May Book Report: Florida

Florida is the first Lauren Groff book I have read.  It won’t be the last.  The book is a collection of short stories linked together by, fittingly, by the idea of the state.  Florida - the weird, oddball Florida that makes the state its own Fark category - is at the center of it all.

I am no fan of Florida the state but I do love the South and I always enjoy a story with a strong sense of place.  The further north you travel in Florida the more Southern the state is and Groff clearly knows this truth.  Florida, its teaming plants, its steamy, thick air, and its oddball ways are the character that is consistent across all of the these stories in this gem of a collection.

The stories are more descriptions of events in time and space than they are traditional narratives.  The characters who exist are well-developed, not always likeable but Groff is sympathetic to them and their humanity and, consequently,  so is the reader.

I am not usually a fan of short stories, though some of my favorite authors (Pam Houston and Bailey White come to mind) are short-story writers so maybe I am just particular about short stories.  Groff’s collection will go on that list of likes.  Like Houston and White, she can turn a beautiful phrase and there are dozens in this collection:

“…I decided that if I had to live in the South, with its boiled peanuts and its Spanish moss dangling like armpit hair, at least I wouldn’t barricade myself with my whiteness in a gated community.  Isn’t  it…dicey? people our parents’ age would say, grimacing, when we told them where we lived, and it took all my willpower not to say, Do you mean black, or just poor?”

“On my nighttime walks, the neighbors’ lives reveal themselves, the lit windows domestic aquariums.”

To describe an incommunicative father and his leery son , Groff writes, “language wilted between them.”

Of a women remembering fragments of poems, she writes of “a strange, sad poem, Blake and Dickinson and Frost and Milton and Sexton, a tag-sale poem in clammy meter…”

Florida itself is in the language of this book’s dangling Spanish moss, aquariums; wilted, clammy, and thickly humid.

There are 11 stories in Florida  and I treated myself to one each morning over the last days of May, as the weather finally warmed up enough to be comfortable out on the front porch in the early morning.  I consumed them with my morning coffee and each made a companion for my busy days.  When I lay my head down at the end of each full day, the thought of a new Groff story come the morning passed through my weary mind.  It was - and is - something good to anticipate.

Class Picture

For my birthday last November, my sister gave me a houseplant subscription. Each month, for 7 months, a new houseplant arrived in the mail.  It was utterly delightful and I quickly stocked up on some new pots to place my growing collection.  Each plant was different.  Some I had grown before, others I had not tried.  All of them were healthy and lovely. and arrived with an instruction card so I knew how much water and sunlight they like.  They thrived in the sunny spot my plants live in for the Winter season, a veritable wall of green that I love to tend in the cold months.

This past week, the weather finally warmed up sufficiently for the plants to be taken outside.  Some were immediately transplanted to larger pots.  

At least one more needs a new pot and will get it this weekend. For now, they are collected together in the front porch sunlight, making me smile every time I step outside.

The Little Hosta That Could

The hostas in my front yard flowerbed are an assortment I've gathered over the years.  Some are transplants from a friend’s garden, some were split and moved from my backyard, some were purchased from a gardening neighbor who splits his hostas each Spring and then sells the splits for an absurdly low price.  This patch came from the friend and have grown quite nicely.  So determined in fact, that one has even split through the steps.

Any normal person would cut this plant out so that the steps remain secure.  I am not normal and think of this little plant as the little hosta that could.  So it stays (and the steps are just fine, so there is no cause for worry).  This is yet another example of my insane affection for hosta plants.  With this much beauty to behold, who could be sorry?

2020 Garden Report: Two Week Report

Lots of rain in the past few days and more warm temperatures on the horizon makes for a happy gardener.   Up close, there are zinnia seedlings showing themselves and tomato blooms all over the place.

Bring on some more sunlight and we’ll be well underway.

I take a walk out here each day and never fail to be delighted by what I see.  Each day there is something new to admire.  Gardening is always a reminder to look close and I appreciate it all the more because of that.

Truth and 2020

I have a vivid memory of reading about each of the lives of the people killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. For some time, I had taken to doing this for every mass shooting - as if knowing more about the people killed by massive gun violence would be another thing I could do to end the needless deaths.

Sandy Hook was especially hard for me because so many children were involved.  But I did it, convinced that this time things would be different.  Surely, I told myself, this nation would not bury so many 1st graders without taking action to prevent more mass shootings.

I was wrong, of course, and to this day I remain stunned by our callous national indifference to a preventable phenomena.  After Sandy Hook, I continued to support anti-gun measures.  But I quit reading obituaries.  It was too hard on my heart.

I think of this as I mark our approach to 100,000 American dead because of COVID-19.  This morning’s New York Times sits on my desk, its tiny font showing me just of fraction of the people we have lost.  

It’s not as if I didn’t know.  New Jersey has been hit hard by the virus.  I know people who have died of COVID-19.  I know people who are grateful to have survived it.  But the depth of this loss is powerful when viewed in this fashion.

When this new year began, I wrote in my journal that I was glad of the arrival of 2020 because it would be the year that we discard Donald Trump and elect a new president.  I’m not the only person who breathed a sigh of relief that we had made it this far without an epic disaster made far worse because of Donald Trump.

And here we are.

In all fairness, a pandemic is bound to leave its mark on our nation and the world - that’s why its called a pandemic.  Trump is not directly responsible for each of the 100,000 dead in this nation.  But his failure in leadership matters to all of the dead, to the families they leave behind, to all of us.  

The United States is, at best, an imperfect nation.  But our leadership in the world has mattered; it still matters.  In this time of universal need, we could be making a difference.  There is a need to coordinate a worldwide effort to create a testing regime, to organize a national system for contact tracing that could serve as a model for other nations to follow, to organize our own national resources to look after states’ needs for medical supplies so that the supply of ventilators, medications, and PPE needn’t fall short.

The list is long; much longer than this.

Instead, our president has lied and dissembled; has dodged responsibility, and has purposely failed to lead.  He has settled for 100,000 dead as if that is not an epic failure.  Under the NYT headline read the words, “They Were Not Simply Names on a List.  They Were Us.”  We must hold this truth close as we find our way forward.

The Grilling Season

T gave me a new grill for Mother’s Day.  I chose my favorite charcoal model and was excited to fire it up for the season.

Emphasis on fire.

These flames look more showy than it really was.  My charcoal was the instant light variety that bears watching.  We’ve had grilled burgers and chicken already and there will be many more in the coming summer.  Eating outside is one of my favorite warm weather activities and I am looking forward to the Summer cooking season, a fitting thing to celebrate for Memorial Day weekend.

Spring Garden Joy

All my efforts in the front yard flowerbed over the last few years are paying dividends this month, as the hostas fill the spaces in the soil, just as I intended.

The elephant ear hostas do some heavy lifting in this regard and though they grew a bit slowly, they have been worth the wait.

Alongside the azaleas, they are a daily source of garden joy for me.  

That’s happy!

Fairy Garden Move In Season

Over the past couple of weeks I have added some daily joy to my life by setting up my fairy garden.  Now the move-in is complete.

These little houses and small details bring me such satisfaction.

For Christmas, I got a new apple house occupied by rabbits.  

So far they are of the sort that don’t eat my garden.  I am charmed by the tiny details, like the teeter-totter and the apple bench.

In the evening, the solar lights on some of the houses glow in the darkness of the backyard and remind me to be grateful for the small daily blessings that make life just a little sweeter.

Some Birthday Salsa

My dad’s birthday is today and last week, I popped some salsa ingredients and plant markers in the mail for him.  

He'll have to grow the ingredients himself but gardening is his sweet spot so he won't mind that at all.  I know from our daily chit chat that his tomato plants are well on their way to a harvest so he'll be scooping salsa soon enough.  My Dad lives in California and starts the new year with seedlings he can get in the ground by early March, so his garden is miles ahead of mine.  I get my love of gardening from my Dad, who also passed my way a healthy does of liberal principles.  As inheritances go, it’s a pretty good mix.  Happy Birthday to the best gardener I know!

2020 Garden Report: One Week in the Ground

No sooner had I planted this year’s garden than 3 days of frost warnings followed.  JT and T helped me to cover my little plants and they survived the chill quite nicely.  The week ended on a warm note and it feels like some serious growth will shortly follow.

The first month of a newly planted garden is always a waiting season of watering and weeding; watching for roots to take hold and plants to grow.  Gardening is always a lesson in patience, a lesson I dearly need.

Last weekend, I pulled some weeds and checked that everything was getting enough water.  Each sunny afternoon for the next few weeks, I’ve promised myself a walk through the backyard to take a peak at this patch.  I’ll be grateful for the blessings of these little plants making their way toward blooms and produce, the taste of summer in their growth.

The Month of May, Kicking My Butt, Per the Usual

When it comes to school and work, the month of May is - invariably - completely insane.  Busy beyond measure, May usually finds me heading to work at 7 am and coming home later than I would like.  There is a long to-do list to start every day.  Typically, the month has two enormous saving graces:

1. May is beautiful - blooms are fresh, trees and lawns are verdant.  The month is filled with splendid color and smells and, often, lovely warmth.  

2.  It’s the last full month before June and summer break.  Time off - splendid, happy, relaxing time off - is on the horizon in May.  The prospect helps to  make the long, busy days worthwhile.

I thought that this May might be different, working from home as I am.

Ha.

It’s still beautiful, as per the usual.  And, as per the usual, it’s been crazy busy.  Neither morning nor afternoon commute happens, as all I need to do is come downstairs to go to work.  But, damn, there is a lot of work to be done.  Plus, I’m teaching lessons remotely and those lessons don’t seem to write themselves.  Usually, this point in May finds me turning the students loose to use the last weeks of class time to work on their big final project.  This year, lessons will see us through to the closing, and class time is used for direct instruction.

Breaks and time too think seem to be a fairly short supply.  So I start blog posts but never seem to finish.  I miss the time spent on this project and as I get farther and farther behind, I am annoyed that I can’t find the time for myself.  This weekend has provided some time and I will fill in from behind and plan forward so that postings continue.

Food Friday: Grandma’s Carrot Cake

My Grandma Mac was an amazing cook and her carrot cake was to die for - filled with raisins, pineapple, and nuts and frosted with the richest cream cheese frosting.  The cake is a winner.  My mother has the recipe and mentioned last week that she was going to bake it.  On Wednesday, I set to baking the cake.  The cinnamon-rich batter came together easily.

The cake baked up well and the frosting was amazing.

JT and I declared it health food and may very well have enjoyed a slice for breakfast the next morning.  

Mother Nature Marches On: Your Weekly Dogwood Report

The last of the dogwood flowers are in the very top branches of the tree.  They are rather hard to see because of the morning sunlight in this picture.  But I’ll never fuss about morning sunlight so this will do nicely.

By this time next week, the last of the flowers will have fallen.  That’s okay because they will be replaced by pretty green leaves.  And May has plenty more treats still up her sleeve for us to enjoy.

Tiny House Tuesday: Thatched Roof Cottage

This little china cottage is my most recent tiny house.  T gave it to me for my birthday last November.  We picked it up at an antique store in update New York in early October, when we went to the Berkshires to watch JT run a cross country race.  We made a long weekend of it and enjoyed some happy adventures in upstate New York, Vermont, and western Massachusetts.  The house, which looks English to me because of its thatched roof, is a reminder of that adventure.

These days, as we close in on our ninth week at home to curb COVID- 19, those casual adventures seem a lifetime ago.  The house is a reminder that there will be more adventures still to be planned.

2020 Garden Report: This Just In

It was warm enough over the weekend for me to plant my garden.  There are tomatoes (lots of tomatoes), zinnias, basil, and a few jalapeño plants.

It’s a little more than usual but I’ve had more time than usual to be in the garden and so I am taking advantage of all this time at home to really double down.

I’m best pleased that things are underway.  For the rest of the 2020 garden season, I’ll aim to post an update most Mondays.  That's happy!

Mother’s Day 2020

It’s my custom on Mother’s day to write about my life as a mama.  Last year on MOther’s Day, JT was finishing up his first year of college, taking exams and packing up his dorm room.  This year finds him home, where’s he’s been since the madness began in March.  Having him back home has been a chance to reflect on life as the mama of a young adult.

I’ve discovered that I like my young adult son and being home together has had moments that make me laugh.  He’s become a coffee drinker and some mornings find us standing before the coffee pot grateful for the caffeine that is coming our way.  From my office, as I teach class on Zoom or respond to e-mails, I watch him stretch and then find the day’s stick which he holds as he heads out to run.  I think about the years he played with sticks in the front yard and I smile at the little boy still contained in this 20 year old young man of mine.

He's helped in the garden and yard and I've plans to hire him as my gardener's assistant after his classes end.  He's handy when there are large branches that fall in the backyard.  This stick has been deemed too large to carry out on a run.

I’m the person I am because I am a mama; his mama.  As always, even as we three shake down in the house together, I am grateful for that blessing.

Peepers!

One of the things that T and I most enjoy come Spring is a walk on the D&R Canal towpath.  We most enjoy going at twilight when there is a good chance we can hear the Spring peepers.  Usually we make our first trip to hear the peepers in late March or early April.  By then, thanks to the pandemic, the parks were closed to visitors.  We might could have snuck in, but T was reluctant to take that step.  So we waited.  This past weekend, state parks in New Jersey were re-opened.  We took a walk to hear the peepers.  The trail was welcoming.

We saw some wildflowers.

And in the woods as the twilight settled around us, we could hear the peepers in the distance.  

That’s happy!

Mother Nature Marches On: Your Weekly Dogwood Report

This past weekend featured sunlight and warmth, a combination that all of the garden enjoyed.  The dogwood is beginning to leaf out, though plenty of flowers remain high above, a very welcome sight when I’m on the back deck.

As much as possible, I come out here for breaks during the work day.  This morning, there was sunlight and I made a few pictures.

This afternoon, there is a cold rain but Spring is on the march and I am grateful.

Tiny House Tuesday: Blue Wooden House

This week’s tiny house is a blue wooden colonial house that was an Etsy find a few years ago.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be coming to live on my bookshelf.

The Etsy shop is no longer around but the blue house is rather here to stay.  That’s happy!

Front Porch in May

My front porch comes into it’s warm-weather own come the month of May.  This is the month of flowers and plants outside.  But process is gradual because it’s not yet quite warm enough for all of my plants to be outside. So the month’s plants are a two-step process.  The first steps happened on Saturday.  A new flag is flying.

The green-ribboned wreath is on the front door.

The table has some of the hearty ivy that spent the winter outside.  

Later this month, more flowers and plants will also arrive.  By then, this porch will be ready to host me and my morning coffee.  In the midst of all the uncertainty right now, I’m looking forward to the certainty of time on the front porch, my balm in every season.

Craft Project: Homemade Bookmarks

Paper craft projects are one of my favorite ways to spend time and these days are a welcome respite from all the time I spend in front of my computer.

I have some pretty stickers from an Etsy shop that I had planned to use for seating charts in my classroom.  Seat assignments aren’t an issue when everyone attends school from home and so the pretty stickers got reassigned to some chipboard I had on hand.

 Bookmarks!

Lots of them — for holding my place in the books I am reading, or marking the page in a book I am using to teach, for notebook pages that need to be marked, or marking a place as I scroll down the lists I make.

Pretty, cheerful, and useful.  That’s happy!

Front Yard Flowerbed in May

Cleaning out this flowerbed was an April chore that has really paid off.  Seen from overhead on the front porch, things are looking lovely.

As the hostas fill in, I will make plans for more hostas (because there is always room for more hostas) and then some mulch to keep the unwanted weeds at bay.

The elephant-ear hostas are always the last to make their appearance but they too are well on their way.

As much as I love the ivy,  it will need to be kept trimmed lest it take over the house.  

In the meantime, things are looking lovely and I am taking particular joy in the blooming azalea.

This time of year is the sweet spot for the flowerbed and this year is no exception.  Even on a rainy day, the flowerbed is lovely to behold.

Hello, May.  It’s nice to see you.