They're Circling

"I can't believe you're 60!" my aunt said to me the other day.

"Hey now!" I cried. "I'm not, yet! I still have 75 more days!"

"How do you know that?" she laughed and my uncle joined in.

The way I know how many days to my birthday is an overly complicated story involving the 100 Day Writing Challenge, dancing every day, and of course, my birth date, but rather than go into it, I shrugged. "I just do."

A little while later we were watching all the birds in the woods right behind her new place. "Wow!" I noted, "there are a lot of buzzards!"

"Go away!" my uncle called. "She's not 60 yet!"

A New One on Me

After a warm week, Easter Sunday dawned a crisp Spring day, full of blue skies, warm sunshine, and cool air. Heidi and I met some neighbors downtown for a full circuit of the National Mall. Notably, all the fountains and pools were completely drained of water, their granite and cement scrubbed clean of algae and gunk.

Tourists took advantage of the situation and, ducking under flimsy barriers, walked on the bottom of the Capitol Reflecting Pool, the WWII fountain, and the Reflecting Pool between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, replacing the ducks and geese who usually preside there.

 It was a sight I have never seen before in all my years in this city.

Check, Check, and Check

Unintentionally, the theme of this spring break has become checking things off the not since COVID list. Monday was a visit to Mt. Vernon, Wednesday was the movies, and today Heidi and I drove the hour it takes to visit my Aunt Harriett. She is my mom's sister, and at 85 is the last survivor of that generation on my sister, my brother and my side of the family. I last saw her in February of 2020, right before everything shut down. A few days later, she and her husband moved from the home she had lived in since 1962 to a nearby retirement community. 

In the 2 years since, we've face-timed and spoken on the phone, but it didn't really compare to that big hug I got this afternoon and the smell of the perfume she's been wearing all my life. It was a fun afternoon, and we stayed longer than we planned to. Before we left, we made plans to meet again soon for some genealogy research and lunch at the American Legion in Greenbelt. 

I can't wait.

A Sort of Spring Cleaning

It felt good today to get back into my garden for the first time this season. The weather was perfect for it: 65 and sunny with a light breeze. With Treat's help, I got all the beds cleared and about half or the other space. It'll take several hours to get the whole job done, but today was a good start. 

Another thing we did was turn the compost. I have three bins that I have been filling, one since I got the garden in 2009, another since about 2018, and a third since last summer. All the weeds and unusable vegetables go in there, plus the plants when I clean out at the end of each season. The newer bins were easy to turn-- we simply removed the front slats and pitch-forked the contents out. From them, we got about 5 5-gallon buckets of nice, dry compost to add to the beds we had cleared. Then we layered the bigger, unbroken stalks and stems with the weeds we had pulled today, and some of the dry compost, too. 

Afterwards we put some contractor bags over the top to heat it up and some cobble stones from the garden to hold them down. I have great faith that it will turn into the best compost ever, a belief I repeated to Treat more than a few times. He is very tolerant of his auntie, though, and listened without complaint. 

The third bin was there when we were first assigned to our plot. A repurposed trash bin that sat wheel-less in one of the overgrown corners of the garden, it, along with the huge manhole that usurps a big space in the middle, the rat bait trap on the fence line, and the weeds that had overrun the whole plot did not daunt me when first I took stewardship, although they probably should have. And indeed, the bait trap was removed right away, the manhole is a perfect place to set a container garden, and the weeds, well, every year they reign a little less supreme. But that compost bin? I did manhandle to a spot against the fence a couple years ago, but emptying it or turning it? I've never had it in me to start that task. 

Until today. Treat and I brought it over to the other bins and dumped it out. For 13 years of clippings and such, its contents were unimpressive, but when we got to the bottom we found some electronic sprinkler thing, a bone, and all manner of trash that had been left by the previous gardeners. The experience was a cross between an archaeological experience and just plain gross. But we tossed the garbage, and incorporated the other contents into the greatest compost ever, and then dragged that bin back to its corner where it can continue to do its job for many more years to come.

Hmm

I literally snorted when the yogi asked her first journal question in our virtual session this morning. "Are you a walking blessing?"

My answer was a hard no, and of course the follow-up was "How can you be one?"

I could not dismiss the question.

I still can't.

Tarnished

We decided to go to the movies today. 

What a couple of years ago would have been a non-decision, based only on what was playing at what time and how many seats were left, today's plans involved the calculus of how empty the theater was and whether or not to wear a mask. The movie we chose for our re-engagement with the theater was well-reviewed and sounded like something we might like: Michelle Yeoh starring in Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. At the last minute, we invited Treat, and he met us there. 

"This is the first movie we've been to since COVID," I told him as we settled into our recliners. There were only 3 other people in the theater besides us. 

"Congratulations," he said.

The trailer reel began rolling right then, and, in the third row, I wondered if I had chosen seats a little too close: everything was so big and loud and hard to focus on. Heidi was munching on some cheese corn which we both agreed tasted a little off, and I adjusted and readjusted my seat, trying to find the sweet spot I thought I remembered. 

25 minutes later, after a weird tribute to going to the movies featuring Nicole Kidman, as well as the inexplicable repeat of the first preview, the house lights dimmed and the movie started.

"What did I just see?" Heidi asked, when the end credits began their crawl over 2 hours later.

"I'm not sure," Treat answered.

"I didn't love it," I agreed, "and I'm not sure I liked it either. I'm going to need some time to think about it."

For the Pie!

I love trivia.

I was a 19-year-old college student when the first edition of Trivial Pursuit came out. Back then, my family would spend hours rolling the die, answering questions, and collecting pie. Forty years later, I still know that when you roll a 4 or 5 on Roll Again, you automatically move to another Roll Again space. 

Over the years, we have collected dozens of games that feature knowing stuff, and they are often a big hit whenever the family gathers. A few years ago, we were all into HQ Trivia, eagerly waiting fro the next live match where we could vie for our share of the jackpot, usually 18 cents or so.

These days? My daily source of trivia is the Name Drop game on The New Yorker digital site. Each player gets 6 clues and 100 seconds to guess the identity of a specific person. I like it when I win, because I feel smart, but I also like it when I lose, because it reveals big gaps in my cultural knowledge, which forces me to confront my biases and assess my priorities in cultural consumption.

Even so, I have never gotten the answer right on the first clue, until today. I have had some strong hunches, and a few Oh I should have guessed that! moments, but never certainty of the correct answer from Clue 1:

In my memoir “A Girl from Yamhill,” I recall discovering my love of reading when, bored on a rainy day, I picked up “The Dutch Twins,” by Lucy Fitch Perkins.

Of course it was Beverly Cleary, who, if she hadn't died last year, would have been 105 on this day, the day before my brother's birthday, and to whom he wrote a letter when he was eight (and she was 56), and who answered him back, in what I remember as one of the most miraculous events of our childhood!