Drop-kicked to the middle of next month

I'm writing this essay inside-out, I tell myself--violating the advice I often give to students. Instead of synthesizing source material as I go, I'm writing the central analysis in full and then going back afterward to squeeze in the scholarship. But I've got time to make it work. I mean, it's not as if I'm writing this for a grade or a deadline. But why am I writing this? Where shall I send it when it's done? I'll worry about that tomorrow.

This is what June does to me: gives me plenty of reason to postpone action until tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Once June is over, I have to get serious and finish things, because August will be right around the bend and at that point everything needs to be done. And here we are at the end of June. No more messing around! Work work work!

But it's too hot to work. I know it's hotter elsewhere; I know others are suffering more that I am; but it's hot enough here to make breathing outdoors uncomfortable and to make brownouts inevitable. But at least the highways aren't melting. Yet.

In other news, I was just talking with an old friend about how much I'm looking forward to teaching African American Lit this fall, and she wanted to know whether students ever resist or resent reading minority voices--Don't you get nervous about teaching Black literature in the current environment?  But who has the energy to worry about such things in the middle of June? Coincidentally, the day after my friend asked the question, I bumped into a former student at a restaurant in town, and he came up to tell me how much he appreciated my class. I couldn't remember his name and I had to ask him which class he'd taken from me, and he said, African American Lit. It totally changed the way I think about things.

That's the kind of comment that can keep me working and thinking and reading and writing even in the laziest days of summer. In fact, that's the kind of comment that drop-kick my lazy butt right into the middle of next month. Watch out! Woman at work! Better get out of the way! (Tomorrow.)

Wild times, home and away

Talk about a wild week! The youngest grandchild said our trip to The Wilds was her best day ever, and she wasn't just talking visiting all those wild animals. She loved feeding the parakeets and seeing the giraffes but she was also very impressed by the bus ride. (We were very careful not to let the pigeon drive the bus.) Her older sister can tell you all about the cheetah breeding program and which cheetahs are being sent to Canada and why, while her brother loved the rhinos, which he pronounced winos. (A friend suggests picturing David Attenborough narrating a documentary in which he creeps up quietly on a group of slumbering winos).

But that's not all, folks! We took a side trip to see Big Muskie's Bucket, the last remaining piece of the massive dragline that denuded these hills of coal decades ago. At home the kids built a dam across the creek and donned swim gear and sandals for a creek walk, where we saw a watersnake and lots of water-striders and crawdads. Grampa picked up a beverage can that someone had tossed in the creek and found a crawdad living inside--and very reluctant to come out.

In quiet times the kids played with Legos, sat in Grampa's lap to search for the ever-wandering Waldo, or tried out every pair of binoculars to watch the birds outside the window. One red-bellied woodpecker would swoop down to the feeder to grab some seed and then fly up to a limb of a nearby maple tree to feed her young, a wild spectacle right at home.

In fact the whole visit was one wild spectacle after another, exhausting but worth every effort. Today the Legos are cleaned up and the massive pile of shoes near the door has disappeared and the spare rooms are empty, but in the quiet I can hear those little voices laugh and sing and chatter and the memory makes me very happy indeed.

Funny faces.

A little creekside engineering.

Big Muskie's bucket.

Brave girl at the playground and in the creek (below).

Are we having fun yet?

Snake! (Much smaller than it looks.)

Crawdad in a can.

It doesn't want to come out of there.

Out of touch and enjoying it

I'd like to congratulate myself for arranging perfect weather for the grandkids' visit, but that kind of hubris is bound to backfire. I'm the kind of person who feels the need to apologize when weather ruins a family outing, but that doesn't mean I'll allow myself to take credit when the weather turns out well. But there it is: sunny and 70s, not a storm cloud in sight. Let the grandchildren arrive!

Recent storms did, however, leave behind some lingering effects, and I'm not just talking about the two throw rugs that were hanging outside to dry in bright sunshine when the sky suddenly opened and drenched them thoroughly. Two days later they're still not dry, but never mind that: the bigger problem is that my home internet connection has been totally out of service since the big storm on Monday, and the rain caused the usual excess of static on the landline, and since there's no cell-phone access at my house, I'm left with no reliable way to contact the outside world. I'll be so busy enjoying the grandkids that I'm unlikely to care about the outside world, but still: anyone who tries to reach me for the next couple of days is going to be greeted by either silence or static, neither one particularly helpful. 

And then there's another knottier telecom issue arising next week: our campus is moving to two-factor authentication for campus email, which at first looked like it would make it impossible for me to check my campus email from home since I don't have cell-phone access. But now they're providing a landline option, which means that if I want to check my campus email from home, all I need to do is make sure both my internet connection and my landline are functioning at the same time. The people who set up this system clearly have no clue what it's like to live in a holler in Appalachia. It might be easier just to sell my house and move into town. 

But not today. Today I've got fresh peaches in the kitchen, bright sunshine overhead, wood thrushes singing and kingfishers cackling, and grandkids arriving soon. Let the outside world do what it wants; I'm heading into grandkid-land and I'm not coming out until I have to.

Questions keeping me awake this week

Why does the prospect of turning 60 feel so traumatic? Turning 50 was a breeze--but then I'd just recovered from cancer treatment and was happy to be alive. Why does 60 feel so final?

Will I have a party? What kind of party? Who has time to attend a party in the middle of finals week? How can I prevent gifts? Can I throw a party without revealing that it's my birthday?

Why am I thinking about my December birthday in the middle of June?

Wait, we're nearly done with June! How did we get here? Why am I not further along on my summer projects? And how can I work on anything significant when I need to clean the house in preparation for the grandkids' visit?

That mouse in the guest room--where did it come from and why is it in my house at this time of year? No mouse droppings in any of the usual places, no mouse nests, no tripped traps, but suddenly while I'm vacuuming this mouse comes scurrying out of the closet and scampers under the bed. Why why why won't it just go outside and leave me alone? 

Will the mouse go away before the grandkids arrive later this week? How can I persuade it to flee or die? And must I be bothered by such brutal thoughts when I'm getting ready for some happy grandkid time?

Why did that bathroom throw rug have to choose this week to disintegrate in the washing machine? How will I get all those sticky bits of rubber backing out of the washer so they won't clog up the works? If I use the vacuum to clear the debris out of the washing machine, won't I end up with a clogged vacuum?

Will the rain clear up in time for the grandkids' visit? If not, how will I get any mowing done? Will they still want to throw rocks in the creek if it's drizzling all day long? 

Will they see the mouse and give it a name? Will they want to pet it and hold it? What if it's just the beginning of a major infestation? Will the hummingbirds visiting the feeders out front be sufficient to distract from the prospect of mice? Do I dare fill the bird-feeders or will that just tempt the raccoons to come and take them apart again?

So many important things going on in the world--why am I lying awake at 3 a.m. worrying about age and debris and mice and weather? Why can't I obsess over more serious questions? Even my midnight obsessions are inadequate!

It takes a turkey to slow me down

I followed a wild turkey down the driveway the other day. Normally they'll scamper off into the woods as soon as a car appears, but this turkey just kept walking, slowly, down the middle of the driveway, and there was nothing I could do but follow at a turkey's pace until it finally veered off into the woods. Good thing I wasn't in a hurry! Sometimes it takes a lazy turkey to slow me down.

Recent weather has slowed down my mowing and hiking and, really, everything requiring being outside. On Sunday I arrived home to find that the neighbors had mowed the one part of their field that borders our property, which made my unmowed lawn look like it belonged to the house where the witch lives. So I got out the mower and weed-whacker and worked as quickly as I could before the rain started, slowly at first, with bright sunshine beaming between socially distanced raindrops. I needed more time! What would the neighbors have thought if they'd seen me out there mowing in a light rain while yelling at the sky to Stop it--just stop it! Soon enough, the sky yelled back and I had to go inside where I could watch the storm in safety.

Of course all this wet, windy weather has dropped limbs all over my road and made our phone lines virtually unusable--voices sound like they're coming from a great distance over a tin-can-and-string setup. So I was late to get word that my dad had a bit of an episode and ended up in the hospital, where he discovered that everything that's wrong with him is doing what one would expect--getting worse with time. But the immediate crisis is over and he should be back in assisted living soon. I need to call him, but he won't be able to hear me on my home phone. I guess I'll need to drive someplace where I can get some cell reception and call from there.

Still living life at a turkey's pace! But that's what summer break is all about.

A wish for gills

This morning I hiked through humidity so thick I wished for gills. Which is worse: hiking in deep woods in the heart of winter or in the heat of summer? In winter I can bundle up for warmth, but in June there's only so far I can strip down, especially when ticks, mosquitos, and poison ivy abound. In winter I worry about slipping on ice and tumbling down a bluff, while in summer I contend with mud as slippery as ice and twice as thick. And then there's always the possibility of a storm: in the woods, blizzards and lightning are similarly scary.

I went to the woods early this morning to miss the thunderstorms and, I hoped, the heat, but humidity rises early and sticks around. I walked a shorter and less demanding trail than usual, but I still found myself sucking air and dripping sweat by the time I was halfway around the loop. By the time I got back to my car, my clothes were as drenched as if I'd jumped into the lake.

So why hike at all this time of year? There's not much to see beyond masses of ferns, moss, and fungus. I found a patch of fire pinks blooming next to the lake, but mostly I saw trees casting shade over swaths of green undergrowth. 

But I'm glad I went out all the same. This week I've spent way too much time indoors, staring at my computer while waiting for the rain to stop. It's impossible to mow or canoe or wander aimlessly about in this weather, so I'm glad I took the chance to head for the woods before the rain started up again. I refuse to be defeated by a little humidity. Slowed, yes, but not defeated. But hey, I told myself, if the air gets just a little wetter, I can swim home!

Indian pipes, just emerging

Hard to see, but this is bear corn

fire pinks

The red area is a thick patch of fire pinks

Lake Katharine, from the Lakeview Trail

What are these white stalks all over this mossy log?

 

A wet and wild birthday bash

Big plans this summer? he asked, and I just looked around and said Being here. That's enough. 

Here in this case meant out in my grandkids' front yard where a host of energetic imps were running around throwing water balloons at each other. Getting wet has been a big part of the past few days even when water balloons weren't part of the picture: we're either getting soaked with sweat from heat and humidity or getting drenched by sudden massive downpours. When the kids went puddle-jumping after a storm, they ended up with more water inside their boots than outside.

We have eaten birthday cake, watched a bunch of kids trying to destroy a very sturdy pinata, and picked up the remains of a zillion broken water balloons. Big plans? Just being here is enough for now.

 

 

I need remedial training for atrophied social skills

Forget the Beach Body exercise class--that ship has sailed. (Sunk, more likely.) What I need right now, as my community emerges from Covid restrictions, is a remedial class on social skills. Call it Speak, Buddy!

Let's face it: social distancing has squelched many opportunities to exercise social skills. Small talk is awkward through a mask or across a plexiglass barrier, and Zoom meetings inhibit spontaneity, especially when they're recorded. Sure, you could offer up some witty repartee in the chat, but do you really want every off-hand comment coming back someday to haunt you?

Given all these barriers to casual communication, it's no wonder that social skills have atrophied. I used to converse easily with strangers in line at the post office, trusting my gut instincts about what to say to whom, but now I spend so much time second-guessing my gut that it seems to have closed up shop. Either I can't think of a way to break the ice or else I get stuck in an awkward conversation and can't seem to make it stop. And it's even more difficult with friends and family--do they really mean it when they ask how I'm doing, or are they just being polite?

To aid in successful re-emergence from our Covid cocoons, the Speak, Buddy! program will offer a variety of hands-on exercises designed to restore ease in social settings:

Speed Small Talk: Can't manage small talk anymore? Fearful that every attempt at inconsequential chat will trap you in conversational quicksand? Speed Small Talk exposes you to a wide variety of strangers carrying egg-timers. You may not feel capable of maintaining an hour-long conversation, but how about sixty seconds? With practice, you'll start gradually increasing the time limit until you can comfortably chat with a complete stranger for up to ten minutes. Best of all, the timer allows you to exercise your personal chat function while also assuring a painless release from deadly bores, intractable boasters, and Amway salesmen and their ilk.

The Gambit Game: Players move markers around a board and land on spaces designated for particular conversation contexts--the department meeting, for instance, or bumping into an old friend at the airport--and must play cards indicating the appropriate opening line for the designated context. Say you land on the "Baby Shower for a Colleague" space, and you hold only the following conversation cards: 

A. "Weather hot enough for you?"
B. "Are those plastic cups? I heard they cause birth defects!"
C. "Could this line possibly move any more slowly?"
D. "Goodness, you've grown!"

Of course it's always easiest to play the A card ("Weather hot enough for you?"), but then you have to hope to land on the "Child's Birthday Party" context to play D ("Goodness, you've grown!"). You wouldn't want to land on the "Dream Job Interview" space with nothing left to play but "Goodness, you've grown!"

The Really Relay: There's a big difference between "How are you?" and "But how are you--really?" Many a conversation has floundered in the gray area created by the various inflections of "really," and after a year coping with public suffering on a global scale, many of us have become accustomed to downplaying our own disasters because they seem so inconsequential in comparison to people who have lost their lives, livelihoods, or loved ones. How will we know when it's okay to admit our struggles and problems again? In this exercise, partners take turns asking "But how are you--really?" with various inflections until they get tired of saying "Fine--and you?" and start spilling their guts on what's really bothering them. Some participants may experience a dangerous side effect: they'll get so disgusted by the pettiness of other people's problems that they'll banish the word "really" from their vocabulary and give up entirely on trying to converse, but this is a small price to pay for permission to finally share our problems without feeling guilty that my ingrown toenail is not as serious as your aneurysm.

 

And there's more! Speak, Buddy! subscribers will hone the lost art of eye contact, memorize a list of foolproof conversational exits ("Sorry, I've got to water my begonias"), and master the finer points of initiating conversation in various unusual contexts (Q: When is it appropriate to accost the CEO of your company if you're so far down on the company organizational chart that you are essentially invisible? A: If you know CPR and he's choking to death). Subscribe today by picking up the phone and making a call. 

 

With your actual voice. 

 

Using words. 

 

If you haven't entirely forgotten how to do that.

 

But what will you say to the person who answers? Buy Speak, Buddy! today to find out.