Questionairre

I recently came upon this poem by one of my favorite poets. I had never read it before but it is so relevant right now. If fact, I am now asking anyone I know who still supports Trump these questions:

Questionnaire

by Wendell Berry


How much poison are you willing

to eat for the success of the free

market and global trade? Please

name your preferred poisons.


For the sake of goodness, how much

evil are you willing to do?

Fill in the following blanks

with the names of your favorite

evils and acts of hatred.


What sacrifices are you prepared

to make for culture and civilization?

Please list the monuments, shrines,

and works of art you would

most willingly destroy


In the name of patriotism and

the flag, how much of our beloved

land are you willing to desecrate?

List in the following spaces

the mountains, rivers, towns, farms

you could most readily do without.


State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,

the energy sources, the kinds of security; for which you would kill a child.

Name, please, the children whom

you would be willing to kill.

Full of Grace

For the first time in years, squirrels have not absconded with all the peaches from our tree. I don’t know why they didn’t, but we are furiously trying to pick, eat, freeze, jam and can them as fast as they become ripe.

Conceding to my deteriorating knees, I bought a “sit on top” kayak. It has allowed me to get ‘on and off’ rather than ‘in and out’ and has been a game changer. I can once again go for a dawn ride without needing any embarrassing help.

Going for a woodsy walk, I came upon this little guy who allowed me to watch him eat for a while. I have no idea why, but chipmunks just make me happy.

We have been in full wedding mode this month. In order to save money, Peachies had asked me to make a number of items:


An arbor, which is made from birch trees.

   175 corks, cut flat and slit for place card holders

   A turntable to hold pastries for the head table

   160 fans 

    And I have finally finished hemming my dress.

I think we are ready for the big show.


Lastly, in between all the crazy, I get to sit at night and enjoy the peace and quiet of a small Adirondack lake.  

Life is Good.

Odds and Ends this Week

My daughter’s puppy graduated from obedience school.

She is still a psycho, hyper, hole digger, destroyer of everything puppy but at least now she will sit . . . for a treat. I hope they send her for some graduate courses.


New York State became the first state to ban the declawing of cats. I did a bit of political work for this effort and it felt really satisfying to accomplish something positive in the midst of all the national political negativity.


Peachie was home for a few days getting everything ready for her impending wedding. I will be walking her down the aisle and she has finally chosen the processional song - “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You”. I’m grateful that my dress has pockets which I can stuff with tissues. I will be a blubbering fool.


Martha and I started doing a little ancestry research and I found this about my paternal grandmother:

Born in Malmo Sweden, sailed the Umbria via Liverpool and arrived Ellis Island on 12/12/1896. Worked as a maid. Married and had four sons.

A devout gentle soul, quick to lend a hand.

While 3 of my grandparents legally came to the United States thru Ellis Island, apparently my maternal grandfather snuck in illegally through Canada.  If I am told to “go back to where I came from”, I think I will choose Malmo, Sweden.


Lastly, I recently saw this:

It has unsettled me greatly.

Full of Grace

The experimental plot in my veggie garden.

It contains plants I’ve never tried before like fennel, broccoli and brussels sprouts and appears to be doing quite well. I gave already enjoyed a few spinach salads from it.


This handy contraption called a Frog Log.

So many chipmunks drown in our pool every year and it makes me cry. I have no idea why they jump in but this float is supposed to help them climb back out. Fingers crossed.


My oldest daughter is in Europe with college friends having the time of her life. Every picture and video she sends home is filled with such joy and exuberance that it makes my heart smile.


That our local library offered this:

I am so glad to live in a place where there can be a Drag Queen story hour for ages 0 - 10 and no one loses their mind over it.

This week my sister and niece will be visiting at the lake. We have had a long standing tradition of a women’s week/end which used to include my mom. She will be greatly missed but sweetly remembered.

Full of Grace

My brother-in-law came through his major cancer surgery with flying colors. There was no more cancer in the organs but a few cells in a lymph mode so he still has to endure more chemo treatments. Still considering the usual prognosis for pancreatic cancer, he is a miracle and I am fully expecting him to be dancing at my daughter’s wedding.


Enjoyed an amazing trip to Portland, OR. I had never been to the Pacific Northwest and it exceeded my expectations. Glorious gardens and mountains and trees and waterfalls and salmon that has ruined me for ever eating Atlantic salmon again.

Also included - a side trip to Seattle, a scenic road trip to the Pacific Ocean,

a tour of Portland and it’s outlying farmland, and weird things Portlanders do like tying toy horses to old horse rings

and counting their airport carpet as one of the “things to do in Portland”.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do

Best of all was spending time with, and learning from, my most dear and delightful friend E, who was the most accommodating of hosts, and playing with her furry friends Pierre and Angus who were both charming and entertaining.

The last leg of the flight home was extremely turbulent - so much so that stewards were not allowed to serve any drinks or snacks, many people were vomiting, and my seatbelt was literally keeping me in my seat.

So once again, very grateful for great friends and family, the ability to travel and for arriving home safe and sound with memories that will last me a lifetime.

Savannah

My, it has been quite a while since I posted here.


A few weeks back I had surgery to blast the gravel pit of stones in my kidneys. No one seems to know why I am prone to them, but this has been my fifth go round with surgery. And once again the anesthesia confounded me. Martha complained that on the surgical waiting room board, everyone who finished surgery about the same time I did went home and I was still in the recovery room. But I did eventually wake up, drank, peed and went home with foggy anesthesia brain that seems to still be lingering. Later in the week the doctor very kindly came into his office on his day off to remove my stents before my vacation, and then the next two days I found myself writhing in excruciating pain as I apparently passed the remaining stone fragments.


But enough about that because then I got to pack my bags and go to Savannah.


The original plan was booked when Peachie was still living in Boston. “Come to my new house for Easter” she said. “I will take you to the Boston airport the next morning and pick you up when you come home Friday and you can visit for the weekend.”


Perfect. Until her fiance got a promotion and they moved to Florida.


So because we had an early Monday morning flight, Martha and I spent Easter driving to Boston to stay in a hotel. It is usually a 3 hour drive but because of traffic, it took us 5 hours. This is the lovely Easter dinner we shared at a Mass. Turnpike rest stop.

A brief and expensive night in a hotel and then an Uber to the airport in more heavy traffic. But at least our flight was on-time and uneventful.


We rented a car and drove to our Airbnb - an amazing restored warehouse right on the Savannah river.

Savannah has such an interesting history, both from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. I hadn’t known that General Sherman, while burning his way through the south, was so awestruck by the beauty of Savannah that he left it unscathed as a gift to Lincoln. And while I understand that the city had deteriorated considerably in the following century, the Savannah College of Art and Design began buying and restoring buildings and today the historic district is a model of antebellum beauty and preservation.

Still, it is the south. We toured a plantation owner’s house, and it’s slave quarters. And while the language has become more accurate (the enslaved rather than slaves) I still struggled with the untold history of these people. I could feel their pain and prayers soaked in the walls and I felt a deep inner trembling when walking through the square that had been the slave market.

Our first night we ate in one of the oldest inns, a place that had a secret tunnel out to the river. If a man got drunk, he might find himself being carried thru the tunnel and awaken as a deckhand on a ship.

I usually order seafood but my eye was drawn to “world famous pecan chicken” which turned out to be fried chicken swimming in a butter, brown sugar, bourbon, pecan sauce with a sweet potato casserole that was mostly butter and brown sugar.

The following day I ordered a salad to try to balance the richness of the night before. But my salad had perhaps three leaves of lettuce, two heavily coated fried green tomatoes, bacon and was drenched in a buttermilk dressing. Why haven’t all these people keeled over from heart attacks?

The next day we ate at a crab shack and my shrimp and crab were again floating in a butter sauce. I also wanted to try sweet tea and found that to be about 1 part tea and 5 parts sugar. Heart attacks and diabetes must be quite prevalent.

One day we drove to the original Georgia colony at Wormsloe where the driveway was lined by this stunning array of live oaks dripping with spanish moss.

I was advised not to touch the spanish moss as it it inhabited by spiders and chiggers. Yikes. You don’t have to tell me twice.

Interestingly the original rules of the Georgia colonies were no catholics, no alcohol, no lawyers and no slaves. But apparently since the colonies couldn’t compete with the enslaved free labor of the Carolinas, slaves were eventually allowed. Sadly, it always comes down to money and greed.

One other thing I found mesmerizing was spending time on our little balcony, watching paddle boats and container ships coming up the river.

It is hard to describe the enormity of these ships.

Martha, who is into history, spent most of her time reading plaques and learning about the monuments. But I was more fascinated by the grid layout of the city and the numerous squares and parks laid out as a fire barrier - lessons learned from the great London fire. I roamed up and down back streets and alleys, chatted with park buskers and artists, and generally found myself conflicted between the architectural beauty and the disturbing history of this city.

We had an early flight back which was of course delayed, so we wound up spending yet another night in a Boston hotel, but finally made it home, tired but safe and sound. 

And quite a few pounds heavier.

Full of Grace

The magic of cortisone shots into my achy, creaky knees. Although the effect is starting to wear off, the shots have given me a month of pain free mobility that made me feel ten years younger.

Being able to zip down to Florida for a short visit with friends and enjoy morning walks along the ocean.

And having my flight back NOT cancelled even though every other flight to the northeast was cancelled due to a storm. It was a little eerie being the only passengers in the entire terminal and a little frightening to keep reading about how much snow and ice we were about to encounter. We hit a lot of turbulence as we approached but the pilot put us safely down in the storm to a huge thunderous applause from the passengers. “Grateful” feels like an inadequate word.


Peachie’s fiance got a huge job promotion that required them to move to Tampa. After much flurry of arrangements, they have rented out their Boston home and moved into company sponsored temporary housing. Peachie has also landed a dream job for herself. They will soon be closing on their own home with a lovely guest room I intend to use quite frequently, especially in winter.


Beaner and her fiance are closing on a house locally next week. It is really amazing to watch my daughters truly come into their own, professionally and personally. One nearby to take care of me and one to visit in a warm sunny place. Yup, that works.


Finally, I have begun to plant seeds under grow lights and plan out my veggie garden for this year. I am going to set aside an experimental space for some veggies I have never tried before. We still have significant snow of the ground but I do love the anticipation of Spring.