I wouldn’t have thought that there was anything that could make me love jewelweed more, but then there it was–a hummingbird feeding on the bright flowers. My husband doesn’t see the beauty in the jewelweed, just its wild untidiness, which is too bad. There are other plants in that area that I do not love so much, though, and I have been waging my little wars against them. This week I ripped out all the ragweed. I also pulled out some briars and a rather stunning number of birch saplings. This week my goal is to remove more birch saplings, a ton of baby oaks (they are everywhere!), a few massive pokeweed “trees,” and at least some of the bittersweet, which is a very pesky, invasive vine that only recently arrived here but is already trying the choke the life out of everything else. But I will leave the jewelweed, asters, and goldenrod to grow WAF.
Today Twitter asked, “If you could live in any state, which one would it be?” It’s an odd question, in a way. There is nothing forcing me to live in Rhode Island. I could live in any state. So I guess the answer is, for the moment, “Rhode Island.” That will not always be the answer, though. When the answer changes, I’ll move. I can already feel that day approaching. I moved a lot during my 20s and 30s, and I became accustomed to it. Now I miss it. I have been in the same place for such a long, long time.
To answer my own question from earlier today, I am a little lazy, but I am also suffering from stress and depression caused by a combination of factors, one of the most pressing of which is that my kids are supposed to return on school on the 30th. The Pandemic is worse for children right now than it was last year, when we kept them home, but distance learning is not being offered this year. So I’m supposed to send them daily to poorly-ventilated buildings where hundreds of unvaccinated children gather in confined spaces, tra-la-la, while a significant proportion of their parents refuse to be vaccinated, tra-la-la, as if everything’s back to normal. But I don’t know that I can. And what if I can’t? What then?
As of a few days ago, the school board had not decided yet whether students and staff would be required to wear masks in the schools. Many parents were advocating loudly for “parent’s choice,” which is, as one pro-mask parent commented, “like having a peeing section in the pool.” We never got to see which way the debate would go, though, because the governor issued an executive order mandating masks in schools. So at least that question has been answered. It’s not much, but it’s something.
Today I feel like doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. There is a hurricane barreling toward us, though, and at the least I should charge my cellphone, because our power will almost certainly fail during the storm. The only question is how long the outage will last. It could be 10 minutes, or it could be 10 days. So, yeah, I should juice up the phone. But getting up, finding my phone, and plugging it in all seem like onerous tasks right now.
Once my husband and I were vaccinated, we started bringing the kids out occasionally. It seemed safe enough. Coronavirus numbers were low, and children were not considered to be at high risk. Being out in the world had started to feel normal again, so normal that I even offered to bring Livia clothes shopping in person this weekend. But, reading the latest news about Covid, I decided not to follow through, even though her disappointment is going to be fierce once she realizes.
So be it. I’d rather disappoint her now than have to live with myself if she became ill. The daily case numbers are as high now as they were last November, and word is that the Delta variant is taking down otherwise healthy kids. Vaccination rates are better in the Northeast than some other areas of the country, but the risk level here is still rated high, and there are pockets of low vaccination all around us. The town that’s just down the road, for example, was still less than 50% fully vaccinated as of the end of July. I can avoid that area, of course, but the unvaccinated people aren’t going to stay in one place, so every place is dangerous. The very thought of taking Livia into a changing room, where the air smells stale and never seems to move, gives me the heebie-jeebies, but if she’s not going to try things on, then there is hardly any point to shopping in person. So I’m just not going to.
Am I being too cautious? Maybe. But it’s my job to keep her safe, and I do not take that responsibility lightly. TBH, I’m starting to get nervous about the impending school year, too. I don’t know what I’m going to do when the first day of school rolls finally around. If the situation has worsened a lot by then, I may well keep her home, and damn the repercussions.
Today is a Wednesday, for which I am grateful, because Wednesdays aren’t screen-free days. That means I can watch as much bad television as I please tonight.
I worked hard today because my work project must be finished by 5:45 tomorrow. I’ll be working hard tomorrow, too. But, for now, all I have to do is throw a load of washed laundry into the dryer, make a blueberry pie, and then watch bad television.
Speaking of the blueberry pie, I measured out the blueberries and washed them, then left them on the counter to drain. While I was away, Livia ate a whole bunch of them. Oops. Next time I guess I’d better label them.
My computer is lagging badly. Microsoft is probably adding more stuff that I don’t need or want.
It is raining again. I don’t think we need any more rain. OTH, it will make our stream flow strong again, which will remind us how totally awesome our Bridge to Nowhere is.
We brought some of our family games with us. My father even played a few rounds of Stinker and Five Crowns with us, which was awesome, because normally he’s not a big one for games, particularly not in the evening when he is tired. He was just as good at Stinker as I had thought he’d be. But, it was my husband’s entry for the category of breakfast cereal slogans that was the most memorable. It was “Doo doo that sunrise!” After that round, every player who had the same selection of letters also incorporated “doo doo” into their answer.
We picked blueberries at a little farm on a hill. My dad made blueberry pancakes for us the next day. We had a lot of blueberries left over, and we brought them home with us. Later my husband and I made them into a blueberry pie. Yum.
We took a lot of walks. We walked around the neighborhood, down the shore, and over to the local memorial park, among other places. My dad took me and the kids down a local nature trail. He and I also found a nice area of sandy shore that was open to the public but not much frequented, as it was sort of hidden away. We brought my husband and kids back there the next day. It turned out to be a great shell-collecting site, plus there were little fishes, mussels, and shrimp in the water, and wildflowers along the edges. We had the beach to ourselves while we were there. It was pretty much perfect.
There is a deer that browses in the neighborhood. My parents have named her Flora. She got very close to the house one day. We watched her from the window for a while, then Livia and I went outside and took selfies with her in the background. Flora was remarkably chill about us being in the yard with her.
I chitchatted a lot with my parents. It was great.
We went to a maple syrup store where we sampled four types of syrup (light, medium, and dark, plus bourbon-infused). The owner poured out samples for himself, too. If it’s possible to be addicted to syrup, he’s gotta be, because I’ve never seen anyone happier to taste maple syrup. It was a novel experience for me to drink syrup, though my mom tells me that it’s a popular thing in Vermont, which explains the guy’s addiction, I guess. We spent a veritable fortune, buying three kinds of syrup, plus maple kettle corn, maple cotton candy, and maple candy. But, to our surprise, grandpa picked up the bill, so all that yumminess was free, free, deliciously free. Thanks, Grandpa!
The running joke during our stay was that every outbuilding that the kids saw, from the smallest shed to the biggest barn, was a “writer’s haven” (a place where a writer can get away from the world and write in solitude–my husband is planning to build one for me). The more dilapidated and/or less suitable the building was for writing, the funnier it was.
Last week we finally visited my parents. We went up on Tuesday and returned on Saturday. It was a short visit, mostly because we didn’t want to leave our pet rats by themselves for longer without knowing how they’d fare. But, three days is pretty much the ideal visit time, so the rats might have done us a favor by forcing our return before we had overstayed our welcome. Impressions:
It was good to see my parents. The last year-and-a-half took its toll on all of us, but on some more noticeably than others. Going forward we need to get together more often, even if COVID-19 gets bad again.
I’m planning to visit again soon. I may take the kids up there myself and leave my husband at home (but only if he wants to stay home–a little time alone might be nice for him, but then again, maybe he’d like to relax up in VT, too).
Vermont is full of wildflowers. I took some pictures, but not as may as I would have liked. I hope to find more time for that on my next visit.
TBH, I do not love the lake that my parents live near, particularly because it’s so far away. But, there are a lot of positives. The house is pretty, comfortable, and conveniently located. There are restaurants, a grocery store, and a weekly farmer’s market within walking distance, plus plenty of scenic places to walk. The children enjoy collecting shells on the beach, and there’s a boat landing nearby with an excellent view of the sunset.
It’s good to be home. We hadn’t done a ton of cleaning before we left, but our bed was made, the dishes done, the kitchen counter clear, and my office neat. All of those things helped to make our return comfortable rather than anxious. The older I get, the more any disorder in my immediate surroundings affects me, so I am grateful to Me-Last-Week for getting those things done.
The rats were physically fine when we returned and seemed to be in good spirits. They still had food and water left. So, if we need to leave them home alone again, we can feel comfortable doing so.
Earlier this year I found that black medic had spread into the side yard. I was amazed first by how well established it already was and second by how big the plants were. They were much larger than the ones along the driveway. It wasn’t until they started to go to seed that I realized why. They were not black medic. They were hop clovers.
Hop Clover
Hop Clover Going to Seed
I’m not sure exactly which type of hop clover they are. There are three types (Trifoleum aureum, Trifoleum campestre, and Trifoleum dubium). For my current purposes, “hop clover” is good enough.
So, I finally found my fifth clover. I am literally in clover. Plus, there is another tall clover-y plant now growing in the side yard that has miraculously escaped the mower. I think that it’s probably slender bush clover. If my guess turns out to be right, then I’ll have all five identified clovers in my yard–a complete clover collection!
Marshall got his first dose of Coronavirus vaccine a few days after he became eligible and he got his his second dose in due course. We had, I think, always assumed that we would vaccinate him, but we still gave it a great deal of thought and worried occasionally over the decision before all was said and done. Because it’s an experimental vaccine for a virus that is generally not as hard on youngsters as it is on adults, it was hard to say yes to the vaccine, because what if? But it was also hard to say no, because what if? And it’s hard having a kid who is still too young to be vaccinated, because what if? I am so sick of the what-ifs! Life is so much harder when it seems like every decision is fraught with peril.
I don’t know if I mentioned this on my blog earlier, but I got a tetanus shot at my annual physical in June of 2021. Not that the world needs to know this. It’s just that by writing the date down here, I’ll be able to find the information later if I need it.
A mouse ran across my office floor one night. I screamed a tiny scream. So cliche.
We recently learned a new game for Family Game Night. It is called Five Crowns, and it’s sort of like gin rummy on steroids. (I wrote that and then looked at some reviews online, one of which also said it was like “rummy on steroids.” There I go being cliche again!)
I combined chocolate with cherry jelly on a pancake, and Livia said, “Black Forest, yum.” It’s kind of amazing that she knows what that combo is called. The Great British Baking Show has really educated her. I doubt she knows where the Black Forest is, though, which is why we can’t depend on TV for educating our kids. 😉
I cleaned my office on Saturday. I dusted and vacuumed. I organized the stuff on the desk and in the drawers. I took out a whole bag of trash, two boxes of old magazines to be disposed of in various ways, and a bag of books for donation. That’s progress.
The Pandemic is flaring up again here in the U.S. Delta is now the dominant variant, and who knows what other variants might arise as it spreads. On the bright side, if we pay attention to the names of the variants, we could all finally learn the Greek alphabet. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, . . . . I think we’re up to Lambda now.
Yeah, that wasn’t much of a bright side. I’m grasping at straws, sad and scared that the numbers are going back up, angry at the people who refuse to get vaccinated.
I have decided that all plants and plant parts that I bring inside will be referred to as “botanical samples,” because that sounds way cooler than it actually is.
The sweet pepperbush is blooming. It smells so good. This time of year may be unpleasantly hot and incessantly mosquito-ridden, but the blooming of the sweet pepperbush makes it one of my favorite times of year.
