Dreams of freshness

Here's what I'm dreaming of, in spite of our heat wave....

Early dusk

The heatwave has definitely broken. The rain is starting, thunder rumbling. It's as dark out as an early dusk, at 10am. Count this near the top of my list of what I love about living in Boston. You just don't find this in San Diego, in the summer (anytime).

The early dusk makes me feel like it's early morning, curled up on my couch with my laptop, watching the trees outside blow. Since it's summer, all the windows are open so I can hear the rain falling.

There is a moving van out front--possibly this is the day the upstairs neighbors (and their four children) are moving? ? ?

I can almost believe I'm in Vermont with the green, the dusk, the thunder...when my busy street is temporarily quiet, that is.

In more happy & cozy: yesterday, a year that my love and I have been dating. Only a year, already a year.

This week shall bring more wading into the depths of unemployment insurance, sure to be a fun trip. Also, an in-person interview. The continued forays with resumes. And, river time, CrossFit fun, cat discussions, a whole batch of new books to read, good living. And thunderstorming!

Lookee!

New colors! New pretty! Right? Yes? Let's just say yes so I don't spend the rest of my life wallowing in blog templates, shall we? The gatos really aren't wanting to live under a bridge, although I keep telling them they can catch fish for dinner and wayward rowers for snacks, but they don't seem to be going for it.

On the other hand, if this is garish and terrible, someone needs to tell me. And that someone might mean YOU because there may only be YOU reading this, got that?

Just so we're clear.

I've been meditating on job descriptions and what terribly odd things they are. They kind of started to confound me last week. But hopefully I've shaken that off.

OK, you know what's crazy? It's dark out and 9pm!! I guess I'll have to leave deeper thoughts for the moment and just prove to myself and you there, my one reader, that I didn't break the blog-biscuit utterly....

Side notes & the life living

I have to start with the side notes. Sometimes, you just have to do that.

First, date of my last blog was my brother Michael's birthday and I planned to acknowledge that, but then didn't. So, happy birthday, Michael; we miss you.

On a completely different side-note note--remember how that font at the side used to be green? Remember? Kinda cool, wasn't it? Maybe a leetle electric, but nice. In trying to make it another color, I made the color vanish & can't make it come back! Can't. (Since we're flashing on family today, let's flash to Grandma Marie, and her folksy saying that she used to impart frequently enough for me to actually remember it: "Can't fell down and broke his neck." She used to share that with me when I was a child. Cheery.) So, in memory of her spirit, I shall keep trying. I blame coding, of course. For the color issue, not for her folksy saying.

So, I had a 3-day weekend in there and my blog brain went right out the window! Right out! But I remembered and came back. Hi!

I keep having to go back to see what I've actually said about my current situation, which isn't a whole vast ton, but just so as not to be repetitive...for you, dear reader (is that what Stephen King calls us? or is it Gentle Reader? hm. shall have to check.).

Let's see, the life living continues to be pretty great. I mean, naturally. How could it not be? Our cool grey drippiness is causing me to momentarily retreat from rowing, but only momentarily. Haven't made it out in a single yet, but am picking up folks to go out in doubles with (almost sounds like I have this crazy swinging rowing life, doesn't it??). CrossFit, wonderful. Even as I realize push-ups may always defeat me. May. Reading things also happening. Just lots of nice gentle life living.

Also doing jobly things, I wouldn't say at a fast pace, but doing some, little each day. I'm prepared to not find out if I'll get unemployment until potentially July. I made some forays into doing some mortgage-ly tinkerings, but going to leave that be, which is fine. Funny how banks aren't high on the flexibility scale, huh? Have perused many job postings, so there are things out there that seem doable and fittable, even if not a ton I get super excited about. I know I've gotten at least a resume out...hm, a resume? That doesn't sound too impressive, does it?

***
The child on the porch is shouting that he loves you again! He is! He does!
***

So, yes, more resume steam to build. I did have a phone interview yesterday from the slew of resumes I submitted while still employed. My but hospitals move slowly on the hiring front! The interview was good practice--I don't know if I've ever done that through of a walk-through of my resume, or at least it's been a long while. Like, I was talking about my college major! And first job after school! As I ponder on it, I might not have done the slickest job in talking about that, but then I really didn't expect to. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with the position I applied for. Interesting. Maybe there was a secret test in there I didn't pass? Anyway. Apparently I was one of 5 finalist who made it to the phone screen, and in a few weeks, they'll figure out who makes it to first round of interviews. So, there we go. Practice! Progress!

Big-lungful living

OK, sometimes resurrections are slow, gradual. You know that. Right? It's just been an odd kind of existence. The happy news is that there is a child on the porch shrieking "I love you!" to the world. No, he's not mine. Things haven't changed THAT much, y'all. And, OK, maybe he was shrieking that to his departing mom, not the world, but still. How can love being shrieked from a porch not be a nice thing?

So, yeah. I'm not-employed again!

OK, I had to go back to see what I said before so I didn't say it all again, but it turns out I didn't say much last week, huh? I said hi to my blog biscuit. That was nice. One should always say hi to one's blog biscuit. And then I had fun with the preview button. And now I'm sitting here writing about what I already wrote about, which you could see for yourself with a simple scrolldown.

Ooh, I just made this box expand in a big way. It was exciting.

So, not-employed. Yes! It is a majority happy thing. Freedom, crazy piles of work now toppled over and not my concern, company really not doing so well (30 layoffs day after my exit), a (very) poor fit with a new manager resolved. Now, the income stuff, that's, you know, the thing. I'm fine for awhile, but darnit if my retirement nest egg somehow isn't quite all the way there.... So, I shall be sorting that out. But doing a little big-lungful living along the way. You know--real breathing as the norm, not when you remember because you've been nearly hyperventilating all day from all the demanding emails you keep getting or your cubemate's annoyingness or endless meetings or whatever the case may be...walks every day, maybe just to the store or around the neighborhood, but outside, fresh air, natural light, no beige cubes...lots of gato time! (the gatos are highly in favor of this--more time to place demands)...rowing! actually rowing again more than a handful of times in a year, what a concept...continuing CrossFit as I'm able (most amazing people EVER at CrossFit Boston making this possible right now)...writing ! ! ! (like this! see me? with the writing?)...some adventuring & exploring of the free kind, always fun...seeing peoples...sorting out next-income...THAT kind of big-lungful living....

Resurrection!

It's baaaa-aaack!

Yesterday, I suddenly realized with my newfound freedom (freeeeeeee-dom!), especially after sending many emails, texts and calls to update many fine folks on my situation that...wait, I had done this before...I had found a way, a better way for updating....my blog biscuit! Hi blog biscuit!

Of course, it's been so long, the setup is all new & different & confusing. So now I wanna see what this looks like...hang on (testing, testing...yes, I'm that guy now).

***

OK, that was a wild moment, there's this Preview button, which is exciting, but then I thought I might have to live permanently in preview land! But no, not really. I'm back. Again. 


So, I seem to know how to work this, sorta. So, I will say more explainy words quite soon. Will just let all those rust flakes drift to the ground first....

Like, whoa

Just had to, you know...still see if I could....

A little-known fact ...

Willa likes string cheese. Yes.

Didn't know that, did you? She's currently scarfing my snack....

A glimpse at my past week ...

The upstarts

It's true that I didn't immediately register them. And, really, it's been so long, I should've.

They're exciting little buggers, to be sure, but you do have to be paying attention to see them.

In my defense, it's been a long winter. That isn't a very good defense. I already felt nostalgic for snow before it had all melted. Which it decidedly has by now.

Outside, a slew of bubbles are buffeting by the window, driven by the stiff spring breeze. Little wisps of iridescent optimism issued by a happy child somewhere.

Back to the upstarts. My second line of defense is that it was approaching dusk. Still kinda'a weak defense.

My third line, maybe my best, is I did have 45 pounds on my back, and a hill I was trudging up. Distracting, you know? All that panting. But it was only when I saw the second set, with a third nearby, that I realized I'd seen the first without registering it, a little farther back down the hill.

Little flower shoots. Tightly furled against the barely-spring air. But most definitely there. White and purple. Like bunnies, they'll soon be everywhere, may already be. The upstarts of spring. Them and the bubbles.

The world lost last week

Last week, we became one bright spark dimmer. One always-friendly face less. An embodiment of sweetness & kindness, now gone. The boathouse, dock, and river will be lonelier. An unfinished life now finished.

Last week, the world lost Ann Fitzgerald.

***

I don't think we ever get used to death, unless perhaps we live in a war zone. Long illness might help us brace ourselves a little more, but if we don't know about the illness, the news comes as much of a shock as a sudden accident.

And death, and its accompanying emotions of surprise and grief, also become puzzling for me when the person wasn't a core part of my life. It's still a loss. There's still grieving. But I find myself not knowing just how to react when the loss is a lighter shade of gray -- not an all-out blackout as when it's someone near & dear, not a pale gray as when it's a celebrity or someone distantly known and the loss is more theoretical or intellectual. It's all those shades of grey in between that get perplexing.

***

I'm not at the boathouse often these days while the river is still frozen, but I was there yesterday, and found Ann very much in my thoughts. As the ice starts to break up over the water, and rowers' water time is fast approaching, I feel her loss & absence. For a purely recreational sculler, too shy or unsure of her ability to come to the coached sessions, she was braver than I when it came to going out in cold & wind. But she'd never gone into the basin w/ its nearly ever-present windy, choppy conditions, so one time we took a 2x into the basin. It was a gorgeous day, the sky a brilliant blue. I find myself cherishing that memory, that first, I was able to give her.

Going for my weekly volunteering last week, tho I haven't seen her all school year, I find myself cast back to last year when I saw her every week. We'd usually meet in the Trader Joe's parking lot & walk over to the school, chatting about her pottery classes or my jobless/freelancing state. She'd always ask how I was doing, how it was coming. She was always positive & encouraging. Afterward, we'd often head over to the boathouse for a row or maybe an erg, b/c our schedules allowed it.

I never knew she was sick, let alone that it was cancer. I don't know how long she knew, either.

Casting about for some way to honor & memorialize her, perhaps looking for something concrete to mark the loss?, I received an email about a fundraising event for fighting cancer, this year open to rowers for the first time. Not really a competitive event, you can choose the distance, up to 20 miles, & boat size, from a single to an eight. I think she'd love it. I think she'd have wanted to do it. I'll do it for her, wishing I could do it with her instead.

Best sight of the week

Driving somewhere one of these days this past week, I drove by a UPS truck parked at the side of the road. In the dust on the back of the truck, someone's finger had written:

I pick things up
I put them down

Is that not the greatest?

A bonus day

That's how I look at a holiday Monday, a bonus weekend pearl, tossed my way. Altho another part of me whispers that weekdays are days, too, weekdays are surely a pretty big part of living. Which I have to agree with. As I also agree that sitting on my couch on an early morning (here's Willa, hi, Willa! she's coveting my lap, or more likely just the attention my keyboard's getting) ...

***
Pardon the interruption, we just had an unfortunate somewhat-explosive barf episode -- lotsa water, some cat food nuggets. Willa, not me. Sucio is now the couch companion.
***

As I was saying ... sitting on my couch on an early morning with my first cup of strong, dark, sweet tea, some trail mix (hey, it appealed), and one gato or another on the couch, and SNOW (!) falling outside ... it's nice to be here anytime, but all the more on a "workday."

I'm happy to see snow again. I'm going to have to save that secret for your reading eyes, my occasional, meandering reader, as someone hereabouts really might shoot me if I express snow happiness or desire for more. But white fluffy stuff coming down from the sky is still magic in my book.

When 4-leggeds aren't adorable

So, this morning, Willa, whom I generally adore, but who has been having issues lately, leading me to wonder if a cat can have eating disorders ... she barfed ... well, everywhere.

Multiple times.

This is a cat who shakes her head and runs as she barfs.

I'm sympathetic ... up to a point -- we all hate to barf, but you don't see the rest of us shaking our heads and running as we do so.

Anyway, I emerge from the bathroom after one of her barf-o-rama rounds and find she has barfed both on top of and -- wait for it -- inside my workout shoes.

Inside.

Like, I look down into the shoe and see a puddle of cat vomit.

I take the poor shoe to the bathroom sink and clean it off as best I can, and as I'm peering into it, I see a stream of cat vomit flowing thru the length of the shoe. Yes.

What more can I say?

Blizzardfest!

Not so much as a peep about a blizzard the first five-ish years I live here, and then TWO in less than a month??

Excitin' stuff.

I just saw a runner go by on the main road, wearing ski goggles.

It's heavy, wet snow, so I woke up to a winter wonderland, even though I think only a few to handful of inches have fallen. Every bare tree limb is thickly coated, as well as fences, power lines, bushes, anything outdoors and not mobile. And those are some big snowflakes falling out there!

Weather.com calls for (red-boxed) Severe Weather until 9:15, then just snow & wind all day, until the 2:00 blizzard hits. Weather is so funny.

The loveliness of powdered sugar

It's snowing lightly, everything looks powdered-sugar dusted. Like a giant sieve in the sky is lightly grating loveliness down upon us.

Cliche, I know, but still true, still lovely.

I marvel at the snow; it's still a novelty.

Tonight in yoga, catching glimpses of it drifting down in the circle cast by the streetlight, I wondered what could be lovelier and more zen than falling snow during yoga.

Wonderland Marble

Every day of my Marblehead commute, I meant to write about this, so why not now? Why not?

Wonderland Marble. A little out-of-business ... marble shop? A whiteish (once white), old, small, one-level building, with a small parking lot, and a chainlink fence surrounding the whole thing, weeds growing along the edges.

What made me love it, what made me look for it almost every drive, and feel regretful if I forgot, was the statue in the front corner of the parking lot, behind the chainlink fence. I only got a few quick glimpses of it on each drive home because of where it was positioned. I always wanted more; I thought about trying to pull over and park somewhere, but never did. I couldn't see the statue on the drive in; it was just past an intersection on Route 1A, a busy 4-laner, right where you were picking up speed for one of its straight stretches.

I feel stupid saying it, but I'm not positive what the statue was. It was white, or once white, like the building. I think it was one of those sad-faced Madonna types, looking downward. Or it could've been an angel. But I think it wasn't. It was something female, noble looking, looking downward. I loved it. The closed, faded, run-down-ness of the building, once a presumably thriving business, with only a marble figure left to bear witness to the glory days. And had she always been there? Alongside the busy highway, a silent, effective advertising for the business? Or was she placed there as the business closed? A final farewell, a desire to not let her gather dust in a forgotten building, with no eyes to see her?

Somehow, I loved all of it. The name Wonderland Marble itself -- incredibly straightforward as a business name, like Boston Hardware, yet completely poetic because of the very words. "Wonderland" as a name of a town, or is it an area?, never ceases to cause a sense of, well, wonder in me, all the more so since I've never seen anything in Wonderland to cause any wonder ... except for our marble statue.

And I loved this beautiful, graceful statue, up against a chainlink fence and weeds, alongside the rushing highway and unseeing eyes, backed up against the now-closed Greyhound racing track, across the street from the Wonderland T station, filled with streaming commuters each morning, and the Wonderland Ballroom, another relic from another time.

Highs & lows

Tomorrow: 29 and 13.

Ha. What did you think I was talking about??

I miss you, too....

It's a tease, y'all

As each weekend draws to a close and I start the workweek scramble, I am shocked it's somehow yet another weekend in which I haven't managed a blog entry -- this thing I love, that I spend plenty of waking moments thinking about, that I walk around composing posts in my head for that never make it to ... was going to say paper, but clearly screen is the right noun. And, I think I've already banned myself from posts in which I talk about not posting. Huh.

Things I want to talk about:
Wonderland Marble -- oh, really, this one. Really.
The heartbreak of my newspaper cancellation -- and a sweet saving grace
My new feud w/ the Brookline parking people ... accusing me of something I didn't do and then not believing me...! ! ! The indignation!

So, apparently I now post previews, and we all hold our collective breath for the posts to follow....

Ghosts of the Charles

Morning after.

Overcast sky, the river more than just silent, empty -- devoid. But still reverberating under the silent air are the weekend's sounds: rowers' cries, panting breaths, clashing oars, cox'ns calls, announcer's amplified words, spectators' screams. You can feel it in the air still, not fully dissipated.

Shells of white tents, empty of bodies, chairs, merchandise, food and drink, line the river. The bright-blue-and-white Head of the Charles banner still hangs from Cambridge Boat Club, but the finish line banner is gone.

I have the river almost to myself, an unsurprising fact I discovered a few years back, and now it is a bit of a tradition for me to row the course on my own, feeling the energy of the weekend draining as the river reclaims itself in silence and calm water.

On the way back, I see the beautiful blue heron who graces our river. Long-legged, dignified, shadows of blue and grey. I stop when I see him, let Pepper drift, realize we are the only souls on the river. Well, us and the ghosts of the Charles....