A Longer Commentary on August

Yesterday's post was not a teaser. Truly. It was the best I could do after almost an hour of staring at a blank screen. 

Last night Warren and I talked about many things, as we so often do: how his day went, how my day went, Court issues, Symphony issues, what the weekend holds. You get the idea. (Yes, our offices are only about five yards apart, but there are days where we can spin off into our programs and meetings, not reemerging until supper.) 

For the curious, the weekend looks a lot like the week, except that I do not turn to Court work at all, and Warren tries to minimize Symphony work. Warren works in his shop; I do laundry and read. Our at-home weekends never fail to disappoint my close friend Cindy, who often starts her Monday email to me with asking me about my weekend, this past week asked "Did you do anything FUN over the weekend?" Keeping within our Covid-19 restrictions in this state, she buys feed, buys groceries, shops at Goodwill, and sometimes eats out during her weekends. When I pointed out that I am still pretty much on medical lockdown, she emailed back that I "must be" getting restless by now and ready to GO DO SOMETHING.

Not really. The one thing I really wanted to do—travel west to my family and then northeast to friends in Maine—got scrubbed months ago. Those trips aren't coming back this year and I have made peace with that. But otherwise, while I would like matters to be different, I am more than satisfied with my stay-at-home life. I have not been in my office at Court for over five months; all of us have had to learn new ways to do our old jobs. Life rolls on. 

As I mentioned yesterday, August has held some hard times. A close friend/colleague had a serious medical crisis erupt in her family and that hurt both professionally, because we had to work around her absence and the uncertainty of her return, and personally, because we are such good friends. The major medical crisis started to resolve positively when she found herself in ER. None of this was Covid-19, for which all of us are grateful. Other close friends are dealing with the death of a beloved dog. Someone else near and dear to my heart is struggling with major depression. There are some family stressors (larger family, not me and Warren) going on. In none of these situations can I show up and hug the person, which is what I want to do. I can only talk on the phone or text or send wishes into the air for them.

August has been heavy at times.

But the rest has been good. Today was the livestream funeral mass of a longtime friend and colleague who died back in the winter; watching that brought back wonderful memories even while I cried. I had a wonderful, uplifting long phone call with a young friend who is headed back to college for a career change and our talk reminded me of the joy and power of direction. Our Legal Clinic continues to operate virtually; I am the volunteer who assigns the attorneys so I have firsthand knowledge of who we are serving and how our attorneys are providing these people hope and advice and direction. The Symphony participated in its 6th Benefit in the Barn, tackling hunger and food insecurity in our county and one adjoining county. Go here to watch it; that's Warren speaking in the beginning.  Between the Clinic and the Symphony, I am reminded how I am always humbled with the strength of our community. 

And our Poetry Group started meeting again, by Zoom. That was a good thing, because Emily had been sulking. We meet again this Sunday and I can't wait.

Emily D. sulking 

And then there was a surprise this month: a stunning, amazing, never-saw-it-coming-ever surprise. About a week ago I received an email from a name I did not recognize, titled "Uncle Ski." 

Uncle Ski was my uncle, an engaging, wonderful man who died seven years ago. I blogged about him after his death; you can read my words here. So the title on the email was so specific that I thought it was not spam or a phishing attempt, and opened it.

It was a lovely email from someone, a man named Sam, who read my blog post all these years later and reached out to me directly. After thanking me for my words, Sam wrote "I really appreciated reading it because it gave me some perspective on myself."  Then he dropped the bombshell: "Your Uncle Ski was my grandfather." 

I had to catch my breath. I'm still catching it.

Sam and I have exchanged several emails. My stepcousin once removed (his mother was my Uncle Ski's daughter) is a writer and blogger. Imagine that. You can find his blog at All the Biscuits in Georgia. He just saw his oldest son ship off to his first Navy deployment, a fact that would have made Uncle Ski, who served his whole life in the Navy, immensely proud. I have given Sam my dad's phone number and encouraged him to call him; my dad, when I told him what had happened, marveled at the connection, then said, "Oh, I have a lot of stories to tell him about his grandfather." 

You could hear the anticipation in his voice.

The Stub Ends of August

 How can it be August 28 already? How can it be that I have not posted anything since the beginning of the month? 

The time has slid through my hands.

There is much more to say, but not today. August has held some hard moments, many wonderful moments, and at least one stunning surprise. 

I'll write about all that soon. For now, I'll let a few photos speak instead. Even in the late summer, blooms abound. 

Purslane in bloom

Sunflowers in bloom

Bolted Bibb lettuce in bloom

Observations about July Money: Maybe We're Getting the Hang of It

So after speculating about our shopping patterns in May and June, and reading comments about pandemic shopping on this blog and elsewhere about what other bloggers were noticing in their own households, I am relieved to report that our July grocery expenditures were $156.61 for food and $19.23 for household items (including name brand parchment paper because no stores have anything but that these days).

The grand total was $175.84, which is the first time since April we have come in under the monthly goal of $180.00. 

Since April. 

We seemed to have finally fallen into a pattern of stocking up the basics as they run low, and filling in here and there when something unexpectedly comes up short. We were doing that before (or so I thought), but it seems there were such gaps in the basics that stocking up to a level we felt comfortable with, even a modest one, took more dollars than we had realized. 

It doesn't hurt that the garden is running full steam these days.  

And maybe there's not a lot more to say on this topic for our July grocery expenses. As the pandemic continues to surround us and we continue to shelter at home, I am grateful for the privilege of having food to eat and a roof to provide that shelter. To borrow from Matchless by Gregory Maguire, "they had the warmth of one another, and enough on which to live, and in most parts of the world, that is called plenty." 

Some Updates

July is winding its way down and I thought it would be a good time to update some previous posts.

Volume #5 of my commonplace books

That commonplace book I started two weeks ago? The first quote went in on July 16. Francesca Wade, author of the book Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars, had this beautiful observation about cities, although her comment could apply to many communities:

Cities are composed of roads and buildings, but also of myths and memories: stories which bring the brick and asphalt to life and bind the present to the past.

 

The book was superb, incidentally.

Sourdough doughnuts

I continue to live in a sourdough world, as I first noted in April. Every weekend I feed the starter; every weekend I come up with a different use for the discard. This weekend I made sourdough doughnuts, a repeat from an earlier weekend. I'm still working on the glaze (I want something that hardens better) and I bought a new cooking thermometer because I doubt the veracity of the one I have been using, but they are pretty tasty all the same. 

Some of them went to the family of four who are neighbors on one side, some of them went to the elderly neigbor on the other side, and we ate the rest. Pete (the elderly neighbor) texted to say they were very good; Alice (who is almost 5) came springing across the lawn to say (from a safe distance): "Thank you for the doughnuts, April. They are DELICIOUS!" 

Alice expressing her doughnut delight

On the garden front, after a slow cautious start and then my announcing the first tomato and first zucchini, we have sailed past (way past) keeping track of the harvest. I am slicing and freezing, baking and eating, and will be making tomato sauce in a crock-pot (and then freezing it) for the first time ever. 

Some of the tomatoes. Some. 

And some of the zucchini. Some.

We harvested the cabbage, which went from tiny starts to behemoths. One we know tipped the scales at 5 pounds, 10 ounces, because our neighbors (Alice's parents) weighed the one we gave them. Another huge one went to Warren's daughter, Elizabeth, for ham and cabbage soup, and we kept the two "smaller" ones.

Three of the four. Note the tomatoes photobombing the shot.

We continue to shelter in place, with both of us still working from home. It suits us both well most of the days. Warren and I have had workday lunches together more in the last 4+ mounths than the last twelve years...and for the last nine of those years we have worked within two blocks of each other's offices! 

Stay tuned. August is closing in fast. 

One Finished, One Starting Soon

Somewhere back in the annals of this blog, I wrote about the fact that I collect quotes. I'm not scrolling back to find it (and my labels do not include the word "quotes") but I probably wrote about my love of writing down (or photocopying and taping in) quotes and excerpts that moved me at the time and important to keep over the years.

"Years" is an understatement. My current collection dates somewhere from the late 1980s, looking at what it contains. I did not start dating the collection until somewhere in the middle or end of the second volume, when I realized that an occasional chronological reference was useful. Even if I  take 1990 as the start point, I'm holding 30 years of quotes.

I had an earlier quote collection, one I started in the 1970s. It is long gone but I remember (vaguely) one quote in it was the beautiful observation by Christopher Milne (yes, that Christopher) about the original Pooh and friends being donated to the New York Public Library and having to explain that he had no attachment to those stuffed animals. The quote was something along the lines about he did not want them to be reminded "here was fame" and certainly didn't need them to be reminded that "there was love." 

My first book starts with this observation by Sarah Orne Jewett, a late 19th century Americn novelist, from her novel In The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896): "More than this one cannot give to a young state for its enlightment; the sea captains and the captains' wives of maine knew something of the world, and never mistook their native parishes for the whole instead of a part thereof..."

The book I finished filling last night ends with this quote from Love, Roddy Doyle's newest novel (and the first one I have ever read): 

—This place hasn't changed, he said.

He pointed at a line of old photographs.

—The dead writers are still dead, he said.

How could I not include that quote? 

Book 5 is waiting. I can hardly wait to see what it will hold. 

Firsts

It's that time of year.

Firsts.

The first zucchini. 

The first tomato.

In the coming weeks, the numbers will grow (I'm already up to eight zucchini harvested in one week) but for now, I am savoring the firsts.

This was just a blossom a few posts ago

A Super Sweet cherry tomato was the first one

Observations about June Money and Pandemic Groceries in General

Back in early June, looking at our May groceries expenditures, I made the optimistic observations that our June expenditures would "drop off precipitously." 

Pardon me while I roll on the floor in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. 

Okay, let me add this clarification: our June expenditures would have come in below the $180.00 monthly target (at $169.18) had we not done a stock-up shopping through Aldi on June 25. Cost of that (all food, no household items)? $115.37. Total June expenditures? $284.55, of which $25.00 represented household items and the rest food. 

Year-to-date monthly average? $232.17.

Yeah.

So what was that end-of-the-month Aldi purchase all about? It was about the latest pandemic numbers nationwide and in Ohio, and our realization that we probably need to hunker back down in our household with as little going to stores, even including getting groceries delivered, as possible. Warren and I did a survey of our freezer, cabinets, and pantry, made a "stocking up again" shopping list, and, $115.37 later, considered ourselves stocked. (Well, except for the July 1 complete-stocking-up at Kroger. So now we consider ourselves stocked.)  

Musing on pandemic grocery shopping, that may be the way this year goes. I wrote as much in May, but was more optimistic in predicting the pattern would be alternating lean month, heavy spending month. Instead, looking at my year-to-date figures, the pattern seems to be two heavy spending months, followed by a lean month. 

I want to make a prediction for July, but my crystal ball, faulty at its best, has indeed gone dark. It should be a lean month per my last paragraph, but at only three days into it, who knows? 

On the bright side, the Hej garden has taken off with a flourish and there are blossoms on the zucchini as I discovered when we went to water it this morning. No ripe tomatoes yet, but we're getting close. All the lettuce in the planters has bolted and withered as the summer heat comes on, but the Bibb lettuce is still going strong, and we are eating fresh salads daily while that fortune lasts. 

Onward through July. 

The Hej garden two weeks 

The Hej garden this morning 

Zucchini blossom

Still green

The Bibb lettuce bed