Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)
- Weather
We’re still “abnormally dry” as of Tuesday, which was the day after almost all of this week’s rain fell.
The high temps ranged from 75.2°F on Friday (when it was sunny in the morning, then overcast with sprinkles in the afternoon) to 52.9°F on Monday, averaging 63.1°F for the week. The lows ranged from 40.1°F on Sunday to 55.6°F on Friday, averaging 49.4°F. It was pretty overcast this week.
- Beginnings/Firsts
We had our first woodstove fire of the season on Monday evening.
- Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post
Merlin heard birds in the garden and nearby this week
- Wandering
I walked every day but Monday, when we had over an inch-and-a-half of rain. I walked in town on Tues., Wed., Thurs., and Sunday, and we walked at the bog on Tuesday, around the lake on Wed., at The Fells on Friday, and on a nature trail in town on Saturday. We didn’t drive very far from town this week.
in town
bog
lake
some birds Merlin heard at the lake
Fells
nature trail
- Curiosity & Discoveries
We finally found Ravenel’s stinkhorn fungi, on two different walks on Fri. and Sat.! (Photos above)
Many other small surprises this week ⬇️
small garter snake on the sidewalk on Tuesday
the Fells has cleared out the cottage and built two docks (boating and non-boating) on Lake Sunapee since the last time we visited
two Carolina grasshoppers (per iNat) seen in the same location moments apart look quite different from each other
these fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) fungi sprang in our front yard and lots of other people’s after Monday’s rain
this bench seating made from a felled or fallen tree at The Fells — while we watched, a chipmunk ducked into the little den at the far end of it
- Creating
I’m thinking about doing something daily in November, maybe artwork, maybe poems, maybe something else or in between. Still nebulous.
Also, a tiny story I’ve titled “Litter Tells the Tale” formed in my head about, perhaps, one or more possibly underage drinkers who also smoke, who have access to a vehicle and the freedom to hang around in a parking lot for a while, as well as the dubious idea that spraying air freshener in a car hides the smell of cigarettes, when we came across these three items laying just as shown along a nature trail parking lot on Sat.: Bud Light can, pack of Marlboro cigarettes, and container of Febreze air freshener (“Twilight Lavender”). Not sure what the plastic container was for and I did not investigate further.
- Repairing and Maintaining the human(s), the cat, and the cars
Human: I worked out four times (4 hours) using the Body Electric streaming program. I walked more than 11,000 steps on six days and more than 14,000 steps on three days. I had a negative Covid/FluA&B test on Thurs., which I took before bookgroup because my sinuses were bothering me. No meditation this week; I hope to get back into the rhythm soon. We pingponged for 25 mins on Friday evening.
Cat: He continues to use the guest bath litter box exclusively, shunning the (clean) one in our bathroom. 🤷♀️
- Nesting
Cleaning/Maintenance: I did two loads of clothes laundry this week and one of towel laundry. I watered houseplants (after two weeks) on Friday. I vacuumed the kitchen and swept the family room, and my husband vacuumed the hall and guest bath. He also cleaned the filters of both air purifiers on Friday, and he removed the two window A/Cs on Sat. and Sun. He took some styrofoam to a recycling event on Monday (though a lot of it didn’t have a “6” stamped on it and had to be thrown in the landfill anyway). The usual toilet cleaning, counters, sinks, etc.
Financial/Admin: I spent about 45 mins on Sunday reviewing and updating our investment totals.
Supplies: I ordered three Cocofloss coconut flosses on Sunday.
Food: My husband made an apple pie from a friend’s apples on Monday. Dinner was egg-fried veggie rice (with peas, corn, green beans, bell peppers, onion, garlic, daikon, scallions, summer squash). We had the egg-fried veggie rice on Tuesday, too, with our cukes and humus. Veggie burgers with arugula on Wed., local corn on the cob, and local green beans sautéed with onion. I made tuna Putanesca pasta on Thursday (farfelle, capers, kalamatas, tomatoes — including two our Amish paste, corn, and rosemary and parsley, both the herbs from our garden). We had that on Friday and Sat. as well, along with local green beans sautéed with garlic. On Sunday I made tuna casserole (a somewhat altered version of Amy Dacyczyn’s, using gemelli pasta and adding peas and artichoke hearts) and we ate it with sautéed local broccoli with soy sauce.
- Garden
I spent a total of 4 hours in the garden this week, cleaning out the heated birdbath, harvesting veggies & herbs, weeding, pruning, doing light and judicious cutting back, and taking pics.
some garden pics this week
- Sleeping & Dreaming
I slept an average of 7 hours 39 mins per night this week, with a (Samsung Fit 3) sleep score of 88.4. I got 12 hours 18 mins of REM sleep (many vivid dreams) and 9 hours 17 mins of deep sleep.
The cat gets good sleep, I guess?
- Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching
Reading
I spent a lot of time reading this week, more than usual, because a. I had a 350pp non-fiction book to read from Mon-Wed. for a bookgroup on Thursday, and b. I came across a lot of interesting articles online this week.
BOOKS: This week I started and finished Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today’s Supreme Court (2026) by Sarah Isgur, a conservative journalist and Federalist Society member who was married in Brett Kavanaugh’s chambers in the Supreme Court Building. I read this for a bookgroup discussion. All of us, including me, agree that the subtitle of the book is accurate — it’s funny in places, very engaging, packed with information, and broad in scope but also detailed in places — but some of us could not entirely trust her take on things; for me, this realisation hit on p. 53 when she speaks glowingly of Kavanaugh, glossing over the several accusations of sexual assault against him (she mentions only one of them, as if it is the only one). But worse, she comments in that section that “I strongly believe you either raise your hand at the time [of sexual abuse] or hold your piece.” Yes, that would be ideal for everyone — after the more ideal state of no sexual assault perpetrated — but what world is she living in that she thinks that the response of the justice system (as well as that of society in general) encourages sexual assault victims to speak up? The recent Cornell gang rape case (which was reported almost immediately, with minor consequences and no criminal case for the men involved) is fresh in many of our minds. In all, the book was well worth reading for an accessible look at the history of the Court, the personalities of the current justices (though some of that section was too cutesy), the behind-the-scenes look at how cases are chosen, how opinions are written, how oral questioning works, and so on, but IMO her blind spot (or perhaps wishful thinking) concerning a critical aspect of American justice detracted.
OTHER:
Lots of reading this week!
Very long, very funny, snap crackling essay on what happened when a zero Covid lesbian bar tried to offer mask-optional events: A Deep Dive into the Last Ditch by an Expert on COVID and Western Massachusetts Lesbians by Dr Angela Rasmussen (a virologist) in her newsletter Rasmussen Retorts. “To keep the business afloat, the owners consulted the Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce about mask-optional Saturdays. They announced the new policy in August. This went down with the militant zero COVID faction of disabled lesbian Instagram like they had proposed vivisecting cats at Lilith Fair.”
C.S. Lewis on How to Structure the Days of a Creative Life and Train the Receptive Imagination, by Maria Popova at The Marginalian. Not central to the point but: “‘It would be a kind of blasphemy to read poetry at table,’ [Lewis] admonishes. Read, instead, ‘a gossipy, formless book which can be opened anywhere.’ To us, the whole of the Internet may be one such gossipy, formless scroll. To Lewis, it meant books like Tristram Shandy and Anatomy of Melancholy.” I remember enjoying Tristram Shandy when I read it as a teen.
A Place Among the Fiddlers: In a southwest Virginia fairground, thousands of musicians gather every August to keep a centuries-old tradition from flickering out, by David Alm at Longreads, and it is a long read, but also plenty of pics. My dad lived very near Galax and was a big fan of this festival and of fiddling and bluegrass in general, though he himself was not a musician. [And, as mentioned in the article, Galax urceolata is the name of a woodland plant with ginger-like foliage and white flowers on spikes that grows in the area.]
How Far Would You Go for Sisterhood? College girls are desperate to join the best sororities. Some are turning to weight-loss drugs to get there, by Angelina Chapin, The Cut. (Gifted link – let me know if you can’t acccess it) Another long article, fascinating yet banal, and deeply disturbing. “But if you don’t have the money or the connections [such as relatives who were members, and the best, a solid connection to the university football team] to glide through recruitment, looking the part is crucial. McCall says the year she recruited for Zeta, no girl bigger than a size 4 made it to the in-person round. While nobody had explicitly cut girls because of their weight, they used euphemisms like ‘She’s not Zeta material.’ ‘I feel like the whole standard is changing,’ McCall says. ‘It’s like, “Well, there’s no excuse for people to be fat because they could just get a GLP-1. Why would we accept somebody who wants to be fat?”‘ A recent University of Southern California alum said her sorority sisters had the same mentality. The aesthetic there might have seemed different — more vintage designer than Lilly Pulitzer — but still allowed for no variation in appearance. ‘Most girls who got in were probably size 2, zero, and double zero,’ the USC alum says.”
Good summer for dragonflies by Deb Champion at her newsletter The Breakfast of Champignons. It did not seem like a good summer for dragonflies where I live, but I like her observations in the sections Noticing, Niche, and Questions (or the act of questioning, really).
🍁🍁🍁
- Connections & Community
Local Support: My husband volunteered at a local museum for 9.25 hours this week. I bought items at the local farmstand on Monday (arugula, 4 corn on the cob, 3 Asian pears, two small pears, a green pepper, two heads of broccoli, and a head of cauliflower). I bought a pair of pants at the consignment store on Tues. (and wore them on Thurs!). I met a friend at a local café/bakery on Wed. for lunch outside and bought some treats there on Sunday. My husband and I ate lunch at a localish restaurant on Friday. I ordered a couple of items on Friday from King Arthur Baking to be sent to someone for their birthday.
Relationships: My husband made an apple pie on Monday from apples given to us by a neighbour/friend (LD), and he took some slices to him. We chatted with neighbour JL (and dog O) for 5 mins on the sidewalk on Tues. As mentioned above, I had lunch with a friend (RL) at a local café/bakery, outside, for 2.5 hours on Wednesday. I ordered some gifts for my sister from Fresh Paper on Wed., too. My monthly bookgroup met for 1.5 hours on Thursday with nine of us there discussing Last Branch Standing. I ordered a birthday gift on Friday for a friend. Texted some with friends. Salon met on Friday but I skipped it.
- Endings/Harvest
Endings
The air conditioners are out of the windows until next summer.
One of the last echinacea blooming for this year
Harvest on Friday (almost the last cucumber)
Total count for the week: 3 cukes, 30 sweet millions tomatoes, 15 Matt’s wild cherry tomatoes, 4 yellow pear tomatoes, 1 sungold tomato, a sprig of rosemary, and a bunch of parsley.
- All This Useless Beauty
the copper glow of this screen door at The Fells
this tree (also at The Fells, over Lake Sunapee)
the burgundy of the blueberry foliage, the canary yellow of the green-headed echinacea flower petal
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