November 1st

Happy November! I say this knowing full well that this is not my favorite month of the year. Not much chance of winter snow yet, darker days, twinges of guilt about outdoor work not yet finished. What's there to love??

Well now, I wake up to a gently sunny morning. The crab tree is in its last days of golden glory. 

It's so darn cold outside and yet I stand there for a good many minutes watching the robins fight each other for the crab apples.

Maybe they're not fighting. Maybe jockeying for the plumpest one, showing off, playing with the energy accumulated during the summer months!

I go over to the bakery. For the smell of fresh croissants and the restocking of the bakery bin at the farmhouse. 

For the cinnamon roll that I have for breakfast. Hurry up, Ed! I'm hungry!

I know I need to plant bulbs, but I also need to make changes to next year's travel plans. Airfare sales allow me to cancel and rebook flights. And modify dates. It's all so complicated but Ed laughs at the very idea that this is a burden for me. You love messing with travel plans! -- he tells me. He is not incorrect.

I do put in some bulbs. Not many, but some. I'm still taking it easy with physical work. (How many times have I closed my movement rings since Covid rebound? Zero times. How quickly I've fallen!) And that's okay. In November, taking it easy is permissible. Indeed, it's required!

And then I pick up the kids. They had a good Halloween and I am glad. So much could have crumbled with bugs, viruses, delays -- all of it. October 31st is never a reliable date for anything! But this year, all grandkids had a grand time. And that's just so sweetly wonderful.

Toward evening: time to pick up the youngest guy -- always such a joyous moment for all three kids!

The day ends in the way it usually does for us, here at the farmhouse -- on the couch. No distancing necessary anymore (though honestly, the Covid remnants are still here to be a bother, but not a big bother!). Ed comments -- this house is so perfect for us. Yes it is. For the two of us, for visiting kids, for the cats that come and then run away the moment a child enters. For the warmth, the quiet, the place to feel happy and loved.

Halloween

In some conversation about Halloween, I noted to Snowdrop that she'll likely stop trick-or-treating in another handful of years. Maybe by age 12... I offer as a possibility. She's dumbfounded. Why would anyone want to stop trick-or-treating? Why indeed... Maybe because it's cold outside on October 31st in south central Wisconsin?!

I remember when my kids were small and they'd finished their rounds -- first with me, then eventually just with friends, they'd sit at the kitchen table and go through their loot, offering up trades of dubious merit, especially with younger sibs (I'll give you two whole Hershey's kisses for just one of your boring KitKats!),  and I'd open the door to stragglers -- the older kids, with pillow cases instead of cute plastic pumpkins. Costumes that were little more than a sheet or a plastic spooky face. Trick-or-treat! -- they'd shout, grab and run to the next house. Somehow that felt wrong, though I can't really think why. After all, they liked a sugar rush as much as their younger counterparts. 

But the cold... oh, that Halloween cold!

This morning, indeed, we wake up to snow.

Not mountains of it. Just a dusting. I'd say a pretty dusting...

Except for the fact that it is snow and there is trick-or-treating tonight...

Breakfast, full of the Danish hygge that November calls forth. (I know it's not November, but it feels like November!)

Ed loyally pushes aside the quilt that keeps him company on the couch and joins me at the breakfast table.

I would love to stay at the farmhouse and hygge my way through the morning, but I have appointments, never ending appointments and so my morning is a little chopped up and when I come back I rush to bake the blueberry muffins that will fill up tummies quickly this afternoon.

And then it is time to pick up the kids.

It's not a normal farmhouse afternoon. We can't have that on Halloween. The kids have trick-or-treating dates and so I have to get them to their home where they get ready for the Big Night Out.

The question is -- will they wear their mitts? I can predict! Sparrow -- absolutely for sure yes. Snowdrop -- her fingers would first have to turn to icicles. Which they may in this weather! (In truth, a wet Halloween is far worse than a cold one. I speak from experience.)

Here they are: Pete the Cat, the Huntress, and a digger!

And they are off. Separately, with combinations of friends and parents.

I'm at home again, with Ed. We have a beautiful, quiet evening watching a PBS murder mystery. No trick-or-treaters come to the farmhouse ever. We're too remote. It's just us and the bats in the barn and the occasional owl that hoots at night. 

with love...

Monday

It was the most imperfect, expensive, beautiful, anticipated, delightful, worrisome trip! What was meant to be a small weekend getaway to a warm and new for Snowdrop place, turned out to be something akin to a run across a half frozen lake, with thin ice threatening to suck you in if you weren't careful. When we landed last night in Madison, my first thought was -- I'm so glad Snowdrop loved this adventure. My second -- I'm so glad we made it and that nothing unraveled for us!

I'm still not over Covid. Although according to the CDC guidelines, I have been safe to reenter for more than five days and safe to even shed precautions as of last night, I'm like you'd be after a bad cold -- still pulling out the tissues every now and then, still hackin' away occasionally. Remember the honey store I visited in Paris a few weeks ago? Their honey-lemon hard candy pulled me through my travels! Never was a spontaneous purchase so welcome, so beloved! Thank you, bees of Provence or Savoie or wherever you collected that fantastic sweet stuff! You saved me from sounding far sicker than I really was!

And so now I am back. For the first normal Monday of October 2023. 

After the tension of the past weeks -- will I get over this on time? can I protect her from it? does she have some other virus? will the Disney meetup work for her? -- I told myself that on my first day back, I will do nothing. Or at least I will expect of myself nothing. At all. Bulbs to plant? La di da... Let them marinate in the autumnal juices of our mud room! Bike to winterize? Ha! It's not winter yet! Movement circles to close? Forget that, baby! I'm not getting sucked into that game again! Nothing expected of myself. Just nothing.

Predictably, the morning is low on content. I shooed Ed out of the farmhouse for the night, since I was just on the border of my last "precautions" day, but by this morning, I rather arbitrarily proclaimed myself to be done with being a Covid storage center. And so after my walk to the barn...

Ed came over for breakfast...

Which was absolutely lovely. 

We're having a cold front pass through today and tomorrow. Many parents are very excited at having to head out tomorrow with their kids at night, as the thermometer plunges below freezing, just to add a gut punch to the challenge of walking up and down the streets of the city to collect candy (because surely their kids dont get enough of that each day). I am glad that the trick-or-treating days are long behind me! Who says aging confers no benefits?!

And in the afternoon I pick up a Snowdrop, who must surely be tired, but who has enough spunk in her to carry her through a full day despite our late night arrival. There is a bit of confusion because post-school Monday is when Sparrow spends time with his dad, except that dad's car wont start, so we do some scrambling, delivering, and jump starting. Sparrow has only one concern: will this prevent him from getting his rightful share of after-school cookies?? Kids think very intense thoughts about cookies. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that kids think intense thoughts about things we regard as trivial, and parents think intense thoughts about things grandparents regard as trivial. We let go of inconsequential worries as we grow older. Another good reason to love senior years!

Snowdrop and I read at the farmhouse. Back to our Vanderbeekers in Harlem books! Back to a bowl of fruits for her and a reheated croissant. 

It all seems so normal! I am hungry for that right now! Normal. Uncluttered and calm. Following our routines, watching the seasonal changes, appreciating the tranquility of the last days of October. It is, to me, a perfect way to end this colorful month of autumn.

And the evening? with Ed, on the couch.

with so much love...

leaving California

On our last brief morning in Laguna Beach, Snowdrop woke up early. The remnants of a full moon were with us still, there, faintly throwing light over the palm trees.

(what, you'd like more of an ocean view, seeing as this is Ocean? Fine...)

For once, she was the one in a hurry. Her friend had wanted to meet up for a morning swim before she left, before we left. Snowdrop was on board with the plan and so I did a quick calculus in my head and decided it could work.

We were down at breakfast, at our usual table, outside, enjoying the last such meal in the sunshine of a (soon to be!) warm day.

And by 8:30, the time the girl had set, we were at the pool. 

She didn't come and I'm not surprised. They were a larger family, they had a car to drop off, breakfast to bring in (they ate in their room) -- all the stuff that would stand in the way of the inspired but impractical idea of a pre departure swim. Was Snowdrop disappointed? A little. The girl, a year older, a traveler too, with parents from Germany and I'm thinking Uganda, had the temperament that beautifully matched my granddaughter's. Were they in the same town, they would surely be good friends. But of course, vacation friendships are like camp friendships: fleeting. They almost never carry over beyond the moment that you are there, together, swimming, sitting in the hot tub, roasting marshmallows over a fire pit.

So she swam alone for a while.

And then we went back to our room and got ready to head out.

It was the same long drive to LA airport, but without the traffic. Sunday mornings are always great for leaving a city. We're at the airport, crowded of course, because it's LA. We find a few snack foods -- nothing more than that and then we board our flight back to Minneapolis, where we have a proper pizza supper.

It's 10:30 at night before we touch down in Madison. I hand her over to her dad, find my car and drive home to the farmette. And to Ed.

Hi, Ed! 

with so much love...

California

At breakfast I say to Snowdrop -- I suppose we love looking out on the ocean because it makes us think beyond our own known world.

Why is there a horizon, she asks. You know why: the shape of the earth creates the illusion of a place where the sky meets the water. Hey, if you walked in a straight line out, you'd wind up coming (eventually) to the spot you're in now. This is true even if you walked to the left, or to the right. Isn't that something?

She thinks about this then asks -- who invented surfing? Do they surf here? So we switch to surfing. Topics that don't normally come up on our drive from school to farmhouse.

She was awake, like me, shortly after 7, but there was no rush to get going. It was 9 before we made it down to breakfast. And we lingered over that as well. I said to her -- breakfasts on vacation are the best. You never have to rush off when you're done. 

Snowdrop insists again that she misses the buffet, and I let her believe that, even as I have never, and I mean never seen her eat breakfast as well as she eats it here. Not even in Paris -- home of the super baguette/croissant meals.

This morning, I booked a ride into town. 

(waiting for our ride...)

They have a free shuttle service. We get in, others, without a booking have to wait. I insist that we can squeeze them in. I mean, it's a van that holds 6 plus the driver. 

We're joined by a three person family. From London. In LA for a bit of sunshine. City first, then Disneyland (same day as Snowdrop!), then Laguna Beach. Leaving tonight. They're lovely people. We exchange travel stories. Lives lived in different climates. One of those fleeting exchanges that bubbles and fizzles as you move on with your life and they with theirs. Only this time, the chance encounter has a lovely cap to it much later, in the afternoon, when the British girl asks Snowdrop to join her and a few other kids (yes, the horror boy and girl!) in a game at the pool. Snowdrop is always friendly and always just a little shy at the outset, but the girl is so delightful that she abandons her quesadillas and I lose her in the best possible way. To kids her own age.

But all that happens later. Right now, we are in Laguna Beach and I ask to be dropped off near the (weekly) farmers market. Well now, that's a wonderful reminder that we are in a different climate zone! All things grown locally. So many fruits! So many! With loads of free samples so that I discover what persimmon tastes like and Snowdrop falls in love with pluots. 

The market is small and when we walk past all its offerings...

.... we move on to search out souvenirs for her brothers. Snowdrop defaults to stuffies for them. Fine. This is not the time to think through other options. Laguna Beach is filled with shops. One block after the next, for all those visitors, tourists, vacationers. I'm not going to walk my way through them. We find a delightful little shop with sweet stuffies -- boom! We're done.

We reward ourselves with an ice cream pause.

I'm ready to go back then. I know the girl wants loads of beach time. That over shops and Laguna Beach browsing anytime! 

While we wait the few minutes for our ride, we stroll the park and beach strip in center town. You could not get a more typical California vibe.

Snowdrop says -- it must be fun to live here. Me, I've never thought California would be a fun place to live in. For many many reasons. I rejected it for grad school,  I rejected it when my then husband had a job offer in LA. But to visit? In October? Bliss.

Before heading for the beach, we stop at the CVS. Third time on our brief stay here! We're looking for pool toys. A noodle would be great, but none can be found. But there is a doughnut! She asks -- how will we get it inflated? Oh, children of this century! No app, no gizmo necessary! You blow!

And now it's beach time. 

(elevator down to the ground floor...)

I have no words to express how much she loves this: playing endless games, telling stories of who knows what, building castles, and today -- playing with, or against the crashing waves. I'll leave you with a few photos.

And then it's pool time and doughnut time...

and lunch time... (I insist she try fried calamari -- she once liked it, she likes it again.)

... and this is where her new friend from London comes in and another from Denver and Snowdrop is lost to the world of children. That crazy complicated delightfully uninhibited world of children. Privileged children, to be sure. Some more than others, but still, children who have traveled far in their young lives. 

(the hotel sets up a station for "s'mores by sunset"... Snowdrop and her new friend from Denver make at least three each: the perfect appetizer prior to dinner, no?)

Evening. We eat outside, at our favorite table. She chooses her favorite -- their pasta, and I choose my favorite here -- their sea bass. Snowdrop of course wants this to be our last dinner here of this trip. She wants to return. A sure sign of a happy camper -- you always want to return to the places that made you happy.

(oh that bread and butter with black salt...)

with so much love....