Eeek!

Miscellaneous moments of joy ...

Walking through the neighborhood with my husband, checking out Halloween decorations. Skeletons everywhere, rising from the ground, frozen in mid-leap, in lawn chairs laughing with friends. Dog skeletons carrying — what else? — bones.
Good one.

Spotting one of my favorite trees, lit by the sun, flaming orange. How lucky we are to live in Pennsylvania. “Penn’s Woods,” indeed. 

Seeing a bright crescent moon set against a twilight blue sky. 

How lucky we are, to live.

 

 

 

Laughter ... worth more than 5 points.

I like to play with words.

Fortunately for me, words are everywhere. We read them, hear them, speak them, think them. In my case, I also misread, mishear, misspeak and misthink them. 

Makes for an entertaining, and occasionally confusing, life. As I’ve written here before: It helps when you make yourself laugh.

 

I’ve been keeping a list, and here are a few of my favorites.

While packing up for a recent vacation:

“Do we need flasheries and batlights?” 

(Holy guano, Batman!)

While reading an email about a library that closed early because of electrical trouble, my brain delivered this:

“The Library is closed today due to a power outrage.”

(“Outage,” “outrage,” “tomato,” “tomahto” …)

On coming across a pair of socks I bought for my husband:

“These are your socks. They’re not washed yet—so you may not want to eat them.”

(Indeed.)

And, on glancing at an advice books for parents, I read the title as:

Trampoline Parenting 

An apt metaphor for raising kids, I thought. 

Turned out the actual title is Tranquility Parenting.

I think I like mine better.

Our back yard ... Bunny Central.

 “Well-manicured” is not a term anyone would use to describe our lawn.

I am the resident mower, and I routinely leave patches of wildflowers untouched – buttercups in the spring, followed by clovers, white and purple. Even dandelions escape the blade.

I spare them for the bees, the birds and the bunnies, though only the bees go for the buttercups. Rabbits and birds somehow know to avoid those delicate – but potentially toxic – little beauties.

The other day I took a break in the shade and quietly watched as a bumblebee touched down on a white clover blossom. The slender stem bent to the ground under the bumble’s weight, bouncing back as the bee took off for the next flower, and the next.

Later, as I left the house, I spotted two soft, brown ears popping out of a stretch of long grass. One small rabbit having lunch.

For those moments alone, I’ll keep my less than tidy lawn, and leave the manicuring to others.

There’s room in the world for both.

Nature so often inspires me to write here, but sometimes, human-made creations make my heart leap. 

Case in point, a recent Sunday, when my husband and I took a walk along the canal in Lambertville, N.J. We had wandered off the main path, curious when we saw a runner veer toward a woodsy dirt road. 

Yes, I wanted to explore, but I was also keenly aware of the limits of a 64-year-old bladder. Not far off, we could see the glittering Delaware River between the trees. Then a squat brick building came into view, bearing a most welcome sign: 

 

Hallelujah! We continued the walk in comfort, rambling along the river bank before heading back into town for ice cream. 

Nature called; humankind answered.

Floating peonies

 Momentary joy.

In the wake of the unfathomable sorrow pouring out of Uvalde, Texas, joy may seem an unlikely thing to write about.

Or maybe it’s an essential thing to write about.

Over and over in my life – especially when carrying sorrow – I’ve learned that joy can be found in a moment … spotting a pair of blue jays flitting into our maple tree; listening to the rush of water in a woodsy creek; inhaling the scent of a caffe mocha; feeling the warmth of our cat settling into my lap; sharing those moments with someone I love.

Two Sundays back, my peonies out front were in astoundingly beautiful bloom. They literally stopped me in my tracks. By Monday, I saw they had already started to fade. After a wistful sigh I spotted them: fat, round peony buds, about to unfurl even more of those velvet, magenta petals.

In that moment, nature reminded me: Take in joy when you find it; understand that joy will fade; have faith it will come again.

The next day, sorrow came to Uvalde, and it can never truly leave.

But joy lives there, too.

A sign of the times

If COVID has taught us anything, it’s an appreciation for Plan B.

Remember early on, the days of toilet paper shortages? I heard one little boy scoured his house looking for gift bag tissue to use instead. (Clever, though probably a bit uncomfortable.)
When masks were recommended, but not always on the shelves, we made quick ones out of old T-shirts. (An idea from the “this won’t last long” phase.)

Later came the great Easter bunny butter shortage.
Butters molded into holiday shapes play a memorable role in our family gatherings. As I wrote back in 2020, after our first, isolated COVID Easter: 

My extended family has a dark tradition of beheading the holiday butters: bunnies, lambs, turkeys. (I think even Santa lost his head one year.)

The role of executioner rotates through the grandchildren. Don't worry, we did not traumatize them at an early age. We waited until their sense of humor veered to the dark side before handing them the butter knife.

Alas, 2020 was the last year I spotted a rabbit in the dairy case.
Enter Plan B — and C.

In 2021, another isolated Easter, our kids created a bunny using a regular stick of butter, with carved strawberries for the ears and a blueberry for the tail.
Adorable. And yes, it lost its square little head.

This year, as you can see in the photo above, I opted for a generic version. No ritual execution this time around, just the usual slicing, one pat at a time. 
The best part? We were able to share that butter at an Easter feast with (almost) the entire extended family. And those who weren’t there were elsewhere for happy reasons, not COVID ones.

Who knows what 2023 — or the rest of 2022 — will bring?
I wonder if strawberries would work for a turkey wattle …

Bunny butter, 2021

Snow inspired me to write ... here and on our car.

What part of “going out like a lamb” doesn’t March understand?

Case in point, 4:30 p.m. today: snow swirling, 29 degrees, wind chill of 17, wind gusts that smacked your hair and hood into your face.

I know that last bit because my husband and I happened to be walking at the time, choosing to run an errand by foot rather than car. Let’s just call it … invigorating. 

Our cell phones buzzed loudly with a snow squall alert just before we reached our destination. 

On the (frozen) nosey!

Our errand accomplished, we headed the mile back home, leaning into the wind as we went.

Fresh air, togetherness, something crossed off the to-do list, and a warm house to come home to.

Thank you, March. 

 Douglas Adams said it best:

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

I heard that whoosh a week or so ago, as January rolled into February, and my resolution to write here at least once a month took to the wind.

OK, I missed a month – make that a few months if you count the end of 2021 (hence the resolution). 

I have a choice here. I can bemoan the missed deadline, or celebrate that it’s only February 9, and I’ve written a post for the blog.

Can you guess which path I picked?

(Hint: Yay!)

This post all started with another deadline – one I actually met.

Monday, Jan. 31, was the final day for Christmas tree pickup, according to our township calendar.

Dutifully, we undecked our tree the night before. 

Off came the ornaments, including the cardboard star our son drew when he was four and the construction paper bus our daughter made in nursery school (with a tiny photo of her in the driver’s seat). As usual, we played hide-and-seek with the three miniature Star Trek ships, which shift into invisibility mode amid the branches when it’s time to pack them up.

Before we finished, my husband and I took a moment. With the tree still lit, we turned off all the living room lights and sat for a bit, brilliant pinpoints of color glowing through the quiet dark.

Contentment mixed with melancholy, followed by let’s-get-this-done. We unplugged the lights, untangled them from the tree, and boxed it all up until next year.

On to the harder part, wrestling the tree from the stand, wrapping it up and hauling it out. 

Usually we drag it to the curb and lay it sadly on its side, a wistful reminder of another Christmas past. 

This year, thanks the remnants of a snowstorm, my husband had a better idea: He picked the tree up and planted it in the snow mound at the end of the driveway.

Perfect!

There it stood for several days, a fading but noble Tannenbaum. Some rain washed away snow, and the tree began to list, but it held fast until Thursday, when the township truck whisked it off to the compost pile, perhaps to fertilize another tree someday.

The circle of life, the circle of years.

I resolve to embrace them both.

How lovely were your branches ...