, jumping, for one. She tries. With penguin at first.






Most efforts end like this:






Alright. A pause. Great concentration on taking apart giant legos (except they're not called legos; they sure look like legos to me).






Since it's just above freezing, I suggest feeding the cheepers. She likes the idea, until I put her on the sled. She has that distrustful attitude. As in -- are you sure you know what you're doing, grandma?






I persevere. She relaxes. A little.






Back at the farmhouse, she cannot stop looking at that photo of her mom and aunt. Is that really them? No kidding?






And then it's back to jumping. I do it alongside her and this makes her laugh and laugh!






And then we return to her home where she convincingly demonstrates that she really does understand the request to display her tongue.







Such a fine day! Gentle and kind. Playful and unassuming. So very fine!

Sunday

We are programmed to love sunshine. Wake up to a blue sky and hope swells within your beast. Nothing is impossible.

Gray skies -- well, now you have to work harder to keep that energy level high.

Today, the skies are telling me to work harder at feeling effervescent about the day. And I do. I wake up and let the cheepers out and then I drive our garbage loving mouse over to the lake to the east of us. Honestly, we're thinking it has to be the same mouse that's traveling great distances to come visit our trash bin and so each time we catch it, we take it that much further. Three miles enough for you to stay away??

In driving at sunrise (as if you could tell there is a sunrise on a cloudy day), you often have fleeting images of wildlife here. It's incredibly beautiful really -- a canvase of country living.





Of course, those lovely shapes of deer are grand at a distance -- less grand when the animals come to your yard and start in on your spring flowers and fruit trees. But for now, I really do love to admire their swift movements and graceful forms.


Back at the farmhouse, I tackle the usual Sunday cleaning and organizing. And of course, the reward is a breakfast in a perfectly respectable and presentable farmhouse.






The afternoon is, like yesterday, slow paced. Reading, writing, cooking -- isn't this the way all cloudy winter Sundays should proceed?

And just before dusk, Snowdrop comes, only with her mom today, but still, I'm delighted to host these two members of the young family!

Well what a surprise... Snowdrop runs for her beloved penguin.






Though toward evening's end, she finds other excitements. Corn on the cob, for instance. (I know you're not supposed to eat while on the run, but this was an exceptional set of circumstances.)






(She does sit down after a while.)






(And she holds steady on grandpa Ed's lap when there's music on television.)






The weekend's done. I've had my restful moments, my yoga, my time with Elena Ferrante (do you not like her novels? Well then, you and I have an entirely different perspective on fiction... I think she is magnificent). I'm so ready for the challenges of the weeks ahead.

dolce far niente

I do not have a talent for idleness. Oh, that's not to say that I don't fritter time away on useless pursuits, but most hours of the day (and sometimes, unfortunately, at night) you'll find me doing something.

But today I'm trying to discover the beauty of that act of sluggish languor, so perfectly captured in the phrase dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing).

Of course, there are the cheepers and there is the laundry and, too, trying to figure out how a mouse repeatedly enters our trash bin. (Could it be that the same mouse travels many miles for this one destination -- our garbage? Because we have never had a mouse enter the kitchen bin before and this one seems interested in nothing else but that).

But after a luxuriously late breakfast...






...I ran out of immediate "must dos." I looked out the window and thought of a book that Snowdrop loves, in which a goose and a duck, on the final page, are sitting on a field of grass and looking up at the white clouds drifting by. If they can do it, so can I!

(The photo is out the kitchen window, through the screened porch.)






It's not meditation really. It's lolly-gazing. It's feeling the slowness of time.

Still, I can't do it for long. I make myself a cup of tea and settle in to read.

And then, I indulge in something even better -- a leisurely Skype session with the friends I was to visit in Florida. Honestly, if you cannot travel, what better way to talk than through video chat? Oh, we are a spoiled people!


Late afternoon. It's so rewarding to see the sun now! It wont set until around 5, which is so wonderfully late! Ed and I go out for a walk along the rural roads. We've been discovering the quieter ones just to the south and east of us. It's really true that you miss the detail if you simply drive through them.

I'll leave you with photos from our walk. This is the true winter that I am so used to here, in the northern parts of the country. It's a beautiful winter. At least today, we surely felt it to be so.







(We strayed to a path through the bordering marshlands.)












(Then, back along the road, past farms and fields, past tractors hauling stuff, even in the cold season.)

gap day

You know how some kids take a year off before or after college to take stock and to recalibrate? It's called a gap year. Well, call today my gap day.

Somehow, even though I'd gotten a good night's rest (finally!), and have a mild weekend ahead, and have an easy cheesy day before me and a lovely breakfast to start us off...






...By the time I get to the grocery store to do my weekly shopping, right there, halfway between restocking all my veggies and selecting the cheese for the week I feel lousy.

The moral of the story -- we all need a gap day to keep the machinery oiled and running.

I spent a good part of the day visiting doctor's offices and I had some very pleasant conversations with some very excellent medical people. I especially loved the doctor I saw who kept insisting he had seen me at Dragonfly Yoga where he and his wife routinely do, well, yoga. I assured him I'd been only to Perennial and he looked glum at that: I'm loyal to Dragonfly, he said. I felt sorry that I wasn't who he thought I was, but still, we had great rapport.

Because I hadn't felt well in a grocery store, I left it to Ed to pick up and put away the groceries, which was very funny as he puts lettuce on a top shelf and leaves flowers lying flat on the counter top until I come home. I mean, the man needs me!

Once I felt better, I sought to recover the rest of my day which included spending some few hours with Snowdrop. I did not have my camera and so all you get is one iPhone photo of a most sparky, lovely and lively little girl.






And that's it! Ed and I are hanging loose tonight. My gap day requires it!

Thursday

Ed, knowing that I need more than anything, a leisurely wake up, is off in the morning to tend to the cheepers. I take the time to think. I'm tired and just a wee bit sniffly, but there is nothing like a brand new morning to set the mind in a good direction.

First, importantly, I'll use this weekend to catch up on rest. I was to go to Florida for a wonderful reunion with my good friends, but I see that what I really need is time to unwind at home.

Second, I'll put some thought into other strategies in terms of The Great Apartment Hunt. Because it's not true that this has been a failed search. I learned a lot about real estate in Poland -- how things work, how it all proceeds. I learned about the market. About neighborhoods and communities. I feel much more connected to it all. I'm not just the person coming back after a long absence. I'm more informed, I understand what I want and what can and cannot be accomplished.

And I've met some interesting people and developed some connections for further work on this project.

Alright. Time for breakfast -- in the front room. A relaxed breakfast. A happy few minutes.






And then I am with Snowdrop. The energetic, adventurous Snowdrop. No commentary. Just photos:
























I'd forgotten that she is to spend the evening at the farmhouse. (What's the point of typing it into a calendar if I don't check the calendar?) How could I forget? Well, it's been that kind of a week. We are delighted of course to have her. I'll not post yet another photo of her joyful face. Though I do wish I had a picture of her delight when I fed her some shavings of real parmiggiano reggiano.

Wednesday

In the middle of the night Ed says -- I think the garbage mouse has been caught. I hear mouse noises downstairs.
He goes down, comes back -- yep. We have him. He's very active. He's likely to work his way out of the trap in the course of the night.
Maybe you could take him into the fields now?
Want to come?
No!
Why don't I put the whole trap in some glass jars for now ...

Five minutes later he is back looking rather sheepish. He was such a cute mouse. Very frisky.
What do you mean "was"?
Well, I opened the trap a tiny bit to feed him a peanut for the night...
And?
He escaped.

You have setbacks with mice. It's just the way it is.

Morning. I'm up early. That full night of sleep is still elusive. Darn mice. Still, I have places to go people to see (mainly Snowdrop).

I go downstairs just at the crack of dawn. Ah, I see the mouse came back, aiming for the garbage can again and being tempted by the peanut butter in the trap. So perhaps not so smart after all! I lock the captured critter in a plastic bin -- to be driven away into the fields later.

The cheepers are released, and now breakfast is ready. In the kitchen again. I'm in a rush.






Snowdrop is just waking up when I arrive and we have our beautiful morning together.












Though I admit, my eyes are a bit on the computer. I'm supposed to hear from the "quiet apartment" owners whether my offer is acceptable. But I hear nothing.

Is there to be a failed search? Am I going to have to start all over again? I get tired just thinking about it. Sleep deprivation makes you think everything is bigger, heavier, weightier than it really is.

Never mind. Snowdrop keeps me busy and in the best of ways!






At the same time, she treasures her independent moments. It's incredible and so satisfying to see that some of her favorite times are with books.






Toward the end of the afternoon, I hear from the Warsaw apartment people. They're proposing a complicated agreement which effectively postpones the sale until a time when they find a place to move to.

On the one hand, I understand. On the other, if I agree, then there is a lot of waiting in store for me. It's not a quick and easy step toward finality, that's for sure. Well, on the upside for the Ocean reader, I'll be putting the topic of apartments to the side for a little bit. There is no sense in a daily repetition of the obvious: I'll move into a Warsaw place (for the days I'm there), but it wont be quick or easy.

January 19

At times, it seems like you've been through this day before. (Which, by the way, is not necessarily a bad thing!)

A wake up to a cold day (I would improve on this if I could).

I let the cheepers out and thank Butter profusely for laying an egg before my eyes. If you don't pick it up soon after it pops out, it freezes. Ed claims it's delicious anyway, but I wont use it (for one thing the shell cracks).

I walk back to the farmhouse...






... but with a detour to the car to check on the mouse situation. Okay. The trap is untouched -- peanut butter still inside. That means for sure that the mouse exited when we left the door open yesterday. Satisfied, I retreat into the warmth of our kitchen.

I rush to get breakfast ready. Ed still sleeps -- who can blame him. We had one of our late night discussions about work, play, apartments. They're wonderful conversations, but honestly, I'm way too sleep deprived right now and reviewing life as we know it at 3 a.m. is probably not the cleverest of ideas. Never mind. I'll catch up tomorrow. Surely I've been down this sleepy path before.

In the kitchen, as I throw away an empty container of something or other, I notice the tell tale sign of a chewed garbage bag.

Really??

It appears that the mouse left the car and came right back into the warm house (smart creature), going straight for the garbage can again. This time the mouse remembered that how you get in is also how you get out.

How many times will this repeat itself? How does a pea brained mouse have such a good memory?

Fortunately, I do find the problem: the garbage can has a hole in the back for picking it up and moving it around. Obviously an entry point. Blocking it will be easy (I hope). Catching the mouse? Well, this is what you do when you live in a hundred year old farmhouse: you have to keep at it all winter long. This year we've been lucky because until now, the occasional critter has kept mostly to the basement. But cold nights breed desperation. We'll be reloading all the traps tonight.

We eat a rushed breakfast. Just in the kitchen.






And then I'm at Snowdrop's.

She is just waking up and I go through her morning routines with her; Breakfast, bath time, the usual stuff. And then she plunges into play.






It's a good time to be with her -- she is full of energy and fun.






And she can amuse herself enough now...


 


... that I have no trouble calling her great aunt (my sister) in Warsaw  to discuss the what ifs in terms of the apartment purchase. I'm hoping that we'll have a beautiful end to the negotiations tomorrow, but of course, I've been down this path before too. Things can unravel. Though this time I know I wont be the one unraveling the strings of an agreement.


Upstairs, she is back to being Christophera Robin again...






It's repetition, but with twists and turns. (And spins and rolls.)






..Because little kids do not ever do the same thing in completely the same fashion as the time before.






And then, because I have a dinner out with friends from law school work days, I don't return to the farmhouse. I go to a coffee shop where I do not buy coffee but a glass of wine and I give myself time to think. Not about the apartment. Not about Snowdrop this time either, but about another little one -- my younger daughter -- who turns 31 today.

(Here she is at two and a half. I always thought Snowdrop has a bit of her in appearance. I keep this photo, which actually in its entirety is of both daughters, in Snowdrop's playroom. Snowdrop looks up at it constantly, as if she sees her mom and her aunt in it and mentally reels them back to her own age and station in life.)






My daughter is, of course, in Minneapolis and I am here. Not too far away by American standards, but far enough that I can't go up to give her a birthday hug. But I spend these few minutes thinking about her and they're good minutes, beautiful minutes.





Oh, I do hope she has a happy day!

Back at the farmhouse now. It's cold, but we're in for a warming trend. By Sunday, we may jump above the freezing point. All this is enough to make me smile and smile.