chickens

Another chicken appeared in my yard today. What the heck. My friend, Mimi, who has some chicken experience, thinks it’s strange that somebody isn’t looking for their chickens. They are beautiful and look well cared for, and when I asked Mimi if she knew what kind they were, she said, “Edible.” 😂😂😂 If you hear of someone missing their chickens, send them here. Hey, maybe they escaped from the county fair!

The chicken mystery has been solved and it turns out we have our own neighborhood version of Chicken Run going on. I heard clucking in the backyard this morning and went to investigate. There was another chicken hunter back there and she said her neighbor had been given five chickens, two were butchered and the remaining chickens after witnessing the bloody horror, escaped. Well, who can blame them and no wonder they’re skittish. I’m not going to rat them out so they’re free to parade through my yard any time they want.

even the garden frog is laughing

Sometimes things are just so absurd there is no making sense of it. This week in politics has absolutely blown my mind. The president of the United States makes these racist remarks and people support him? Women and people of color at his rally cheer for him and repeat that four Congress women should go back to the countries they came from? It's unfathomable. And it's personal. But it's kind of a washing machine kind of thing for me...so many emotions and thoughts and fears are churning around now that I can barely be articulate.

It's been a busy summer. Lots of gardening, watching babies grow and learn, coffee with friends, work at the Arts Center. Life is so good and so rich that it helps keep my head above the quicksand. Last night we had our monthly Third Thursday Potluck. We're on our third year, some have gone and some new faces have joined us and it's always so much fun and so much good food.

Yes, I colored my hair purple. It's an homage to Prince, my friend Kathryn, and Megan Rapinoe. And it's a flip of the bird to the White House. (I know that isn't rational.) My friends last night were very complimentary of my purple locks. It's only hair and it's temporary so what the hell. I should have brought the bottle of Purple Rain and done a couple streaks for those who were interested.

I'm inspired but I still don't get much done. I finally mailed a Christmas package to Jane in Iowa that arrived in time for the 4th of July. What the hell. Hahaha!

Tech wizard

Epic moments in my technology history.

After a month of wrangling with Godaddy and Google, I managed to renew the lease on my domain. I also ordered groceries for the first time using Aisles Online at HyVee. Ta da! Taking many bows and receiving a standing ovation. Yay me.

Another technological advance. Hard to believe, but I have never learned how to use cruise control. I didn’t like the feeling of no control for one thing and learning a new skill while rocketing down the highway seemed risky. Regis gave me a lesson last week and yesterday I remembered to deploy both buttons, and voila...I’m cruising!

can i say yes, i am an artist?

I've never thought of myself as an artist. The last class I had related to art, not counting the wine and paint gatherings where the main focus of course, was wine, was in middle school. Miss LaCroix, who was a very good teacher taught me things I still remember...how to paint trees and humans and form follows function. Then I pretty much left that subject alone.

I have always loved to write but I never thought of that as art until I started working at the Arts Center. People would ask if I was an artist, and finally I could say, "I am a word artist." But it still seemed different.

About a year ago, I decided to take drawing lessons. I signed up for three lessons and struggled mightily but I did learn that it was ok to struggle and I could keep going.

I found a wonderful teacher who calls herself my creativity mentor. For the last year, she has encouraged me through drawing, some introduction to painting, paper cutting, the fundamentals of art and design, famous artists, and many different art materials. I have a huge collection of my own supplies and I even set up a studio in our basement. I have an antique drafting table that belonged to a man who had been an artist and illustrator for many years. I bought myself a cool LED lamp and a nice chair and I've done a reasonable job of organizing things.

The last time we met, my teacher introduced the notion of a project. She had ideas from things I have talked about, the way in which to encourage me. She suggested a three part project...abstract landscapes, writing about landscape and home (mostly things I have already done), and three dimensional sculpture using fiber.

The last one has given me the most pause. I've been a knitter but mostly used the cheap acrylic yarn from the big box stores. I don't know much about real wool fiber, so I'm learning. I'm learning about color, and texture, and heddle looms, and circular weaving, and free-style weaving. It's a blast.

Thursday, my teacher and I are going to Mankato to check out a yarn stash sale. I want to know more about felting.

I have so many ideas that sometimes I have to take a nap to give my head a rest. Haha!

stuff falls apart

I've been composing this in my head for months. Months. Nothing ever gets any clearer so I guess it won't. Or it will. I don't know.

The last two years have been horrific. I watch the news almost obsessively. It's the first thing I do in the morning...I check the news to make sure nothing horrible, or more horrible than yesterday, has happened. It's exhausting and demoralizing. I've lost a few friends. It's not exactly their politics, it's their world view I can't stomach. I've been to marches and demonstrations, sent emails and made phone calls. The only thing my rage does is wear me out.

This past week, The sexual assault allegations. The entitled anger of the accused. The horrific comments of men and women telling us that now men and boys must be afraid. I say go ahead. Be afraid. I have been afraid all my life. I am 65 years old, I live in a safe neighborhood in a safe rural area but I always think about whether or not it's safe to go out alone at night. I always take my phone to bed when my husband works late. I think about repairmen coming in the house when I am alone. Especially when the dog isn't here. So, frankly, if a man has to be afraid of a false accusation, I don't care.

I don't owe anybody the details of my own experience, but I can tell you this. I don't know one man, not one, who has been falsely accused of sexual assault but I know many women who have experienced sexual assault, been overpowered by a man, felt fear, felt shame, never told a soul except maybe in the privacy of a therapist's office. Thought for years it was her fault. Didn't even have the words to call it what it was. Many women.

Teach your boys, and girls, about consent. Teach them that it is not normal for boys or men to behave as if we owe them something because of the way we dress or laugh or drink. Then go ahead and be afraid.

I'm tired. I feel like I'm going through menopause again. My mind is foggy and I have no ambition. I look at my garden where there are so many things to do but none are getting done. Chairs blew over in the last storm and there they lay. There are three or four little plants under the tree, still in their garden center plastic pots, dried up and lifeless. A piece of mail dropped one day midsummer into the dirt by the front door, still there wet and dirty.

Some day. Some day, we'll rise up.

you reading this, be ready

midsommer

We're barely into summer by the calendar but in the middle of summer by all other measures. The 4th of July is past, Christmas decorations are up at the craft stores, and the bugs are horrific. We used our screen tent last night and it was tolerable to sit outside and have a beer while we grilled peppers. We mocked the gnats and mosquitoes trying to gain access. Little bastards.

I love the landscape of this time of year: crops are green, rows are tidy, usually some haze off in the distance, clear blue skies, small farms dotting the horizon. We took Gus to Nicollet this morning for his monthly shave and a haircut and as I watched the miles go by, I thought how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place.

We have forsaken the news for a while because there is only so much outrage you can stand to bear. We read snippets on twitter and the online WaPo, but the nightly gathering of the talking heads is getting a much earned vacation. We started watching Shetland, a wonderful British mystery drama that takes place in the Shetland Islands.

I snatched this photo from the Instagram account of @inspiredbyshetland. I hope that's enough of an attribution so I don't get nabbed by the copyright police. Such a wild and lovely place. Did you know they have winter hurricanes? It might be a place I'd like to visit, but it would require several airplanes, some of them quite small, and a ferry into the North Sea. I'd have to be sedated.

I spent 3 hours in the front yard yesterday. I was a sweaty, bug spray covered, hot mess by the time I finished. There is mor to do...not sure I can make myself do it today. So sad.

we aren't the traveling kind of folks

I know some people wouldn't even consider a 130 mile trip to be travel, but we plan it for a week and we labor over the details. We're exhausted when we get home even though the biggest exertion was to go twenty miles (by car) to eat. Sigh.

Here's a good article about why it's ok to dislike travel.

We had a nice time and even stepped out of our usual routine by going downtown to sit on the patio of the local pub until near dark, chatting with the locals. I know. Not like we were bungee jumping or anything but you have to take your bows when you can.

I do love the landscape...cows, prairie, corn fields, wind towers.

I don't need opinions about how we should do this or that. I can find a poem about the pleasure of not traveling and I'd be happy to share it. Somebody has to stay home, you know, or we'd all be out running up and down the highways.

Tomorrow, I am attacking my outdoor jobs. I'm sure the garden plants are competing for space with the weeds and my front yard looks like Boo Radley's yard. I'm going to spray myself up with DEET and just do it.

Mom and Me

a major cloud of ennui settled over us

en·nui

änˈwē/

noun

1. a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.

   synonyms:

   boredom, tedium, listlessness, lethargy, lassitude, languor, weariness, enervation

2. Yup. That's it. It hit me Tuesday, but Regis drove the bus that day so he did not succumb until Tuesday night. Wednesday, we were in the throes all day. We can't remember a day when we did less...if there has been one. It had all the markers.

• A nap in the chair immediately upon waking.
• Consumption of leftovers, twice.
• Lack of interest in any community goings on of which there were many.
• Lack of focus and nothing accomplished.
• Abundance of reading and Scrabble.
• Minimal conversation.

In our defense, I would say that we both showered and got dressed. This would have been a 911 situation if we had been in our pajamas all day. I would have suspected a leakage of carbon monoxide.

Toward evening we had a burst of creativity and gumption enough to order this as a way to combat the mosquito hordes that have prevented almost any patio time this summer.

It's 10x10 so it will hold two lawn chairs and not much else. That's ok since my general malaise includes lack of interest in cooking for crowds, even the familial kind.

I have a busy day planned...some baby watching, some work at the Arts Center, some celebrating of the birthday of my sweet husband. Ta da! The cloud has lifted!

what the hell

The weather. I saw on Facebook, a trusted source of legitimate news, that 10 weeks ago from July 1st we had almost three feet of snow on the ground. I didn't bother with any fact checking because...you know...fake news.

We had a long, gray winter and a snowy spring that lasted about 18 hours. I had a few wimpy daffodils that bloomed for a few hours before they were bludgeoned to death by 100 degree winds. Winds like you get on the Sahara Desert.

Since then, it's been too hot, windy, rainy, or buggy to care about anything outside. I do, under duress, spray myself down with a lethal does of DEET and do a few things outdoors but I can't say I enjoy it. It's a year of just surviving.

The river is rising, again, so who knows when all routes out of here will be closed unless you have a raft. The dog park is completely submerged and giant carp have been seen swimming over the fences. When the water goes down, imagine this: the stench of rotting carp, hellish mobs of mosquitoes, clouds of gnats that get through even L.L. Bean's finest mesh screen hat, and a nasty case of West Nile.

It makes me yearn for January.

Regis and I went to a comedy show last night. The weather forecast was for thunderstorms and high winds but the venue is right down the street and it's a one story brick building so I felt safe. Remember that scene from Twister where the cars are blown by a tornado through the screen of the outdoor theater? That could happen.

During one of the breaks, we talked about how we have been retreating to books and stories this summer, hiding from the world. We both have felt, during the day as we go about our business, the anxious calling of a book. The difference is that I read escape literature and Regis reads science fiction and dystopian literature. That might be worse than reality.

It was so hot yesterday that the smell of hot asphalt recalled memories of other hot summers in the past. I'm writing another post in my head about that. Funny how smells are so evocative of memories.

Well, onward my friends, into the heat and humidity and windblown rain. Have a pleasant day.

sunday gardening

We have a small plot in the community garden this year. The garden had a rough start with snow until mid-April, high winds and 100 degrees in May, then weeks of torrential rain in June. Somehow we got most of it planted and we're doing a fair job of keeping down the weeds. Two or three small ones come on Sunday mornings to help with weeds and other chores, but I try not to make it torturous. I want them to remember it as fun. Today, Ella and Elliot counted the tomatoes and peppers that are developing. I'm not sure it's what a guy would call a bumper crop, but it's a crop.

In other news, Regis and I celebrated our 19th anniversary by going to Pet Expo to buy dog and cat food and cat litter, then stopping at Boulder Tap for lunch. We like their food a lot but I hate the televisions. When they ask where we would like to be seated, I always say away from the tvs. Haha. There is no such place.

My dinner plans for today included cooking on the grill. Doesn't look like that will happen as it is raining and thundering...again. Regis just told me the Rabbit Road is closed. Probably more roads to follow once the river gets so high. It's been the summer that wasn't. See paragraph #1 about our strange weather, then realize we have mosquitoes the size of small helicopters.

I think I need a short nap.

paths and bridges

For a flatlander and a non-traveler, I've had an unusual fascination with paths and bridges. I suppose a guy could attach some meaning to that, but I'm not sure what it would be.

I've often thought if it had been up to me to blaze a trail into the new world, I'd still be sitting by the farm in the sod hut in Norway.

I had my third drawing lesson yesterday. My teacher calls herself my mentor which is probably accurate because our conversations are far reaching and as much about life as art. Michelle encourages, through her home and her person, an artistic view of the world.

I printed several path and bridges photos I've taken so I can practice drawing this morning. I've found that if I sketch something then set it aside for a few days, it looks different. I take photos of sketches, too.

I see many comparisons to writing in the process of creating art. I suppose that seems obvious to some but it was a surprise to me.

We've had a string of many, many gloomy days. This is not good when we should be storing up Vitamin D for the winter. Blech.

Off to sip coffee and sit in front of the window to draw. Ah, retirement.

more thoughts on quitting stuff

For today, at least for this morning, I quit getting dressed or being mobile. I'm glad it rained this morning because it is more acceptable to be slothful on days when it pours and thunders.

I'm going to work at 3, so I will be dressed by then.

It's been very interesting to live each day through a lens of quitting. Some of the quits are good ones. I'm trying to quit worrying and I am trying to quit feeling responsible for everybody's everything.

I've explained it this way. All of this is valuable real estate...in my head and in my physical surroundings. Why do I let that stuff live here, in my head and in my physical surroundings...mostly rent free. It's a good perspective.

The other day, I told someone that I had quit holidays. She responded: How did you get by with that? Whoa. I could ask her: How did you get stuck with that?

And there is the tricky part. Much of those kinds of things are enjoyable. There was a time when I loved all my holiday bric-a-brac. I loved baking fourteen kinds of cookies and planning a menu that would feed the Russian army. So, I don't want to imply that I always disliked all of it. See?

Quitting things allows me to choose how gets space in my head.

I'm reading a book by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu. Their message is how to live a life of joy amidst sadness and death and destruction. I'm only on the first chapter but there is much to ponder here. This week has been rough so it was a good recommendation from my friend, Jane.

I have a new volunteer gig. I'm a new docent for the walking sculpture tours in Mankato. You can check it out here as the site doesn't allow me to steal pictures. Imagine that.

Well, I'm off to clean up and get dressed. Enjoy this rainy day!

sigh. i tried.

I'm taking drawing lessons from a fabulous and very encouraging teacher, Michelle. As I have accumulated drawing supplies, I have tried a couple iPad drawing...things. I don't even know what to call them. This morning, I plugged in a tablet (bamboo, I think) but only gave the youtube tutorial about five minutes. What the hell. I have reached my lifetime technological quota.

I reluctantly allowed Alexa into my life and I turn the living room light off at night by shouting at her. But that's it. When I look at spending an hour trying to learn to use a table with a stylus thing when I could just pick up a piece of paper, my head starts to make a hissing noise and I want to take a nap. Sigh.

Michelle is encouraging me to think about ways to combine photographs, drawing, and words. I sent her this from 2014.

It's one of my favorites. Too bad I don't remember how I did it.

Regis had his second sleep study done last night. The doctor was insistent that he use the bipap machine tonight. The first medical supply store we went to was ho-hum, maybe in two weeks when the guy comes from St. Paul to write the order. WTF. I am usually patient, but I said that was unacceptable and we left. I'm ready to go to the cave, my friends.

In fact, the little room where he did the sleep study was quite adequate. Wonderful sleep number bed, small private bathroom, a tiny television so we could watch MSNBC when the shit comes down as it surely must be about ready to do.

I'm thinking more about quitting stuff and valuable real estate today. It makes sense in a physical space sense and in an emotional and mental work sense. If I am repeating this from yesterday, it's because it's important.

I think I'll go take a nap in my chair until its time to go to work.

quitting stuff- first draft

This post is going to be a partial, not-fully-formed, stream of consciousness post about quitting stuff. I don't like calling it that, and have had conversations with people who don't like this title either. The connotation is bad, they say. Quitting sounds negative and implies that you were meant to do this thing and you are rebelling and not doing it anymore. That's kind of it, though.

I've been thinking about this for several weeks and probably even longer than that. I couldn't get my head around the idea fully and so kept trying to think it though before I touched the keyboard. Some ideas are not meant to appear on the page fully formed, though, so here goes.

Thinks that make it difficult or hard to define:

1. People take it personally if you don't want to do all their stuff anymore. They take it personally when you say you are quitting cooking. Or quitting holidays. They think it means I am going to hermit in the woods and never communicate again with the people I love. Not true. None of it is personal for you. It is personal for me.
2. It's a long process. I started getting rid of stuff years ago, probably when my kids left home. I realized that I didn't need to be responsible for the emotional and physical work it takes to catalog all that stuff. To clean around it. To drag it out of the basement at the right time and then to store it all again.
3. It's very rewarding. Deciding that I am quitting something always leaves room, physically and emotionally, for the things I would rather do or "store". Getting rid of stuff on a shelf also makes room in my head. Gathering up all my writing projects from the past thirty years means I don't have to feel guilty because I'm not doing what I always intended. They don't go to the recycler today, but they go to the basement for a waiting period. Then they go permanently away. It's cathartic.
4. I have strong emotional ties to some of the stuff I am quitting. I have a collection of binders for my holiday cooking. Seriously. I have one for Easter, one for St. Patrick's Day, four for Christmas, a couple for Thanksgiving. Last fall, my daughter-in-law, Emily, took over responsibility for Thanksgiving and Christmas so I didn't even look in the binders for those holidays. Not very many years ago, I wept when I thought of not having holidays at my house. It felt like I wasn't keeping Christmas and keeping Christmas was my role, my responsibility. Now, it feels liberating. The binders are going to the basement and then to the trash.
5. Some things I keep just for memories, but now I'm asking myself how much worth does it have even as a memory if it's on a shelf in the basement. 
6. Why do I have a whole room for eight big chairs and a table when it's rarely used? Valuable real estate put to poor use. What would it mean if I just got rid of it and turned that room into something else? Regis and I both have hobbies that have to be packed up and stuffed into tiny closets because our rooms are full of stuff we don't use.

No doubt, there are more questions.

I can see I need to do some thinking about what I do want in my life. What are my priorities for my physical space, my emotional work load, my mental work load?

This is my first draft.

seeing with new eyes

signs of spring in February

• I'm feeling some renewal of my urge to purge. The pile of empty boxes and the stuff on the shelves in the basement are calling to me. I run out of gas in the winter...probably starts about November but I don't really feel it until January. I always blame it on the lack of sunshine and maybe that's it. Or maybe I'm just lazy.
• I can hear birds singing outside the window. Cardinals have been calling since January but this is a new sound. Lots of birds at the feeder and the squirrels are ravenous. And mangy looking.
• You're either walking on dry pavement or ice. Nothing in between. It's ten degrees over night then rapidly goes up to forty. That makes for lots of meltage and lots of slippery. Walk like a penguin.
• I get a few ideas about home improvements, DIY stuff, you know. I usually loathe that stuff but if I can figure out a was to make life easier, well...I'm all about that as the kids say. My current idea is to have a row of hooks installed on the south wall in my living room so we can hang our bags and purses there instead of piling them on the floor and the bench which is what we do now and which looks like hell. Like this. Only lower and without the shelf.

• I'm thinking about the gardens and our plot in the community garden. I'm curious to see if all my new hostas and ferns made it through the winter. We have a twenty-square foot plot at the community garden and I have been researching what to plant. Planning is not my forte so I need advice. I always over-buy...dirt, then pots, then plants. Elliot wants to grow peanuts but peppers, beans, and peas are my priorities. 
• Winter clothes are starting to feel itchy and uncomfortable. Mittens are easily lost because I need them in the morning and by afternoon, I don't. My heavy wool coat is too heavy and too warm. Yesterday I pushed the stroller to the community center in my heavy coat and almost had to strip once I got there. Wool socks are too warm. Yay t-shirts! Yay sneakers!
• Thoughts of winter foods are disappearing over the horizon. Chili and meatloaf and heavy soup doesn't sound a bit good. We're yearning for burgers on the grill, smoked ribs, and fresh strawberries.
• Woodrow is feeling the call of the wild. He spends a lot of time perched on the table behind the couch, eyeing the birds and squirrels. Every time a door opens, even if he is sound asleep with his paw over his eyes, he bolts for the door.
• Our neighbors are seen outside without a snow shovel in hand! Sometimes an ice buster but it doesn't happen overnight, you know.
• You need to warm your car up in the morning but by afternoon, you can turn it off and open the window if you aren't going too fast.

There you go. I could probably think of a few more, but I have to go to work. Go out in the sunshine today, my friends!

is it the memory that fails?

We braved the icy roads this morning to take Gus for his grooming. (I had to point out that we go to a lot more money and expense to have our dog groomed than we do ourselves.) Then, because the cupboards are bare we headed to Mankato to buy groceries.

My list making habits are constantly changing based on HyVee marketing. Currently, I browse the print ads and make a list on a notebook, but I also use my phone to make a list and download coupons. The problem with that is my phone has to be out and visible.

This morning we finished our shopping, loaded the groceries in the trunk, I put the cart away, and down the road we went. I was digging in my purse for my phone. Calmly, then frantically. There were only two places it could be...on the checkout counter or in the cart. We find the cart corral and I find my cart...and there's my phone sitting in the freezing rain and snow. Good thing I didn't wait until I got home to look for it. Sigh.

I have kind of a day off today (after the morning fiasco) and there are many things rolling around my head that I could do. The problem is that when I have time to do them I don't feel like doing them. But here goes. To the kitchen I go.

Sunday psychosis

I'm sure I've written about this before...Sunday psychosis. When we were fresh out of college and the working life stretched out endlessly into the future, my good friend Mike talked about the dread of Monday as Sunday psychosis. He said it was so bad he would see amoebas. I'm not sure exactly what he meant but we thought it was hilarious. Still do.

I dislike writing more than two sentences on an electronic device. I see kids type with two thumbs and they seem to be pretty fast, but I'm a one-finger typist on a device, something my typing teachers railed against.

My computer gave me a couple signs that something was amiss. Black screen? Unrecognizable language? So...I'm lounging in the tub, late on a Sunday morning, typing my blog post on my iPad. Sigh.

I've done a couple of the necessary things today like scoop the cat liter and get dressed but now I'm kind of done. Regis got my computer back on the rails. He says we should plan ahead for it going kerplooey, as it surely will one of these days. I love a desktop computer and could easily do without an iPad. I don't read on it anymore so it's really just a fancy way to play Scrabble.

It's gray and sloppy outside. Regis washed my car for me in the middle of the night but I went through one puddle and woosh...the end of that.

I had a drawing lesson this afternoon but that didn't inspire me much either.

I wish someone would invite us to dinner.

time passing

Many things have been conspiring lately to force me to recognize just how fast time goes. Other people's children who I thought were still small enough to ride in strollers are off to high school, or college. I see high school friends of mine have children in their forties and some of them are great grandparents. And then there is Ella.

Ella was my first granddaughter and I was waiting in the hall the day she was born. I heard her first cries and I wept. She had food allergies as a tiny baby that caused her much misery. We would stare at her little sleeping face and talk about how sweet she was, but when she woke up and started to howl, our eyes bugged out and we froze.

Then she was a little girl who liked to play with makeup, dress up fancy in long dresses, hats, and jewelry. She loved the camera. She loved to bake and cook. She loved to read books in bed.

Suddenly (to me) she is 12 and she wears heels when we go out for dinner. I'm shuffling along in flat, fur-lined boots and she comes down the snowy sidewalk in 4-inch heels. She's almost as tall as I am and she's pretty self-sufficient.

The past two days she came to the Arts Center with me and learned the docent duties...how to open the doors and turn the lights on, how to check the mail box in the alley, how to empty trash and recycling, how to keep track of guests in the gallery and in the clay studio. The Square POS, which has caused no end of consternation among our older staff was a snap for her. Less than five minutes and no instruction and she had it down. She was amazed that I was amazed.

Alex and Elliot turn ten this month. Easton is almost walking. Zoey has dance recitals and walks to school by herself. The two babies, Sully and Natalie, are doing something new every time we see them.

It's wonderful and it's scary.

I talk to my friends and to Regis about how we don't feel old, but I guess we kind of are. Not that there's anything wrong with that.