words

We all have words that, when heard, cause us to bristle. I have one that I know others, too, shudder when they hear it (I'm thinking of you, shuddering out there, near Ann Arbor!): should have. They should have. You should have. I'd be okay if it was stricken from conversation forever. Forget about banning books! Ban "should haves!" The word implies that the speaker knows better than you, or the person under judgment. That she or he holds a moral superiority over us plebeians. It always makes me wince when I hear it.

And yet, it's so easy to be that person, throwing out the words that you yourself are loathe to hear. For example, my daughter texted to let me know that Snowdrop had a fever. I started to text back "maybe you should..." Damn! I was going to suggest a Covid test, even though there is no reason to do one and if there was reason for it, she would have surely done it. What is the matter with me?? (Luckily I caught myself.)

I write this because in being a grandparent, you learn this very quickly (and if you don't learn it, don't expect friendship out of your offspring or grand offspring!): you do not possess superior knowledge about the human race. You lack information about the most basic principles of existence. You are not of the next generation, facing their problems and their struggles. You are a bystander, there to learn, to help. Never to judge, never to instruct what steps should be taken.

These were my thoughts while snipping 460 spent lilies this morning (you do it with one hand: hold the flower at the base with your thumb and forefinger, and let your middle finger snap it off).

You already know from my introductory words that Snowdrop is sick, which is a shame because today was going to be our day -- hers and mine. Full on, to go beyond the rushed routines, to splash, play, read, maybe bake, maybe not. Another time.

Breakfast, just with Ed.

Afterwards, I get him to enter my flowerbed -- one that has the usual collection of my favorites. Except this year, I tried something new in between the lilies, phloxes and false sunflowers. It's a tender annual, sold in small bulbs, to be planted in spring. And it blooms late summer into early fall. Here it is:

Gladiolus Murielae ("Peacock Gladiolus").  It's beautiful! 

There aren't many flowers that are suitable to Wisconsin that I haven't seen or read about in my forty plus years of growing flowers, but I do have an itch each year to try something new. I have been avoiding putting annuals into perennial beds (even though each time I go to Giverny, I notice that what makes those gardens magnificent is exactly that kind of a mix!), apart from an edging of nasturtium here and there, but I took the plunge this spring and I may be hooked on more such experiments going forward! 

I had this day cleared for the little one, but since there is no Snowdrop, I decide it's time for me to move beyond the usual. I ask Ed -- would you like to bike over to Olbrich Gardens with me? You on your regular bike, me on a B-cycle.

The Gardens require that we bike first downtown and then veer east. Google tells me it's just under an hour each way. True, I haven't ridden great distances since the knee surgery, well, in fact for years now, probably since I retired, but it's Ed who is hesitating today. The heat. It'll hit 90F (beyond 32C) and, too, there is the question of air quality. It's not horribly smokey, but we aren't in the healthy category either. Nonetheless he agrees, and shortly after breakfast we set off. 

We stick to bike paths out here, in the countryside...

(a young one!)

... switching to quiet streets once we're in Madison proper. 

Of course, I do have an easier time of it than Ed. I stick to minimal assist, but it's a heck of a lot better than no assist at all. In the heat. Mostly without shade (this, according to Ed, who is far more allergic to excessive sun than I am). Even though my beloved is a terrific biker, I worry that I may have pushed him too much on this one. (He would never complain. Ever. He'll drop dead before griping about being overburdened.) From my vantage point though, it was a terrific ride!

We didn't linger in the Gardens too long. (Did I mention how hot it was? And that the air was suspect?) But I took note of some pairings of flowers. I'd say their ratio in the flower beds was more like 3 (annuals) to 1 (perennials). If you want nonstop blooming all summer long, that's the way to do it.

On the ride back, we paused at Madison Sourdough. It's on the way and I could not resist!

An almond croissant for lunch! Mmm!

I have to say, I loved the whole excursion. Early on, this is what Ed and I would do every spare hour we could find, until he gave up on travel and I gave up on biking: we'd explore. True, Olbrich Gardens isn't a new destination for us, but the effort to get there was its own reward. 

Hot and happy -- a wonderful summer combination.

hot, humid, hazy

This is our week here, in Wisconsin and from what I can tell -- in the rest of the country as well: the hottest one yet, with air quality issues once again. How do you prepare for it? 

For one thing, ditch the excuses to complete indoor projects. I had a big one and I promised myself I would get it done this summer (a photography thing -- nothing worth detailing here). Today I worked all day on it and voila! I'm done!

Then, too, be grateful for any AC in your home. We have one, it works. We keep the farmhouse at 78F (25.5C) in the summer months. The point isn't to chill the air, it's to take off a few degrees from the excessive heat. (The upstairs, unfortunately, never quite gets down to a tolerable level. We've added a fan. It helps. On the hottest day, we sleep on the floor or couch in the living room.)

And get to your garden cleaning early! 

I failed on this one today. Still, it wasn't too bad. Yet.

Indeed, we ate a (very late) breakfast on the porch, though we did click on the fan to move the air around a little.

And then I worked and I was not done until close to dinner time.

Tonight is Snowdrop's last softball game. I was going to stay away from this one: enough people would be there that she wouldn't really notice one absence from her fan club. But in the end, schedules got messed up by various airline issues and so I did go to fill in for missing friends and family members.

It was a late game and I decided to pack my supper and take it with me. And that was okay as well: leftover seafood in a tortilla, with trimmings. The boys were post dinner, so they munched on protein cookies.

So this was my day! Honestly, I need to do something outdoorsy tomorrow, despite the expected heat and haze. A summer day on the couch just doesn't feel right! But for now, good night and stay cool!

  

Sunday

I was thinking this morning how it would be very cool and very useful to know how we are remembered once we are no longer around. I suppose it's a little like the script of Carousel, where Billy can look down at the world he left behind, except for him, poor schmuck, it's too late. It's not as if he can make corrections to his life's script (his one effort to do good seems so ridiculously paltry that I hardly think it counts, even though in the movie, it buys him a spot in heaven). I have a chunk of luck in this regard: I left my UW teaching job just as my daughter was launching her career there. In the ten years I've been away, new people have joined the faculty, but many of my former colleagues are still there. Occasionally some of them will tell her something about my years there and good soul that she is, she'll pass their words on to me. Sure, if someone felt aggrieved by something I did, she wont hear it. People aren't stupid -- they're not going to tell my daughter where they think I may have erred. But I do believe these spontaneous comments of an appreciative nature have been genuine and they allow me to see where I did okay, where I left a good mark. And since I'm not dead yet, they're not like a eulogy.  I can take these encouraging statements to heart and use them to imagine an even better path forward in my encounters with friends and even with strangers. Billy never has a chance to build on the good. But most of us still have a few good years for an all-out effort! [Of course, in his case, post mortem regrets about beating up his girlfriend and pulling a knife on someone in an attempted robbery makes me think that his good deeds were well hidden. I would guess that most of us are not out to rob, steal or beat up anyone. Our very correctable misdeeds are so often simple omissions: the kind words and inquiries into the needs of others, time given to someone who needs a sympathetic ear, a ready smile to a stranger -- that kind of thing.]

Lily snipping makes you thoughts run in interesting directions.

Breakfast. We haven't done a selfie in a while!

And then I watched a Lincoln Center production of Carousel. Just because I could. 

Carousel the movie came out just a few years before I moved to the U.S. (temporarily, as a diplomat's daughter), but it was one of the first films I saw in this country. I loved the music and later, in my years of teenage angst, I'd play "When you walk through a storm" and weep as only a sixteen year old can weep. The subtleties of the story (which is actually not American at all, but Hungarian!) were far less relevant to me then, though I appreciated the fact that you could be in love with someone whom you knew was not good for you and who would ultimately make you unhappy. Julie (in the story) and I shared that!

So this was my afternoon. In the meantime, the young family went to our Dane County Fair. They sent me this photo (with Snowdrop, I'm told, being one of the passengers):

"Yes, but did she like it?" -- I texted.

"Amazing! Loved it!" -- was the response, proving that our children and grandchildren are not exactly spitting' images of ourselves. (Thank goodness!) Me, I was happy spinning around on the rural roads and bike paths with Ed, on my e-bike of course.

In the evening, the young family comes here for dinner.

(I have a rotation going: today its time for pasta with shrimp and scallops.)

The day's not too hot, not too cool. Perfect porch weather.

A summer evening like so many others here, at the farmette. Fireflies too numerous to count. Chickens getting sleepy up on the beams of the barn wall. One lily fading, the next one getting ready to open up. Ed and I, on the couch, with a happy exhale.

Saturday

My definition of an interesting night: the power stays off, I go to bed feeling grateful for my Kindle, which is mostly charged. But just after midnight, I hear noises outside. The linemen are back. Lights flash, trucks rumble. One hour later, the power comes back on. 

Of course, I don't want to get up and reset the (electric) clock. So it flashes an incorrect time at me all night long. Putting a pillow over my head helps, but by 5 a.m. I've had enough of it and I get up to fix the damn thing. 

Ed hears me rumbling around. He suggests we aim for more sleep, and I do give it a try, but you know how those early wakes go: once you've established that you are awake, you're done. An hour later I am downstairs cleaning up the mess made by stacks of dirty dishes, pots, foods left out of the refrigerator (because we had no water and no one wanted to let cold air out of the fridge). 

My sleepy guy floats the idea of going to the farmers market now, while it's still super early. I agree in theory, but once I step out to feed the animals I start clipping spent lilies. I can't help myself! I don't work on all the beds, but I do move through the ones with the biggest lily haul.

(the lavender wants to get in on the act)

(early morning wake up for the lilies as well!)

(a jambalaya of blooms)

(in my fields, where there is a lily, there is a phlox nearby)

(a fistful of colors)

Still, within a short while we are on his motorbike, heading toward the Capitol Square.

And what a jerky ride it! The motorbike dies, then comes to life, then putters and sputters, then heaves forward only to slow down again.

What the hell is going on? I do not want to be on this machine!

He pulls over to a gas station. Put simply, we had run out of gas and only sheer will and weird maneuvers enabled us to make it to the station.

We are at the market before 8, and Ed proclaims that it is too late. The crowds have formed. The slow strollers and gazers, the visitors and tourists have descended and though it wasn't (yet) elbow to elbow, it was a slow slog for us. (Short list today: carrots, blueberries, Door County cherries, mushrooms, flowers and corn.)

(a new vendor for me: nice to meet you! and your berries.)

(may be the last of the Door County cherries: uniquely delicious!)

(there are many flower growers that come to the market and there's much to choose from, but I am loyal!)

(Wisconsin in the summer equals corn)

And from there, we drive to Madison Sourdough to pick up some breakfast treats. I hadn't been there since before my trip and it feels strangely nostalgic to be buying croissants now: the pastries and breads are brining back memories of Danish bakeries!

How good it is to be sitting down to a fresh croissant for breakfast once again!

And now for a day of thinking. Sure, there is also a walk, and a lovely Zoom meeting with a friend. There is a check on the garden, an hour or two of internet surfing. But through it all, I drift off into what I regard as a luxury: the processing of ideas picked up randomly in the last weeks, the testing of new ones -- to see if they have value for me going forward. Do you ever do that? Does anyone have time for this anymore? In younger years, so much of your day is predetermined by commitments you've made that last a long long time. To your family. To your job. Those are the obvious culprits. To your book club maybe. To your friends. But in retirement you have an opportunity to rethink your direction. To reimagine your future, or at least a fragment of it. And even if you do nothing at all to alter your schedule, to manage your hours differently, giving yourself the chance to reconsider is huge! Your days become intentional. Your joys -- always securely in place, at the forefront, never neglected. 

Yes, it is quite wonderful to be 70 years old. 

with love... and flowers!

Friday

It was 5:30. I was debating with myself about  the usual -- should I get up now? I could be out in the garden already. So much to do... Ed had been downstairs managing some morning cat chaos. He comes up, slides into a comfortable sleeping position and tells me -- don't get up. Get some more sleep. I fed the animals already.

It was just what I needed to prompt me to finally push the clock to its usual groove. I dozed on an off for the next three hours and when I got up, I knew I had finally kicked the jet lag out the back door.

But of course, there are consequences to getting up so late. I'm not done with lily snipping until 10. And as I clean up the beds, I see that the dryness of the soil has returned. I'm not surprised. It's been about ten days since that last blessed rainfall. Somewhat reluctantly I drag out the hose. Not for a thorough watering, but for a "spot dousing." I focus the water on plants with lots of buds or ones that are in the thick of their blooming cycle. Another hour goes by. Oh, sure, it's all very beautiful and this is what I do in the month of July and yes, the flowers are (mostly) thriving...

...But it's after 11 before I call Ed down to the breakfast table. (Dance has claimed his seat. He would never push her off. He sits to the side.)

A different day with my childcare as well. One little one is in school, another is still home sick, and Snowdrop is looking for companionship! I pick her up in the early afternoon and bring her to the farmhouse.

(yep, that's a stuck out tongue for the camera!)

Once she leaves, Ed and I push ourselves to go out for an evening walk. And as always, it is lovely and we are so happy to have roused ourselves for this.

(on the way to the park...)

You're probably thinking that I finally sat through a whole movie tonight! You would be wrong. We lost power just before 6 pm and we did not get it back by my bedtime. There is no obvious reason for the outage and many trucks came with workers attempting to repair whatever damage there may be. Tree branches were cut, line men went up, line men came down. Then they all left. Power stayed off. 

No matter. We had a very quiet evening at home, in the dark. The air outside is cool, the windows are wide open. Ed suggested we hop on the motorbike for a beer and a WiFi fix at Christie's -- the bar down the road, on Lake Waubesa, but I eked out enough battery life out of my phone to publish my post. Tomorrow, I'm (reasonably) sure we will return to normal. If not -- well that's why we have cafes on this planet, right?

With love...