Multipurpose Rooms

As I folded up the floor mat and put away the weights, I looked around and sighed. Our little house has become even more cluttered than usual lately. Paint and rocks cover the dining room table, mason jars are stacked in the kitchen, spare pots and soil are piled in the corner of the deck.

It's hardly surprising, though. Since March this 2 bedroom condo has been our home, but also our offices, our gym, our art studio, one of our gardens, our meditation space, our theater, and our kitchen, cannery, and bakery.

I guess that's pretty impressive for 1180 square feet!

Tomatoes, Hot and Heavy

A friend recently informed me that tomatoes have a hard time ripening when the temperature is over ninety. I had never heard such a thing, but that certainly explains all the stubbornly green tomatoes in my garden. In fact, when I checked in on the garden this afternoon, the tomatoes that I picked were actually hot to the touch after spending several 90+ degree hours in the direct sun.

This hot, dry weather has affected my tomato crop in another way, too. When birds are thirsty, they just peck a little hole in one of the almost ripe tomatoes and drink the juice right out, leaving the poor tomato to rot on the vine. With both these adverse conditions going on, I have taken to harvesting my tomatoes when they are still a bit firm. A day or two in a paper bag allows the ethylene gas they naturally produce to ripen them, almost as nicely as if they had stayed on the vine.

And so it was that late this afternoon I found myself hauling 12 1/2 pounds of produce the three quarters of a mile from my community garden to my house, and although the sweat was literally dripping from my brow as I climbed the last set of stairs to gain our stoop, I was only thankful that I have been working out lately!

Production Design

"Was it buggy?" I asked my friend Mary when she told me the other day that she had recently been to Roosevelt Island to walk its boardwalk and trails.

"Not really," she answered. "It was a pretty good walk."

I thought of that conversation when we were trying to think of a place to take Lucy and her pal Beckett while we were watching him this morning, and so after picking him up at 9 AM we turned the car north on the GW Parkway and made the quick trip to the island.

It was a little more crowded than I expected it to be on a hot summer morning in July, and there was a lot more noise than usual, too. Somewhere chainsaws and chippers were ripping up fallen trees, and we were startled by several white pick up trucks rumbling down the unpaved trails. Even so, by the time we made it around to the back of the island things were quieter, and it was easy to keep social distance from the other pairs of visitors and their dogs. Continuing on, we had the upper trail to ourselves until we made the turn into the memorial itself. There we found all the pick ups and park workers converged, and we paused to make sure we could pass at least six feet from the nearest crew.

A friendly workman smiled at the dogs. "There's a lot going on here today!" he reported cheerfully. "President Trump gave us the word that he wants to pay a visit here!"

All of the activity suddenly took on new meaning.

"We are even filling the moats and fixing the fountain to run," he told us.

"Wow!" I answered. I couldn't remember the last time any of the water features had been running. "When is he coming?"

"Who knows?" he shrugged. "They won't say. And you know the worst part?" he asked. "Nobody will be allowed here to see the park when it's all fixed up! Not even us! You can bet the secret service will see to that."

"I'm sure it will look great, though," I assured him. "And I guess we can all get a look at it on TV."

He seemed unconvinced, but he laughed. "You all have a good day."

"You, too!" I replied, "And thanks for all the hard work!"

All in a Summer's Day

Sometimes I sit down to write my daily post and nothing comes to mind. (Okay, that actually happens a lot!) Usually, if I leave and return to the task, I'll have an idea, or at least a concept, or a snippet of conversation to report. Today, though, nothing worked, and it seemed like the long days of summer vacation paired with the limits of Covid might get the best of me. Nothing happened today! I concluded with frustration.

One of the great benefits of writing every day is the record I have created, and it occurred to me to review my posts for this day, July 28, since I began my blog. Perhaps I might find inspiration in the past.

In 2009 I was on Mt. Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains just south of Tucson, where the temperature was 115. The temperature at the top was 79.

In 2010, I was in Ely, Minnesota, just outside the Boundary Waters and home to sanctuaries for both bears and wolves.

In 2011 we paid a visit to the Newseum at the end of one of Josh's summer staycacations with us. I'm pretty sure that was the summer of the Segway, tour, too, and Madame Tussauds, and the Capitol, and 2 movie marathons (Marvel and Potter), and the great hamburger crawl.

In 2012 I baked up a summer tart with produce from my garden.

In 2013 we caught Baz Lurman's version of The Great Gatsby at the Draft House.

In 2014 I took Isabel on a hike in Great Falls NP. I had just returned from San Francisco, and Heidi was still there at a conference, but fortunately? I brought that beautiful NoCali weather with me. It was low 80s and no humidity.

In 2015 I was recovering from my colonoscopy the day before, but fortunately I had elected to take the sedative, and only enjoyed "the best nap you'll ever have."

In 2016 we were on the road from DC to ATL, taking Richard and Annabelle home after their summer visit.

In 2017 we were in Atlanta hanging Krispee Kreme donuts from a broomstick for a little friendly eating contest between Richard and Annabelle.

In 2018 I was scootering around the Tidal Basin. Birds were new and all the rage, and as Josh put it so accurately, way more fun than you think they will be!

Last year we were moving into the condo in Rochester, MN that would be our home base while my mom received treatment at the Mayo Clinic. It was a stressful time, but the place was great, and even though it let me down later, I grew to love the city, too.

And this year? I went to the garden before 8 this morning, had waffles with peaches and blueberries when I returned, walked the dog with Heidi, painted some rocks, did a workout, meditated, and went to the pool. Tonight we are having homemade pizza for dinner.

It's been a good day, after all.

A Cure for the Cleaning Lady Blues

We had finished a few miles walking around DC with friends, but a quick check of the time told us that our cleaning lady would still be at work dusting and vacuuming if we went right home. The cool air conditioning washed over us as we debated our next move. "I wish we knew a good place to take Lucy swimming," Heidi said.

"What about that dog beach in Annapolis?" I reminded her, punching the query into the map app on my phone. I discovered that it was only 35 minutes away, and so we headed east toward Quiet Waters Park. It was nearly 100 degrees when we got there, but the path to the river was wooded and shady, and most importantly, short. Soon we joined a half dozen other dog owners on a sandy shore of the South River.

A light pleasant breeze blew off the water and a pair of Osprey scolded us from their nest on an old piling out in the water. Lucy bounded into the river immediately, splashing with the a couple of Golden Retrievers, a cute black puppy, and three labs. She spent a good half hour fetching a stick, and when we could tell she was finally tired we returned to the car.

I had spotted a seafood market on the way in to the park, and since they were advertising lobster rolls for lunch, we had to stop. A pound of jumbo lump crabmeat and a couple of lobbies later, we were on the road home, with no doubt that our house would be clean and that we would make the trip again soon.

Postcards From the Pandemic

"I need 2 noodles to float now!" one of our neighbors laughed this afternoon at the pool. "It's that quarantine weight gain!"

"I know what you mean," another neighbor replied. "At first I was pretty good, but the longer it goes on I'm like, Salad? Um, no! Where's the ice cream?"

"I like to call it the Covid 15," her friend agreed. bit ruefully, "but I'm afraid it's getting pretty close to 19."

Where They Are Planted

I always have an assortment of herbs and flowers growing in the eight hanging baskets that sway gently on their hooks in the breeze out on our balcony. I have a few pots on the decking as well, mostly herbs, but sometimes lettuce or beans or sunflowers grow out there, too. This summer I added marigolds, portulaca, and snapdragons, the same flowers my mother grew every year in our garden when we were kids.

In dry weather, the baskets and pots require daily watering, and even with the rain we've had the last few days, I've been out there pruning and weeding and dead-heading. It's more of a joy than a chore, though.

It was my mom that showed us the magic trick of finding the seeds in the flowers, and ever since I was a little girl, I have relished snapping the dry blossoms from the marigold plants and plucking them apart from their base to reveal the half-inch seeds. Likewise, I love the tiny pods on both portulaca and snapdragons that burst with a satisfying crunch to release a thimbleful of teeny seeds into the palm of my hand.

It always seems a shame to waste such potential, and so more often than not, I open my hand and cast the seeds into the wind, wishing them luck where ever they may land, and wondering a little bit why the world is not more full of flowers.

Out of a Hat

We were walking the dog through our neighborhood this morning and chatting aimlessly about this and that. "You know what I haven't seen any of this year?" I said to Heidi. "Rabbits!"

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Even with all the walking we've been doing, I haven't seen a single one." I shrugged. "Some years there are so many, and others? No!" I shook my head. "I wonder why?" But before we even had a hypothesis, we were on to all the fruit trees in this particular stretch of the neighborhood. Peaches, apples, or pears seem to grow in almost every yard.

And so we continued pleasantly on our way, with one random observation after another, until we had looped around and were headed home. Turning a corner, we were confronted by a huge rabbit hopping our way, right down the sidewalk. We stopped, and the rabbit did, too, almost as if to say Abracadabra! before disappearing beneath the low branches of a fig tree.

Post Pandemic Plans

Right around the time everything around here was closing, They started putting up signs in a newly-constructed building down the street that a Silver Diner was coming. To be honest? I'm not a huge fan of the place. I'm not a huge critic, either, though, and I understand that they have made an effort to locally source some of the ingredients for their mostly cooked from scratch menu, so that's a good thing.

And there's something about the place, maybe how close it is or how normal it seems, that makes me fantasize about walking down there for breakfast on Saturday, or stopping in after a run for some well-deserved meal. Bacon and eggs, burger and fries, milkshake-- I'll have it!

So every time I pass that way in the car, or on a walk with the dog, I note the progress. The Opening Summer 2020 sign has never faded or changed, in fact it was joined by a Now Hiring poster a few weeks ago. And just yesterday, I noticed that they had taken down the window wrapping, and there were actual people moving around in the classic chrome interior.

"They're going to open soon," I told Heidi.

"Would you actually go?" she asked.

"No way!" I answered. "Not until a vaccine." I sighed. "But then?" I continued. "I'm going every weekend!"

Another Break in the Weather

The western sky looked ominous as we headed out to run a couple of errands. Brigades of steel gray cumulus clouds seemed to be marching toward us. By the time we headed into the grocery store,  clouds like dark mountains towered up and up thousands of feet and gray wisps swirled just above our heads.

"That looks like it's trying to form some rotation," I said to Heidi as the glass doors whooshed behind us. There were not many other shoppers, but we all stopped when we heard the first rumble of thunder, because it sounded awfully close. Heidi and I were in the water aisle when the store went completely dark on the next crack. We could hear rain pounding on the roof as the emergency lighting flickered and then came on.

All the refrigerators and freezers remained dark, though. "I don't know if the registers will be up to check us out," I worried.

"At least the music is back on," Heidi laughed, and she was right; You Had a Bad Day bopped out of the ceiling speakers as we made our way to the front of the store.

There was no one in the self-check area, and every single monitor read Lane Open, so we went ahead and started scanning our groceries.

"Is that open?" an employee called from the service desk incredulously. "Is it really working?

We gave her the thumbs up, and soon everyone in the store was coming our way. We finished bagging our goods, and pushed the cart towards the only unlocked doors. It looked like a typhoon on Gilligan's Island outside, and stranded shoppers were huddled much closer than six feet from each other as they looked out in dismay.

"Let's wait this out in by the doors in Produce," I suggested to Heidi, and so we did, standing by the locked entrance, checking the weather on our phones, Rain!, looking for a bit of a break in the storm.

15 minutes later it was still raining really hard, but I'd had enough of waiting, so we made our way out to the breezeway, and I made a dash through no longer torrential, but merely drenching rain to the car where... the door wouldn't open!

My fob did not unlock the door either by touch or by pressing the button, and so I made another wet run back to where Heidi stood, and we returned to the store to problem solve. Eventually, I remembered that the fob has an emergency key within it, and I went back out into the rain, opened the door, silenced the alarm, and started the car.

Twenty minutes later, we were home and dry again. None the worse for wear, and not even a little bit annoyed, we watched the storm through the windows, eyes relaxed in the muted gray light. The walls and walkways were washed clean; the trees and plants seemed a little battered, but also plumper and greener. It's been a hot, dry summer, and any break is kind of a relief.

A Break in the Weather

"I heard there might be thunderstorms this afternoon," the lifeguard said casually as he passed us on his way around the pool to check the skimmers. He was almost successful at hiding a little grin, but the corners of his mouth and his eyes gave him away.

"I heard that, too," I said encouragingly.

"I'll get off a little early if it happens," he confessed.

"I know," I told him. "Fingers crossed!" And I meant, too, because so far? He's my favorite lifeguard this summer.

He nodded and smiled broadly as he continued on his way.

"I guess thunderstorms are like little snow days for lifeguards," I said to Heidi, who was a lifeguard for years.

"Hell, yeah!" she answered.

Watch the Birdie

There were only a few folks at the pool last evening when a young robin fluttered in. Still in that awkward adolescent phase between fledging and adult, its plumage was a bit of both, kind of mottled and tufty. "Is it sick?" asked our neighbor as we watched it hop curiously around the deck.

"Nah, it's just young," I shrugged.

A man swimming laps on the side nearest the little bird caught its attention, and soon it was scurrying up and down the edge of the pool, keeping pace with the swimmer. When he stopped at the ladder, the robin stopped, too, leaning in to get a better look. "Shoo, now," the man said as he climbed out of the pool, waving the curious critter aside.

But the robin was undeterred, and it followed the guy over to his chair and watched him towel off from a few feet away. When he stretched his legs forward and turned his attention to his phone, his new friend was not to be ignored. It flew right over and landed on his knee, much to the delight of everyone else at the pool, who had been watching the amusing drama unfold.

"Social distancing, bird!" the man scolded. "Give me six feet!"

Hydrotherapy

There was a time when the events of the world held a lot of fascination for me-- news, documentaries, true crime, talk shows, etc. on film, TV, radio, podcast, you name it-- they were usually my preferred form of entertainment.

That is not so these days. Instead I seek shelter from the sordid stories of people and their missteps. I don't want to know who killed who, who called who what terrible slur, or who blames who based on what facts have been reported and disputed.

I just want good old fashioned escapism in stories and activities. Unfortunately, when it's 95 degrees outside, and Covid-19 numbers are on the rise, escape doesn't seem like much of possibility. I think I'll go water my garden and float in the pool.

Saturday Evening Post

I spent my day puttering.

In the kitchen I fed my sourdough starter, made a levain for bread, and another for some raised muffins with peaches and berries.

In the attic, I organized the Halloween stuff (don't ask!), sorted my seed starting supplies, and tossed a few things that haven't been used in years.

On the back decks and front stoop, I pruned, watered and fed the hanging and potted plants.

In between, I changed the batteries in some flashlights, painted a couple of rocks, did a little online shopping, some reading, some writing, some journaling, a set of abs, a short kettlebell workout, and in a few minutes? We're off to the pool.

Classic Saturday, right?

Ghost Town

At 8:30 am we had the National Mall mostly to ourselves, with the exception of a few joggers, so it was still the perfect place to meet up with friends to walk and walk the dogs. This time our group veered to the left past the Washington Monument and picked up the trail circling the Tidal Basin just before the MLK Memorial.

There was a lot of flotsam, mud, and goose poop on the walkway, so we opted to go through the FDR Memorial, which was nearly deserted. A few people were doing some sort of photo shoot near the statue of Eleanor, but no one waited in the bread line, and we had the president and Fala all to ourselves.

Continuing on our way, we noted the empty cricket field, and crossing the Ohio Street Bridge over the inflow, we passed not one tourist on bike or foot, and when we arrived at the Jefferson Memorial, we could have climbed the stairs and stood alone with the 19 foot sculpture of that complicated Virginia man on its pedestal of Minnesota granite, but we chose to walk on instead.

And then it was past the abandoned paddle boats, and the closed doors of the Bureau of Engraving and the Holocaust Museum, and back onto the Mall where the sprinklers were set on jet, casting rainbows in their spray and keeping America's front yard green.

When I See It

We shared our pool time with a little boy today who had tons of energy and absolutely no volume control. As such, it was easy to offer my informal professional educational evaluation. "That kid is extra," I told Heidi as we treaded water in the deep end listening to his endless narrative about water taxis, bandits, and climbing Mountain Everest. I was borrowing one of my friend and fellow teacher's favorite terms for those students who are over the top, usually with a bit of self-regulation challenge tossed in.

Heidi hadn't heard the expression, but she appreciated its accuracy. "I like him, though!" she declared about the boy paddling and shouting in the shallows.

"All the more proof!" I told her.

Wicked Heat

I set my phone in the shade at the garden this afternoon, out of the way of the sprinklers as I watered and weeded. I kept my airpods in, though, and listened to a podcast as I worked. Right in the middle of an appreciation of Naya Rivera, the actress who played Santana Lopez on Glee, the audio abruptly stopped. The sun had moved to where my phone was and it had a too hot to use error message that I've never seen before.

As my phone cooled off, I continued to think about the character of Santana, though. Like Regina, the evil queen in Once Upon a Time, she was a complex villain with a well-developed heart and soul, which made her redemption in later seasons of the show moving. I appreciated that she was gay, and identified with all the teenaged heartbreak that went along with her sexuality, and I found her happy ending to be one of the most gratifying. And so I was genuinely sad when I heard that Naya Rivera had drowned.

Checking my phone, I found it sufficiently recovered to use again, and this time I put it in my pocket where I could keep it safe, but not before I put on my Santana playlist.

Like Something In July

We went to the pool today, which is a thing we do every July, but not quite the way it is this summer.

First, we had to make an online reservation, for according to the square footage of the pool and deck, only 15 people are allowed at a time to ensure the proper distancing. Then, we had to bring our own chairs, which wasn't a problem, especially since I got the throwback, made-in-the USA webbed lawn chair for my birthday, which weighs in at under 5 pounds. Still, it was one more thing to carry.

When we arrived, the lifeguard asked for proof of our reservation, something I wasn't prepared for. Fortunately, I had the confirmation email on my phone, and waving it his way proved to be enough. There were only six people there, but the way they were spaced out and the fact that 2 were kids made it impossible to ask to remove the divider so that we could swim laps. So we swam the short way in the deep end, until someone wanted to go off the diving board. Then we just treaded water until the whistle for the safety break tweeted, another new phenomena at our little pool.

Even so, sitting in our chairs waterside in the shade with a nice little breeze drying us off felt almost like a regular summer day. Almost.

Distance Explaining

A friend and colleague texted with a question about our choices for returning to school in the fall and their consequences as related to family leave.

You can request distance teaching for any reason, I answered, but if they deny you and you can't return to school because of child care, then you would have to take leave. But in that case, you wouldn't be doing any teaching, you'd just be on leave. If you think distance teaching would work best for you, then you should request it, and then have a plan B.

Thanks, he texted back. I forgot how good you are at explaining things LOL

Thank you, I replied, but remember, explaining *is* my job.

Now and When

The farmers market was not where I left it.

I had decided around 10:30 this morning to lay my recent, negative, open air shopping experiences aside and check out the larger, more established produce market a couple of miles from my home. The hope was that a combination of time into the growing season, more vendors, organization, and people on vacation would make the trip both more profitable and less unpleasant, but the green space where I have shopped for years was empty. Fortunately, as I drove around, I spotted the canopies and tents of the market just across the pike, so I parked, put on my mask, and walked over.

And it was better organized and more bountiful. I waited on colorful dots painted at six foot intervals, first to enter and then to shop. Everything I wanted was available, along with one thing I hadn't planned on. "What are those pink beans back there in the crate?" I asked the young woman who was bagging my heirloom tomatoes.

"October Beans," she told me, "they're kind of like pinto beans,” she explained.

“So they’re shell beans?” I clarified with a note of excitement in my voice, for in the last few years I have come to prize the fresh version of those beans we usually get canned or dried. The sweeter flavor and creamier texture of them is so much more satisfying than their preserved versions, which is really not that surprising. I guess I just never considered them to be real vegetables. My bad, fresh beans! Please accept my apologies.

So I bought a pound of the October Beans, and I left the market with a spring in my step. Crossing back over the space where the farmers usually set up their stalls, I imagined the scene a year from now, when things would be more as they have been in the past: shoppers strolling through and handling the wares they wanted, musicians playing, memories of face masks and painted dots fading into the background.

Back in the present, I shelled those beans the minute I got home. They were gorgeous inside and out, pink and cream swirling on pod and bean alike; their beauty made my heart sing. This is real, I thought as I worked, and I knew it was true.

Meditation Station

One advantage to spending so much time at home is that we reorganized our upstairs deck. No exaggeration: I've spent more time out here in the last two months than I have in the last 21 years. It catches the sunrise, it's shady in the afternoon, and it's almost always breezy up here in the trees.

I can read, write, listen to music, or watch the clouds float by, Spending a little time out here can be very centering, and these times call for some serious centering.

Namaste.

How I Spent My Quarantine

A social media group I belong to asked members to post an image that was emblematic of the time they have spent sheltering at home during this COVID-19 crisis. The photos and memes were entertaining: time with family, sweatpants, Netflix, home gyms, yoga, foster dogs, gardens, knitting, and wine seemed to be the predominate choices.

As for me? I didn't participate, because I just couldn't condense the experience, even in fun, yet. (There's that growth mindset!) Plus, who knows? I could start knitting or foster a dog any day, once my sourdough is baked and my painted rocks are scattered, that is.

The Maine Idea

It wasn't on my radar screen. A friend invited me up to her place in Maine, but although I politely thanked her, I never really intended to go. Until... I spent the better part of the summer teaching summer school and shoveling plaster and lathe into a wheelbarrow, pushing it up to an open window on a makeshift ramp, and shoving it into a dumpster below with a rake. After five weeks of that? A 14 hour road trip seemed like a great idea.

That was 25 years ago, and it was true love from the beginning. A simple search of "Maine" on this blog will turn up many love letters to the mountains, ocean, granite, and spruce of the northeastern most state in the union. Since then, I have made the pilgrimage every year (or two, in dire times) for a week or two of cool breezes, smooth rocks, hiking, and lobster. Once? I even went in January, and I spent both my 40th and 50th birthdays there.

So it seems damn near impossible when I check my calendar that it has been four full years since last I set foot in Vactionland. And yet, there you have it. Fingers crossed, I'll be back there next summer, and until then I'll keep making those lobster rolls, pausing at any stand of balsam or pine along the local trails, breathing deeply at any hint of cool breeze, and collecting those smooth rocks.

I miss you, Maine!

Looking Up

We set off on another urban hike today with the intention to explore a little neighborhood not too far from our home, but one we had never been to. And it was kind of an adventure; we saw two things that are very rare in our county: a condemned house and, a few blocks away, a vacant lot, all of this within sight of the gates to the country club.

And what about that private property? Maps say that pedestrians may travel the access road through, but the signs on the brick pillars bracketing the entry way explicitly state otherwise. In the end, we turned around and headed home by another route, one that included another rare sighting.

There, above the classic summer cumulus clouds, was a wispy cirrus cloud with a rainbow at its center. It turned out to be a circumhoriztional arc, also known as a fire cloud or a rainbow cloud.

As we walked home the cloud drifted and changed shape, but the rainbow stayed. 

Rachel Carson wrote in Silent Spring that, "Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."

I'd like to think she's right; I have a feeling we may need to tap those reserves in the coming days.

Senioritis

I was stoked when I finally got my passport renewal in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Even though I have no plans for international travel, the past 10 months have been the first time since 1975 that I couldn't hop on a plane and fly out of the country whenever the opportunity presented itself. But I was busy in Minnesota in August, back to school in September, Back to Minnesota in October, and on to the holidays in November and December, and so on.

In short, I just didn't make the time to get my photo taken. So when the UPS store reopened in phase whatever of the pandemic, and I happened to be there dropping off a return package, I seized the opportunity and a quick, maskless picture snapped. Truth be told, I didn't love the photo, but who actually likes their passport picture? So, I printed the form, stapled my picture, wrote the check, put my old passport in the envelope and sent it off, acknowledging the advisory on the State Department website that there are delays due to Covid-19.

Imagine my delight and surprise then, when last week a package arrived from the passport office. Hooray! I cheered as I tore it open, only to discover a polite letter informing me that I had forgotten to enclose payment with my paperwork. I could have sworn I had written that check, but I took the whole experience as a sign to get my photo retaken, which is exactly what I did today, right after leaving the DMV (where I successfully renewed my license and got a REAL ID!).

The new picture was a little more to my liking, and upon returning home, I gathered my passport, the application, replaced the old 2x2 image with the new, and whipped out my checkbook to make sure I completed the process this time. And that is where I found the check I had written before, dutifully recorded in the register, but still attached to the book, by far the most egregious of all my senior moments to date.

But, fortunately? Easy to remedy, AND that new picture!

Let's Get Real

My driver's license was set to expire at the end of June, and the DMV would not let me forget it! Throughout the spring I received reminder after e-mailed reminder. The trouble was, the DMV had closed all of their locations in response to the COVID-19 crisis. When at last they rolled out some limited office hours, by appointment only, none of our service centers up here in Northern VA were open yet. And still the no-reply messages came reminding me to renew my driver's license!

 Finally, I was able to schedule an appointment for July 7, just a week after my ID became invalid. Technically, the governor extended all DMV documents for three months, but tell that to Safeway where they scan the barcode to see if you are of age to buy beer, no matter how many laugh lines you can point to around your eyes.

Starting in October, airlines will require REAL ID for anyone planning to travel, and my new license will be verified to use that way as long as I bring the required documentation with me to my appointment tomorrow. Like most things bureaucratic, the directions were several pages long and not as clear as I would liked. Even the one-page overview was a bit complicated in its explanation of required documents and list of "Most commonly used documents," so I set aside some time today to gather my paperwork so I'll be all set when I put on my face mask and head over to the DMV not earlier than ten minutes before my appointed time.

Fortunately, I had read the list before and I knew that, since my passport was expired and out for renewal, that I would need a copy of my birth certificate, which I ordered a few weeks ago from the DC Vital Records Department. I also knew right where my social security card was, and then it was only a matter of setting aside the mortgage statement and the power bill when I paid them this month. (That's right-- I don't have paperless delivery! I also still get the newspaper delivered to my door. What a dinosaur! You'd think they would sell me some beer at the grocery store based on those two facts alone.) Anyway, I think I've got my 

One proof of identity
One proof of legal presence
Two proofs of Virginia residency
• Two from the primary list, or
• One from the primary list and one from the secondary
list
One proof of your social security number, if you’ve been
issued one
Current driver’s license if you are applying to exchange one
issued by another U.S. state, territory or jurisdiction for a Virginia
driver’s license

and hopefully, I'll have a REAL ID sometime tomorrow morning. Otherwise, I might have to call on the Blue Fairy.

From Coast to Coast and Around the World

If you read my 8x8 series last week, you know that I'm a fan of both lists and the 70s, so it shouldn't be surprising that from time to time I like to tune to the 70s on 7 station on the satellite radio in my car, especially on Saturdays when they replay an entire edition of Kasey Kasem's American Top 40. They choose an episode from the current week, but in some year of the 1970s.

As I listen, I reach back in time and try to place myself where I might have been when the playlist was new. It's often pretty hard to figure out what was going on during some random week of nineteen seventy whatever, but not so yesterday. The date was July 4, 1970. I was 8 years old and my family walked down the street and around the corner to watch the town Independence Day Parade.

It was hot and the sun was shining in my eyes uncomfortably when I noticed my parents chatting with two strangers, a couple who, it turned out, had just moved in across the street from us. When the parade was over, our new neighbors invited us over for a cold drink.

Their house had air conditioning, which was a novelty in New Jersey back then, and they had the curtains drawn to keep the refrigerated air in. They also had wall to wall carpeting, and I'll never forget the cool, dim, silence that greeted us upon entering their home for the first time. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, it was clear that they did not have any children-- everything was cream and white, and there was nothing of interest to my brother and sister and me, so we sat stiffly on the couch next to my mother. The men drank beers, and the women had wine, but the only thing they had for us was ginger ale or diet ice tea. I picked the latter, and immediately regretted my choice after the first saccharine sip.

We didn't know it then, but these folks would become some of my parents' dearest friends: playing bridge and drinking together almost every weekend, double dating for the church charity balls and casino night, celebrating our birthdays, trick or treating with us on Halloween, and adopting one of our cat's kittens. And when their first child was born a two years later, he spent his first Christmas with us because his mom was visiting his dad who was stationed in Okinawa for the year.

Over the next fifty years we would visit them in Jacksonville, NC, Monterey, CA, and Bangkok, Thailand. My mother would move to Virginia Beach, VA when she split from my dad, because they were living there, and my sister, brother, and I, and eventually even my dad, would all follow. We lived in two different houses, right down the street from them. My sister and I babysat their kids, and we took their son to his first concert.

Like the long and winding road the Beatles sang of in the single that was number four that week, our common story will never disappear, but it first hit the charts on July 4, 1970.

Plane Old Planes

My dad was a guy who could tell you what kind of airplane it was that was flying over your head. He would point to the sky and say 707 or L1011 or DC9. Maybe it was because he worked for the airline, but it might have been why he worked for the airline; I’m sorry to say I never thought to ask. Still, as members of an airline family, we kids could identify the planes at the gate as we walked by the huge plate glass windows, and we always asked what kind of a plane it was before we left for any trip.

Back then, the popular new kid was the L1011, a wide body luxury plane with a lounge and a bar in first class, but the queen of the fleet was definitely the 747. Truth be told, I spent many transoceanic hours crammed into a coach seat on a 747 (thinking of airline seats now though? the width of the seat and the legroom make that experience seem almost first class, or certainly Business, AKA “Ambassador” in TWA speak.) I also spent many hours in both business and first class, thanks to the airline industry's pre-deregulation professional courtesy policy. By any measure, HRH 747 took me a lot of places I wanted or needed to go.

Even so, I don't remember the last time I saw one in person before tonight. That's when, up at my garden to water, came a rumble then a roar as Air Force One (or the plane that is AF1 when the president is aboard) lumbered low in the sky on its way to lead the 4th of July flyover. She was followed by a number of vintage crafts from as far back as WWII, a bunch of helicopters, some jet bombers including the stealth bomber, the Golden Knights, the Thunderbirds, and the Blue Angels. It was quite a show, and I enjoyed it all the way as I walked home. We were right over the flight path.

Heidi was unimpressed. "Am I paying for this?" she asked in irritation, but I couldn't agree. In the words of Tattoo on Fantasy Island, The plane, the plane!

Well Read

I listened to and then watched a recording of five of Frederick Douglass's descendants reading excerpts of the speech he gave in 1852 called, What to a Slave is the Fourth of July? I was familiar with this scathing rebuke to Americans delivered 8 years before the Civil War began, but I was reminded of how wrenchingly relevant those words are today.

The readers were all kids between the ages of 13 and 20, and their voices perfectly fit Douglass's words, strong and rightfully condemning. I was spellbound listening, and I felt almost as if I knew them, and then I realized that they reminded me of so many students I have taught over my career-- smart, passionate, critical, and strong.

I can't wait to hear those voices, again.

I Don't See It

Several folks have mentioned lately that I resemble my mom. They are referring both to photos and my in person appearance, and I take it as the compliment it is meant to be: all who have said so knew and loved her.

But I really wish I saw it too.

What Time Will Tell

Tonight, after a 3 month delay, our writing group is finally going to meet. Responsible citizens we, the plan is to sit outside at a distance of 6 feet dining on individual take out meals. Before we adjourned for the pandemic, our annual Slice of Life Story Challenge celebration was scheduled as the next meeting. It is our tradition to read back through the March writing we have all done and select a favorite piece for each of the four of us.

Truth be told, I think we all love this session because the pressure is off-- the writing is already done. I know that's true for me. I also love it because it gives me the opportunity to read and reread a month of pretty great writing from each of my friends.

And that's what I did this morning; I spent a while revisiting our posts, blog by blog, day by day. Wow! What an extraordinary month to document! On March 1 it hadn't even entered anyone's mind that the corona virus might impact school, let alone close down the entire nation. By the next week, we were considering time away from our buildings with uncertainty, and on March 13 school closed for what we thought would be a month.

Through the next weeks we wrote of distance learning and quarantine, at first a novelty but soon a steady, wearing grind fraught with worry for our students, until on March 24 the governor closed schools for the rest of the academic year.

Re-reading our writing from then, I'm struck with how unaware we were, like children waving on the beach as an enormous wave looms behind them. Even at the end of the month, how little we knew of what was yet to come. It seems like years rather than months since the challenge ended; the crawl of time has been filled with so many enormous events, and I can't help but wonder what I might think when I look back on my writing in another three months.

8 Birthdays: What a Wonderful Life

When I hatched this 8 lists of 8 concept, a quick little tote on my fingers confirmed that the last eight would be on my birthday. That's easy, thought I.

Turns out, I was wrong. It was nice to know where I was headed all week, but picking the top 8 of 58 wasn't quite as simple as I expected. I have had a lot of wonderful birthdays.

When I was a kid, being born on the last day of June meant never having to go to school on my birthday. Sure, it meant never having my mom bring cupcakes for the class on my birthday, but somehow, that trade-off always seemed worth it. Especially since my mom went all out for our birthdays, particularly in the cake category. I had a cake castle with a princess in a cake dress, a barn with coconut grass and animals, my brother had covered wagons, and a circus train, my sister had a jack-in-the-box for her first birthday, and there were all sorts of cats and Snoopys in between.

With all that in mind, the first entry on my list is a bit of a cheat-- it's all my birthdays before the age of 10 (which is an arbitrary number, but I have the sense that 10 is the age when my kid birthdays ended).

18

The year I turned 18, my family spent 2 weeks in a rented villa in Portugal at the end of which I headed off to London to be a counselor for a summer program at the English branch of the Swiss boarding school I had graduated from the year before. I spent my 18th birthday at Heathrow Airport, holding up greeting signs and shepherding kids on to shuttle buses bound for Surrey. No one knew it was my birthday, and I forgot it myself several times throughout the day. So this is what it's like to be an adult, I thought with sadness and pride. That night, as I played poker with the other counselors, there was a knock on the window, and there was my family-- my mom, dad, brother, and sister had rerouted their trip home to Saudi Arabia to spend the last couple hours of my birthday with me.

19

The year I was 19, I canceled my counselor job from the summer before to spend a summer term at college. One summer was a requirement of my university, and although I hoped to get an exemption, it was not a sure thing, and all my friends were planning on being on campus that summer. One boy in particular encouraged me to stay, and when I did, he was a constant companion. When he found out it was my birthday, he offered to take rent a canoe and take me fishing on the lake near our school. As we paddled about casting our lines unsuccessfully, he suggested I turn my back to the bow and keep fishing as he paddled us to a place he knew was lucky. Nearing the end of the lake, I heard a chorus of voices and turned to find all my friends singing happy birthday on a little beach.

 Not 24

"Are you going to write about the time Teresa and Elaine showed up and crashed your birthday?" my brother asked me this afternoon. "Because that was one of my favorite of your birthdays," he laughed.

Yeah. No.

40
and
50

Our whole family gathered for a week in Maine on both of these milestone birthdays. We hiked, canoed, ate lobster, and had an all out wonderful time. Just 2 more years 'til 60!

53

I've spent a lot of birthdays in Buffalo, where Heidi's parents live. Mostly, it has to do with summer travel and coordinating our visit with her brother or nephew. In 2015, I took matters into my own hands, organizing a trip to Jamestown, NY, birthplace of Lucille Ball and home of the Lucy Museum. Can you say Vitameatavegemin?

57

I flew out to Minnesota to spend time with my mom right after school ended last year. Heidi joined us on the 29th, and the three of us played games, went to the pool, ate at one of the best restaurants in the Cities, and walked around St. Anthony's Falls on The Mississippi River. It had been 7 years since I spent my birthday with my mom, and this would be the last time I'd ever get to do it. It was a great day.

58

Despite the restrictions of the pandemic, today was quite possibly the quintessential birthday for me; in fact, if my sister's family had been here, it would have been nearly perfect. I ate peach and blueberry galette for breakfast, worked on solving a murder box until 10, went over to my brother's for sandwiches (from Earl's!), games in the back yard with both my older nephews, and lemon cupcakes. Once home, Heidi and I closed all the curtains and pulled the recliing chair up to the TV to pretend we were at the movies. (We would have had popcorn if we hadn't been so full of cupcakes.) When the house lights came up on Troop Zero, I wiped a tear and walkeda up to water my garden. Then it was home for lobster rolls and corn on the cob.

I know, right?

8 States

Spending so much time at home encourages daydreams of traveling. In my life, I have been fortunate to see a lot of the world, and quite a bit of the United States. As of this writing, I have set foot in 48 states (Hawaii and Idaho, I'm coming for you), and I have spent time outside an airport or an interstate in 45 states, and I have actually spent more than a night in 39 states.

This is an amazing country, both topographically and culturally, and it's easy to see why people come from all over the world to visit. Even so, there are places that, for me, one stop was enough. Then there are the places I would go again and again.

These are my top 8 states:

Alaska

Alaska has a lot to live up to, and it does. It has the most beautiful mountains I ever seen outside of the Alps. Forests, glaciers, ocean, tundra, it is immense and amazing.

Maine

I first visited Maine in August 1995. We left hot and sticky Virginia to spend a few days with a friend on Mount Desert Island. I'll never forget the first day-- my friend showed us around the island and through Acadia National Park. Windows down we rolled along the ocean and through forests with the sharp smells of salt and balsam in air. "I hate it here!" I said. "It's too perfect, and I never want to leave, but I have to, so I hate it."

New Jersey

My family lived in South Jersey from the time I was 4 until I was 13. I loved my childhood there. Beaches in the summer, peach, blueberry, and apple picking, in the fall, snowy winters, and rainy springs with daffodils and lilac. I started school there, made my first best friend, learned to swim and ride a bike, and played soccer and softball.

South Dakota

On the eastern side, it's all farm land and prairie that rolls into the Badlands and the Black Hills. Looking out the car window, you can imagine cowboys riding up over the ridge to your right. It is gorgeous country, wide open and still untamed.

New Mexico

The Sandia Mountains make a half-circle around the flat, high plains that Albuquerque sits on. There is true dessert in all the other directions. Dry heat during the day gives way to cool nights, even in summer, and the stars!

California

Everyone knows Cali is amazing, from south to central to north. I can't imagine tiring of it.

The last two slots are still open.

I think Virginia might make it, if I hadn't lived here for the last 37 years. One day, if I move away, I might long for the monuments of Northern Virginia, or the shores of Virginia Beach, or the splendor of the Blue Ridge Mountains, especially in autumn.

And New York i in the running, too. The City is exciting and vibrant, always worth a visit. My dad grew up in central New York, and I went to college there. The winters were grueling, but I honestly didn't mind. Heidi's folks live in Buffalo, and I've spent a lot of time in Western NY in the last 22 years. Niagara Falls? Incomparable, and the great lakes, Erie and Ontario, are, well, great. But, sorry NY, I just can't commit.

8 Sandwiches (plus 1)

"I don't think I've ever seen you eat a sandwich before," one of my colleagues remarked at lunch a few months ago; this after eating that meal together almost every day for at least three years.

"It's not my usual," I agreed, taking a bite of calabrese salami and provolone on pane di campagne. A couple of seconds in the microwave had softened the bread and warmed the meat and cheese so that no condiments were necessary. It was delicious.

My relationship with that workhorse of the portable meal is a bit fraught. I love a good sandwich, but it rarely occurs to me to go out of my way to eat one. Even that day, the only reason I had a sandwich for lunch was that there were no leftovers or salad fixins in the fridge. As a kid, I always wanted to buy my lunch, despite the fact that my mother packed fresh fruit and homemade sweets with every bag lunch. I think it must have been the sandwich, peanut butter and jelly (which I hate to this day) or bologna and yellow mustard, that I objected to. 

A notable exception was anything with cream cheese, which in our house meant cream cheese and olive or cream cheese and jelly, often my mothers homemade peach jam. I also think that the store-bought white bread of the day was another drawback; I clearly remember tearing the center of a slice away from the crust and rolling it into a gummy ball of dough which some kids liked, but most of us used as ammunition.

Outside the lunchbox, there were some sandwiches that were rare treats, restaurant-made as they were. For us, living right outside Philadelphia, we're talking incomparable cheese steaks and hoagies. A few years later, when we moved to Saudi Arabia, shawarma from a street vendor was always a satisfying, and late night ham and Bel Paese cheese sandwiches with mustard and mayonnaise from Angelo at the snack bar were a staple at my Swiss boarding school.

After college, I moved to Virginia Beach and The Jewish Mother was a fun place to go see live music. True to their name, they had an extensive deli menu, too, and if I was there, I loved Mother's Uncle Sam: turkey, avocado, and sprouts on pumpernickel. Another great sandwich down there was the Taste Unlimited roast beef and havarti with their signature dressing, perfect for packing a picnic to take to the beach.

These days, there's a roasted cauliflower with tahini and pickled beets that a little Lebanese takeout place up in Buffalo makes that I order every time I'm in town, and locally? It's Earl's chipotle turkey with bacon and  field greens. Can you believe I just figured out that they probably named that place Earl's after the Earl of Sandwich?

Yup.

So, to recap, here are my top 8 sandwiches:

Cream cheese and homemade peach jam

Philly cheesesteak

Italian hoagie

Shawarma

Ham and Bel Paese with pickles and mustard and mayonaise

Mother's Uncle Sam

Roast Beef and Havarti

Cauliflower and tahini wrap

Chipotle turkey with bacon and field greens on ciabatta

Oh? And in a pinch? I would enjoy that calabrese and provolone on pane di campagna, as long as it is gently warmed. But I can make that one myself.

8 Homegrown Vegetables

I have had a community garden for 10 years now. My how time flies! Most of the time I still feel like the novice new kid, fighting an endless battle against mugwort and wire grass, but I guess I've learned a few things, too. One of the most important lessons is that every season is different, and although I can do some things to help my plants thrive, most of it is up to them.

At this point in my agrarian career, there are eight must-have crops:

tomatoes
shell beans
okra
eggplant
peppers
corn
summer squash
winter squash

As reluctant as I am to leave my garden for vacations and family visits, coming back after time away and seeing how much has grown is always really exciting. It reminds me that we often lose sight of daily progress when we are right there.

I can't wait until Monday!

Eight Birds

I never paid much attention to birds growing up. My Aunt Sis would always call us to the back door of her Virginia home whenever she spotted a Cardinal or a Blue Jay, though, and I learned early that Robin Red Breast was a sign of spring. But beyond that, all birds with dark feathers were blackbirds and anything that swam on a pond and ate leftover bread was a duck.

I take that back: I knew what pigeons were, and still, on a high school trip, I bought a handful of corn from the vendor in the Piazza del Duomo so that I could hold a dozen of them on my outstretched arm.

Later, when I was in college, it was the bird feeder outside my Aunt Harriett's picture window by the kitchen table and the field guide on the sill that finally captured my attention and kindled my interest in birds. It was kind of thrill to be able to sort and name the birds that came for the millet and sunflower seeds. Chickadees, Nuthatches, Titmice, Sparrows, Wrens, Finches, Starlings, Mockingbirds, and Downy Woodpecker joined Cardinals, Blue Jays, Ducks, and Pigeons in my consciousness.

In 2006, I participated in the Northern Virginia Writing Project Summer Institute, an experience which changed my teaching and writing forever. One of the most popular books among our cohort was Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Subtitled Some Instructions on Writing and Life, the book draws its title from advice Lamott's writer dad gave to her 10-year-old brother when he was overwhelmed by a report he had to write on birds: Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

All summer, we used those words as short hand to describe the best approach to any overwhelming task (such as teaching or writing or teaching writing): Get started and keep going, day by day, word, by word, student by student.

Here are 8 birds I've only spotted once or twice:

Indigo Bunting
Cedar Waxwing
Magpie
Common Loon
Kingfisher
Virginia Rail
Oriole
Screech Owl

But I'll keep looking!

Top 8 Radio, 1972

When we were kids, our car radio was always tuned to WFIL; they played all the top 40 hits live from Center City Philadelphia. Out on any errand, short or long, my mom, brother, and sister and I would sing along to every song.

The year I was in fourth grade, I got a clock radio for Christmas. I guess my mom must have thought that it was time I started getting myself up and ready for school, and what better way to start the day than listening to the radio? She was right about that-- even today my alarm wakes me, not to the top 40, but to NPR. Even so, that first year of having my own radio made a huge impression on me.

Whenever I hear a song from 1972, I'm transported back to that yellow room I shared with my sister. I am sitting on my bed, a homemade canopy contraption made with a plywood frame on the ceiling hung with dyed bed sheets on spring curtain rods. My night table is on the left, and the boxy white analog clock with AM radio is right under the little lamp.

Here's the list of my favorite eight songs of that year:

Doctor My Eyes by Jackson Browne
Candy Man by Sammy Davis Jr
American Pie by Don McLean
Brandy by Lookin Glass
Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast by Wayne Newton
Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens
Song Sung Blue by Neil Diamond
Heart of Gold by Neil Young

That was also the year I started buying my own records, and I owned the 45 of almost every song on that list!

Pie!

We brought a bag full of those Georgia peaches up here to Buffalo, and they are ripening quite nicely. So much so, that Heidi's mom decided to bake a peach and cherry pie for dessert tonight. It was a warm and satisfying end to a meal of pan-roasted halibut with buerre blanc, sauteed fresh corn, and a spinach salad, and it got me thinking about pie.

Years ago, when my friend and colleague Leah and I started our first online writing community for our sixth graders, using new-ish technology to bridge the distance between our 2 middle schools, the students immediately started shaping the virtual space all on their own, first by posting polls and questionnaires on the discussion board topic we called Random. One of the more memorable was Pie or Ice Cream?  

The profound simplicity of the question, along with the engaged debate it inspired, convinced me that we were on to something much larger than we knew. Our students voluntarily wrote seven days a week, nearly 24 hours a day, on that topic and many others. It was September 2006, coincidentally the very same month that Facebook went live to anyone over the age of 13 with an email address.

As for me? I love ice cream, but I was always pie, no question. Here are 8 of my favorites, in no particular order:

Lemon Meringue
Peach and Blueberry
Blackberry Cobbler
Apple Cranberry
Pecan
Sour Cherry
Chocolate Mousse
Key Lime

And, if I didn't have to choose between the two, I would have them a la mode, anytime!

8 Great Road Trips

This top eight list idea started on a road trip; I love a road trip; so naturally my first list would be road trips.

Here they are in chronological order:

Geneva to Lugano 1978

This was the annual trip our high school basketball team took to the big tournament. Our school was much smaller than the other contenders, and we rarely made it to the semi-finals, but Geneva had the only McDonalds within 200 miles of our school, and our bus always stopped there before we headed back through the Alps. Those french fries and shakes made the sting of getting spanked by the home team a little less painful.

Hamilton to Virginia Beach and back 1983

At the end of the January term our senior year 3 of my college friends and I decided to take the three days we had before the spring semester and go down to Virginia Beach where my mom was living. We left at about 10 at night and drove all the way through, arriving at the ocean just as the sun was rising. We spent the day and one night and then turned back north, breaking our return trip in DC with one of my high school buddies, where we ate fondue and drank beer and Jaegermeister by the fire long into the evening.

Austin to Santa Fe 1992

The first stop was San Antonio and that tiny adobe mission we know as the Alamo, then we ate the best cheese and bean enchiladas I have ever tasted at a roadside dive outside Del Rio. We dipped into Mexico for the afternoon and then drove north on 285 through the scrubby desert in the western panhandle of Texas. Crossing the Pecos River at sunset, the sandstone gorge was glowing red, lit by the golden light reflecting off the water. I'll never forget it.

Minneapolis to Rapid City and back 1997

Early in August, my mom had a conference to attend in South Dakota, and since I was on summer break she invited me to tag along. Heading west, it wasn't long before we left the Twin Cities way behind passing first through farm land and then over the Red River and into the prairie. Until then, I didn't realize exactly where the American west was located. After lunch and fantastic homemade pie at Al's on the Missouri River, our next stop was the Corn Palace in Mitchell. There I bought a paperback of O Pioneers by Willa Cather and read that story of hard scrabble and survival on the prairie as we drove across the same land. In the next four days, we saw the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills, Crazy Horse Monument, Deadwood, Devil's Tower, Wind Cave, AND Wall Drug.

Arlington to Bar Harbor and Buffalo 2005

Back when my oldest nephews were kids, we used to rent a minivan and drive to Mount Desert Island for a week of hiking and blueberry picking. This particular summer, we stopped in Buffalo on the way home and stayed with Heidi's folks, where we explored Niagara Falls, including Cave of the Winds, and camped on the shore of Lake Erie. We played Settlers of Catan at the picnic table, cooked our meals over an open driftwood fire, and the boys climbed the cliffs that towered over the lake beach.

Minneapolis to Medora and back, ND 2007

Heidi and I joined my mom and a couple of her book club friends for what we came to call the "Dead White Guy" tour of the upper midwest. Our first stop was Sauk Centre, birthplace of Sinclair Lewis and thinly disguised setting for his breakthrough novel, Main Street. From there we drove through Fargo and on to Valley City, which was the childhood home of one of our traveling companions. Then it was all the way across the state, through countless fields of sunflowers, to Medora, and Teddy Roosevelt National Park, home of the North Dakota Badlands. We did the famous steak fry and western show, and toured the park, pulling our van over to witness an actual wild stallion fight. On the return we stopped at Fort Mandan, Lewis and Clark's first winter headquarters.

Arlington to Isle of Palms 2011

We rented a beach house for spring break, and my mom flew in from Minnesota to drive down with us. My sister and her family traveled from Atlanta to meet us in Isle of Palms. We rented a minivan, and although Emily and Treat flew down later in the week, my brother and his dog joined me, Heidi, my mom, and our dog for the trip. We listened to 70s music and laughed all the way down I-95. The first morning we were there, the beach was covered in sea stars, and we thought it must just be like that there, but we didn't see anymore for the rest of the week.

Arlington to Rochester 2019

Heidi and Lucy and I drove west to spend the month of August in Minnesota with my mom. It was a lot of highway, but we passed through Michigan City, where my grandfather was born and raised, and Chicago, the skyline bright at 11 at night. We found a couple of dog parks not far off our route so that Lucy could run a bit, and feasted on fantastic hot Italian sandwiches a couple blocks from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. We admired the glacier carved sandstone in the Dells and cheered when we crossed the St. Croix River entering Minnesota in the 24th hour of our journey. After so many years of visiting my mom out there, it was kind of cool to have my dog and my car there, too. Over the month, we drove back and forth from the Cities to Rochester many times, over the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, past the refinery where my mom worked, through farms with fields of corn and soy beans, gray barns and horses, wind breaks and wind mills to the tidy town with numbered streets and avenues and a world-famous clinic at its heart.

8 x 8

On our road trip up to Buffalo today, we did what we have done countless times before: Buckled in, punched play on an audiobook, and ventured forth. The book of this trip was Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson. To be honest, I am not sure where I read about this mystery written in a twisty classic whodunit style, but wen I saw it in my library, I knew it was the story for us.

The premise of the novel is that the narrator, Malcolm Kershaw, owns a mystery book store in Boston. Several years ago, writing for the store's blog, he published a list of 8 perfect literary murders. In the opening pages, an FBI agent shows up in the middle of a blizzard with the theory that a serial killer is using his list.

These eight mysteries are real books:

A.A. Milne’s The Red House Mystery,
Anthony Berkley Cox’s Malice Aforethought,
Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders,
James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity,
Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train,
John D. MacDonald’s The Drowner,
Ira Levin’s Deathtrap,
and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History,

and their plots and themes are woven into this story, too, offering lots of layers, especially to those who are already familiar with the eight original texts.

Near the beginning of the story, Malcolm muses on all the lists he has made as a reader, starting with those he created as a boy and working through those he has published on the blog over the years. He decides that they give him an identity beyond his own, one of authority. They are also quick and easy topics.

Hmm, he might be on to something. With that latter rationale in mind, I have challenged myself to 8 days of lists of 8.

Tune in tomorrow to see how that goes.

Reframing a Sprinkler Fail

I walked up to my garden today to make sure that everything was as set as it could be for a week away. I weeded and fertilized; inspired by Squanto, I applied some disgusting fish concoction on my three sisters mounds, and I have enormous hope that it will be just the thing. I also gave the whole plot a thorough watering using the sprinkler set-up I wrote of before, but also adding another watering spike I found tucked away in the back of the little shed I keep in the corner.

What may sound like a simple process, stick sprinkler in the ground, connect hose, was actually much more complicated. Several of my hoses have nozzles frozen on their threads, and so I had to pull out two short ones and hook them to the connector. Then it was a matter of adjusting the position, the spray, and the watering area, all while my other sprinkler was running.

Short story long? I got soaked! As I took several direct hits to the face, what an idiot I must have looked like to anyone on the other side of the chain link fence who cared to pay attention. At least the whole garden was getting watered.

And, once I was wet, I just plunged right in to the heart of the garden to do my fertilizing, becoming further drenched as I worked. Because I did not care: the sun was warm and a torpid little breeze just barely stirred the trees, and I had been sweating, but no more! Being wet was exhilarating, and I stayed even longer in the garden than I planned. There's a reason we used to play in the sprinkler when we were kids.

If the pool never opens this summer, I think I might have a lot of "watering" to do.

Hail Mary

A light drizzle could not deter me from my appointed destination this afternoon. My friend Mary had forwarded some information about the great Georgia peach road trip, and I had pre-ordered my half bushel right away, especially since the stop was at a garden center right up the hill from us.

From folding tables beneath a collapsible canopy, two young men efficiently worked to hawk and deliver their wares and in less than five minutes I had my freestones and was headed home. Oh, those 72 peaches were refrigerator-cold and hard as rocks, but I read my info card carefully, and with 6 dozen greenish-pink little fist-sized fruits clenched on the counter, I choose to be confident that they will be on their way to perfectly ripe in just a couple days.

Peaches, anyone?

Yay?

We usually celebrate the last day of school by going out to lunch for a lobster roll and then to a movie.

Well.

That's out.

I Love Nature! Except When I Don't

A flurry of wings and a raucous racket drew my attention to the sky this morning as I walked Lucy. Over my head, a crow pumped its pinions furiously, pusued by two very distraught robins. As the crow swooped closer, I saw a limp figure with downy feathers and tiny feet grasped tightly in its clutches. Clearly, it had stolen one of the robins' nestlings and they had given chase. All three birds landed on the peak of the roof to my right, the robins pestering the crow, the crow posturing in defense. Where the baby robin was, I couldn't see, but eventually the robins flew away and the crow hopped over the roofline and pecked murderously at its prize.

Those Were the Days!

The first house my parents ever owned was a 3 bedroom colonial in a Levitt community in South Jersey, right outside Philadelphia. It was actually pink when we moved in in 1966, but they painted it avocado green as the 70s approached.

There were many things I remember fondly about being a child in that house: the peach, pear, and apple trees in the backyard, the forsythia clubhouse on the side of the garage, sledding down the gentle slope of our street when it snowed, and the epic kickball games and variety shows that some of the older kids in the neighborhood organized, just to name a few.

Another great thing about the planned town where we lived was that every elementary school was in walking distance of every house in the subdivision (kids used to walk home for lunch-- that was an option along with buying or bringing!) AND every school had a public pool. Oh how excited we were about going to the pool at this time of year; it always opened in mid to late June, on the day after school got out for the summer.

My mom had a rule, though, it had to be at least 70 degrees for us to go. Looking back, especially as an adult, I think she was more than reasonable, but as kids it was excruciating waiting to see if the weather would cooperate. Once the pool was actually open, though, and we were enrolled in swimming lessons, that rule was gone.

My brother and I had to walk ourselves down to the pool in the early morning when lessons were scheduled. That wasn't so bad, but I can clearly remember wrapping my towel around me as tightly as it would go and watching my wet footprints on the cold sidewalk as I shivered, blue-lipped all the way home. 

Measure Twice, Cut Once

This week is professional learning for teachers, and in keeping with the times, all of it is remote, and most of it is asynchronous. That was not the case for the session I chose for this morning however. All of us who enrolled gathered via MS Teams from 10 to 11 to learn about the educational tool called Flipgrid.

Essentially a video discussion board, Flipgrid allows kids to record, enhance, and post their video replies to an assignment. In order to teach us about it, the instructors of our course this morning gave us 10 minutes to view a quick how-to and then post an introduction video of ourselves to the group. All we had to say was our names, where and what we teach, and an interesting fact about ourselves.

It was the fact that jammed me up. After three months at home, I couldn't think of anything on the fly that anyone might find the least bit engaging. As the timer ticked down, I swallowed, looked straight at my laptop camera, and hit record. Then I blathered some nonsense about my passport renewal which I had dropped in the mail right before joining the meeting.

My blood roared in my ears because I knew the class was waiting for me to post, and I hit the send button and clicked back to the meeting. Even as the instructors went over some basics, I was suffering remorse, thinking how dumb my video was.

As we moved through the teacher tools, participants were encouraged to post questions in the chat. I waited to see if my one burning question might be answered, but when it seemed we were near to the end of the presentation my fingers flew to the keyboard: Can students edit or delete their videos once they are posted?

"That's a good question," the instructor commented. "I don't know."

But I knew that my students would want to know, and at that moment, I completely understood why. My video was fine, but it felt risky to put it out there only to lose control of it. My anxiety was heightened by the structure of the assignment: if I had had more time, I could have created a recording I was more comfortable with.

To be honest? Flipgrid is a fun tool that I think kids will find engaging, but the biggest lesson of the day was that reminder before we ask our students to go public with their work and ideas, we must create a safe space and give them the time they need to feel good about their contribution.

Find a Penny, Pick it Up

Of all the institutions in this country, I never would have predicted that the Supreme Court, as it is currently constituted, would deliver the one piece of good news in the last three months. And yet, there they were, announcing 6-3 that the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does indeed protect people who are LGBTQ.

It's small, but it's shiny, and I'm going to hold on to it.

You Get What You Get

Heidi and Lucy and I took a walk in a newly-reopened national forest this afternoon. It was a little later in the day, and although we saw several people, most of the time we had the trail to ourselves, rambling up and down the hills, along the creek, through the woods, past an early 19th century cemetery.

Just a little farther south than here the day was a bit overcast, and a light wind stirred the fragrance of pine and hardwood into the air and kept the mosquitos away. It was a cool day for June in Virginia, and after so many miles walked around the neighborhood, the change of location was dramatic, almost as if we had traveled away from home on vacation.

Somewhere around mile 3 I noticed how far away the events of the last three months seemed, and how relaxed in turn I felt. As we walked, I understood that, like everything else, summer vacation is going to look different this year, but the rolling trail ahead of me and the sunlight filtering through the leaves gave me confidence that, like everything else, we can make it work.

Birthday Dinner

Yesterday was my mother's birthday, the first since she passed away in October. "What are you going to make for dinner?" my sister asked me, for I have a tradition of remembering those we loved with a favorite meal of theirs on their birthdays.

But I couldn't answer her question, because I honestly didn't know. My mom was a great cook and loved so many foods it was hard to pick a signature dish. Even narrowing the choices down was a challenge, although my brother and sister and I did have a go at it as we talked yesterday afternoon.

Our conjecture was a little irreverent, focusing on things that she liked that we didn't always love. "Some kind of salad with fruit in it and a dressing that is too sweet?" My brother suggested.

"Or one of those awful chopped salads from a bag?" my sister offered.

"Slap some pesto butter on frozen salmon and pop it in the oven," my brother continued, "and mash up some cauliflower to go with it."

My mother did love cauliflower, especially after she began limiting most of the carbs in her diet to wine and dessert. It was kind of good to laugh at her a little, too, as we would have done if she were still around to take the teasing.

In the end I chose to make southern fried chicken using my grandmother's recipe, which was something my mother loved but rarely treated herself to. And Heidi insisted that we had to have chocolate cake, which the love of was a bond between her and my mom. And I think a new tradition has been born, because, fried chicken and chocolate cake! Who could say no to that?

Don't worry-- I made mashed cauliflower and a salad, too. Not from a bag, though, and the dressing? Was not too sweet.

But I know my mom would have like it anyway. Happy Birthday, Frannie.

Perfection Not Required

I volunteered to go into school today to help return some of the possessions that our students left behind when they were dismissed on March 13. As happens so often these days, the beautiful day belied the hazard of the situation. The system we had in place, involving marked plastic bags organized by homeroom on the sidewalk in front of the building, and signs displayed in car windows as they drove through at designated times, was thoughtful, but clunky.

We ended up sweating in our masks on folding chairs in the shade until it was time to hunt down some plastic bags from piles where the signs had blown away and then toss them through open car windows. (But not before the librarian squeezed every car for any overdue books!) And I did get to shout a few words of thanks and encouragement to the students and families I knew before they drove off.

Even so, since we had never done any such thing ever before, all of us volunteers agreed it was workable, if not successful. Furthermore, we agreed that even though we had some insight and suggestions into how to improve it? We never wanted to have to offer them.