LIMINAL LIVING #80: 7 JULY to 13 JULY 2025

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LIMINAL LIVING #80: 7 JULY to 13 JULY 2025

July 13, 2025

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

Weather

Summery but not really hot this week. The average high temperature was 79.8°F, ranging from 85.1°F to 72.7°F, and the average low temp was 64.8°F, with a micro range from 62.2°F to 66.6°F. It’s been dry, with storms missing us north and south; only .14 inches of rain fell this week. We’ve had the A/C on since Friday.

Beginnings/Firsts

Picked the first sungold tomatoes on Wednesday,

Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post

some birds Merlin heard in town or in our yard this week

Wandering

I walked in town on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, at the bog on Wed., and around the lake on Saturday. I also wandered to a nearby town and checked out the “The Corners Garden” I’ve driven past before — see Curiosities & Discoveries for those pics.

in town

bog

lake

Curiosity & Discoveries

I’ve driven past this little pocket garden over the years, wondering what it was. I think it’s a privately maintained garden but I’m not sure. It’s got some interesting things growing in it, including native plants and somewhat unusual non-natives. I’ll be visiting again.

Creating

Nyet.

Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard)

Body/Mind: I worked out four times (4 hours) this week and walked more than 10,000 steps on six days, with four days more than 14,000 steps. I participated in Dharma Sunday (hybrid – I attended via Zoom), with Lama Willa Baker leading meditation and speaking about Mycelial Wisdom (part 2 of 4).

Gardening/Yard

I spent about 3 hours in the garden this week, ripping out invasive bittersweet and glossy buckthorn, watering, weeding, and harvesting peas and sungolds. I also cleaned out one of the bird baths.

some pics from garden this week

Nesting

Cleaning/Maintenance: I did towel laundry on Monday and clothes laundry on Wed. and Sunday. I vacuumed the family room, kitchen, hallways, and laundry room on Thursday. The toilet flapper in the upstairs guest bathroom disintegrated on Thursday, my husband ordered a replacement flapper, and he also researched new toilets at Home Depot on Sunday.

Financial/Admin: I cancelled my Ancestry membership on Monday before it autorenewed at over $250 per year.

Supplies: I ordered pine nuts and alphabet pasta (unavailable locally) from Amazon on Friday. We bought a lampshade we’d been looking for at the local consignment store on Thursday. I ordered two pairs of socks from Darn Tough when they offered free shipping on Wednesday.

Food: Veggie burgers with local arugula, wild rice pilaf, sautéed local summer squash and vidalia onions, and local cukes and cherry tomatoes on Monday. I made one of my favourite summer salads, pine nut salad (from Susan Branch’s Vineyard Seasons cookbook), on Tuesday for dinner and my husband had the leftover wild rice pilaf with grilled chicken. We both had the pine nut salad on Wed., he with chicken and I with Old Bay shrimp. I made a sofrito risotto (with bell peppers and corn) on Thursday, which we ate with Old Bay shrimp, and the same on Friday. On Sat., I made a new recipe “cowboy caviar,” which is a sort of spicy bean, peppers, and corn salad, which we had for dinner with more Old Bay shrimp, and the same on Sunday.

Sleeping & Dreaming

Sleep was pretty consistent this week, for a change. Sleep time ranged from 8 hours 22 mins to 6 hours 43 mins, averaging 7 hours 20 mins. All my sleep scores were in the 80s, with an average sleep score of 85.7. I had 10 hours 22 mins of REM sleep and 9 hours 54 mins of deep sleep. Lots of dreams on Friday night/Sat morning involving travel on boats and in cars and hurried packing.

Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching

Reading

BOOKS: I finished two books this week, What Happened to Nina? (2024) by Dervla McTiernan and The Death of Mrs. Westaway (2018) by Ruth Ware. Really enjoyed the first and enjoyed the second more than most Ruth Ware books.

What Happened To Nina? is set in upstate Vermont (Waitsfield and Stowe). It’s a suspense novel, with criminal investigation, and it’s harrowing from start to finish. College-aged Nina goes missing while on a rock climbing vacation in Stowe with her wealthy boyfriend of four years, Simon. The plot unfolds from the perspectives of both Leanne and Andy, innkeepers and frantic parents of Nina (and we hear a little from Grace, Nina’s 15-year-old sister), as well as that of both Jamie and Rory, parents of Simon, whom they will protect at all costs, and finally from investigating Detective Matthew Wright’s. One of the most interesting and depressing aspects of the plot is how aggressively the reputation management service that Rory hires to deflect suspicion from his son attacks Nina’s parents on social media and how social media users imbibe and spew the venom they read and apparently believe with no basis. As I said, it’s harrowing from the first page to the last, with no let-up.

The protagonist of The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware is Harriet (Hal) Westaway, 21 years old, a tarot card reader who lives in Brighton, raised by a single mother who died three years ago, with major money problems and a loan shark after her. She is named in Mrs Westaway’s Will though she has never heard of or met any of the family, and although she doesn’t think she is the granddaughter intended to inherit, because of her crushing debts she decides to try to act the part and even forge documents if necessary to receive perhaps a few thousand dollars to pay off her debt. When she meets the family (and vituperative housekeeper) and hears the Will, she begins to reconsider and tries to learn how she fits into this family, if at all. Despite her initial willingness to fake and falsify in order to receive some cash, Hal, and most of the other characters, grown relations of Mrs. Westaway, act primarily with heart, honesty, and the hope of helping others, or at least not harming them.

OTHER: An interesting essay: “How to Fortify Your Town Against Shocks: Deindustrialization is not destiny” by Adam Ozimek at Agglomerations, 11 July 2025. The answer is to have a large percentage of people with high levels of education and/or a regional university in your town: “[P]laces with a high share of college-educated workers were much more resilient to the problems that arise from deindustrialization. Put another way, the costs of failing to adapt to … import competition were concentrated in the places with low levels of education. … The research shows that the presence of a regional university provided ‘full resilience’ to the negative effects on total employment from losing manufacturing jobs. The economists also find nearly full resilience against population loss, average earnings loss, and the growth in government transfers.”

I love this video interview of the poet Andrea Gibson, from Feb. 2023, How Cancer Transformed My Crushing Anxiety Into Boundless Bliss.

I also love this from Andrea Gibson, so perfectly descriptive of my reality too:

Watching

We watched episode 4 of “Outrageous” (about the Mitfords, on BritBox). Also some House Hunters (or International HH) and I Love Lucys, French Chef, or British comedies.

Connections & Community

Local Support: Shopped at the local farmstand a few times, for crackers, cucumbers, limes and lemons, peppers (bell and jalapeño), scallions, yellow pear tomatoes. On Thursday shopped at another regional farm market (cilantro, chick pea salad, and dal fry) and at the local co-op (canned beans, penne pasta, frozen ravioli). Ate breakfast early at a local restaurant on Friday. Bought some Fiesta ware at a local consignment shop on Thursday. My husband went to a cars & coffee event in town on Saturday where he ran into a bunch of people he knows.

Relationships: Attended poetry group on Tuesday for two hours in the gazebo outside a friend’s house (6 of us: BB, LW, RL, JW, DP, and me). Took some of our peas over to neighbours’ (JL&SL) on Wed. Chatted with neighbour (BF) in driveway for 15 mins on Friday. Some texting with two friends re visit/lunch next week (CW, CF). Attended Salon at friend’s on Friday for over two hours (4 of us: LM, RL, MBW, me).