Location Services

There's a bit of a lag in the weather app that I favor. Not a fan of push notifications, I'm kind of choosy when it comes to who I'll allow to interrupt me with whatever their algorithm deems important. But weather? Eh. 

It's sometimes helpful to know that rain is starting or ending, or that a winter storm warning is in place for our region. But that lag! For days when I am traveling I receive alerts for home, and then when it finally adjusts, I get notifications about the place I've been, not where I am now. 

There is an upside though. When I'm away, I like knowing when my garden has been watered by the rain, and sometimes knowing the urgent weather information for the beach or Maine or Buffalo makes the transition from there to here a little easier. 

Tonight as I drove home from the grocery store through an unexpected downpour, I was unsurprised when my phone beeped, but as the storm let up and I checked the update, I saw that rain was stopping in Atlanta, too. Knowing that my sister was looking out on the same type of weather made me smile.

A Little Lunchtime Poetry

I'm on a lot of mailing lists.

On any given day, I may receive newsletters about cooking, vegetarian cooking, bread baking, cheese making, teaching, teaching writing, poetry, challenging racism, an insider's look at congress, local news, news in Buffalo, news in the Twin Cities, farming in Maine, cheap travel deals, Swiss tourism, my horoscope, some general spiritual advice, Dog Mountain, upcoming performances in nearby venues, and yes, more (!).

I confess that [of course] many days I simply mark most of that type of message to delete without reading, but not always. That subject line and preheader text that writers and editors work so hard to perfect really does help determine whether that day's correspondence stays in my inbox. Whether I actually get to read it is another step, but I'm really glad that I took the time to read the July newsletter from Challenging Racism the other day. Under their recommendations, I followed a link to an online poetry workshop sponsored by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

That's how I found myself on a Zoom call from 12 to 1 this afternoon with the poet Anthony McPherson and a dozen other folks from across the country interested in learning about and writing some ekphrastic poetry. The genre is poetry written in response to a work of visual art, often taking the perspective of an individual in the painting, sculpture, photograph, or other medium.

Today we looked at three photos and a watercolor that are featured in the current exhibit Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience. McPherson shared some of his ekphrastic poetry inspired by the powerful images, gave us some pointers and direction, showed us how to work through the process, and then gave us some writing time. The writing that a few willing participants shared at the end was amazing: so moving and intense for the short time we had to compose. It's a genre and a process I can easily see using in my classroom.

It felt good to be a learner again, too. I'm almost [almost!] looking forward to getting back to school.

When Life Gives You Squash

 It hasn’t been a good year for my garden. 

I suppose I should be prepared for off-times, but the bounty of the last several seasons has spoiled me. This morning, when I returned to my garden after a week away, I had to toss more rotting tomatoes into the compost than I was able to harvest. The birds peck a few holes and the heat does the rest. After some inspection and maintenance, it seemed like the only thing thriving was butternut squash. There must be a dozen full-sized squashes ripening all over the garden where the single vine I planted has spread rampantly. But along with squash? Come squash blossoms, a treat limited only to the growing season. 

And so that is the harvest we are enjoying tonight, stuffed and fried and served with a sauce prepared from the few tomatoes I culled from the birds.

C’est le vie!

I’ll Report Back

 It seemed like a good fit. All the way home on our drive from Atlanta we listened to a brand new mystery book that begins on August 3, 2022, in a small town in NC right off the Appalachian Trail. The time and the place were spot on, and the comparisons in the reviews to “The Lottery” and The Shining made the novel seem even more appealing. 

But,

Let’s talk plot structure, shall we? We are 80% through the story, and friends? If this book is all they say it is, there has got to be a hell of a plot twist coming.

Early for the Party

Here in Atlanta schools are starting tomorrow, so we’ve spent part of our visit shopping with Annabelle to get what she needs to start high school. I get it, that back-to-school is often synonymous with fall, but it’s still a little weird to see all the pumpkin spice and jack-o’lantern shaped cookies at Target when it’s still July and 90 degrees. But they’re not the only ones— when we went with my cousin Elaine to run an errand in Home Goods, all of their Halloween decorations were front and center. 

“We can probably find that at the store near us when we get home next week,” I told Heidi when she showed me a few cute things. “If they’re not sold out and ready for Christmas by then!”

Between the Raindrops

After a magnificent thunder storm this afternoon followed by a steady downpour, Heidi and I jumped at a chance to take the dogs out when there was a slight break in the weather around 6 PM. The air was thick and steamy, and fat drops plinked from the canopy of towering oak and silver maple as we weaved our way in and out and up and down the slick streets of Midtown Atlanta. Gray light filtered through heavy clouds and the green of the grass was popping. So was the neighborhood— it seemed like every dog owner was trying to catch the same break that we were, and several houses had loud music playing with folks gathered on the porch, partying and watching the rain. As for us, our route was a little more than a mile around, and the dogs got to stretch their legs and take care of some business, before coming home and going back to sleep.

The Shape of Summer, a Few Final Thoughts

Looking back over all those summers it occurred to me that there have been very few summers in my life where I had to go to work every day. I had a couple summer jobs: I was a counselor for a summer school program in England 1980, that waitressing job in 1982, which I wrote about, and in 1984, when I was in graduate school, I sold ice cream on the boardwalk for the summer. 

From 86-89 I had a full time job in the kitchen of a small catering and cafe business in Virginia Beach, and from 90-92, I worked as a cook for United Airlines in their flight kitchen at Dulles Airport. Those are the only 2 jobs I’ve ever had where summers were *gasp* included. I also taught summer school a few years at the beginning of my teaching career, but it’s been decades since I did that. 

Obviously, the shape of most of the summers of my life has been the privilege of having 8-10 weeks off and the resources to enjoy them. I do feel humbly grateful for that.