"beside 'er"

Don't you sit down beside me!!!

We have spiders, specifically two black and yellow arigiopes -- one in the tea olive at the bottom of the stairs off the back porch and the other, whose web features an egg sac, above the garage window. I knew about the one at the back of the house. It's in the same sight line from the porch as the hummingbird feeder.



But, it wasn't until late this afternoon, while Tal and I were walking around the house with the person who is going to powerwash the gutters and soffits and paint the trim, that we spotted the second arigiope AND all the other spider webs. A little embarrassing, to tell the honest truth. But, it is late summer ... Even more embarrassing is my concern that power wash and paint is going to be mighty destructive to these and a variety of other creatures.

Here's one that won't be affected by our home improvements ... in tree next to the drive way. The web's a dramatic tunnel attached to the tree and a nearby flowering weed. So far, I've not see the inhabitant. Thank goodness.

Adaptability

Today we were to have been away for the better part of the day. Labor Day Sunday on Lake Murray. But, an early morning telephone call let us know that the collective plans needed to be changed. That's OK. We're adaptable. BUT, that time away included the main meal of the day. Rats! And, the ball bounced back into my court ... Truth is, I didn't want to cook anything beyond the peach cobbler (the last of the Ridge peaches for this season) we were taking with us. Oh, well.

Lucky for me there were packets of frozen fish fillets in the freezer -- caught by Tal and his son, Bruce, on one Ridge pond or another (probably Satcher) and cleaned, packaged and delivered to our freezer already frozen by Bruce. Talk about spoiled, don't 'cha think?

Anyway, a pat of butter in the skillet and the fillets dusted with lightly salted flour. One minute on the first side, one and a half on the second. Add to that a salad featuring volunteer tomotoes and left over corn bread ... Tal was utterly astounded and I was pretty pleased.

I wish all change-of-plan around here worked out so well!

Oh happy day

Today marked the opening of dove season. Blessedly, the only way we participated was to hear the shooting in the distance through the afternoon. We were up early, though ... to go fishing. It has been at least two months since I've wet a hook. And, I haven't been to Happy Days Pond since before I retired. That's at least 18 months. Needless to say, I was ready long before first light.

Our friends made it a wonderful return. All we had to do was arrive with our gear. The boat, tied to the dock and loaded with battery, electric motor, net, paddle, was ready for us. The coffee maker was even set up; I simply pressed the power button and let the welcome aroma waft into the early morning -- two mugs, two spoons, various sweeteners along with a note of welcome on the counter next to the Mr Coffee.

We caught fish, not in huge numbers and not huge in size. But, look at the brilliant color on that bream! We saw hawks, great blue herons and wood ducks. Another bird in flocks of a couple dozen at a time, swift and graceful with straight wings, skimmed the water, wresting our attention from the fishing again and again with their aerobatics. I assumed that they were drinking, but now that I'm home with the Sibley*, I suspect they were swallows of some sort, maybe purple martins, capturing the insects that dotted the water the whole time we were there, which looked a bit like raindrops on the surface of the water.

It was a good morning and we were slow to leave. This is a photograph taken from the porch of the cooking shelter where we rocked awhile and enjoyed a second cup of coffee. The beautiful view across the pond, the welcome we felt even in the absence of our friends, the deep comfortable chairs, the coolness of the morning and the flavorful coffee -- all of it in combination made for total contentment.



* The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. Written and illustrated by David Allen Sibley. Knoph, 2003.

Advance notice

A two-engine, 32 car freight train went through Ridge Spring this afternoon while I gallery sat. I could hear it coming before it appeared, and, given the gallery's location -- off Highway 23 and slightly behind the Civic Center, I couldn't tell its direction until the first engine appeared directly across from the standing-open front doors, headed toward Columbia.

I never tire of the sound. My pulse quickens at least a mere bit at the first hint of a train's heavy rumble, of the faint far-off warning of the two-toned, almost discordant horn.

It's always been that way, my earliest memory of trains being summer vacations at my mother's parents' home in Milford MI. Hot, still summer nights in the upstairs bedroom, east-facing and overlooking the Atlantic and S Houghton Street intersection. How many trains tore through that little town each night? One, maybe two, I suppose. But, I remember it as the single most significant feature of Milford nights. That and sometime in the night the sticky sweat of that unairconditioned space giving way to a delightful coolness and a crisp sheet drawn up by morning. The gallery is unairconditioned, too. Hence, the standing-open front doors. Another connection, I suppose.

Until this summer and our Alaska excursion, the only trains I'd ever ridden were in metropolitan areas, basically buses on tracks, getting around San Francisco, Portland, going from Lafayette Hill into Philadelphia and from the Alexandria area to New York City and Baltimore. The extent of my "real" train travel had occurred only across Hungary, France, Belgium and in Great Britain where the schedule is convenient for the traveler and accurate to the minute, the experience in general one of remarkable hospitality. (Well, I might not include Hungary in that front, remembering now bayonet-equipped firearms toted by military personnel and confiscated money ...) Here on the east coast when distant friends have wanted to travel by train for a visit we've been required to be at the station in Columbia at 2:30AM to retrieve or to drop off, a schedule that doesn't count as convenient for anyone.

It's all romance, I know it is, this fascination. The tracks hugging the river under a towering cliff along the Hudson or the Columbia, that undulating line just under the horizon, likely some 100 miles away, on the Great Plains, the lonely whistle echoing through the hollows along the Appalachian Trail.

Someone is going somewhere, to interesting unknown places. I want to go, too.

Outpatient

She's going to be fine, my friend, now minus a gall bladder and glad of it.

The attacks came a week apart, the first one unexpected and ferocious enough to warrant scheduling today's surgery, the second debilitating enough to require three days of hospitalization -- until today, when her husband brought her to University Hospital for outpatient surgery. Now comes the period of recovery, which I hope she and many others can honor.

It's been over a year and a half since I've waited with a family during surgery. Conversation comes and goes. Not small talk; serious conversation. The periods of silence are often long and, if we're able to endure it, can be profoundly companionable. And, the nicest things happen: The staff remarkably attentive and focused. Sunlight slanting through the blinds filling the room where we waited with diffused light. A friend arriving at mid-day with scrumptious, warm pastrami sandwiches that hit a hungry spot. A wan smile from the patient as she woke up, recognizing people who care so much for her standing by her bed.

I've loved being here today.

Such is love

We got up early today, waking to still delightfully fresh weather. It was a morning full of unspoken anticipation. Tal has been pondering over a new set of golf clubs for months and months, talking to golf pros he trusts, trying out various brands, to me perplexing mixtures of heads and shafts, returning to his old, in reserve set occasionally, all the while biding his time, not wanting to make a precipitous move or to make a costly mistake.

One last conversation. Hitting a final bucket of balls at Mount Vintage late yesterday. A decision made. The set located. Today was the day.

Even though we were out in commuter traffic from the Ridge to Aiken and Augusta and even though we stopped for a Huddle House breakfast along the way and even though we had to contend with I-20 still under construction along our SC/GA route across the Savannah River, we arrived to make the purchase a good half an hour before the store opened. As we sat in the car outside the locked building, I found myself smiling inwardly. That my sweet husband, approaching his 83rd birthday and generally desirous of very little, is able to be this excited about a purchase fills me with delight.

Once the lights came on and the establishment opened, I wandered among the bags, clubs, shirts, shoes while Tal and the salesman did their thing. Again, I was aware of my own pleasure, the set he had wanted having been set aside as promised after he called yesterday and the lone salesman attentive despite several customers vying for his attention, the rest of the staff having been slow to arrive.

What I think I realize here at the end of the day, having had time to ruminate on the experience, is that such is the nature of love. I want the best for Tal and it has done my heart good today to see him full of anticipation. That's part of it. More importantly, though, is seeing him treated well, even honored, in a world that sometimes discounts and overlooks its older citizens. All too often, even if I don't make a move, I feel the urge to step in, to make sure the clerk, the person behind the counter or the desk, is paying attention to this dear, dear man. Today, I didn't have to do a thing but accompany him and to offer congratulations on this long-studied purchase.

It's been a good day. I look back over it contented and grateful.

Hints

Mid-day yesterday during a break in the desk work (that never seems to end) and in anticipation of my piano teacher coming to the front door shortly after 6:00PM, I ventured out to sweep. That entrance to the house is the least used of the four and tends to gather leaves, mud daubers and spider webs. While I was at it, I also swept the walk from the porch to the driveway – that too narrow stretch of concrete, also neglected, littered with magnolia leaves and the remains of the crepe myrtle’s long season of flowering. In less than ten minutes I had worked up a bit of a sweat.

At the appointed hour, when I went to the door to greet my ever patient teacher, I was astounded. The temperature had dropped drastically. There was a hint of fall in the light breeze. My visitor was animated with joy, hardly able to contain herself. We stood on the steps breathing it in before entering the house and settling at the piano.

Of course, hints of the change of season have been regular of late. I’ve just not quite noticed them to the point of truly seeing them. Vines erupting off the tops of untended signs and fence posts, slender arches of growth groping for nonexistent support. The tall grasses beyond the ditches along the roadsides in full seed, golden when backlit in the early morning and late afternoon sun. Leaves assembling in asphalt and concrete eddies along cart paths on the golf course and neighborhood streets.

Yesterday afternoon was my wakeup call; last evening my end of summer alarm clock went off. I’m not a fan of summer. A better way to say that, I suppose, is that summer is not my favorite season. But, there is definitely part of me that hates to see it go. I shall miss especially being touched by how fast everything grows – from the grass around the house to the young pines along the driveway, their several growth spurts through the spring and summer months truly remarkable.

But, the hints of the end of summer and those feelings of loss are also – and importantly – hints of the beginning of fall, a very wonderful time of year in its own right. Slowing. Looking inward. Simplifying. Now that the end of summer alarm has sounded, I’ll be paying better attention. I hope.