Making it in Toledo

It’s been a rough month.  Like everybody else, I am scared, no matter that the Blade says I shouldn’t be.  I’ll do what I can with what I have where I am.  Enough said!

On Thursday, we had guests from not-quite-one-and-a-half (my grand-daughter Aloisa Daschbach) to just-past ninety five (John’s mother Bunny Ross).  We had family and old friends and new friends.  We hosted a UT graduate student from Nepal with his wife and their daughter.  Fifteen at the table including two in booster seats.

Highlights:

• As our Nepalese guests were vegetarian, we (my SIL Robin contributed lots of side dishes and desserts) managed everything except the turkey, the gravy, and the pumpkin pie without meat or eggs.  It was delicious.
• Mama Stamberg’s cranberry relish with horseradish is awesome.
• Bunny insisted throughout the dinner, even to the Nepalese, that Nepal is part of India.  She expressed a worry that next year I might invite someone Chinese and she doesn’t know how to use chopsticks.
• The third dishwasher load was finished by 10:30 Thursday evening and everything was put away by noon on Friday.
• Johanna and Aloisa stayed 2 extra days so we got to enjoy grand-parenting. They’re safely back in Chicago this evening.

Since we had hosted a Hillary staffer from July until after the election and a couple of volunteers for the last 2 weeks, it feels really odd to have an empty house.  We’re doing the post-guest cleanup and the pre-winter cleanup and getting ready to pack for an exciting trip.  More to come on that.

 

I like to think of myself as an ethical consumer, but… I pick and choose.  Buying most of my food from farmers is a joy.   Having become used to knowing how my food is grown and who grows it, I no longer even think about going to Kroger.  Most of my furniture has a history or at least a provenance.   I have come to prefer buying handmade jewelry where the workmanship is worth far more than the materials. Clothing is tougher, but I try to pay attention to sustainable practices at least most of the time.

So why had it become so tough to choose a coffee shop?  My farmers don’t advertise their religion or their politics, and I don’t ask.  When I need outdoor furniture, I trust Downtown Home and Garden in Ann Arbor to sell me stuff that will not be taking up space in the landfill for many years, and that’s enough for me.  When I buy a new necklace,  I am free to assume that anyone who spends her time weaving copper wire around little rolled-up pieces of gray felt is probably not voting for Donald Trump.  “Made in America” clothing made from natural fibers is a feel-good purchase, even as I avoid looking too deeply into where the profits go.  To some extent I am shopping my conscience and, to be fair, to some extent ignorance is bliss.

These days, I have all the time in the world and plenty of money to indulge in a morning espresso or a mid-day latte, and there are lots of new places in Toledo to do it.  I wish that I could visit all of them without knowing I was indirectly supporting anti-choice organizations.  I wish “Christian coffee house” was not a thing.

 

I was 17, a (supposedly)smart kid from a small town in Northern New York, enrolled in a 6-week summer AP program at Cornell.  I was lonely and had come home for the weekend. That night, the man across the aisle in the Greyhound bus taking me back to school calmly unzipped his pants and began to masturbate.  The bus was pretty empty.  I got up and moved to another seat.  I was supposed to change buses in Syracuse, and while I waited in the bus station there I was approached by a policeman.  Another girl, braver than I, had reported the offender, and I was needed to corroborate her story.  By the time I got a later bus and arrived back to my dorm, I had missed curfew.  Shortly thereafter, I had to tell my embarassing story to a discipline committee, which in the end decided to forgive me.  I didn’t talk about it much. I felt vaguely dirty and guilty.

That was a long time ago.  At the time, I thought I was alone.

I’ve been thinking about joy.  Joy was the first Lucinda Williams song I ever heard.  So raw.  So powerful.  I think joy may be one of those indescribables, something you can only recognize by feeling it and that you kind of forget about in between times.

I’m happy when Nate Silver’s forecast is favorable.  I feel relief, but not joy.  I’m happy when my apple crostata come out of the oven looking and smelling perfect.  I feel pleasure, but that’s not joy either.  Politics, volunteering:  often satisfaction, but never joy.

I’m pretty sure that in fact the white tail deer have stolen part of my joy by limiting my gardening potential.

I won’t be seeing (and enjoying) my grand-daughter for a couple of weeks, but between now and them I’m going to pay attention.  Or else I’m going to quiet my mind.  Either way I’m going to be looking for joy.

 

Fresh tomato sauce is bubbling on the stove.  Zinnias and nasturtiums are glowing in the garden.  The deer have decimated the hostas and wiped out the tomatoes.  Saturday means Ann Arbor where I am happy to skip the football games.  It’s fall.

It’s also election season, and this election is making me very anxious.  Like eveyone I know, I am appalled that it’s a close race and can’t understand how anyone could vote for Trump.  Except I guess I can understand it, at least as much as I can understand almost-daily shootings of unarmed black people and our continuing denial of climate change.  Which is not an understanding but certainly not a surprise any more.

As always, those things sit heavily at the back of my mind while I try to keep my focus on what I can do and my attention on the many things I am grateful for every day.  Farmers and flowers and family and friends.   How do you make it, wherever you are?

Not quite two days ago, a few hours after I arrived, someone described Boulder to me as “thirty square miles surrounded by reality.” Sounds like a perfect spot to spend a couple of days, doesn’t it?  Since we were among the many who experienced Delta’s system outage first hand, my time in Boulder was short. Since one of my travel companions is 14 months old, my travel activities had to be chosen with care.  Here are some highlights of the quick visit:

Lunch with my cousin Mary on Tuesday: great food in a trendy French restaurant, chance for Aloisa to charm the waitstaff and the neighboring tables, and only one wine glass broken:

Lively music by Purple Squirrel at The Laughing Goat Tuesday evening, followed by a stroll on Pearl Street:

Wednesday lunch at Dushanabe Tea House, one of many examples of Boulder’s international connections, which include Tibet as well as Tajikistan.  The tea house was a gift from a sister city; we ate outside in the shade of an apricot tree:

Boulder Farmers Market Wednesday afternoon:  We bought Colorado cheeses and two kinds of artisan bread, and we enjoyed more music, but the highlight was the baby chicks:

Wednesday’s night show at the Boulder Theater:  loved Pokey LaFarge, and the opening act, the Haunted Windchimes, were almost as good.  This was the first time I noticed that the smell of marijuana was stronger than the smell of patchouli.

I’m up early, still on Ohio time.  The sun is reflecting on the mountains this morning.

On our way to Casper Wyoming today.  Should be a great spot to watch the meteor show!

It’s a relief to have the conventions over.  I’ve read the speculation about Trump droppping out, and I know that Johnson and/or Stein are looking attractive to some people, but those things feel marginal.  We’re hosting a Clinton staffer, and I see how hard she is working, for which I am glad.  Until November, I’ll keep making modest donations to Hillary and I’ll keep worrying, but for right now it feels okay to turn my attention elsewhere.  Mostly to domestic affairs.

Waste, especially food waste, is anathema to me, so what with the herbs from garden, vegetables from the farmers market and, especially,  the produce from our CSA, I’ve been cooking even more than usual.    I love the colors of this green bean salad with nasturtiums.

Our CSA includes fruit as well as vegetables, so I”ve been practicing my pastry skills.  Tonight I made a plum and nectarine galette:

I’ve even put up jam from the 15 pound of bulk peaches I bought, and I’m looking forward to sharing with all my kids and some of my friends:

And despite the high pain price I pay, I’ve been pulling weeds and fighting aphids like crazy, because somehow I need the combination of order and wildness that results.  Somehow I like seeing this in black and white:

Long ago we invested in garden infrastructure, so now it’s mostly maintenance. That seems like a resonable metaphor for life right now, too.  Orderly, a little wild, and quite satisfying. Not all black and white, but sometimes….

Three days above  90 degrees, and I’ve succumbed.  We live in an old house with good air circulation, designed to create cross-breezes.  For most of the year we are fine as long as we open up the house at night, with fans, and close the shades during the day.  This week that isn’t cutting it, and we  have chosen comfort.  The portable air conditioner set to 72 will probably keep things not too much warmer than 75, so who cares about the electric bill and I’ll salve my environmental conscience by minimizing my driving.  It’s all trade-offs, and we do our best.

Sometimes even then we make things tougher than expected.  Last year I planted dozens of milkweeds, because of course I want to help the monarchs survive.  I did my research and chose varieties suitable to my zip code. So far no monarchs, but the small variety (butterfly weed or asclepias tuberosa, above) is beautiful and the large one (swampweed or asclepias incarnata, below) is covered with bees of all sorts.  I’m happy with these additions to our garden.

Unfortunately, some of my carefully chosen plants are also covered with aphids.  Ugly, slimy yellow aphids which are sucking the life out of the plants I hoped would nourish beautiful gold and black butterflies. Although I am willing to attack the aphids with soapy water, with a brush, and even with my hands, I can’t bring myself to take their picture.  But this morning I cut and bagged the worst-affected stalks.  From here on out I’m on prevention patrol.

Speaking of trade-offs, and although we say it every four years, this year is really, again, the most important presidential election of my life.  I am wholeheartedly with Hillary Clinton.  I’ve written some modest checks, and I am looking forward to providing housing for a member of her team.  Still, I know that for many of my friends this is a trade-off.  They would prefer someone more liberal or more conservative or bolder or more submissive or, for some, let’s face it – more male.   Hillary’s brand of pragmatic progressivism resonates for me.  I am stunned when I read about the decades of accusations, allegations, and attacks that have brought us to the point where mistrust of Hillary threatens to deliver the presidency to Donald Trump.

It has always amazed me that most people do not recognize elections as a choice from a limited menu of options.  In a few weeks it will be official. I forgive anyone who is waiting for the Republicans to rescue themselves and somehow block Trump or for the FBI or the Justice Department or maybe some Deus ex machina to find Hillary guilt of some new crime.  Absent that, however, this election is a choice between a smart a smart, competent, and experienced woman who is appealing to our best natures or Donald Trump.  I get the appeal of Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, but neither is going to be our next president.  I get the need for change.  In a local race, why not make change your priority?  But this is the presidency!  The Supreme Court! The red button!

I’m with her….

 

My sister Francine visited last week.  Our niece Gina is getting married in August, and so we spent some serious time talking about her mother, our sister Martha who died in 1993, when Gina was 21 months old.   Gina’s wedding will be at the Sunburst Lounge in Casper, Wyoming.  Martha’s wedding was in my backyard in 1986.  Francine was matron of honor. Olivia was a flower girl.  Martha’s wedding bouquet was ordered from a farmers’ market vendor, and we picked it up at the farm. After the ceremony we served dinner to a few dozen guests.  I made chicken Marbella.  A LOT of chicken Marbella.

Chicken Marbella is trending again.  A classic.  Somewhere around the time of the wedding, maybe earlier, I splurged on my first Coach bag, a basic black.  This year someone admired my “vintage” bag.  I replied with thanks and an acknowledgement of my own vintage.

This week I made chicken marbella for a small dinner party.  And pre-dinner martinis.  And deviled eggs.  A chocolate cake.  Pretty much an all-boomer dinner, with the exception of a couple of  Millenial guests.

Sometimes  the old memories and the new ones get all mixed up…

 

 

I love my backyard garden.  It’s the first thing I see every morning from my bedroom window, soon after the sun comes up over the trees.  It’s where I like to have coffee in the morning and lunch on summer afternoons.  I’ve furnished it with estate-sale furniture and lots of big terra-cotta pots in varying states of disrepair.  The garden houses an eclectic and ever-changing collection of statuary, herbs, flowers and birdbaths. Occasionally it’s raided by racoons or the odd opossum.

 

 

John’s favored Weber kettle grill sits in the corner next to a table made from a salvaged piece of Corian from a long-ago kitchen remodel and a sewing machine base that I rescued when it was about to be thrown out from the Davis building.  We offer seeds and suet to a parade of birds.  A place of honor is given to the Buddha I inherited from Al Baldwin.  Not infrequently his head is a perch for a sparrow or a chipmunk.

I also love my front porch with a meadow view.  It’s where we sit after dinner to watch the whistle pigs, the swallows, the too-frequent deer, the occasional heron, and, once  this year, a bald eagle.

The porch is original to the house.  It’s built over sand, for drainage, and after almost 100 years it is full of cracks and many of the bricks have shifted.  Chipmunks live in it.  We’ve had to evict wasp nests from it.

We had the backyard garden built, first (30+ years ago) the two square patios and, maybe 10 years ago?? the slightly-raised beds, which I had built to celebrate the death of a neighbor’s tree and the new access to enough sun to grow vegetables.  The beds are lined with brick and separated by gravel paths and the center path is stone.

So, with all that brick and stone and gravel, there’s a problem. In addition to the many pleasurable hours I have spent in these two places, I’ve been on my knees pulling weeds for countless more.  We’ve worn out way too many weed eaters on the bricks.  Many years ago, when we let it get out of hand, one of my then-neighbors remarked that the unweeded porch was like a woman’s unshaven legs and similarly unacceptable.

My nature is expressed in my approach to my garden.  I have banned poison.  I have welcomed all creatures, except the deer who I try to discourage with a product based on pig’s blood.  I have patiently hand-weeded.  But no more!  Tomorrow I become the mother of dragons – er, mother of a dragon.  A red dragon garden torch, with which I plan to incinerate every weed and every blade of grass that invades my gardens.  Watch me conquer!

A dragon is not a slave.  Daenerys Targaryen