Into the Wild Wood and Home Again

UP and not really functioning.  But I must, and I will.  Today is picture day, so it would be helpful if I didn't look like a bridge troll. Temperatures are predicted to dive again tonight; it's time, it's time.  I feel a big ol' hibernation vibe coming on... C

Well, that was a productive and enjoyable weekend! Yesterday was nice; we went to church, then breakfast (and had a fire alarm at Starbucks-- imagine!-- no fire, though, thankfully), G and I picked what's left of the tomatoes and the squash, and I made a tiramisu. Patriots football looked legit, Sox won the season finale and are off to October baseball-- this is a glorious moment.  And it's just a moment, but I'll take it.  This is homecoming week at school, and there are dress-up days all week. Read: I get to dress as I wish, comfortably, with no criticism. Today is "character" day-- dress as any character. Well then. I choose Tim Kona, aka Tie-dye Guy, from the first season of Only Murders in the Building . Why? I have the sweatshirt. And I can wear jeans.  Tomorrow is "twin" day-- and the other half of my department (yes, there are still just two of us) and I have purchased the same long-sleeved tee shirt that says "Strong Female Protagonist....

Well, I dispatched all the apples G had picked from our trees. There's a few more out there, but maybe I'll just leave those alone. The pears are about ready, and that will be another marathon of peeling and cooking. Right now, we have plenty of applesauce in the freezer; it joins the strawberries, blueberries, and blueberry pie filling I put in there, the two or three bags of raspberries, and the mountain of diced tomatoes.  At least we won't get scurvy.  Today, I plan to pick any and all viable green tomatoes. The carrots will still stay in the dirt for a bit longer-- why not? They got so little rain, maybe, if we get some more, they will get a little bigger. We'll see. If they don't, then we'll have a few lovely meals of carrot nubs.  I keep putting off clearing the bean plants and pea vines-- it's not a big project, but it's not on the top of my to-do list. It should be soon, though. We will pull up all the dead stuff, and then the back yard will loo...

We have had a little refresher of rain over the last couple of days, and believe me, the plants and animals --humans included-- have welcomed it. For the first time in weeks, rivers are actually moving. Things are nowhere near where they need to be, and folks are still out of/ conserving water (dug wells are still dry, dry, dry), but maybe we'll get through the worst of this drought soon. Although, the forecast doesn't show much in the way of wet for at least a week again. It's puzzling.  We went out for dinner to our favorite go-to place last night, and there was live music. So many people (many tourists) were sitting out under the oak trees on the lawn, and it was warm and pleasant. We chose indoors; there was a gathering of darker clouds that looked like a promise of some rain. And lo and behold, in they all scampered once the rains began. We left promptly after we ate, since so many people were going to need a table. It was just as well-- we got home relatively early, i...

Keeping my head down, and trying to figure out how to stop the blinders from slipping.  The news is frightening. At least, on the local and immediate level, we've had necessary rain. And it's Friday. And it's payday.  I have faith in God, my family, and my convictions.  Now, to keep on moving forward. There's work to be done. C

It's raining. I mean, really raining. Not just a damp mist or sprinkle. It would be a lovely day to spend watching the drops race down windows, reading and drinking coffee... alas, I'm off to work shortly.  Y'know, sometimes the Universe gives us a little gift. I have not written much of any note lately except these mundane posts. I just have not had the brain space or the impetus, and frankly, much of what I attempt is overwrought and crampy. Yes, it's the resonance of national corrosion coupled with work demands, but still, I used to be able to balance all that with writing. So, when I opened my email today and found a tidy review of my chapbook in MicroLit --the second review of my little book!-- I almost cried. It's nice to see that other folks "get" what I wrote.  What I *write*-- let's keep it in the present tense. Because I will write soon. I feel the twitches in my brain, little phrases, a desire to ditch all responsibility for an hour or two ...

The field trip went well, thankfully-- granted, we haven't had a post-play conversation yet, but kids seemed to like it. The small troupe of actors (five of them) did an amazing job of bringing the play to life-- and the special effects were astonishing. I am so grateful to have professional theatre so close by.  Today, though, it's back to normal. I finally had a good night's sleep, too. I hope it rains again; it rained a bit yesterday, and we need about a week's worth to even make a real difference. I made a batch of applesauce, too, from the apples in our back yard. There's more to be done, but the first couple of quarts are all done-- three containers in the freezer, and we ate a lot last night with dinner (pork tenderloin and applesauce is a win).  I'm glad to have a relatively quiet day ahead. At least, I think it will be. Granted, I have to stay at work all day because there's a staff meeting, but that's fine. I have papers to start grading, and I...

Busy morning in my house! Today is Holly's pre-K picture day, so keeping her tidy is job #1. I'm also trying to get the last minute details taken care of for my huge field trip-- 71 students plus adult chaperones-- and if it rains (yes, we need rain) what to do with all of them for lunch time. The only option is to bundle everyone back onto the buses and head back to school early-- not gonna be a favorite option, so maybe the rain will hold off? But we need rain. It's a complicated thing. And really, what *I* want? To have two minutes to drink my coffee. I even have to go a more circuitous route to take Holly to school, as there is apparently a nasty accident just down the street. Ahhh yeah.  I made Holly's lunch, then discovered she had no water bottle-- her mom, in her early morning haste forgot it and her dad was already off to work-- so Hero Papa jumped into action: he went across the street to the corner store and hooray! they had water bottles with the sip top. Am...

For most of the weekend, the internet was out-- hours and hours on end, no phone, no television, no computer. I didn't mind. I also didn't quite finish my school work, but I can get that done this morning, at least most of it. The school stuff I was able to do --grading of essays-- took quite a while. The sophomores have had, apparently, little to no writing training. O my. I changed today's lesson plan to an essay remediation day, and they will be able to revise their work and resubmit it. What a mess.  Of course, that's par for the course-- they didn't have a very good teacher last year, and it shows. However, they are a fun, eager, smart crew, so I think it won't take a whole lot to get them up to where they should be. I sure hope so; this course is for dual college credit, and frankly, they are not there yet.  The kids in AP (juniors) wrote decent enough essays, so there's that. I had them last year, so at least if there's errors, I know where they a...

Well, 29 degrees last night, and likely to dip another couple of degrees-- the sun's just coming up. Still no rain. Lovely, warm fall days, cool nights, but no rain. It's going to take a lot of steady rain to even get folks back up and running-- I'm glad we have town water, but that's not even guaranteed, because water's gotta come from somewhere, and our somewheres are dry. You can walk up the middle of the river bed. You can walk to the small island in the middle of Moore Dam.  Pray for rain, please. We started the summer with too much, and we have had maybe three days when rain happened in the last two+ months.  Yesterday, a friend came to relieve me of more tomatoes. I picked the last of the beans, the small yellow squashes, and a few more tomatoes. I picked one butternut squash-- there are two or three out there still, covered up against the frost, but they are all small. Not enough water to make them swell up. I have no idea how we ended up with so many tomato...

"Now Close the Windows" Robert Frost Now close the windows and hush all the fields; If the trees must, let them silently toss; No bird is singing now, and if there is, Be it my loss. It will be long ere the marshes resume, It will be long ere the earliest bird: So close the windows and not hear the wind, But see all wind-stirred. OK, friends, it's time. We had a frost last night (we covered things, but still). G started the pellet stove (which he cleaned and prepped well a few days ago), and yeah-- autumn is fully present. Today, I have a friend coming to pick tomatoes-- I may strip the vines, too, and bag up the green ones. They'll ripen slowly that way, enough to use for cooking anyhow. Or freezing. Heaven knows I have frozen a lot of them this year. So many people's gardens were stunted and slow-- this ongoing severe drought is no joke. Many people I know have no water, have not had for around five weeks, some of them. We had about ten minu...

Lo and behold, my Brit Lit kids are having...dare I say it?...fun writing sonnets! We spent yesterday looking at examples of Italian sonnets, then I let 'em loose on writing one. We'll approach the English sonnet today. Imagine that.  I'm also neck-deep/not sleeping well anxious about the field trip next Tuesday. I'm herding the entire high school (with chaperones) to Weathervane theatre to see The Tempest . It's going well, but the small details are keeping me from sleeping. Ugh. It'll all go well, but tell my brain that, eh? And today, I'm having my AP Lang kids try their first timed write-- an argument essay in 40 min., then we'll score them. Of course, I agreed that they could bring snacks. So of course, their entire brain space has been taken up with what snacks, instead of the strategies needed to write the essay. Well, maybe they did soak up some of it? At least it's a practice essay. We've spent much of this week working on AP test practi...

I spent a lot of time doing a surface introduction to various forms of sonnets yesterday in Brit Lit. I have no clue if any of it stuck, or if they even care. I started with Emma Lazarus' " The New Colossus ," and I did, in fact, see some lightbulbs go on. Whether they are in agreement --that this country was founded to welcome the poor, tired immigrants-- or if they are more aligned with the current policies, I have no idea. But it's worth looking at where we started, where we went from there, and where we are now. I, of course, will not share my opinions-- that might be seen in a poor light nowadays-- but the literature does not lie.  So why do we read literature? Empathy. Connections with our past, and the global past. To see for ourselves what struggles mankind has engaged with, over and over again.  As I'm fond of telling students, people don't change-- just the date does.  We also listened to two videos of Terrence Hayes reading from his collection of so...

I attended a three hour AP language webinar last night, and it was a little chaotic, in the way that when you go to a friend's house when you are in elementary school, and they drag out all of their toys and talk nonstop, and you get a little more than overwhelmed. Yes, I got a few good ideas, but my questions remain unanswered (I can likely figure it out later). And this dude was like a chihuahua on pop rocks, bouncing through all of his files on the Zoom, showing us this-and this-and this---- he shared the drive with us, so maybe I'll peruse it later.  What I didn't need was an introduction to the College Board website. In fact, I'm pretty sure if he'd listened to the introductions, he'd have skipped that part-- everyone knew where that stuff was. His response to any question was "thank you for sharing that"-- but he'd go back to the rapid-fire-sharing-his-stuff mode.  Exhausting. I left the webinar around 9:10-- I needed to get to bed, and he wa...

There's a tree across the street-- well, not directly across, but on that side-- that has erupted into an amazing blaze of the brightest, deepest red. With the drought, foliage is a little early, and maybe won't be as glorious as other years--but that tree doesn't know the prediction, so it's blazing anyway.  I want to be that tree.  There are so many reasons to want to hide in my house, pull a blanket up tight, and binge-watch Poirot.  There are so many reasons to shout, but calling attention to oneself is not a great plan right now.  But maybe, just maybe, I can surprise myself and everyone else who might be looking, and blaze away in a glorious spectacle that goes against all the odds.  We'll see. C

Those tiny little purple asters-- they are so hardy! They grow right next to goldenrod, so the colors are just popping.  It's autumn. I'm okay with it now. I picked a ton more tomatoes (and there's more out there), and the butternuts are doing as best they can. The carrots are still in the ground-- I have slim hope of a week or two more before I have to rip it all up.  Here's a favorite poem...and please, have a super day.  C A Late Walk When I go up through the mowing field,      The headless aftermath, Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,      Half closes the garden path. And when I come to the garden ground,      The whir of sober birds Up from the tangle of withered weeds      Is sadder than any words. A tree beside the wall stands bare,      But a leaf that lingered brown, Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,      Comes softly rattling down...

One thing that troubles me is the repurposing --the co-opting-- of symbols for nefarious purposes. Imputing an excessive amount of meaning to a symbol is darned close to idolatry, too. Flags, hand signals, and even the Christian cross are all being used/misused in such ways as to erase their original meaning, and make them symbols of hatred and divisive behavior.  Today is the feast day in the Catholic Church for the Exaltation of the Cross. Now, I understand the importance to the whole faith tradition, but it also made me think about the ways that the symbol of the Cross is being used to literally bash others. I am certain that Jesus would not approve. (I don't think that wearing a rosary as part of a goth wardrobe is all that great, either.) Now, there are some folks who would counter with "but things are just things unless you give them meaning." True, except that for a lot of people, the symbols carry a personal and communal weight. And when those symbols are twisted ...

I'm still not capable of commenting intelligently and without rancor about most of the national "news." I put "news" in quotation marks, because it feels/reads more like a firehose of expostulation, fabrication, and pure venom, most of the time. It's either entirely facile, or it's mostly fallacy. (And note: I'm having a bit of fun with rhyme and sound there-- which is good news-- I'm in a writing drought.) I have not written one damned decent poem in months. I have one or two fledgling drafts that might have some promise-- mostly, a few phrases that ring true, but nothing else. This is troubling, but not fatal, I think. I've been rendered poetically inarticulate by a whole lot of outside forces: prepping for AP classes (very rigid, somewhat formulaic, entirely daunting), very busy with home-related stuff, being ill with that stupid stomach thing for what seems to be ages, and the muting that I feel by the daily onslaught of vituperation. One...

Finally Friday. Today is also Chaucer Day in Brit Lit when we re-create the Tabard Inn, and kids wear improvised costumes, tell their characters' tales, eat food (nothing "modern"), and amuse one another with their attempts at reciting the first 18 lines of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English.  That last part is getting harder and harder-- why can't kids memorize anything anymore? I mean, they manage the song lyrics to their favorite music, but when it comes to dates, facts, and literary passages-- it's a hard nope. I blame computers (I tend to do that for a lot of things), since they don't have to store information in their heads nearly as much as we had to. They can tap their watch, and they have facts. Or what they think are facts. I know that the drama coach struggles to get kids off book, too-- it's a wider spread issue than just my little class. At any rate, I think I have two brave souls who are willing to give it a try. And this...

The lyrics to Bob Dylan's " When You Gonna Wake Up ?" go a long way towards capturing my current angsty sense of the absurd amount of pure shitasticness going on.  Hug your loved ones tighter every day. Nothing is guaranteed, but we have to keep going. C

I see so many organizations that I know do good work struggling for money. Global, national, local-- every good group is hurting, especially due to the federal funds being cut. It's not fair, it's not noble, and it's just plain dirty pool-- but here we are. I can't afford to give money to everything, so what do we do? First, act locally-- food banks, soup kitchens, little free pantries. Small museums are feeling gutted-- they already run on a shoestring, but now, with no grant funding (or having their grants rescinded in the name of ...waste? fraud?), they are hard pressed to stay open. And we need these little museums, because they are the keepers of local history. And if the Smithsonian must operate (at least for now) as a collaborator with the regime, we will need a lifeline to our collective past, one small historical society or library at a time. We may have to put the pieces back together someday. And what then? People are already hungry, many are one or two paych...

I went to bed at 9pm, and slept relatively well. I still feel like crud, but I'm an impatient patient-- I hate the inconvenience of being sick, even if it's just a cold. The temps should rise to low 70s today, so that'll be nice. I think I've finally convinced G to take the A/C out. I hate being cold.  It is 34 degrees this morning. I'm glad G covered the tomatoes and squash-- while I've been inundated with tomatoes, I understand that putting food in the freezer is a good plan, and letting them freeze would be wasteful. I think we'll get those apples picked this weekend. Time to start the early buttoning-up, too. Gotta protect what you need from the impending cold. That all said, here we are. Predictions for an icy stretch in Boston. I just wonder how the fine folks in Southie will deal with it.  Hug your loved ones, C

No sleep again. Very restless-- and I seem to either have miserable allergies or the onset of a cold. Either way, my ears are plugged and I have a sinus headache. Yay. I hope the cold meds kick in-- I can't get sick. There's no one else to do Holly duty. Sigh. I may shift some of my week's plans, too-- we'll see. I don't have a lot for stuff at home, but I've packed the week in my classes. I'll give it a look and see if there's some flexibility in there.  That said, we had a super nice day yesterday-- we went to church (G, Meg, and Holly and I), went out to breakfast, and then Meg, Holly, and I went to get some early apples and cider. I watched a little football (dang Pats dumped it), picked two huge bowls of tomatoes (again), and roasted a chicken. Not bad. G tells me that our own apples are ready to pick, too, which will require some processing and so on. I'm pre-tired thinking about it. I just wish I felt a little more on the ball. It'll be ea...

A really restless, bad dream --almost nightmare-- last night. I sure hope it's a one and done, and not the start of another series of these stress dreams I'm often subject to. This time, the national situation had made things impossible to do anything other than survive each day, and I forgot about Christmas. I noticed on Christmas eve what day it was, and I looked around: no presents, no holiday anything, no tree. I hadn't even gotten a yearly ornament. I felt like I'd been gutted. I woke up desperately unhappy. Those who know me best know that Christmas is extremely important to me. Faith, family, friends, food-- the gathering, the love, the sparkle and joy. To have been so immersed in mere survival that I would forget this? Wow.  I guess that explains how I feel about all of the turmoil. I'll try to re-set my day, starting with going to church. We'll see what comes up after that. Hug your loved ones. The abyss is before us, I fear. C

So, nudging the economy to crash is going to make America (great)? By dismantling the medical establishment --one of the largest employers-- this will come about? This is a plan?  When people are starving, scared, sick, and desperate for relief, this is how we make a country strong? By slapping new door plates all over the place that declare we are war-like, that is going to ensure peace? (Not really a good way to earn a Nobel-- just saying.) And here we are. And it's your dollars and mine that are funding this intentional destruction.  And we'll be the ones who are suffering-- not those with multiple homes, lots of fake-ass money (crypto? what?), and a clear escape plan to another country to live in (Mars ain't open yet, yo).  Gas isn't cheaper. In fact, it's gone up 25 cents in a week, locally. Coffee is expensive. Food is expensive. Clothing --hell, kids' sneakers-- are outrageous. Medicines are going through the roof. So when I hear over and over again that ...

I can't seem to get out of my own way this morning (or most mornings, lately).  Anyhow... about vaccines.  This new shift in the government, spearheaded by non-scientists and complete charlatans, is threatening all of our well-being. The facile argument --that vax mandates for children is tantamount to "slavery" as the head-med dude in Florida asserts-- is ridiculous. Public health=healthy public=more worker productivity, less medical debt, and better school attendance. Economically, it makes more sense to keep people healthy and safe. These guys are miserable SOBs who want it all, and can't figure out the basic equation.  To say it's not necessary, or it's a complete choice, is to threaten the lives of all of us, especially the vulnerable (elderly, newborn, health-compromised). And if the access to safe and effective medical help is also on the chopping block, then the only ones going to profit from this bullshit are the undertakers.  My rights are being thre...

The bare dirt circle in the lawn makes me sad, but I know that the pool will rise again next June. At least, I pin my hopes on that. Today, I will finishing deflating pool floats and so on and stow the toys away. It's time to accept that autumn is knocking rather insistently. The tomato vines are withering and browning, and I still have some faith that the butternut squashes will mature-- we have about five of them, and I love squash, so... keep good thoughts, eh?  I'll leave the carrots for a while longer-- they can endure until a frost, anyhow. The beans have slowed, but we might get one more meal's-worth out of them. Soon enough, we'll be picking the apples and pears.  But today, the weather is supposed to be warm and lovely again. The last two days have been hovering around 80 degrees, which I think might be the last hurrah of summer-like temperatures. Nights are still in the 40s. Mornings are dark.  I need to settle in and work on the field trip I have scheduled fo...

Better night's sleep! No bear!  The day is supposed to be warm and sunny, so I'm hopeful that the pool will finally be put away for the season. If it isn't, it has to be by tomorrow, because there's more rain coming. Yesterday's rain was a surprise-- welcome one, but now we have to drain the rain water out of the pool. And of course, I will be at work.  Sigh. Today is also my last PT appointment for the knee/ankle thing. I still have some pain (likely always will), but I'm a lot stronger than I have been. Good time (and money) spent. So, I'll go to work, go to PT, and then (I hope) help clean up the pool toys.  Wish me luck, C

Bear-ly awake. As in, damned bear kept me awake from 2-3am. There's nothing for him to rummage, but he doesn't mind tipping bins and making a racket.  And today is Holly's first day of pre-K-- she is excited. I get the honor of dropping her off and picking her up today, but Meg got her ready for school and took the photo. I'll try to get a photo at drop off.  Time flies, eh? Have a good day, folks. Gotta get a cup of coffee. C

I'm getting tired of pretending that the only things weighing on my mind are so trivial: garden, bears, weather, etc. It's getting so that washing floors feels pointless; I suspect that for many of us, the omnipresent gloom is a reality that can't be shaken off, even when we pack our waking moments with busy things. We can read, talk, listen to music, squabble, and laugh-- but the darkness is encroaching with a tsunami-like feel. I am often scared, and it's hard to live with. What can we do in the face of so much danger, pain, loss, and confusion? Going about our daily business, enjoying life's simple pleasures, and finding other things to talk about besides the doom and danger in the news is an act of simple resistance. They won't destroy my life , it says, when we choose to laugh and love and shop for bananas. But I'm pretty sure that it isn't enough to just insist on living as we have, as we will to live. We need other people, too.  Since the pandemi...