Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.) As always, click any photo for better view.
- Weather
It was hot and it was cool. We hit a high of 91.6°F on Wednesday and 72.3°F on Friday, when our friends were visiting from Maryland. Temps were in the 80°Fs on four days, and overall the high temperatures averaged 84.3°F while the lows averaged 61.4°F, ranging from 51.1°F to 69.1°F. We used the A/C early in the week and had the windows open later in the week. Almost an inch (.85″) of rain fell this week, the majority on Monday.
- Beginnings/Firsts
We bought a new toilet to replace the (43-yr-old?) one in the upstairs guest bath whose flapper decided to give up the ghost a few days before visitors were to arrive. My husband got a new flapper and replaced it but then something else started leaking and in the end we bought a replacement and he installed it on Monday and took the old one to the dump, in its requisite pieces, on Tuesday, But before that …
- Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post
- Wandering
I (or we) walked in town on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, at the bog and in town with visiting friends on Friday, at the lake on Sat., and at the bog again on Sunday with another friend visiting from out of town.
in town(s)
bog
lake
- Curiosity & Discoveries
I really like these prairie-bird-themed plates and bowls at a localish consignment shop. (But I don’t need more china plates and bowls.)
- Creating
Hosting guests, whether for overnight stays or just a meal, always feels a little creative, in a taxing way but also in a “what’s possible?” way: what foods and drinks? what activities? what combinations of foods/drinks and activities? will best suit this group/person in this timeframe. And I had the opportunity to do it twice this week!
- Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard)
Body/Mind: I worked out three times (3 hours) this week and walked more than 10,000 steps on six days, including five days over 13,000 steps and three days over 15,000 steps. My husband got a haircut on Tuesday morning.
Cat: The cat’s nails were trimmed at the vet’s on Friday afternoon, and not before time. Those things were lethal and the sound he made chewing on them horrific. (The vet tech said he was a very good boy.)
- Gardening/Yard
I worked in the garden for about 6 hours this week, weeding the patio (which had a lot of flowers growing in/from it), weeding the front walkway and other gardens, planting three coleus annuals, and watering. I also harvested sungold tomatoes, basil, and the last garlic scapes.
My husband mowed the lawn on Wed. for the 6th time this season; the mower kept stalling, so after cleaning out what he could from the fuel line he bought a new fuel filter (locally) but that didn’t solve it, so he ended up using an air compressor to blow out a spider corpse that was clogging the narrow fuel line nipple, keeping gas from flowing. He weed-whacked on Thursday.
some garden pics this week
- Nesting
Cleaning/Maintenance: I did clothes laundry on Thursday and Sunday. I cleaned the sunroom on Friday and vacuumed it on Friday and again on Sunday. I watered houseplants on Saturday.
Supplies: Cat liter arrived on Sat. from Amazon but the box and the bag had holes in them and litter was scattered all over the box; they want it returned for a refund, so back it will go next week – hope it makes it! The pine nuts, alphabet pasta, and kitty crack (tuna churros) arrived in good shape on Tuesday.
Food: I made quite a bit of food this week, almost all of it ahead of two friends visiting on Friday and another friend from Sunday into next Tuesday, including: Old Bay sautéed shrimp, cowboy caviar (like a spicy bean-laden salsa dip with lime juice), pine nut salad from Susan Branch’s Vineyard Seasons (also made last week), and a Swiss chard, summer squash, Vidalia onion, and basil frittata (with local chard, squash, and eggs, and our basil). To those offerings I added cheeses and crackers, cut veggies and tapenade, tinned anchovies, tangerine & chili olives, blue corn chips, etc., for our tapas-y dinners from Friday-Sunday (and beyond). We had s’mores cooked over our Solo stove for dessert on Sunday.
I also made a tortellini salad on Monday, which we had with corn on the cob (from Mass.) and local cukes for dinner that night and Tues.; and a tuna salad on arugula with cukes on Thursday. We had grilled hot dogs (soy or beef), corn on the cob, cukes, and my leftover lunch from Burdick’s on Wednesday.
Yes! My friend (RL) and I travelled to Burdick’s for lunch on Wednesday! Delicious as always. I had the Asparagus & Peas Toasted Orecchiette in a cream sauce with lemon zest (sans prosciutto) and she had the quiche Lorraine. We also feasted on roasted olives with lemon, rosemary, and sumac, and baguette with butter. I had a refreshing sancerre and she had a very nice & tart lemonade.
- Sleeping & Dreaming
Sleep scores were uniformly good this week, all in the 80s and most in the high 80s, with an average of about 86.9. Sleep times ranged from 5 hours 32 mins to 8 hours 6 mins, with most nights around or a little more than 7 hours, averaging 7 hours 7 mins per night. REM accounted for 12 hours 10 mins, deep sleep for 9 hours 25 mins.
- Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching
Reading
BOOKS
I finished two books this week, The Blood Strand (Faroes #1, 2016) by Chris Ould and Snow White Must Die (2010) by Nele Neuhaus. Both were quite good and I’ve requested others in the series by each through interlibrary loan.
I almost didn’t choose Snow White Must Die because of the silly title but I’m glad I did. It started off slowly, then picked up pace, and by the midway point was racing like my pulse as developments and revelations popped up one after the other. Convicted killer 30-year-old Tobias Sartorius returns home from prison after 10 years to his small German town where most everyone is keeping at least one big secret. The investigative team of Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein enters the picture when Tobias’s mother, Ruth Cramer, is pushed off a bridge onto traffic on the road below. The main characters, especially the police officers but also the suspects and others, are very well fleshed out, and the intricacy of the plotting is exquisite.
The Blood Strand, set in the Faroes Island off Denmark, is partly a police procedural. Though the ending was a bit of a letdown and the pacing a bit slow, it was a satisfying read. The plot centers on police detective Jan Reyna, visiting the Faroes from his home in England to see his estranged father, who’s been found unconscious in a remote spot with a gunshot wound and a car trunk full of cash. The story is told from Reyna’s first-person POV alternating with an omniscient narrator who details the police work, led by detective Hjalti Hentze, who is glad to have Reyna’s help with what turns out to be a fairly complicated case that involves Reyna’s stepbrothers and other relatives. I especially appreciated the details of Faroes culture.
OTHER
As I mention below, the poet Andrea Gibson died on Monday, at age 49, from ovarian cancer diagnosed four years ago. Andrea was a powerful and vulnerable human being and a magnificently gifted writer and speaker. Pretty much everything they wrote or said spoke to me at a soul level. In their memory, I’m offering some of my favourite pieces of theirs.
From Andrea’s newsletter, Things That Don’t Suck,
The Hardest Winter Of My Life: Writing from the messy middle (7 May 2025),
In Praise Of Not Knowing: The joy of choosing curiosity over certainty (23 July 2024),
The Lifegiving Benefits of Befriending Our Mortality: A new poem for national poetry month (25 April 2024), and
My Friends Have So Many Issues: The healing power of being needed (5 June 2025).
And especially this one, I Was Interviewed While Nearly Naked: And that wasn’t the most vulnerable part! (21 Feb 2023), which links to an interview with Andrea about their cancer diagnosis.
Also their poem Tincture.
And this poem, one of many written for their partner Meg.
- Connections & Community
Local Support: Shopped at the local farmstand almost daily this week, for corn on the cob, chocolate wafers, the crackers I love (Rustic Bakery Apricot, Pistachio, & Brandy Crisps), their carrots, limes, a red pepper/fennel dip, their radishes, bell peppers, their Swiss chard, their summer squash, blueberries grown nearby, their cucumbers, and probably more. Also shopped at another café/farmstand a little farther afield, on Thursday, when a friend (RL) and I drove there for some produce and to-go meals and we visited a consignment store and spent a few moments in a small public garden before thunder sent us racing back to the car. My husband and I had breakfast outside on the patio at a local bakery/café on Sunday morning and we bought some bagels there to bring home.
My husband volunteered at the local car museum for over 10 hours this week.
Relationships: As mentioned, I did some things this week with a friend (RL) — lunch at Burdicks on Wed. and visit to farmstand et al. on Thurs. Then my college friends R&ChN visited for six hours or so on Friday, when we walked the bog, hung out, and ate. Sunday our friend CW arrived for her visit (until about Tuesday noon) and we again went to the bog, hung out, and ate, and had a fire with s’mores. Also chatted with friends and acquaintances in town at the farmstand (MC, LL) and emailed back & forth with a friend (KKT) this week. The usual texting all week with friends and family. The permaculture group met on Thursday via Zoom with six of us to talk about gardens and the penultimate chapter of An Immense World, and to choose a new book and pick a date for an in person potluck. Salon didn’t meet this week.
- Endings/Harvests
The poet Andrea Gibson died on Monday, a huge loss to humanity. My social media accounts were absolutely filled with her image and her words all week, and it was heartening, wonderful, so bittersweet.
Harvested the last garlicscapes, sungold tomatoes, basil, and a few blueberries. We also foraged many (many) blueberries on our bog walks and walks in town.
- All This Useless Beauty
all this food, these hazelnuts, in their fancy wrapping
the light, the textures
colour, textures
so intricate, the butterfly weed flowers and the ants
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