Saturday June 6
Really tired today but a lot of nice things happened. I managed to get a brisket defatted and chopped up and put into my stockpot with potatoes and carrots for dinner. Michael and Willie worked in the garden getting the plants dug in under a very very hot sun. I went out briefly and scraped one path of the garden so that I could sow some basil, cilantro, and lettuce. But I couldn’t do much and went back into the house. Collapsed on the bed and listened to a conversation between two black professors about the protests, which are still ongoing.
Michael and William came in and I gave them lunch. Geoff and Kim arrived after lunch and went directly to the little house. They were very careful about being at safe distances and for a while they wore masks until I told them to take them off. They played guitar and sang out on the deck, which was very pleasant and the afternoon was beautiful with a mild wind that took away the heat.
We ate dinner separately and then met back on the upper deck where Geoff and Willie pointed their phones at the stars and a smart app delivered their names. Geoff and Kim were able to witness both the baby fawn nesting outside the north wall and the lone Turkey who wanders the meadow and who, it turns out, is a mom with two chicks. Now I’ll be anxious all summer. Kim said she'd be anxious down in Bayside.
I need to respond to Jill’s last emails, not the angry and betrayed one, but the second Khrushchev one, a lesser confrontation with a snide comment on Dominique’s response to her white friend's sympathy over George Floyd.
Sunday June 7
Dead mouse in the bedroom this morning. Michael unable to rescue it from cat fiends.
The fawn didn’t show up today. Kim had heard night screams during the night. Worried. Geoff and Kim collected their plants and took off at around noon.
Was unable to plant my beans so Michael did.
Spent the afternoon composing releases for the RK and the Sally Army to send out in the CCDC newsletter to raise money for both. Don’t want the Army upstaged by the more glam RK.
Hamburgers for dinner. We then watched Monty python and the Holy Grail. Much funnier than it was 40 years ago,
Monday June 8
My Khrushchev approach didn't work. Jill hammered me about my betrayal 25 years ago when Michael and I had dinner with her ex friend Experience and her nice Tasmanian husband. Furthermore, I hired her to do some work for our business. So I spent a miserable night tending off her email accusations that I failed to unfriend Experience on Facebook after Jill discovered this non-relationship and asked me during our time in New Orleans to reject her. I came home and unfollowed Experience, which I thought was fine but Jill did some additional stalking and discovered that the social friendship continued. It isn’t Experience of course. Jill is looking for an excuse to shuck me again. I can smell it in the words of her attacks. She feels unloved at her core and searches for causes, and as her mother I’m the chief suspect. Got an email later in the day that was more or less conciliatory, but still maintains the basic belief in my betrayal of her. It makes me sad. Nothing I can do.
We need to get the Volkswagen fixed today in Kingston, which also involves driving the Beemer down, so we can drop the E-Golf off at the dealers and hang out with Harris and Neville for a few hours. This meant pinning down my anxiety and driving the second car beyond my Columbia County comfort zone. As it turned out the drive was very pleasant and easy, with only one queasy lane change. Harris and Neville made a great lunch with haddock and various roasted vegetables, and I brought my favorite chopped salad. The weather was beautiful and it was fun as always to see them. Harrison and Neville need to leave their wonderful apartment overlooking the Roundout Creek and one of Roebling's mini-Brooklyn Bridges. The rent is doubling and they can't afford it as it stands. A lousy new banking law requires that people who are self-employed and looking for a mortgage need to make the same amount of money in the first six months of this corona laden year that they averaged over the past four years. If they don’t, the bank drops their net income to zero and rejects the mortgage. Just terrible I hate banks. Fortunately Harris did well in the beginning of the year thanks to the Los Angeles Real estate guy who bought so many of Harris' sculptures.
At home, I didn't see the nesting fawn, but two were dancing in the meadow over by the solar trackers.
Had wine on the deck in the evening. Really nice. Feeling much better today than I did in the past couple days.
Tuesday June 9
Hot and muggy today but got tractor scoot out and did some weeding in the flower garden out back. It hardly deserves to be called a garden; it's so littered with random plants but it does promise Echinacea, coreopsis and bee balm,
I think I saw the doe mother out beyond the vegetable garden but no baby. She may have tucked him away somewhere else. Two stately turkeys were leading three chicks across the meadow.
June is so gorgeous and luxurious; it’s like living in a tapestry. The pond however is very low and scummy with algae. Swimming prospects are dim.
Ordered take out from Relish. Restaurants are opening this month if they have outside dining. Dana is doing take away lunch and dinner, with a little market inside.
Our dentist wrote and is reopening but it's hard to see maneuvering New York City any time soon. Even a semi normal life is uncurling slowly and I’m reluctant to join back. Seeing people again seems like an effort, particularly the Democrats, for whom I harbor a constant low-grade annoyance, like an itch. I'm so happy that Willie is quarantining with us and will worry when he goes back to the city.
Watched Dave and Money Heist.
Wednesday June 10
Hot water fuse blown out again this morning. I had a snarky back and forth with Michael while I sat in the tub. I growled about why our HVAC guys couldn’t fix the hot water system, this being the fourth time they've come to fix it. Michael asked, “Have you ever fixed anything?” A snarky reply and unfortunately valid, I believe I could learn to fix things if I didn't have Michael around, who goes into action when anything breaks down and has no interest in me helping out. So, I deal with food, cooking, grocery shopping, and planning the garden, which I used to also plant until last year. Michael deals with everything else. In fact, we are a terrible team if he requires any help. Typically I start to do something and he’ll stop me because I'm not doing it right and take over. And this is actually to my advantage, so right I can’t fix anything.
Nevertheless, this is a day of accomplishment. Called into the CCDC officers meeting and had a moment of comradeship with Brenda Gevertz, who's previous attack on the Army I had called horseshit. Later, I attended virtually a meeting on food insecurity meeting, which consists of a randomly collected group of well meaners. I joined thinking I could represent the Army's interest if the work of the group involved fund raising and publicity. An English-accented woman dominated the call, whose persistent assertive messaging annoyed me. Turns out to be a useless committee. The meeting started out promising, with the idea that the county needed a hub— a place to collect farmer products and redistribute them to pantries and soup kitchens. However the discussion degenerated into a feeble action plan to convince the County government that it needed to hire someone to coordinate, which is highly unlikely given the prospective 20% cuts in the corona devastated county budget.
I did receive approval for the GoFundMe campaign for the Recovery Kitchen, which I posted and promoted. So felt I had done something worthwhile.
Nice evening with Michael and Willie and wine on the deck. I made a soup from random ingredients; sausage bought the meat automat, oyster mushrooms that Harris and Neville had given us, a bag of white beans from the freezer, radicchio. Onions, garlic, and stock I just made from curried chicken. Yum.
Not a lot of arthritic pain today thanks to new regimen of two Advil and two Tylenol. It makes such a difference.
Watched Money Heist and Dave.
Thursday June 11
Broken sleep with twitchy legs, with only a two-hour snooze and final wake up at 10:30.
I watched what I thought might be the mother deer but no visible fawn hanging out with the turkey Mom duo and their chicks by the vegetable garden.
Worked on a few edits for Carl’s very thorough healthcare report for the CDCC Issues committee, which he approved and submitted.
I squatted down onto my tractor scoot and continued the edits on the flower garden, with its creeping Charlie snaking across its base and mint, goldenrod and fleabane jutting out. But I also saw great hunks of bee balm spreading across all the garden sections from its original planting space. And the occasional jewel showed promise in emerging from the jungle: liatris’ blazing prairie star, sedum, lupine, and sedum. Looked like there might only be single specimens but happy to see them.
Ordered Mexican from le Mission, a new restaurant in town that was fortunately built with take-out capabilities. We ate on the deck under a fabulous sunset cloud movie. -Willie had ordered a Gramma's blueberry coffee cake, so we even had desert.
Watched two Daves.
Friday June 12
We did a bit of gardening in the morning, but it was too hot. Michael and I went to Agway for wooden stakes for the chilies and tomatoes and Neem oil to fight the creepy insects that bite my eggplant leaves.
Made lunch and then wrote out my CCDC minutes, which was less arduous than I feared.
In the afternoon I pushed my trusty little electric lawn mower around the Augean flower garden, which is slowly making a little sense. The Little Mower That Could was valiant but couldn’t get very far into the thick without being stunned to a halt. I then transformed into weed avenger, wading into the meadow to attack stands of dreaded knapweed. All in all, very satisfying.
Friday catholic dinner was pasta with broccoli rabe-oyster mushroom-preserved lemon-parmesan. Michael and I liked it, but Willie not fond of mushrooms. I suggested he cook Friday’s and come up with recipes ahead of time so I’ll have ingredients.
We watched last Dave, which got better and better, and another Money Heist, also satisfying.
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