Today’s walk generated six haiku. Since that’s too many for my monthly recap, here they are. I’m posting from my phone (where I have yet to figure out how to single space), so I’ve employed slashes to indicate line breaks.
Can I just admit / I do not like paprika / either smoked or sweet?
Look down for a change. / Mica chips in the sidewalk / offer sly beauty.
Mia Farrow tires / of Harry-Meghan stories. / She’s a racist now?
Code switching is not / new. Can we stop pretending / that it is? Jesus!
Since New York Lucy / said pacing is a problem / thirty pages — gone!
Every morning: a / red dot, but there is no call. / It’s a ghost. I swear.
So my car fob went missing a while back, possibly as long ago as our trip to the Berkshires in early February. I checked every pocket. I looked in bowls and baskets. K took down the suitcase from the birthday trip and I checked its every pocket. No luck.
This was such a sustained case of “Where’s My?” that I had a chance to develop a new search trick. Get this, rather than looking in every zippered or unzippered section of every purse you might have used recently, carry all your bags out to the car in a fistful and see if the door unlocks. A short cut!
I regularly use: two hobo dog-walking bags (that I made), a smaller zippered pouch (that my mother-in-law made), a beautiful new voluminous bag that Ginny gave me recently. I occasionally use two other small-ish shoulder bags.
Even if my trick arose out of a pathetic lifelong flaw and will only work with car fobs, I’m very proud of it.
The loss didn’t hamper my style for two reasons. One — I hardy go anyway these days. Two — I could borrow my husband’s. However, given my predilection for losing things, using my husband’s fob came with an unspoken but shared concern that I would eventually misplace it too. Then we’d be out some bucks.
So not ideal.
Anyway, this morning five seconds after I announced with a weary sigh that I didn’t think I was gonna find my fob — ever — I found my fob.
It was in one of my BlueQ zippered pouches. I use these funky little pouches when I travel for things like dental floss, thread nippers, and hair clips. This practice was necessitated years back when I started using a messenger bag that one of the boys left behind, a big roomy thing with no inner divisions (clearly not designed by a woman).
Is she still taking about bags?
It’s a shame you can’t fake the belief that a misplaced item is not coming back. Otherwise, I’d have feigned my fatigue and said it’s gone with breathy resignation five weeks ago!
PS. I’m not wringing my hands over this. It’s kinda funny, really. I am still thinking about a post of Grace’s from 12/28/2014, linked to her most recent post. She talked about her beloved dog, Tay, who recently passed, and how she was a little immune to shaming words, and to praise as well. How healthy is that? I was inspired.
Another harder reflection was to note the date, see my absence from the long line of comments, and to wonder what life-sucking drama was playing out in Salem then. My sister was born on the 27th of December, so chances are I made the effort to see her on that day, but rarely a year went by without her making a stink about being neglected around her birthday. It’s a time of year I’ve historically dreaded even as I tried to prevent her lonely victimhood with generous gifts. I am going to resist the temptation to pull out a journal and see the particulars.
The rake is cold in my hands, the absence of gloves testament to how often a gardening task happens without forethought.
I hear my oft-repeated assertions of the last several weeks: “I’m not gardening this year. I’m just not.” If there was a sound track for a husband’s eye rolling, I’d insert it here.
Every year, the satisfactions make themselves known and why do I forget? — the soothing rhythm of movement, the visible results, the smell of dirt.
Yes, lots of plants have suffered lately, particularly newly planted shrubs, making investments rather less than ideal. Will it be mind-meltingly hot again this year? Will the body find itself pleading with the heavens for rain?
I could spend an entire summer caring for what’s here and filling a few containers with annuals. I think that’s what I mean by “not gardening.”
We’re supposed to get some more snow, a right nor’easter heading toward the Cape, heavy accumulation predicted for west and south of here. So after I cleared the sedum of dead leaves, I thought the better of it and slid back a protective layer. They’re hardy buggers, but still.
Temps plummeting here so I made Finn a coat. It’s already been modified since its debut.
There’s a polar fleece underlayer and a top layer of gorgeous Irish wool. I know, I know. High quality imported wool for the dog?
Well, yes and why not? It’s been sitting in a bin for twenty-plus years. I think my mother gave it to me. Or it was hers and ended up with me. Since this picture was taken, I revamped the neck edge and moved the straps forward. Not ideal but it will work for the next walk in 7 degrees. Going to -10 overnight. Whew!
We went to Colorado last week. Saw the boys. We enjoyed it, our first gathering in EIGHTEEN MONTHS. One evening at the XGames in Aspen was a bit of a scene and memorable, other nights in front of a fire more relaxed (with YouTube offering much better viewing of the boarding events). C had a GoPro camera strapped to his chest on their days on the slopes, so even though I wasn’t skiing, I was treated to video of their descents.
I’m proud to say that we shopped the first day for what seemed like a huge amount of food, but we very nearly consumed it all. Except for the acorn squash. For some reason, on no night did I feel like stuffed acorn squash. I brought them home in my suitcase!
Our flights out of Aspen were cancelled because of a localized storm, so we ended up driving to Denver. Everyone made it home safe and sound. And no, the passes through Loveland and Breckenridge were not the white-knuckling, guard-rail-free nightmares I was anticipating.
I will never not be amazed by flying. That’s one of the Great Lakes above. K and I got four upgrades to first class. Sigh. The end of an era, since his Global Services status is due to expire. He may try to squeeze a couple of trips to China in before he retires, but given the ferocity of their Covid outbreak, it’s a problematic idea.
You used to have to quarantine upon arrival in China for seven to fourteen days, depending. Even if you quarantined in one city, say Beijing, you’d have to quarantine all over again if you traveled elsewhere, say Shanghai. They’ve dropped those requirements.
It is so odd how China went from imposing the most draconian disease management protocols to having none at all. In our country, we seem to be suffering from a similar lack of will — or is it delusion? Covid is no longer an emergency? Oh really? Is that why 2,000 to 4,000 Americans are dying EVERY WEEK, not to mention the drastic effects of Long Covid beginning to be documented to a horrifying degree?
Two men behind me on the flight home coughed the entire trip.
Someone looking guiltySomeone looking on with avid interestSomeone ready to go outside after licking the cutting boardPCC collage made when I couldn’t sleep last nightThe prompt this week is the woman’s face
Hope my American friends had a tasty and relaxing day! We were four and it was really nice. I learned you can always make something else (oh? Bourbon-laced sweet potatoes? Why not! Cream biscuits? Sure!), thereby turning a meal for four into something more like dinner for nine.
I had a chance to test the Hockey Puck Biscuit Theory.
Previously, I have been embarrassed and annoyed that any time I tried to make cream biscuits for a holiday meal, they were epic fails. Hockey puck biscuits. While my more private baking adventures are not uniformly good, I often manage to produce tasty and flaky biscuits.
Until yesterday, I figured the tension and pressure of putting out a dinner for a crowd foiled my efforts. But yesterday, we were four. There goes my theory.
So what, then? A post-turkey oven is not hospitable? Sitting on a cookie tray for three hours jinxes the dough? Anyone? Maybe the cut dough needs to be refrigerated until oven-time.
I mean look at that thing! It’s practically two-dimensional.
Everything else was good, I’m happy to report including the cookies (talk about going overboard. I’d already made a pumpkin cheesecake).
It’s cold. It may or may not be raining. If not, it will be raining soon.
Lastly, I came upon two share-worthy creators this morning. The poem by Bernadette Mayer (below) offers a master class in the use of repetition and captures my mood of late. The collage artist, a 75-year-old woman living on one of the barrier islands along the South Carolina coast, takes my breath away. Some of her pieces are huge. Aldwyth.
