A Thing of Beauty

Last weekend was the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) in Indianapolis. It was my first time being there since 2019 as PASIC 2020 was canceled and I did not go with Warren in 2021. In past years, I have enthusiastically attended a number of the sessions and performances; this year, not so much. I still have Covid concerns, which I will always have with my compromised immune system and, not surprisingly, I was very uncomfortable being in a large-attendance setting. Even without the Covid concerns, I have not socialized for so long "in a crowd" that I seem to have lost some of that skill set. So I was off-kilter for most of PASIC. 

As a non-percussionist, I often drifted through the Exhibitors Hall in years past, looking at all the shiny cymbals and drums and such. I did some of that this year, especially at times when crowds inside the Hall were down because attendees were busy elsewhere. Still lots of shiny objects: fun to look at, of no use whatsoever to me. On the second day, Warren and I roamed through the Hall together, then he went on to a session. I read for a while in a remote lounge then wandered back into the Hall, looking at a few things, talking to some old friends.

And then I found the Turkish crescent that Cooperman Company was exhibiting in its booth. I had not noticed it on my first pass through the Hall, but I noticed it this time. I did not even know what it was called, but I was drawn to it immediately. It was about six feet tall, a tall, slim wooden rod with a crescent on top and then some saucers (my word) with bells hanging on the rim, and a trombone bell and another instrument bell (a trumpet, possible) below that, with more bells hanging off of them. It was brass, it was shiny, and I wanted nothing more than to take it home and put it in the garden (which would be heresy of the highest degree and destroy the instrument in the course of a season).

That's the Turkish Crescent leaning against a support, its top splitting the "d" and "e" of the sign behind it.

I struck up a conversation with one of the booth's attendants, an older man who saw me eyeing it. He explained what it was was, how it was used historically (with Turkish Janissary bands in battle) and in classical music (Mozart and Berlioz, among others). "We could make you one," he said, smiling. "We have one behind the curtain that someone is picking up at this convention. But we could sell you this one."

How much? $3500. But if I bought that one and took it, I wouldn't have shipping expenses (a not inconsequential factor when it comes to shipping percussion instruments because of their sizes, weights, and special needs). 

 I started laughing. "I live on a small retirement pension." 

The gentleman didn't miss a beat. "Eating is overrated." And then we both laughed as I walked away, looking back once over my shoulder at that thing of beauty and joy for ever. (Note: yes, Keats spelled it "for ever" (split) in Endymion. I checked.)

But the Turkish crescent stuck with me in a weird way. Not in my window shopping an exotic instrument. Not in my inquiring how much. No, my weird experience was I spent the next 30 minutes debating myself about buying that Turkish crescent, rationalizing that I could take the money from an account I have that was funded by a bequest from a former beloved client and friend. I went between "I know she would have wanted me to buy something that gave me so much pleasure" and (having known the client and her fiscal habits very well) "I know she would roll over in her grave at the thought of my spending that much money on something of no use to me whatsoever." 

I was still arguing with myself when I met up with Warren coming out of a session. When I told him of the instrument, he at once volunteered that he could make one. (My husband's side business is he is a custom percussion instrument builder, with highly prized skills.) No! I didn't want just any Turkish crescent. I wanted THAT Turkish crescent. 

I got a little teary. And then I let out a huge breath and said, truthfully, "There's no way I am buying it. I just can't spend that kind of money on something I would never use." (And Warren immediately pointed out that the Turkish crescent on display would rot in the garden.)

Warren suggested we walk over and look at it again. He is the one who took the above photo, which I refused to be in. (Although I had made my decision, it still brought out my worst inner toddler: "If I can't have it, I don't want to stand by it.")

But once he shot the photo, I let go of it. It was just another pretty, shiny, way cool object in Percussion Universe, and I was fine leaving it behind.

But I still think it would look way cool in the garden. Indeed a thing of beauty, albeit a joy for only a season.

Those Tomatoes!

 Back in October, I wrote about picking all of the remaining tomatoes in my garden. Between the cooler temperatures and the change in the slant of the sun, the ones still on the vine were not likely to ripen. As I noted a few days later, I gave some away and continued to put the remainder out daily for a sunbath.

What I picked back in October

We are now at mid-November and I am delighted, nay, thrilled, to report that I have continued to enjoy the tomatoes. A few hit the compost pile because they had problems that could not be cut out or worked around, but all the rest have been going on sandwiches and salads or just into my mouth as a snack. (Warren does not eat tomatoes, for the most part, so except for a few that ended up in a skillet dish, I am the one doing all the eating!)

As of this morning, here is my remaining ripe tomato stash:

A few are getting a little leathery, yet are still delicious. (I know, because I just popped two in my mouth while shooting this photo.)

I am not sure the ones lollygagging on the kitchen sill will make it to full ripeness, but they are still intact and not showing signs of decay:

The lollygaggers

Next week my dad will be joining us for Thanksgiving. I am hoping to be able to put some of the very last, if not the last, tomatoes of 2022 on his salad.

What a great tomato year! 

Small Things, Small Moments

This was two weeks ago in Minnesota, but trust me, Ohio has these same colors! 

Back in April, I wrote a small post in which I announced that I was no longer writing on Medium. In my Medium article, I let readers know that I do have this blog, but then warned them not to expect to find any stunning revelations. After all, this blog is "Small Moments of Great Reward."

"Small Moments," not "Great Big Honking Moments." Small moments. I try to write about what I see, what I do, how I manage my days. And as I make more deliberate efforts to write again, I remind myself that writing small is perfectly okay.

I take great comfort from E. B. White's observation about his own writing: "I discovered a long time ago that writing of the small things of the day...the inconsequential but near things of this living, was the only kind of creative work which I could accomplish with any sincerity or grace."

White was 30 years when he wrote those words to his older brother. If White were looking back and commenting on his own work today, he would likely still say that about himself, perhaps adding that even his children's books reflected those "small things of the day." 

If small things worked for Andy White, they sure as heck work for me.

As I noted in a long ago post that disappeared due to operator error (and which I paid homage to in that small April post), a small focus does not mean I have parked my intellect at the door. That being said, for the most part, this continues not to be a forum in which I make pithy, political observations or solve world issues. When I do write about the issues of the day such as hunger or access to justice or homelessness, it is almost always about how those issues play out on a local and personal level.

The last several weeks have been hard at times on several fronts. I learned this morning on Facebook that a colleague from the very early years of the mental health docket, someone whose contributions as a therapist were insightful and gracious and, at times, hilarious, and who had just celebrated his 69th birthday, died suddenly this morning. Thinking of him triggered memories of helping create that docket over a decade ago and then seeing the rewards. Warren's schedule has been beyond packed, straining personal time (his, mine, and ours) and any of our calendars. There are elderly parent issues, there are other matters in our circles of family and friends. The recession is hitting this community hard, which means the number of people needing legal help is hitting all-time highs. 

It has been tough.

But here's the thing: life goes on. Life rolls on despite the hardships and losses and I try to take joy in brighter moments. While the weather continues to shift into deeper autumn, we are still having brilliant days. Today is one such day; I took a long walk earlier just to soak in the colors in the trees, the blue sky, the sunshine.

In my last post, I wrote about the tomatoes and peppers sunning on the deck. Some of them are out there right now as I type this. We had a meal of roasted stuffed peppers a few nights ago; I chopped and froze the rest of them. I have eaten some of the tomatoes; I still have hopes of nurturing the others to eating stage. This morning I texted my friend Pat to see if she wanted any; she and her husband were about to go out of town for the weekend and she was thrilled to have them. (Talk about perfect timing!) I bagged six medium ones for them to pick up as they left When I handed her the bag, she cradled it to her heart.  I have a small bag of cherry tomatoes to take with me tomorrow to a meeting with Amy; she loves cherry tomatoes.  

They are the last tomatoes of 2022. May Pat and Amy enjoy theirs. As for the ones I have, I hope to savor every bite.

This Year's Gardens: End of the Season

The last of the garden

The garden year is over. 

As I wrote in my last post, I picked all of the remaining not-yet-ripe peppers and tomatoes a week ago and have been sunning them since Saturday on our deck in the hopes that some of them will ripen. While we are having a warm weekend ("warm" being in the 70s), the change in light and the cooler days in general spelled the end of them ripening on the vines. I am writing this Monday and there have been good results. We are still having a few more days of warm, sunny weather, so I am looking forward to a few more days for the tomatoes. The peppers, judging by their textures, are ready to call it a year. 

This was not a good gardening year on many fronts. We did manage to get three more cabbages, small red ones, from the Hej garden, much to my  surprise. Small? One was about the size of my fist. Maybe. They made the white cabbages from earlier in the summer look large. I chopped the three up and we had enough coleslaw to accompany our meals for several days. 

Tiny cabbages.

The cabbage crop!

Next year, I told myself as I chopped. Next year.

Next year's gardens have been on my mind a lot. A. Lot. How to approach them, what to plant, how to make sure the gardens thrive. We now have rabbit-fencing for the Hej garden and will roll it out at the beginning of the season. (Ha! Take that, rabbits! I hope the falcons come back and thin you out again.) So that is one small step.

What to plant is more nagsome. I planted a lot (again, A. LOT.) of tomatoes on the promises of friends to take the extras. Well, one friend took extras only if I picked them for her. Another had such a crowded summer that tomatoes were not high on her list of priorities as tomato season waxed and waned. A longtime neighbor across the street, who not only took tomatoes but picked them herself, moved away in September (but not before coming over and picking more tomatoes). So next year? WAY less tomato plants (and unlike this year, that is a vow I will keep). 

By growing fewer tomatoes, I should have more room for the peppers, which were definitely crowded. Those also suffered attacks from the rabbits in the early weeks until we put fencing around the individual plants. I don't know that I will plant more peppers, but I will definitely give the ones I plant more room and respect.

Other probable changes? The four planters are lackluster when it comes to growing lettuce and carrots (finger carrots, which are smaller). Some of that is due to my lack of attention. Some of it I blame on how the soil compacts quickly in the planters. I doubt I will try carrots again in any format and I am not even enthusiastic about a lettuce patch, although I love the fresh lettuce. The planters will likely go to the curb with a "FREE" sign next spring. 

I am planning on growing zucchini again, despite a mediocre season. Again, some of that was rabbit depredation. Some of it may have been (again) lack of care. I pretty much neglected the Hej garden, even after the fencing, so the weeds grew strong and plentiful. They did not overshadow the few zucchini plants that grew large, because it takes a lot to best a full-sized zucchini plant. But the weeds did shove aside the smaller plants. And all the plants seemed to develop a white coating, no doubt a disease of some sort, which hampered the growth. Still, there are quarts bags of sliced zucchini in the basement freezer to eat for the next several months, and I would like to see how next year's crop plays out. 

And of course there will be basil, although to my disappointment the bees did not flock to it this year after the final cutting. They apparently found the cosmos, which grew abundantly from a pack of scattered seeds, of far more interest. Bees loved the potted marigolds on the deck as well. They also loved a flowering plant (coleus, perhaps?) in a large planter that Warren's daughter brought over as a gift and that we kept on the deck for the summer. The planter has come inside for the winter and will make a reappearance next summer.

In the comos

And the marigolds

And on the coleus (I think)

I am planting more cosmos in the kitchen garden next year. They were too bright and too engaging to ignore. I will plant sunflowers again, although they take up a lot of space, just for the joy of watching the goldfinches and other small birds feast on the heads as they go to seed.

In the waning days of the fall, I am bringing down the gardens. For the kitchen garden, that means pulling up the plants, taking in the tomato cages for the year, and first weeding, then tilling the bed. For the Hej garden, I think the only way I can get it under control is to go out there daily, for 30 to 40 minutes at a time (setting an alarm), and take the weeds out bit by bit. It is too overgrown to be an easy afternoon, trust me. (I started this project over the weekend, and soon realized the enormity and the tenacity of the deeply rooted weeds.) Only then we can till. We may spread compost on both gardens for the winter, then till and put down compost in the spring.

As I settle into the late fall, I hope to return to writing on a more regular basis. My health continues to be very stable, but with 18 years of myeloma under my belt, I have no illusions as to how fast the sand in the hourglass is running. Even without the myeloma, we recently had a harsh reminder of how brief life can be when one of Warren's high school classmates, who we'd just seen in September at the 50th reunion, died suddenly of a massive heart attack. Time is precious. I want to spend more time writing; Kaki Okumura, a writer I first found on Medium, recently wrote about being away and then coming back to writing and her thoughts resonated with me deeply. I admire bloggers like Sam (Sam, Coffee, Money, and Thyme) and Kim (Out My Window), who write daily or almost daily. 

And I want to spend more time with my camera. I look at Laurie's beautiful work on The Clean Green Homestead and her photos make me want to also look at the seemingly everyday but infinitely precious world around me.

Like this little one who decided to visit yesterday:

I'll be watching myself to see how I do.

Third Quarter Pennies Review

Three weeks into October, I am finally tallying up the food and household expenses for the third quarter of 2022. When I posted our expenses for the second quarter back in July, I noted that I was caught off guard with how much food prices had been rising. Third quarter was less of a shock for two reasons. First, I was now acutely aware of how much food prices had been rising. Second, because of that awareness, I tried to be more deliberate in our purchases.

So how did we do?

Our grocery (food) expenditures in the third quarter came to $709.36. Household expenditures, such as tissues, detergent, and toilet paper, were another $22.40, for a total of $731.76. Year to date, we are averaging $242.57 a month. Looking back at where we were after two quarters, that is only 68¢ more than where we were halfway through the year. That is a minuscule increase.

As before, I have been keeping an eye on price increases. The one that caught my attention the most was that a 42 ounce container of old fashioned oats jumped from $2.49 to $3.49 at Aldi, which has the lowest price on oatmeal of our local stores. It has not increased since then. Eggs have gone up quite a bit in the stores; fortunately, I get great coupons from Kroger and Meijer for eggs, so I have not winced too much. Milk, after hovering near $3.50/gallon for much of the summer, is starting to drop. 

Three weeks into the final quarter of 2023, I am strategizing on how to keep our food purchases flat line or, I hope, lower for the rest of the year. Both Warren and I try (and often succeed) at keeping food waste to a minimum, and frequently have none whatsoever in any given week. Whenever I have an opportunity to buy butter for $2.50 or less a pound, I buy what I can (often the stores limit you to five pounds) and freeze it, looking ahead to winter baking. With the onset of fall, bringing with it the change in sunlight and the cooler temperatures, the remaining tomatoes and peppers in the garden were not maturing, so last Sunday I picked them all and am seeing how many I can ripen indoors to cutting/freezing stage (the peppers) or to eating stage (the tomatoes). I am hopeful that this will give me a few more weeks of garden tomatoes as those will be the last tomatoes I will eat at home until next summer. (I refuse to buy tomatoes at the store.) 

A few days ago, I shared some thoughts on money and rising costs with my close friend Cindy. I said I was watching the food dollars and the heating costs (we turned our furnace on for the winter on October 4, which is earlier than usual, because of the temperatures) and that I was okay financially, but very penny conscious. (I say "I" and not "we" because while Warren is equally frugal, he and I have always had separate accounts, including for groceries. The figures above are our dollars, not "his" or "my" dollars, but I am reflecting on how the dollars impact my bank account.) Perhaps I feel that more so than usual, in part, because I am no longer employed and right now drawing only a small public employees pension (I am deferring drawing social security for several reasons, at least for now). But I am also feeling that way, and think I would even if I were still working for pay, because of what I see in the stores, at the gas pump, and in the utility bills. I am not panicking, mind you, but I am wary.

Food insecurity is on the rise in our community, as it is everywhere else in this country. The lone remaining ham I noted last time? I ended up taking it to someone whose family was in deep need because of a temporary crisis; they needed it more than we did. When hunger is that close and personal, the reality of food costs and too few pennies hits hard. 

I remain grateful that our table continues to feed this household well. 

This Year's Gardens: Part 12

The continuing saga of the gardens can be summed up in three words: What a summer.

As we roll into the fall, here is what happened (still is, in fact) in this year's gardens:

The cauliflower? A total loss. 

The cabbages? Two small white cabbages. When I say "small," I mean probably under a pound. In the two prior years, I was harvesting cabbages in the four to five pound range. The red cabbages developed some outer leaves but nothing beyond that. 

The zucchini? Poor production. Not a lack of pollinators. Not a lack of blossoms. A seller at our local farmer's market (yes, I had to buy zucchini this year) said she'd had good luck, but many of her friends had seen similar results to mine: blossoms and pollinators, but no zukes. She said her friends had male blossoms but no female blossoms this year. I'm sorry: this season has been rigorous enough that I am not going out to sex my plants.

Peppers? Decent. Not stellar, but decent.

Tomatoes? A strong season, far surpassing last year. I only planted hybrids this year, and the issues  (Bugs? Disease? Aliens from another galaxy?) that I had last year did not pop up one time. 

Basil? Best. Year. Ever. And I have had good basil seasons most years. 

Friday I had a close friend coming over to learn how to make pesto. To save time, I went out to the kitchen garden in the morning, while cool, to cut basil. 

The basil season is coming to an end. If it rains as predicted, there might be one more growth spurt and one more harvest. So I cut with that in mind, meaning I did not cut down to the ground. Even this late in the season, there was plenty of basil.

Some of the basil is starting to flower. There had been flowers earlier this summer, and we cut them off to prolong the growing. This time, I let many of the flowers stand. I want the basil to flower; I want there to be bees in the basil.

My friend learned how I make pesto (without a recipe) and exclaimed at how simple it was. Afterwards, we sat at the kitchen table and talked of life and Life. She carried home two containers; I assured her we already have plenty of pesto in the freezer.

Perhaps there will be more basil. Maybe I will make one more batch of pesto. I don't know.

But I do know there will be bees in the basil.

Looking Back

The 2013 book with the box of prompts

I have often chronicled my attempts to get back to and stay in the habit of writing on a daily basis. Writing writing, that is: essays, posts, poetry, that unfinished novel (well, more than one). And, in all honesty, my attempts run in fits and starts, depending on what else I am working on or involved with, what else is going on in the family, the Symphony, the community, the world, and how I feel physically. 

So many excuses, so little time, perhaps, but also so many other passions and commitments that I cannot just set aside.

Back in May of 2013, I blogged about one such attempt to write regularly using prompts. And I actually did it for a short amount of time. A very short amount of time. I don't know what happened to the box of prompts (well, I know they probably got tossed at some point). I do still have that notebook, however, and have dipped into it from time to time, including recently, trying to make sense of writing. Or life. Or both. In doing so, I have been flipping back through it and looking at the prompts I did write those many years ago.

I surely was rereading Dante's Divine Comedy at the time, or at least the first book, Inferno, because references to it and him pop up in a few of my 2013 prompt responses. I was dealing with the resurgence of the myeloma and the impact of new treatment on it. (Well, there's a familiar theme that I managed to tie into several prompts.) I wrote about walking and seeds and time. 

Time. Always time. Time is always threaded through my thoughts and my words. I certainly did not write in 2013 thinking that I would reread those words in 2022. But here I am and here are my words.

Below is a writing from that 2013 era. I allowed myself five minutes only to respond to a prompt; I have not edited it or polished it for today. The prompt was a quote by Alix Kate Shulman, "Amor fati goes the Latin proverb now tacked up over my desk: accept what is—literally, love fate."

***
Love fate? But fate is a wild card dealer. If this were Las Vegas, fate would be sitting in the dealer's seat, dealing the cards, no smile on her face, her hands flicking them silently and precisely to my seat.

No indication in her cold stone green stare what she has sent skimming my way.

So fate deals. Only this is the truth Tim told me years ago: You got one lousy card in your hand—myeloma. The rest look to be pretty good.

So what do I have? My kids, Alise, Ramona. David. Warren above all. A job, family, friends. Food & shelter. Laughter. Writing prompts. Being able to walk to work, to downtown, to the library.

Maybe it is not so hard to accept what fate has dealt. Or rather, what is. Love fate.

Maybe if I stepped away from the card table & opened both hands—stand outside, stand by the ocean, stand under the stars—then I love fate. I love what is.

Back to those stars, Dante's stars. I come out from my rant about loving fate and see the stars above.

****

My, oh my. 

Some things have changed: Alix, fna Alise, is my child-in-law. The grandchild count has gone up, the family has both expanded and contracted. I no longer work, but I still walk everywhere. 

And the sight of the stars still renders me silent and grateful.

And how it looks in 2022

This Year's Gardens: Part 11

The season's first zucchini, the first pepper (this one a sweet banana pepper), and tomatoes picked yesterday and this morning.

Nothing says "summer" like a basket of tomatoes. Especially for those of us who wait from October to July for that first bite.

Second Quarter Pennies Review

 

Back in April, I wrote about our household expenses, especially groceries, and made some projections for where prices were going. In retrospect, even though I was aware of rising food prices, I did not take into account just how much food prices were rising. Tallying our grocery purchases for the second quarter of 2022 drove that point home.

At the end of the first quarter, our monthly grocery expenditures averaged $206.03. That is both food and common household items such as toilet paper, dish soap, and so on. 

I recently totaled our expenditures for the second quarter of 2022. Our household purchases have remained low, less than $20 a month. But our food? Oh yeah, it has gone up. In two of those three months, food purchases came in just under $300.00. I can make some excuses, such as "Well, we did have a guest artist stay with us in May and then one in June, and so I bought extra," but that doesn't entirely explain the figure. It's not like I was buying lobster and champagne. (Frozen lobster tails right now are running about $43.50 a pound locally.) And there was the half gallon of skim milk that I had to buy in downtown Rochester because I forgot to buy it at Kwik Trip before going to our hotel. That lapse, sending me to an in-walking-distance small store near the Mayo Clinic, cost me $3.89. But again, those little lapses do not explain the overall rise in our groceries.

But other things do. I have been tracking a few items, one we buy frequently. A gallon of milk? $2.99 all spring, then jumped to $3.49 or thereabouts in the first week of May. Flour (5 pound bag, unbleached, all purpose white) took a 50¢ raise from April to June. (White wheat flour took an even greater leap.) Bread has gone up across all the stores by 25¢ or more. Sometimes the leaps are huge, sometimes they are small, but so far of the items I am tracking, very few have held steady. So start adding pennies, dimes, quarters, and more to your shopping list items, and the rise is there. 

So what did we spend in the second quarter of 2022? In food alone, we spent an average of $266.00 a month. ($265.99, to be exact.) With the household items added in, our monthly average groceries came to $277.75 for the second quarter, which raised our year-to-date average to $241.89.  

Yeah. $241.89.

It is not just us, of course. In a long conversation with a good friend past weekend, he commented that he budgeted $50 a month for household items such as laundry detergent, toilet paper, and the like. "And that is no longer enough!" he exclaimed. That friend is a household of one; I didn't comment on our average expenditures for such items ($11.65/month through the first half of 2022) in our household of two.

Looking ahead into the third quarter, there are some bright spots. We are halfway through July and have spent less than $60.00 on groceries. Our food waste is almost zero in this house, so we're making the most of what we have. And all those hams we bought back in April? We have been carving them up and enjoying ham sandwiches and other ham meals steadily. Our June guest enjoyed the sliced ham, as did my dad (who I sent home with ham slices both to eat and to freeze for later). Only one ham remains intact out of the six; it may make an appearance as a whole ham much later this year. And the garden is coming on; I have yet to see zucchini, but my hopes remain high. 

I am grateful that our household continues to run smoothly on the money front. From my volunteer work with our Legal Clinic, and in talking with friends and colleagues active in the food world (food banks, summer lunches, and such), I know that there are many who do not have that luxury in these times.

This Year's Gardens: Part 10

 When I last wrote about the gardens, we had just fenced in the two open sides of the Hej garden and I had some (some) hope that things would improve. The original fencing is old, with larger weave, and in my naiveté, I thought that would solve the rabbit problem.

I thought that right up to the evening of June 27, when Warren showed some guests the Hej garden and two rabbits INSIDE the garden looked at him and then bolted.

Needless to say, now the entire Hej garden is fenced in with the same small gauge chicken wire and the plants are finally, finally starting to respond. The oldest zucchini plants have beautiful blossoms on them, although I have yet to see any signs of pollination. (Prior to excluding the rabbits, the oldest plants had bitten off stubs where there should have been a blossom.) And the younger plants should be putting out blossoms soon. Two of the cabbages are starting to form and the rest are lifting up their leaves in gratitude that nothing is chewing on them. Finally. Finally. 

So where are our gardens mid-July? The Hej garden is recovering and starting to gather steam. The kitchen garden is going great guns on some fronts. The tomato plants are weighted with fruit. The peppers are playing catch up from, guess what?, rabbit attacks, but I see blossoms starting to open. As for the basil, keep reading.

Early July brought the first of the tomatoes: 

In the spirit of full disclosure, the first four tomatoes, all off the same plant, which happens to be the only one I potted, suffered from blossom end rot. (I had to look it up, folks.) I don't think the still green tomatoes on the same plant have it, and the fruits on the plants in the garden show no signs, so here's hoping. I just cut off the bad part and enjoyed the first one (above) and the three that followed.

July has also brought this: 

The basil is gorgeous this year and I made the first batch of pesto this weekend.

And, while not entirely pertinent to the vegetable discussion, Sunday morning we went to a local nursery and bought two agastache (hyssop) plants. I used to have three in the front bed, but the redbud overshadowed them. I transplanted them earlier this year, but it didn't take. So two came home with us. We will plant them in the kitchen garden by the back garage wall, where they will get lots of heat and light. 

I love these plants. Bees love these plants. So much so that they already are finding their way to them:

The bees have been back, but seeing them already on the agastache makes my heart soar. 

The Best Newberry Winner Ever

 

Ever.

Friends who know my reading habits know that one of my quirkier reading accomplishments (feats?) is that I have read every Newbery Medal book from the first in 1921 to the present, the 102nd. I did it out of curiosity and a love of reading; my initial read was in 2011, and I have read each year's winner since then.

In 2011, I wrote that the very best Newbery Medal book ever (ever!) was When You Reach Me, the 2010 winner by Patricia Stead. When You Reach Me is a beautiful nod to Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (which won the Newbery in 1963) as well as a skillfully, wonderfully wrought story. 

Every year since 2011, when I read the newest Newbery Medal winner, I mentally compared it to When You Reach Me, my gold standard. There have been some superb Newbery Medal books since then. Last year's winner, When You Trap A Tiger by Tae Keller, came as close as any book to taking the title of "best." It was certainly right up on the heels of When You Reach Me, a very close runner-up.  

And then this year's Newbery Medal book, The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera, came home from the library last weekend with me.

The Last Cuentista is set in the future. Earth has been destroyed and only those few hundreds chosen by the Collective to carry on humanity were on the escape shuttles to create a new world in a far distant galaxy. Petra is on the shuttle, a young girl who wants to be a storyteller like her beloved abuelita (grandmother), and awakens from her suspended animation to find that the Collective was not pure minded and noble. I'll stop there; go read the book to see how it turns out.

The book is classified as Science Fiction. Yes, definitely. And just as When You Reach Me was a love letter to Madeleine L'Engle, The Last Cuentista is the same to many science fiction and fantasy writers, many of them referenced by name (Neil Gaiman, Octavia Butler, Ursala Le Guin, to name a few). You can see Higuera reaching further back to Orwell and Huxley and their dark futuristic works. But don't dismiss it as "just " sci fi.  As with all great tales, it is a story of love, of family, of resilience, of making connections and bringing out the best in those connections. 

I am more literate in the science fiction/fantasy genres than I used to be, thanks to my sons Ben and Sam. Even so, I am sometimes still slow on the uptake. The morning after reading a significant chunk of the book, I was raving about it to Warren, then stopped mid-sentence and said, out of context, "Oh! Hyperion! OF COURSE!" 

I finished the book just before we headed off early afternoon to set up the stage for the evening's 4th of July concert. I read the very last page of the story and let out a small cry of love and sorrow. I sat there quietly, holding the book to my heart, with tears running down my face. 

It was that stunning.

As we drove over to the concert site, the book still fresh in my heart, my son Ben called to talk. I told him about the book. My voice broke in connecting it to me to him and back again and I was in tears all over again.

I ordered Ben a copy for him and Ramona and it is en route. (In fact, may already be there.) I ordered myself a copy as well. I don't buy books (or much of anything else, for that matter) ever, so that tells you a lot about what it meant to me. 

When You Reach Me will always be on my very short Newbery Medal book "read this one" list. So will When You Trap A Tiger. 

But The Last Cuentista? 

The best Newbery Medal book ever.

Ever. 

Midpoint 2022

 The month of June proved to be challenging on the physical well-being front (How do I feel?), the emotional well-being front (How do I feel?), and the personal well-being front (How do I feel and what do I have to face today?). These are very much the same issues I stirred around a few weeks ago and, as I noted then, have been mucking around with for years. 

The last week of June brought a lot (A. Lot.) of Symphony activity and a lot (A. Lot.) of Legal Clinic activity, taking every bit of energy (physical, emotional, personal) I had, including any reserves, which, even on my best days, barely exist. 

The week was grueling. The week was exhausting. The week was uplifting and exciting and fulfilling and all those other great words. How often do you get a contemporary harpsichord work and a contemporary theremin work on the same program? (Never, that's how often.) We surpassed Client #200 for the Clinic this year, a statistic both heartbreaking and stunning. So add to this jumbled, amazing week too many long, long days, too many late, late nights, and too many early, early mornings. (Note: I am an early riser by nature, but 5:30 risings (not my rising time) coupled with late bedtimes are not a good mix.) Oh, and there was a treatment day in there too.

My exhaustion turned to frustration and, at times, even to tears. It was a very full week.

Halfway through 2022, I seem to be struggling to learn the same lesson: I can't do like I used to, I can't go like I used to, I can't burn my candle at even one end, let alone both ends, without taking into account how long I can let that candle burn.

I need to revamp my expectations of myself. That's the lesson. 

We're definitely at midyear. July includes the big 4th of July concert and the kickoff of the Symphony's small ensemble summer concerts. I just pulled two of the last four quart bags of sliced zucchini out of the freezer in the belief that more will appear in the garden to fill the shelf again. 

In the days to come, I'll be updating the garden report (oh, the rabbit battles continue) as well as looking at where grocery purchases stand at the halfway mark. But for this first day of the second half of 2022, I believe I have done enough. 

 

See the rabbit behind the planter on the left at about the midway point? The rabbits decided the planters were personal salad bars. The lettuce just got burnt out by the heat, so that bonus has ended for them. 

The Effing Truck

 

Photo by Ian Parker on Unsplash

Back in May, I wrote about my oncologist Tim using the truck analogy for the first time with me. In short, the truck analogy is that with an incurable, progressive cancer, the disease is like a truck  that has started rolling down the hill it was parked on. You can slow the truck, maybe, but cannot stop it.

The truck. The effing truck. 

In the last three weeks, I have had good (great) consultations both with my Mayo oncologist (by video) and a Mayo neurologist (in person). They—both the doctors and the discussions—gave me reassurance as where I am on the myeloma path (persistent but stable) and what the neurological landscape looks like (low end of the neuropathy scale, no red flags, keep walking). 

Both of those discussions lifted huge weights off of me, some of which I was aware of and some not. The utter relief. The sheer exuberance of those worries lifting away.

But I would be kidding myself if I pretended or ignored the reality of the myeloma in me. It is a daily presence. It is the effing truck.

My dad has outdated and homespun notions of what cancer is and what my cancer is. Until my older brother was diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer and my father started going to oncology appointments with him, Dad thought cancer was something you caught. In fairness to him, he is almost 89 and came up in a hills culture, so I get it. He will sometimes make a comment, if I say I am tired, that "your cancer is chewing away on you." His cancer experience and images are of tumors eating away at livers and brains and other organs.

But here's the thing. My cancer doesn't have to "chew away" on me. Tumors "chew away," yes, because that's how they move through the body to new locations. But myeloma? Heck no. Dr. Leung explained it best when Warren once raised a concern about the myeloma metastasizing elsewhere in me. "It doesn't have to. It's already all over her body in her blood and bone marrow." 

I am bathed in it. 

The effing truck will roll down the hill.

My challenge going forward is not how to slow the effing truck, but how to accept it. I go through this process—how to accept the disease—increasingly as I age, as the years with myeloma accumulate, as my energy declines. What is important? Keep that. What is not? Let that go.

The effing truck is what it is. I don't add it to the process, only acknowledge it. The rest of my life is what matters.

I am writing this out by hand sitting on the front porch. We had heavy storms pass through in the night and the air is cool and damp. There are bees in the spiderwort. I just rescued a firefly from a spider web. I will get a walk in soon before the high temps move in and the morning turns on me.

What is important? Bees in the spiderwort. 

***

[An editorial note: I use the adjective "effing" on purpose. I am married to a wonderful man who grew up without being exposed to swearing and who is very uncomfortable with it under any conditions. I, on the other hand, went to law school during a time when female students were very much a minority and swearing was a way for women students to make it clear we were there to stay. It was (and perhaps still is) embedded into the collegial side of the law: we swear a lot. What can I say? Marrying Warren cleaned up my language a lot and I do not regret that, but it is an effing truck.]

This Year's Gardens: Part 9

 As I wrote last time, I went on a tear in the Hej garden just before we left for Mayo. What more damage could be done, right? 

We had three days away this week courtesy of our trip to Oz, and returned home very late Thursday night. I spent Friday dealing with the detritus of our travel. 

Yesterday Warren said, "So you want to go look at the garden?" 

Did I? I wasn't sure. Then I reasoned that the worst result would be the plants were in better shape, Warren having fenced the garden before we left, and the rough zucchini sowing would have come to naught.

We walked down together. I had not marked the hoed rows before covering them with grass, but I knew roughly where they were. I carefully kicked the grass away and...seedlings! 

We are still a long ways from the first zucchini and I noticed that a blossom on one of the older plants looked bug-gnawed. 

But...seedlings! 

This Year's Gardens: Part 8

Well, I almost threw in the towel there. Back in mid-May, I was bragging about getting the Hej garden planted. Look at my cabbage and cauliflower rows! Look at the zucchini! 

I was on a roll.

Ha.

Within ten days, maybe less, the Hej garden was a disaster. An absolutely frigging disaster. 

Why, you ask? Well, we have an abundant rabbit population in the neighborhood this year. Rabbits apparently love cauliflower plants. Those little demons ate all nine of them to the ground. Two might come back, maybe three, but the others are done. Apparently rabbits do not care as much for cabbage, so five of the six plants appear to be thriving.

[A note: I grew up eating rabbit, which my dad would hunt. As a young child, I helped my dad with the skinning and preparation of them. A few days ago, I eyed a rabbit inching closer to the kitchen garden and said, loudly, "Listen, dude, I have no qualms about trapping you and eating you. Understand?" It took the hint and fled.]

And the zucchini? The 20 zucchini (I'm sorry. Am I shouting?) that I planted so carefully? Some bug (insect or viral) got into them. First tiny, lacy holes appeared in the leaves. Then, within a few days, almost all had withered away. Not just drooped, mind you, but withered away to nothing. 

Nothing. 

I was so discouraged (and tired and not feeling well, which is separate from being tired) that I told Warren I wasn't sure I even was going to replant any of it. The farm market I prefer to get my plants at was, this late in the spring, all out of everything but tomatoes and some really hot peppers. Two other places had cabbages and even zucchini, but at $4.98 per plant, it made no sense to buy any of them. 

Warren and I had several strategy sessions standing at the garden. (And keep in mind that while the rabbits ate and the zucchini died, the weeds grew voraciously.) He was looking for ways to support and encourage me. What if? Or what if? 

What if we cage the surviving cauliflower? (Done.) What if Warren fences the two open sides of the garden? (We bought fencing yesterday at TSC.) What if I take a hoe and a rake to the garden, hack out the worst of the weeds, and then mulch? And what if, while working away, I open the second packet of zucchini seeds, hoe a coupe of lines, drop 'em in, and see what happens?

Those last two events happened at 6:30 this morning. (Yes, Katrina, I overdid it. On purpose.)

So here is what the Hej garden looks like now:

Warren will get it fenced later today. And then we see what happens.

We leave for Mayo early Tuesday and I wanted the gardens in order before we left. (Well, either in order or totally abandoned in the case of the Hej garden. "In order" won out.) I weeded the kitchen garden last night, so it is in decent shape. 

We have fresh lettuce up and ready to enjoy:

And the tomatoes are starting to blossom:

Let's see what the gardens look like when we get back later this week. 

Small Moment

 

I recently emailed a friend and began a sentence with the phrase "It goes without saying." Even before sending the email, I was pulled back decades to a young boy, an amazing book, and a shared moment in time.

The young boy was my son Ben. He still is my son, of course, only now Ben is 36 and not 9 or 10 or whatever age I am remembering. 

The amazing book was (and also still is) The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I have referenced it from time to time in this blog, but never in the context of Ben and our shared moments.

I have written before about sharing my love of reading and books with Ben from his earliest days. Over time, as the home dynamics withered around us, reading to him every night before bedtime became a quiet moment of quiet and love and safety. We kept that up well into his middle school years for the comfort of the books and the comfort of one another.

The Phantom Tollbooth was an early share between us. It is a book full of clever puns and literary allusions, and Ben enjoyed them all. We followed Milo on his trip through the Kingdom of Wisdom to bring back Rhyme and Reason, laughing together at times, Ben quiet when the plot took an ominous turn every now and then. 

We did not read it together again, but Ben read it several times on his own. In 2011, when a 50th anniversary edition came out, I bought it and sent it to Ben. 

Of course I did.

So back to the phrase that sent me down a rabbit hole or, more appropriately, through a tollbooth into the lands beyond: "It goes without saying." In Dictionopolis, the king's cabinet members rush Milo to a small wooden wagon so they can get to the royal banquet on time. Milo starts to ask how the wagon is supposed to move, and the Duke of Definition answers.

"Be very quiet," advised the duke, "for it goes without saying."

And indeed it did.

And still does. 

This Year's Gardens, Part 7

 When you're on a roll for overdoing it, why not finish strong? Right?

The Hej garden was too wet yet to till, as I predicted in my last post. But I had plants to get into the ground. The zucchini sprouts, which I had up-potted back in early May, were getting a little tired of hanging around inside:

The zucchini plants looking for wide open spaces many days ago

I knew at some point they were going to go on strike and I'd be back at square one. 

Warren and I talked Sunday (which was also full for both of us, in mostly separate spheres, and on which I also overdid it, albeit not gardening). "You know," I ventured, "the soil in the Hej garden is good enough that I think I am just going to plant it by hand. We'll till it in the fall after adding compost. What do you think?"

Warren didn't hesitate. "Yes."

So Monday morning I trundled a wheelbarrow full of the zucchini trays, the cabbages, and the cauliflower plants, along with a trowel and other assorted items, down to the garden, and started in.

First the cauliflower, after I laid the bricks back in place to delineate the garden: 

Then the cabbages:

Leaving a wide swath between those rows and the zucchini bed, I spaced out the cups to see how the layout worked: 

I planted 20 of the 21; one of the stems snapped in two as I untangled it from another. Why 20 zucchini for a household of two? There are others out there who I am planting for. And I owe some good friends and colleagues some homemade zucchini bread as a heartfelt "thank you." Trust me, it will not go to waste. 

Done!

I had one last gardening task I wanted to complete before cleaning up my tools and boots and putting things to rights: 

Caged! 

By the time I cleaned up all the mess, including getting the mud off the tools and my boots, it was late morning. But it was done. 

Gardening is a summer-long affair, but the hardest part of it for me is over. I already watered both gardens this morning; one zucchini looks a bit nibbled on, but that's par for the course. I still have basil to sow; that's an easy task. I have a lot of muddy (now dried) boot prints to clean off the deck and patio; that will take a bit more effort and may wait until tomorrow. Or not. It is Concert Week, after all.

The garden is in. Let's see how it grows. 

This Year's Gardens, Part 6

 Let's just say I overdid it. Knowingly, mind you, but overdid it all the same. 

One of the many realities of having a persistent, progressive cancer is that, to paraphrase Atul Gawande, the night brigade is always bringing down the perimeter defenses. My night brigade has been busy for almost 18 years. (And it is helped by the amyloids, the terrorists in the picture. The amyloids don't partner with the myeloma, but they sure help bring down those defenses.) One of the areas of increasing breach is the decline of my stamina and physical capacity.

So back to where I started: I. Overdid. It.

All week had been sunny and dry. I had purchased plants earlier in the week at my favorite local farm market; those need to get planted sooner than later. Some were going in the Kitchen garden, some in the Hej garden. 

And only one of us, me, was available to make it happen. Or at least push the process along. 

This month has been full to overflowing on Warren's schedule. And we're not even at Concert Week: this coming week is Concert Week. He has had workweeks of more than 70 hours since mid-April. He also plays in the Mansfield Symphony; that group just finished their season last night, which meant Warren was gone until 11:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday nights, then out yesterday from 12:30 p.m. until 11:30 p.m. for dress rehearsal and the performance. He is performing this afternoon with our local community chorus. And even with those performances and rehearsals going on, he still was working on our Symphony; he called me from Mansfield during the pre-concert layover to discuss some wording on a Facebook post.

So for us, it was not a matter of him not wanting to help me; Warren simply wasn't available. If anything was going to get done in the garden, I was the only one to do it. 

We had tilled the Hej garden earlier this month, and thanks to several rainy days. it had sprouted a variety of thistles and other vegetation. Even with it being more amenable to tilling, I knew those weeds had to come out the hard way, by hand; a tiller does great things, but it will not reach thistle roots unless you till way, way deep. So Saturday morning, my trusty garden seat and trowel in hand, I sat out there weeding the Hej garden thistle by thistle.

One and a half hours.

My dad and I had made plans for tilling his garden Saturday afternoon. Warren, en route to Mansfield, dropped me and the tiller off at Dad's house.  Now, remember, my dad is almost 89. I am 66 chronologically, but probably more like 76 because of years of treatment and cancer (that damn night brigade). We made a fine pair. 

Two hours. Now there were a few breaks, including when my brother Michel, who I have not seen in person since, I think, pre-Covid, brought back Dad's pickup truck. But even Mike, who can talk all day, was gone in 15 minutes so he could get back home.

So, two hours. Dad did much of the tilling, and I did all of the raking of the churned up debris (a lot of Creeping Charlie) and hauling the buckets to dump at the back of the property. I did some of the tilling, which gave me a chance to get a better feel for the tiller. 

It was not backbreaking work, but it was solid labor. Like weeding the Hej garden, only more so. 

Dad dropped me back off at home and helped me unload the tiller and the extension cords. I regrouped with a pitcher of water, then a very early supper. (Supper? Okay, a half ham sandwich.) While I ate, I thought long and hard about what way to go next.

One arrow pointed to REST. The other arrow pointed to TILL THE KITCHEN GARDEN. (The fine print on that arrow read "Yes, you are overdoing it, but you know that.")

Guess which arrow won? 

Over two and a half hours later, including cleanup, the Kitchen garden was tilled and in the early planting stages.  I dug up butterfly weed starts (some leftovers that got overlooked last year) and moved them to a front garden before I started. Then I tilled; the afternoon work with Dad stood me in good stead. A short break, then I turned to the plants. By the end, all of the tomato plants (12) and all the pepper plants (9) went into the ground. 

An aside: at the end of last season, I wrote in my garden notes "Fewer tomatoes next year." Let's just say I ignored that. 

I was dirty and exhausted and satisfied beyond satisfied. A shower, a bowl of cereal, another pitcher of water, and a good book helped me wait out the time until Warren got back home. About the time he called to say he was headed home (Mansfield is a little over an hour away), I heard something tapping on the windows.

It was raining.  Not hard, but steadily. 

Today is bright and sunny. There was enough rain last night that the Hej garden needs to dry before we till it. I'm hope to do that by midweek, even with it being Concert Week. Having spent every last penny and dime of my energy yesterday, I don't mind the break.

But it was worth every cent. 

After tilling

After planting 

 

This Year's Gardens, Part 5

 I had grand plans for the garden front this weekend. We'd get compost, we'd till the gardens, I'd get the zucchini planted, and on and on and...

Yeah.

It rained Friday. It rained Saturday until well into the afternoon. 

Too wet to till.

Sunday, both Warren and I were in a slump all morning for a number of reasons: his workload, my workload (volunteer, but still), computer problems (mine), health issues (mine, obviously), blah blah blah. At one point (the low point on the computer problem), I put my head down to my desk and started crying, which is not like me. We were both struggling.

But Sunday was also glorious, sunshine and blue skies.

I looked at the brilliant day outside. "Why don't we at least sit outside on the deck and enjoy the sun?" Warren shrugged. Okay. 

It was better sitting outside on the deck steps. But we were still struggling. Warren halfheartedly suggested we go out for ice cream. I halfheartedly shrugged. Then I sat up.

"We have ice cream! Let's make sundaes and have them for lunch!" 

Now we were starting to move. Sundaes for lunch! Sunshine! blue skies! 

The sundaes were enough to push us both a bit. We took the deck furniture out of its winter tarps and set up the deck. Progress! Then my sons called for Mother's Day, first Ben, then Sam. Joy! More energy as I sat in the sun and talked with them. 

After finishing the second call, I said to Warren, "Now I'm ready to garden." I walked down to the shed in back and brought up the four planters I scored for free three years ago and arranged them on the patio. More progress.

I couldn't till the gardens, but I could get the garden started. 

With Warren's help, the planters went from this

to this:

From front to back: Bibb lettuce, Bibb lettuce, Finger carrots (a small carrot), and Paris Romaine.

At this point, Warren felt he was ready to go into his shop and make some progress on crotale stands. I decided I felt good enough to transplant the globe thistle I had sprouted earlier. I had four ice cream cartons of sprouted seeds (well, three hearty ones and one which didn't do a whole lot); I knew where I wanted them.

I spent the next hour under those blue, sunny skies planting. Two went in the back flower bed (one of those two being the one that underperformed). How great that I was deep in the daylily bed?

That blue gardening seat? Best garden purchase ever.

One carton went out front in in the bed anchored by the redbud. Earlier this spring I had relocated the agastache (hyssop) to the back flower bed, because it wasn't doing well with the redbud. So there was extra room in that bed, allowing for the globe thistle to go up front and not under the redbud.

For the record, the ice cream containers made excellent sprouting containers. They have depth, so you don't have to worry about them outgrowing the container too soon. To plant, all I had to do was cut down the side, peel the side walls off, and then slide the seeds/soul off the bottom into the hole I had already dug.

One container mid-peel on the wall. 

All told, I probably spent an hour and a half outside. It was glorious. Warren came out of his shop from time to time to check on me out of love, out of watchfulness (besides the truck analogy, Tim also last week said it is time to step back from doing so much), out of pleasure that the slumped morning had turned so spectacularly (he too was making progress in his shop). 

And that, my friends, is where the gardens stand as of this morning.