Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)
- Weather
High temperatures ranged from 57.2°F to 32.2°F, averaging 48.4°F this week. Lows ranged from 16.5°F to 35.8°F, averaging 28°F. We had about 1.25 inches of rain this week, mostly on Monday (along with fog) and Friday (along with wind). But snow is forecast for tonight into Monday!
You can see how much the snow had receded in the front yard on Monday here. (There was quite a bit more in the back yard.)
- Beginnings/Firsts
On Sunday I started taking hydrolized collagen peptides, which may help with bone density (and here’s the human study they refer to). Collagen peptides may also help with skin elasticity and some other things, but the jury’s out on that. It’s a fine white powder (made from beef 😒) that dissolves in hot water and is virtually tasteless, especially in strongly flavoured tea. I probably won’t really know if it’s working to help strengthen my bones unless I get another bone scan in a year or two, but there are no serious reported negative side effects so it seems worth trying.
We started watching “Vera” on BritBox this week. We watched episodes 1 and 3 on Friday and Sunday and I watched episode 2 on Saturday evening. Pretty good so far though as usual I have a hard time keeping track of the people, the men especially, because so many of them tend to look alike to me.
The deer made a return on Friday!, seven of them in a small herd. They look healthy. We had not had them in the yard this year until now.
- Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post
Birds heard at home and at the lake this week:
(click on photos for larger images)
- Wandering
I walked in town on Tuesday and Wednesday (long walks) and Thursday, and around the lake on Saturday.
in-town
lake
- Curiosity & Discoveries
The winter fire fly (Ellychnia corrusca) shown in Wild Things was a bit curious. I think I’ve seen them before but not sure if they were this early. Though from the name, maybe they’re around all winter? Wikipedia to the rescue: The adults “spend winter on a colony tree, favoring Quercus (oak), Carya (hickory), and Liriodendron tulipifera (tulip poplar). [We have both oak and tulip poplar in our yard.] This beetle can be found in a large variety of habitats but is most notoriously known as a pest. In the maple syrup business, these beetles are commonly found in the buckets of sap from tapped trees.” It also says they become active as temperatures warm in the spring and it did hit 57°F on the day I saw it.
Creating
I created a more inviting work space by tidying and cleaning my desk this week.
- Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard)
Body/Mind: I worked out four times (4 hours) this week. Walked more than 10,000 steps on four days and over 15,000 steps on two days. Participated in Dharma Sunday on Zoom, led by Lama Liz on the topic of Entering the Unseen: The Practice of an Open Question Space (really great meditation and teaching).
I also tuned in on Zoom to hear Lama Willa Baker speak on Mindfulness and Compassion for Harvard Grand Rounds on Monday.
Cat: Appointment made for nail trim next week. Shh.
Vehicle: My husband put the new tires on the Healey this week.
- Gardening/Yard
I placed an order this week for some veggie and flower starts from a localish grower, for pickup the weekend of Memorial Day
Also found this scrap of paper with info on last frost dates for my area!
- Nesting – cleaning/maintenance, food, supplies, financial/administrative
Cleaning/Maintenance: I did clothes laundry twice this week and towel laundry once. I cleaned the microwave on Tuesday, cleaned the exterior of the kitchen cabinets on Wed., tidied and cleaned my main desk on Wed., vacuumed the kitchen on Friday, and cleaned both downstairs toilets this week.
Supplies: Lots of orders this week, including two pairs of shoes from Kizik, a couple of pounds of roasted 50% salt macadamias from Nuts.com (free shipping), two more bras from Amazon, and three shirts and a swim bottom from Land’s End (using gift card and promo discount). We also bought two shirts (me) and a pair of pants and pair of tennis shoes (husband) from local consignment shop on Tuesday, using only store credit for items we’d dropped off. Amazon Subscribe & Save arrived on the weekend.
Admin/Financial: We walked to our tax preparer’s on Wed and signed our taxes for electronic filing.
Food: My husband made three baguettes on Monday (took one to a neighbour). We had seafood casserole leftovers Mon & Tues., with sautéed local spinach on Tues. I made the shrimp, bucatini, corn, & arugula dish on Wed., which we also had on Thurs. (and me for lunch on Friday). Veggie burgers with copious arugula, corn, and mac & cheese on Friday for dinner. Takeout pizza with spinach, artichoke, and olives and a salad (augmented by me) from a local pizza place on Sat & Sun.
- Sleeping & Dreaming
I slept an average of 7 hours 42 mins per night this week, varying from 6 hours 45 mins to 8 hours 39 minutes, with an average Fitbit sleep score of 86.9. My REM sleep accounted for 14 hours 10 mins and deep sleep for only 7.5 hours, less than usual. Very dreamy week with some amusing dreams that made me laugh.
- Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching
Reading
BOOKS: I finished Reading the Waves (2025), a memoir by Lidia Yukvanitch this week. Some things I really liked about it were her way of looking at memories from various angles, using repetition in the Gertrude Stein way of insistence (a quote she includes); her acceptance of her lifelong grief without needing to hurry it, hide it, transform it; and two things that really struck me, her need for ocean, for water, her sense of coming from and wanting to return to water; and her description of this Lithuanian word/concept, nugrybauti, which is how my mind works. It’s losing the plot by going off on tangents that have cognitive (though perhaps not obvious) connections to the topic at hand, overlaying experience, memory, metaphor, and so on until it seems to be hopeless but then finding oneself somewhere, somehow, familiar.
OTHER:
Appreciated this piece: The Last Decision by the World’s Leading Thinker on Decisions: Shortly before Daniel Kahneman died last March, he emailed friends a message: He was choosing to end his own life in Switzerland. Some are still struggling with his choice.
The article was written by Jason Zweig, in The Wall Street Journal. From which, “Kahneman never contended that people are irrational. Instead he argued that they are inconsistent, emotional and easily fooled —most easily of all, by themselves. “Self-delusion helps sustain most people,” he told me years ago. In short, he made the case that people are neither rational nor irrational; they are, simply, human.” … Kahneman’s friend Annie Duke, a decision theorist and former professional poker player, published a book in 2022 titled “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away.” In it, she wrote, “Quitting on time will usually feel like quitting too early.” She is frustrated by his decision. “There’s a big difference between it feeling early and it actually being too early,” she says.”
It’s interesting to me that though Duke knows that quitting on time will usually feel too early, she still seems to believe that Kahneman quit too early.
Some other reading:
And maybe useful info on taking blood pressure:
Watching
Watched a few episodes of “Vera” on BritBox, some golf on the weekend, a couple of home shows, a Julia Child, and British comedy.
Listening
Shazamed this week:
- Connections & Community
Local Support: Ordered Too Good To Go bag from local bakery/café on Thursday. Bought three items at local farmstand on Friday. Shopped at local pharmacy on Tuesday and bought some clothes at local consignment store on Tuesday too. Got to-go pizza and salad from local pizza place on Saturday.
Relationships: We celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary this week. My husband took a baguette to a friend/neighbour (LD) on Monday. A friend (CF) saw us out walking on Tuesday, pulled her car over, and ran across the road to chat! I ran into her husband (JS) at the grocery on Friday and chatted briefly with him, too. Ordered flowers on Thurs. for my sister’s good friend’s (SM) birthday next week. Permaculture met on Thursday on Zoom with seven of us for an hour, discussing the chapter on Pain in Ed Yong’s An Immense World, and I hosted Salon on Friday here with six of us for about 2 hours. Wrote long email to friend (RVN) on Monday. The usual many emails and texts with friends and family.
Donations: Renewed membership with Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, MA, and made a donation the Gulf of Maine Research Initiative this week.
- Endings
The end of the darkness! Not only was the 20th the official Spring Solstice but on Monday, the 17th, we logged more than 12 hours of daylight for the first time this year. ✨
- All This Useless Beauty
these sumptuous anniversary flowers, with cat
this one
the light
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