LIMINAL LIVING #38: 16 SEPTEMBER TO 22 SEPTEMBER 2024

Astronomy & Sky, Beach/Ocean, Birds, Books, Collector Garden, Community, Edible Gardening, Flowers, Food & Drink, Harvest, Insects & Arachnids, Liminal Life, Pollinators, Sense of Place/Travel

LIMINAL LIVING #38: 16 SEPTEMBER TO 22 SEPTEMBER 2024

September 23, 2024

Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)

Weather

Temperatures are cooling for sure. We started the week with highs of almost 80°F and ended with highs in the low- and mid-60°Fs and lows in the mid-40°Fs. The highest high temp was 79.9°F and the lowest low was 46.4°F, with an average high for the week of 73.1°F and an average low of 53.5°F. We had no rainfall this week at all.

Beginnings/Firsts

I left for my weeklong beach vacation on Saturday morning! Lots of beach and marsh pics coming in next week’s edition.

I’m sure I’ve seen a full moon with a partial eclipse before the one on Tuesday night but I don’t remember it.

Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi)

Besides those shown elsewhere …

Merlin heard birds this week, mostly in the garden, with a few in town and at the lake (20 species):

We also saw three loons together at the lake on Friday, though far away.

Wandering

Train story: I wandered from home to Boston (bus, masked for 2 hours + another 1.5 hours masked in the Acela lounge in Boston) to Baltimore (Acela train, masked for most of 9 hours) to Rehoboth Beach DE (friends’ car) from Saturday morning to Sunday evening.

The train travel, on Acela first class, was less than stellar this time, even before the train malfunctioned just north of NYC and we were stuck for hours on the train on the tracks, sitting ducks between speeding trains heading both directions on the five or more tracks around us, shaking our car each time they flew by. It was a bit harrowing, though obviously our train could not be moved. We also didn’t have A/C, flushable toilets, or even bottles of water handed out during most of that time.

Eventually a rescue train, a regional, was found for us, and then we started dragging our luggage, over about 45 mins, through six train cars out of our train and through five or so very crowded train cars in the regional onto seats there — with some older passengers in medical distress and no porters to be found (to be fair, they were probably helping the wheelchair passengers, but it was unsettling to have no help in the heat and without access to water). We were on that jam-packed regional train for about 30 mins (I really liked my seatmate! who was headed home from Boston to Phila.), then we Acela folk who were travelling beyond NYC switched to another Acela waiting for us in NYC, another 6-car slog to the first class car, and the rest of the trip was mostly uneventful except for a one-hour delay sitting (this time with A/C, water, and flushable toilets) in Trenton to re-crew, since our conductor has now been on the job too many hours.

In all, I was 4.5 hours late into Baltimore, arriving at 10 p.m. For me, it was a minor inconvenience, but for ill, old, frail, or incapacitated folks, or those needing to make connections to other trains, it wasn’t minor at all. [I’m writing this on 3 Oct and can tell you that Amtrak refunded me yesterday the entire cost of the Boston to Baltimore trip, though I had not contacted them requesting this. Good on ya, Amtrak!]

Other wanderings: Aside from that peregrination, earlier in the week I walked here in town on Monday, Tuesday (twice), and Thursday, on two local trails on Wednesday, and around the lake on Friday.

I walked around with friends at a Baltimore street festival on Saturday morning before we drove to the beach, and we walked on the beach in Delaware on Sunday evening.

Some things seen on walks:

in town

bog

overlook trail

lake

street festival in Baltimore

community garden in Baltimore

at the beach on Sunday

Curiosity & Discoveries

We saw this growing on an alder at the bog on Wednesday; it’s woolly alder aphids (Prociphilus tessellatus)!

I discovered this monarch in the garden on Wednesday morning just after it had eclosed and was still near its chrysalis drying its wings.

Creating

I once again created a little buffet opportunity for a spider in our bathroom.

Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard)

Body/Mind: I worked out 4 times (4 hours) this week and walked 10,000 or more steps on five days, with three days over 14,000 steps.

Finances: I received a refund from Anthem because my plan didn’t spend at least 80% of premiums on health care services over the last year. I renewed my NYT subscription for $1/week for a year.

Gardening/Yard

Watered the garden a few times this week, especially the vegetables. Quite a few monarchs seen each day in the yard (shown in Wild Things section).

Nesting

Cleaning/Maintenance: I did towel laundry on Monday and clothes laundry on Thursday morning. My husband defrosted the dorm fridge on Wed. I watered the houseplants on Thursday. I spent two hours packing on Friday for the beach trip (had to cram a lot into one large backpack).

Food: We ate out(side) on Tuesday at a local restaurant and had leftovers/veggie burger on Wed. I made six crabcakes on Thursday, two of which we had that night with leftover french fries + cukes and tomatoes from the garden, and two more on Friday with sautéed farmstand squash and onions (then my husband had the last two after I left for the beach).

Here’s what I mean when I say “I had a veggie burger with arugula”: it’s as much arugula as I can possibly fit into the bun and it doesn’t have to fit.

My friend in Baltimore made a great breakfast on Sunday morning for us, using up perishable things (kale, okra, rice, corn salad) as well as the crabcakes she had planned for dinner the night before had my train not been 4.5 hours late arriving. We ate breakfast on the colourful plant-filled deck.

Supplies: I ordered another pair of Kizik shoes on Tuesday, different style and colour (they were delivered on Sunday, after I had already left for the beach trip; love them!). Amazon S&S arrived on Sunday and into the next week.

Sleeping & Dreaming

Sleep was lacking this week (but not as bad as next week will turn out to be, spoiler alert). I had an average of 7 hours of sleep per night, with a low of 5 hours 7 mins (the night before I had to get up early to catch the bus to the train) and a high of 8 hours 6 mins. My average FitBit sleep score was 81, with three scores in the 70s and none in the 90s. I got just about 11 hours of REM sleep and 7 hours 22 mins of deep sleep this week.

Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching

READING

BOOKS: I finished reading Final Girls (2017) by Riley Sager this week, a suspenseful story told from the point of view of a woman, Quincy Carmichael, who was the sole survivor of a brutal attack on her friends at a cabin in the woods some years ago. She along with two other women who were also sole survivors of similar massacres are referred to by the media as “final girls.” When another final girl tracks Quincy down and tries to make her remember during the attack she survived, Quincy’s fairly well-ordered life starts to unravel. The ending is a bit predictable but I enjoyed the book right up until the final two pages.

I also read Sager’s latest, Middle of the Night (2024), about the disappearance 30 years ago (July 1994) of Ethan Marsh’s best friend, Billy, from their camp tent in Ethan’s backyard and Ethan’s investigation of it now that he’s moved back into his childhood home. This novel reminded me strongly of another one, or maybe a couple, but I can’t come up with the titles.

OTHER

Essay with citations: Viruses are a big deal, by Sharon Astyk.

From which: “Viral illnesses that seem to be mostly about the acute phase (ie, you get sick and that sucks and then hopefully get better) are also causing chronic illness in a proportion of people. Which means that illnesses that we think are harmless and trivial are the ones that make our lives a misery later on. Often they happen in childhood, and sometimes even in utero. Which means that if you wanted to take seriously having a healthy, productive, able bodied population, and reducing overall medical costs, you’d protect people from exposure to viral illness throughout their lives by cleaning the air, killing viruses, and wearing a mask in public and crowded spaces.”

She includes citations to studies about the many viruses (EBV, flu, Covid, HPV, polio, HIV, chicken pox, measles, etc) that can cause, trigger, awaken, or otherwise contribute to most autoimmune illnesses, other chronic illnesses, organ failure, congenital disabilities, some cancers, diabetes, Parkinsons, Alzheimers/dementia, IBD, heart attacks and cardiac diseases, et al.

ALSO

I needed this on Amtrak as I was having difficulty connecting to their wireless on Saturday. Thanks yet again, Reddit!

LISTENING

At dinner with friends at Drift (Rehoboth) on 22 Sept.

WATCHING

“Only Murders in the Building,” latest episode.

Connections & Community

Local Support: I renewed our membership in a local land trust organisation on Monday. My husband volunteered at the local car museum for a total of 10 hours this week. We ate a late lunch/early dinner at a local restaurant on Tuesday afternoon and had breakfast outside at a local bakery/café on Friday morning, and on Thursday we picked up a Too Good To Go bag from the same local bakery/café. My friends and I had a wonderful dinner outside at a local restaurant in Rehoboth on Sunday night.

Relationships: We finished watering friends’ outside container plants (and took one cuke); they came home on Tuesday night and we picked them up from the park & ride. Ran into our neighbour walking his son’s dog on Monday and chatted for 10 minutes. Sent a friend a digital card for her birthday on Tuesday and sent one to my niece on Thursday for hers. Chatted with some neighbours on an evening walk on Tuesday. We chatted briefly with an acquaintance on the bog trail on Wed. I hosted our permaculture meeting on Zoom on Thursday morning (5 of us attending). I skipped Salon on Friday.

Spent Sat. night and Sunday with my good college friends in Baltimore, with one of their sons and his family, at a street festival and at her community garden cutting flowers for the beach, then driving with them to Rehoboth Beach, DE, and eating out together at a local restaurant there and lodging together there that night in a cute cottage apartment.