Tuesday, July 25, 2017

In Which My Beloved Is Stuck On A Boat

We--my husband, daughter, and I--just got back from a trip to France, mostly Normandy. People keep asking how it was, and, well, I loved a lot of the things we did, and the places we saw, and I love France, and I think I would give people legitimate cause to hate me if I ever complained about a trip there, and I'm not complaining. I had a great trip. My daughter had a great trip. But my poor husband spent most of it stuck on a boat.

Let me explain.

Fifteen years ago, when the kids were still quite small, we took a summer vacation where we spent a few days in Boston and a few days in Maine. One day in Maine we decided to go whale-watching. It was a nice big boat and a clear warm day, and the ocean that day looked like a sheet of glass--except of course that the ocean is constantly moving, so the smooth, waveless surface went up and down in gentle swells.

We started out on the open top deck because I was very excited about seeing whales. Not very long after that, at my request, we moved downstairs, inside, and about five minutes later my young son and I were slumped on the bench at the outside rear of the boat, the one reserved for people so motion-sick they were likely to puke over the rail.

We found whales. The whales did amazing things. They breeched, which is that very showy maneuver where they leap wholly out of the water, then fall onto their side with an enormous splash, like whale cannonballs. They swam beside the boat. There were lots of them. And while I saw the whales, and I sort of non-emotionally appreciated the whales, I no longer really cared about the whales at all. All I cared about was getting off that damn boat.

My husband flew to France sick with bacterial bronchitis, on an antibiotic, just not the right one. The antibiotic did a number on his intestinal flora without actually treating the bronchitis. Our first day in France involved an emergency stop at the US Embassy in Paris--more on that some other time--and he was completely wiped out, and then he didn't get better. Between his lungs and his intestines my he had a doozy of a week. Eventually we found a nice French family doctor, who was quite pleased to see us since he'd been carefully learning medical English every Monday from a teacher in Paris, via Skype, and we gave him a chance to practice. ("You have hay fever?" he asked my husband, and my daughter said, "What's hay fever?") The doctor prescribed a useful antibiotic, and when that proved even more of a scourge to my husband's digestive system I found another pharmacy with a very large probiotic section, and used my very limited medical French and excellent sign language to get the pharmacist to help me choose the best one.

And he was still on the damn boat for awhile. The last night we had a special meal planned at a little Left Bank bistro we love, and I was ready to cancel it, because I was not up for another meal that ended with me saying to the waiter, "My husband is sick. I need the check right now, and a cork for this half-finished wine," especially when we were several subway stops away from the hotel and the public toilet situation in Paris is limited. However, my husband felt that the tide had turned. His boat docked, and he stepped off it, a little shaky but determined to go and have an excellent time. So we did.

And if you ever want to know how to lose six pounds while vacationing in France, just ask him. He knows.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Now We Are Fifty

Long ago, when my son was a baby and we lived in Indianapolis, we went over to a friend's house on the summer day that was her daughter's fourth birthday. When we came up the walk the little girl was sitting on the porch steps, next to her cousin who lived down the street. I wished her happy birthday. She beamed, and her cousin slung his arm around her shoulders and said to me, solemnly, "Now we are both four."

I'm a few weeks older than my husband. Today is his birthday, and now we are both fifty.

I had a lovely birthday. My parents came to spend the weekend, and we were in our house in the North Carolina mountains, which I love, and I went to the farmer's market in Boone, which I love. That week I had lunch with some of my girlfriends and they gave me birthday cards that referenced leg hair and wine--I was among my people--and really, even the weather cooperated on my birthday.

I'm sorry to say that my husband is having a substantially worse day. For one thing, he's quite sick. He was feeling a little off on Sunday, then yesterday felt bad enough to stay home from work (this is a man who only missed two days of work when he ruptured his Achilles tendon). This morning he's still not wholly well but he got up early and heaved himself off to the office, where he's got a full day including surgery; we were going to go out to dinner but he's not sure he'll be up for it. Meanwhile his beloved wife, who was sleeping in the guest room to avoid contagion, accidentally set her alarm for PM instead of AM, consequently overslept and didn't see him off or wish him happy birthday in person, let alone make him breakfast or do anything nice for him.

Though I do have presents for later.

Anyway, we are fifty. I expected I'd feel older. Perhaps he does; I'll have to ask.

Fifty has a nice solid heft to it. A half century. A reasonable length of time. The world can change a lot in fifty years, and ours has, in mostly good ways, and for all that I love history I prefer living now. We've had a couple of sharp wake-up calls this year--my head trauma, some life-changing events in family and friends--and it's made us think hard, what do we really want to do with whatever time we have left? We both hope it's lots of time--I think living to be 100 sounds great--but of course that's not our call. Very little is our call, except how we chose to react to our situations, how we spend each small portion of our time. We were walking through Grant Park in Chicago on Saturday and my husband slipped his hand into mine, and I thought, I've been married 28 years to a man who still wants to hold my hand. 

Now we are both fifty. Let the second act begin.

Monday, July 10, 2017

A Perfect Day in The City of Big Shoulders

We went to Chicago this weekend to see our son. Saturday was a sort of perfect day, one that began and ended in loveliness (except for the final score of the Cubs game). It was clear sunshine, low-70s, the kind of weather I can't ever remember from my own Midwestern summers (usually 90, high humidity). We, my husband, daughter, and I, met our son for breakfast at a diner near our hotel called Hash Browns, because that is what they specialize in. Our son got there before we did and was sitting outside at a sidewalk table wearing his Javier Baez jersey with a baseball cap on backward, and he grinned when he saw us and that was the start of a very good day.

We walked downtown--we were on the near north side, it was a bit over a mile--through pleasant, tree-lined streets and then the bustle of the main shopping area. First we went to Maggie Daley park, a wide new public space on the lakefront. It had climbing walls and a dedicated area for roller skating, but what attracted us was the mini golf, because in our family we love mini golf. And I came in second of us four, and I had a hole-in-one, and I won a free game. That's all true.

Then we walked straight south to the adjoining Grant Park, home this weekend to Taste of Chicago, one of Chicago's best festivals. Something like 100 food booths and food trucks, selling full-sized or small "taste" portions. We headed right for the pierogis and split two full portions between the four of us. I'd been eager to try the Philly cheesesteak pierogi, and they were good, but nothing actually tops your traditional potato pierogi.

Washed that down with local Chicago beer. Moved on to a taste of a banana dumpling, which was a mistake, as it was spicy greasy meat with no trace of banana at all. Something got lost in translation there. Then we sampled truffle fries, then I tried cucumber gazpacho, my husband had a bbq chicken slider, my son ate shrimp and my daughter went with a taste of a fancy grilled cheese sandwich and an enormous pickle. Ice cream and fruit ices for dessert.

By then Grant Park was getting overwhelmed with people. We walked back up to the shopping district, stopping off at an outdoor wine bar to play a hand of pinochle. (This was the only downside to the weekend: at every opportunity, my daughter and I got absolutely spanked in pinochle. It was karmic retribution for the way the two of us dominated the previous vacation.)

Then Niketown. My son needed another pair of pants to wear to work (he's with US Soccer, which has a contract with Nike, which means my son can't wear his UnderArmor khakis in the office. not kidding.).

Then we tried to take an Uber to the best ice cream store in Chicago but it turned out to be a branch that wasn't opened yet, so we walked from there to a grocery store to stock my son's cupboards (in a big city it helps to have four people to carry the groceries home). Walked to my son's apartment. (I ended up with 24,000 steps for the day). Brief nap. Walk to second attempt at best ice cream in Chicago, and it was amazing. I had a summertime special flavor that was a Nashville craft beer with rosemary bar nuts made into ice cream, which sounds like a mistake but wasn't.

From there took the train to Wrigley field.

I've realized as my children have grown into adulthood that there are places where, when I return, I will see their ghosts. Wrigley was one of those places. My children have actually been there several times without me--the last time I was at a Cubs game it was with them when they were very small. That had been a day game in the spring--warm but not hot--and we had box seats behind home plate. An usher brought them coloring books and crayons. I remember my daughter's happiness as she sat on the ground using her open seat as a table while she colored. I remember the amazement on my son's face at the thought that anyone might think he would be interested in coloring during a baseball game, let alone his very first Cubs game at Wrigley.

These small children hang out with us, wedged invisibly in the seats with their now adult counterparts, my beautiful, snarky, whip-smart children. They make me very happy.

The game was fabulous, too. It was a wonderful evening to be at a ballgame--perfect temperature, great seats, a pretty good game but for that last score. We stayed until the very last out, then headed back to our hotel on a packed train.

You don't get perfect days that often. It's best if you have the sense to cherish them.

"City of big shoulders" comes from Carl Sandburg's poem Chicago. It's in the public domain, so here it is:

Chicago

        Hog Butcher for the World,
        Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat,
        Player with Railroads and the Nation’s 
             Freight Handler;
        Stormy, husky, brawling,
        City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
            Bareheaded,
            Shoveling,
            Wrecking,
            Planning,
            Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
             Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Monday, July 3, 2017

Randomly on the Third of July

We're having an odd sort of holiday this year. The Fourth is on a Tuesday, which may be the worst possible option, and my husband, an ophthalmologist, was on call for the weekend and still is for today. For the first year in a long, long time, we are not hosting a big family celebration. My sister's heavily pregnant, my brother's preparing to take his young family on vacation to South America, my parents were just here for my birthday, and my husband's dad is in the midst of moving houses. Also everyone has to be back at work early Wednesday morning, and many people, my husband included, are working today. (As am I, as far as that goes. But my schedule is very flexible.) So while the Fourth of July and surrounding days are usually all about fireworks, baseball, and my husband's famous firecracker ice cream--this year, we still have no idea how we're spending tomorrow. Some of that will depend on what happens with my husband's call. July Fourth is the worst possible holiday for ophthalmology call, because between fireworks, barbecues, and alcohol, there are so many opportunities to put out an eye.

All that is not to say that I'm not having a perfectly fine day. I've really enjoyed the farm this week. I'm back to riding, my mare got her hocks injected and is feeling spry, the weather's gorgeous and my daughter is home. I'm writing, and the early reviews of TWIFW are good.

Also we have peaches.

Nineteen years ago, when my husband and I first bought the open fields that would become our farm, we planted a fruit orchard. We really enjoyed gardening at the time and we had lovely homesteading ideas about life on a farm. Many things about the farm panned out as expected--the horses, the barn the hay fields--but the orchard turned out to be a bit of a miss. Orchards take a lot of work, and where we live, that work is quite often not rewarded--two or three years out of every five, late frosts zap our blossoming trees, and then there's no fruit. You're supposed to spray orchards on a regular schedule but we never get around to it--I like to call it organic farming, not neglect--and the plum trees caught some awful disease, and mostly if there's fruit at all the deer eat it. I don't really care. I usually have a whole host of things that need to be done and the orchard perpetually falls farther down the list than I get, and I've made peace with that. I grow some asparagus and some blueberries and I really really need to weed or till or something there, and I don't, and so far the world has not come to an end.

But this year, for the first time ever, our trees are packed with peaches. Large, healthy, luscious peaches. Hundreds of peaches. We're making forays into the orchard every few days to pick the peaches that are ready. I'm lining them up on the kitchen counter. We're making peach smoothies and peach clafoutis and I'm starting to contemplate peach jam. I made strawberry jam this summer, for the first time in a few years. (We long ago gave up trying to grow strawberries, mostly because there's a local farmer who grows gorgeous ones and sells them at a stand on the Volunteer Parkway, and his are so much better than anything I can grow. They're so much better than store-bought, too. Word spreads around town late every spring when the strawberry stand goes up, and I buy them every few days as long as they're on sale.)

Anyway, I'm rambling. I knew I would be rambling. It's a rambling sort of day.

Enjoy the fireworks, everyone, but wear your safety glasses. Trust me on that.