6/30: continuing the tradition

In June 1992 Chris and I made our first "Moon and June cake" in honor of Christina Rossetti's poem (here).  Today we baked, decorated, ate, and enjoyed this year's entry into the tradition.

6/29: quick gratification

Returning home, I was (very) eager to have notecards printed with some of my mother's costume designs that I scanned last week.  The drugstore in town has an online photo site that allowed me to upload the scans, choose the card layout, and have them printed to be picked up in a matter of hours.  It was great to see the finished products so quickly.

6/28: terminal f

Terminal F in the Atlanta airport is beautifully designed and was sparsely populated today--what a pleasure to be in as I passed the time between connecting flights.

6/27: not making a day of it

My mother and I had thought about going into Pittsburgh and spending the day in the city before checking into the airport hotel.  We decided not to, opting instead to tidy up the house and make one final lovely meal (Vietnamese noodle soup) before the drive to the airport hotel.  I'm grateful to have had the little bit of extra time at the homestead.

6/26: scanning

...some of the sketches my mother has made over the years for the hundreds of costumes she's designed and sewn.  The sketches on their own are amazing, and it's boggling to realize that she turned each hypothetical costume she drew and painted into an actual one that someone wore on a stage.  What a body of work.

6/25: walk & talk

A morning walk in the estate so that I could beat the rain.

A chat with the man who is doing some major re-landscaping of my mother's yard, making much of it into a garden.

6/24: trio

Morning:  sorting books in my mother's attic.

Afternoon:  making a cobbler with plums, honey, and rosé wine.

Evening:  walking on the estate and standing under the umbra of an amazing century-old weeping elm.


6/23: finally

...writing some emails that had to be written!  And the actual doing of it wasn't so bad at all.

6/21: a little list

Helping my mother get ready for teaching tomorrow by photocopying materials while she organized them.

Going grocery shopping with my mother and a friend and finding a memory-charged local candy at the store. 

Eating said candy.

Having dinner out with a childhood friend who still lives in her childhood home next-door to mine.

Enjoying driving with my friend through the green Pennsylvania evening.

6/20: unboxed

My childhood home is in Loretto, Pennsylvania, where the steel tycoon Charles Schwab built a summer estate with formal garden.  We children spent hundreds of hours there.  The garden has two more-than-life-size statues by Paul Manship, and the past two times I've been in Loretto the statues have had boxes over them--but today when I walked by one of them, the box was gone!  Welcome back to the light, Silenus.

6/19: crown vetch

Crown vetch is all over this part of Pennsylvania, and it's abloom this time of year.  Seeing it is like seeing my childhood.

6/18: sharing the day

I spent most of the day with my sister.  We went grocery shopping, took her car to get repaired, walked around the mall while waiting for her car to be repaired, and prepared dinner for my mother and a family friend.

6/17: brother, sister, mother

My sister and mother met me when I arrived at the Pittsburgh airport, and we had a long green drive back to the homestead. 

I unexpectedly got to see my brother, too.  He was flying out of Pittsburgh yesterday on a flight scheduled to leave slightly earlier than mine was scheduled to arrive; however, my flight landed early and his was delayed, so I got to see him for 15 minutes before he had to board his plane.

6/16: bright lights

Frustrations today:  trouble with technology, confusion about addresses and zip-codes at the post office, packing for a trip.  But good things amidst all that:  Chris' company, Emma the Cat's concern, Tilde the Cat's playfulness, an email from a friend who knew that I might be having a tough day, and the audiobook of Among Others.

6/15: quick trip

After a very efficient afternoon of errands I postponed a few chores until tomorrow so that Chris and I could visit the creek at Woolly Hollow in the early evening.  It's already dry in a few places, but there was some rain recently so parts of it were tripping-and-rippling along.

6/14: last bit

On my way home from tea and a chat with a friend I caught the last glimpse of a rainbow at the pier.  A man fishing there said that ten minutes earlier it had arched completely across the lake.  I was glad that he got to see the whole thing and that he told me about it.

6/13: one stop

I managed to get everything on my supply list at the first store I went to.

6/12: out in little rock

We ran some errands in Little Rock this afternoon, but followed them up with a low-key meal out and a minor league baseball game.  (I hadn't seen a baseball game since the late 1970s or very early 1980s, when my brother was in little league!)

6/11: among others

Some rockiness in my day needed to be sorted out so I ended up not going kayaking as I had hoped/planned.  But I did go to the walking track, and there I started listening to an audiobook of Jo Walton's Among Others.  The words and the Welsh lilt in which they are read brought a smile to my face.

6/10: having time

...to think of a project in the morning and finish it by dinner.

...to not have to push myself to work in the early evening when I was feeling unexpectedly tired.

I'm grateful for the pace of summer.

6/9: limeade!

A limeade was the perfect thing to address the heat and a headache!  Even knowing that, I probably wouldn't have stopped at the gas station to get one myself, so I'm grateful that Chris was driving.

6/8: raintrees

One golden raintree at school abuzz with bees around its yellow flowers.

Another one in our yard, much younger, and putting out just a few blooms for the first time.

6/7: good out of not-so-good

I had trouble falling asleep last night; I don't think I started sleeping until after 2 a.m.  And then I woke up before 7.  Not so good.  But it gave me an extra-long morning, which meant that I could spend time on the porch with the cats and my coffee before it got too hot, that I could read a chapter of Dickinson Unbound (about which I am exercisedly ambivalent / ambivalently exercised, both glad to be learning and thinking but also frustrated with some of the moves the author makes), and that Chris and I could decide on a lark to go to the creek and cascade at Woolly Hollow before lunch.

The cascade is beginning to dry up, but this rivulet bubbled on its way down the rocks:

6/6: just a warning

I was blissfully listening to Tooth and Claw on my way back from the walking track, and then there were blue police lights behind me, beckoning me to the side of the road.  My license plate light bulb had burned out.  I was really relieved that I hadn't done anything wrong and ticket-worthy while driving.

6/5: p.m. porch time

Morning is a good time to sit on the porch with the cats:  the air is fresh and it's not too hot.  Tilde, however, also really really wanted to go on the porch after dinner--and by then it was quite hot (90 degrees F).  I took her out for a bit, and that gave me a great view of the sunset when it colored.  The color lasted only about five minutes, but they were a very good five minutes of gentle pastels.

 

6/4: passed

Chris passed his test today to get his private pilot's license.  When he got back from the exam site he took me up in the air in a very small Cessna.

6/3: detour

I went to the walking track and meant to go grocering afterward--but then I got hungry.  So before grocering I went through a drive-through, which meant that I could eat in the parking lot while continuing to listen to the thus-far-amazingly-enjoyable Tooth and Claw.

6/2: morning reading & writing

While eating my breakfast I read an interesting article about myth and the Hunger Games trilogy.  It gave me good fuel for my morning writing.  It was fun to think about someone else's thoughts.

6/1: listening

...to the audiobook of Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw while sweeping the floors this afternoon.  Though I can't quite believe that the premise seems to be working (it's written following the conventions of a Victorian novel but with dragons--yes, dragons--as the main characters), I'm hooked.