Back from blogger blah?

You know, I've been feeling pretty lethargic lately:

And I kind of let go of blogging; I wish I could really get back into the swing of it all. I'm not the most prolific or profound, but I do get some satisfaction out of this online doodling.

Because we've had such a hot, dry summer, our CSA box has been filled with lots of these:



so much, so that there is an entire large folding table of them, drying in my garage. Does anyone want some organic dried red peppers? Or can suggest any uses for them, beyond the usual?? I've got some dried from years ago, which have ceased to look decorative and now look merely petrified. They've become little grey shriveled nubbins in their quaint Ball jar. (Yes, during my eBay period, I collected lots and lots of 1940s Ball jars . . .)

This appeared magnificently in the back garden:



The zig-zag thread she's spun looks just like cotton; quite durable, it seems. I haven't noticed any prey within her web, but the web itself must be 4 feet across. She herself is--let me check--3 inches at least. And she HAS caught something; she's almost finished mummifying it right this minute. I wonder what it is--or was??


I've gotten back to yoga; my bag awaits. It feels really good, but I'm stiff after a summer away from it.


But with my Pilates class, too, I'll soon be a toned rubberband, with muscles rippling at every movement . . .


L is busy with cello; she took this herself of herself (with the timer, I presume):


Her quartet/octet is very busy, playing at various venues. This weekend they play during the Komen race; then Father H's daughter is getting married, so they are playing at that wedding, plus various others school functions. It's cutting into her social life, though . . .

Speaking of Father H, church and Sunday school, both adult and youth, satisfyingly loony and fun. We talked about Descartes (I think, therefore I am . . .) one week and Kierkegaard last week! Oh the odd questions that arose! Can't wait for Sunday to roll around again . . .

2001

My mother died in March; the world erupted in September. Nothing will ever be the same.

Miserable Monday

Head cold: I have one, L has one, D has one. Not a great time being had by anyone around here. And it's still so hot outside. And I have a meeting tomorrow. Which I have to attend.

But last week I did manage to get to my yoga class and a pilates class, so I'm feeling smug about getting back to exercising. That was my second pilates session ever, and there were two men taking it, which always gives these kinds of classes a whole different vibe. Last summer, we had a little man in yoga who stripped down to what appeared to be his underwear. Most disconcerting.

Today

Today L is officially 16! I remember sixteen years ago this morning Dr. F coming into the hospital room, tiny L tucked up next to me, demanding of the nurse: "Why isn't this child wearing a cap?!" The air conditioning was so cold. In an instant, a tiny cotton thimble was secured over her head.

She was born with her hands in prayer position; a saintly child still.

Now, she's off to school, and I'm off to yoga, at the end of which my hands will be in prayer position. . .

birthday

Wednesday L turns 16. When we moved here, she was not-quite-eight. My mother died a year and a half later, very unexpectedly. We spent the next several years traveling back up to the area she lived in to deal with disposition of things: property, possessions. In the mix, I think I lost several years to glassed-in grief. Although I thought I was dealing with things quite well, in retrospect, I think I was not quite present. We had spoken every single day, and suddenly there was no one to catch the same ironies, the same jokes that are the substance of the everyday.

It's difficult to be fully present in the best of times; I'm hoping I'm there now.

I'd better be; unexpectedly, someone has a beater to unload, and L is hoping to be able to have a car to drive around. But it's a standard transmission, so she'll need to take some time to learn . . . not to grind those gears.