Dogwood Thursday: October 13

Earlier this week, plants that spot the summer on the front porch came inside for the season.  Warm blankets joined the quilts on our beds.  Evenings in the 40s warranted these changes.  Fall is most certainly in the chilly air in the mornings.  The dogwood is also making preparation for the cold. Some leaves have already blown off its branches.

Others are still in the process of turning a splendid color.

Each morning I greet the dogwood tree from the back window.  Daily I watch for the small changes that confirm fall is in the air.

Real Life Conversations with T: Marketing edition

The backstory:  I am a regular reader of The Pioneer Woman’s website and enjoyed the photos and descriptions of her line of dishes and kitchen goods, available at Walmart.  Normally, Walmart is off limits in my world but I like the dishes so much that I wanted to visit them in stores.  Thus a recent Saturday found T and I making a trip to Walmart.  The Pioneer Woman goods were there, but they were haphazardly displayed, with no effort to present the collection in an appealing fashion.  I found this tiresome.

Me:  If they were at Target, there’d be a tidy and attractive display.  Walmart just jams the stuff on some shelves and calls it good.

T:  That’s the Walmart way.  Their approach is simple.  They tell us, “We have shoddy and cheap goods.  You know that you love it.  Now get your ass in here and buy stuff.”

At that I burst into laughter.  When I settled, T had one more thought.

T:  It’s a wonder I don’t work in  marketing.

A wonder indeed.

End of the Season

For most of the summer, a collection of my plants spends the season outdoors on the front porch. Before I tucked under my quilt last night, I checked the overnight forecast, saw that it called for an overnight temperature of 40 degrees and brought in the last of the front porch plants.  There is evidence of seasonal change everywhere I look.  The garden's collections of zinnias came up nicely and now it looks like those buds are racing to show off their blooms.   

It was 38 degrees when I got up this morning; the first frost is around the corner.  Knowing this, I am happy about each bouquet that I collect.

They remind me of the virtue of patience and their presence makes my house cheerful.

The Soup Season

I don’t make a lot of soup in the Summer.  For some reason, hot soup in a bowl doesn’t seem appetizing when the days themselves are steamy.  But when the weather turns cooler and the mornings are crisp, I start thinking about soup.  My favorite soup recipes are the sort that simmer and fill the house with a delicious smell.  Alas, my workdays often feature late arrivals home and the need to get supper on the table quickly.

I have some soup recipes that come together quickly.  Sometimes, I pull a soup together on the weekend, ready to be quickly warmed when we get home on weekdays.  Chicken noodle soup is always better this way.

It’s only October and early October at that……there are plenty of soup days in our future.  That’s happy!

Real Life Conversations with T: Presidential Politics edition

The backstory: T pays attention to the news but not in that 24-hour-news sort of way and thus I often have the pleasure of sharing the latest story about Donald Trump’s shenanigans, as was the case this morning when I informed her about the Washington Post's story about the Access Hollywood B-roll footage of Trump acting like a Neanderthal toward women.

S:  So basically, he confirmed what we’ve always known: he’s a sexist pig.

T: Again, I say, I want a president who is smarter than me.

Let us note for the official record that Donald Trump does not meet this test.  Women of America, let’s hit the ballot box and show Mr. Trump to the door.

Halloween on the Front Porch

When it comes to decorations for the front porch, October is my favorite month.  I’ve a great vintage black jack-o-lantern tablecloth and it serves as a foundation for my plans.  Mums, ghosts, gourds, and pumpkins make things easy and each October I have lots of options.  

Out front, there’s a Halloween flag, a mum with a ghost, and a Halloween sign.

By the rocking chair, things are welcoming for whichever ghost stumbles by and needs a rest.

October mornings are often too cold to sit out on the porch when I wake up in the inky early morning.  But in the afternoon and early evening, the porch is still welcoming and on those days, I’m aware that the time is fleeting.  Fall days pass quickly, the sunlight steadily shrinking and the cold creeping closer each day.

This year, I set out the Halloween decorations on the first day of October.  I enjoyed making my plans and visits to local produce markets for pumpkins and mums.  It makes me happy to celebrate the season and I look forward to Halloween itself, when neighborhood ghosts and goblins will knock on the door in search of candy treats.

That’s happy!

But not particularly scary.

Dogwood Thursday: October 6

In the past week, Fall has taken a firm hold.  Mornings are cool and even the afternoon warmth feels thin, as if the sunlight itself is increasingly in need of a rest.  

In the evenings I crack open my window before I climb under my quilt and I fall asleep to the sounds of the drying leaves crackling and crunching as they brush against against one another, preparing to fall into the yards and streets of my neighborhood.  In the morning, there is a cold dew that blankets the day and a chill that holds even as the sun rises.

The dogwood is clearly doing its part to enjoy the season.  

Fall is in the air and it feels lovely.

Real Life Conversations at School: Politics edition

The backstory:  I have a collection of political buttons dating back to the 1940s and they hang in my office.  Each year, I pull out a few to display on my bulletin board.  I also add current buttons to the collection and recently, some 2016 Hillary Clinton buttons were added to the bulletin board.  Looking at the board, my colleague S had some questions.

S:  Is the JFK button valuable?

Me:  Yes, though my most valuable button is “Pretty Girls for Nixon.”  

(oh, culture wars)

Me:  I won’t buy any Trump buttons, so I’m using Goldwater as a stand-in.

S:  Goldwater?  I was 10 when Goldwater ran and he was not popular in my house.  But in comparison to Trump, Goldwater is a delight.

I can’t argue with that.

Personal Best

One of the best parts of being a parent of a teenager is the pleasure of watching my child come into his own being.  JT loves physical activity, a trait that was apparent in him pretty much the moment he learned to walk.  For his whole life, he’s brought both confidence in his physical ability and an innate caution that is rather an unusual combination.  I remember when he was two years old and liked the slide at our local park.  He’d scramble up the ladder and then pause to situate himself before he slid down, hands up and ready to fly.  This combination of confidence and caution was empowering to us both.  I knew he wouldn’t climb to the top of the jungle gym if he didn’t feel confident he could come down safely.  He knew that I would let him take risks.  In sports, he’s found a place to express that combination of confidence and caution and be a team member who pulls his teammates forward.
I am proud of what he’s learned about himself.

This fall, he’s running in his fifth season on the Cross Country team.  He’s always liked running and for the last two years he’s treated the season as a chance to train with a team and enjoy himself.  But he’s grown up a lot in the last year and over the summer he made an effort to run and push himself so that he entered the cross country season in much better condition.  This year, he was ready to ratchet up the personal challenge.  He brought some friends to the team and at practice, he pushed them and himself.  His coaches were pleased; he was proud of his effort.  In early races, he ran well enough to score times that were his personal best.  He did this three races in a row and earned the last of seven Varsity running positions.  He began to speak with the coaches about how much faster he could finish a race.

JT has always been a good finisher; turning on the gas in the final 300 yards and regularly passing the runners in his path.  The trick for JT was to start stronger, holding the pace in the second mile and still having enough energy to finish strong.  For all his teenager boy traits, JT is cautious.  Running faster early in the race felt risky to him.  During a race, runners can’t use a watch so he needed to develop an internal sense of pacing.  So he tried it at practice where the task at hand was pacing and timing.  The varsity team ran up and down a stretch of road, checking their timing with each mile, and getting a sense of where they should be and how they could get there.

Last Wednesday, the team returned to a course they’d run earlier in the year.  JT was determined to see what he was made of.  He ran faster from the start and in the first half-mile, he was toward the front of the pack, a place I’ve not seen him run that early in the race.  He looked good.  As the race progressed, I could see him from across the field, holding the quicker pace he’d set from the start.  At the mid-point of the race, he was in the top 15.  He held that pace at the end and finished strong.  Two hundred yards out, the runner in front of him knew he was going to be passed.  JT finished the race with a personal best time that was 2 minutes faster then he had ever run before, 19:34 in a 5k race.  

My boy spent the next two days walking two feet off the ground, proud of his effort and enjoying the congratulations of his coaches and team members.  He’s not the best runner on the team, but he’s a good runner working steadily to get better.  His spot on the Varsity team is looking more secure each day. Meeting that challenge is a life lesson that will linger long after the season is complete.  

In the Backyard Neighborhood: October 1

I am of two minds regarding the arrival of Fall weather. On the one hand, I like  sleeping with the windows open and I enjoy a cozy sweater on a cool morning.  I’ve already started to admire the trees whose leaves have begun to change.  On the other hand, I’m not ready to pack up my flip flops.  And I am nowhere close to saying goodbye to the leafy green trees.  So the arrival of Fall feels like something of a mixed blessing.  In the backyard corner, things have begun to change.

The peach tree leafed out early this Spring but it’s looking more and more ready for a break from the obligations of growing.  

The hostas are weary and even this week’s cooler weather and rain can’t hide the tired edges of these leaves.

The rains of the last few days will help to make our Fall a pretty season.  I remind myself that each season deserves its turn in the spotlight and that Mother Nature runs this show, not me.  I’ll be sad to see the end of the green trees but the I’m looking forward crisp leaves, big pumpkins, and the mums of October.  They are  a reminder that every season gets its turn to show its beauty.