A Merganzer Morning.....

It's been cold here in Port Washington.....no sign of spring. Windy, grey, cloudy, rainy.....just not spring-ish at all. It rained most of the day yesterday and that meant that Mr. Fenway refused to do much except race out the door, lift his leg on the nearest tree or bush and race back inside. No long walks.

This morning I put on my winter coat and hat and off we went....no rain and we were both itching to get a little exercise. We walked down to Rotary Park and as we went up the sidewalk, approaching the water at the south end of the park, I suddenly saw dozens and dozens of shapes. Beautiful red-breasted mergansers! Dozens of them. They winter down south and pass through Port on their way back up to northern climates for the summer season.

We've seen them before.....but never this many at once.

Fenway and I walked back home and suggested Dave grab his camera. Not the best light for photographs, but still.....he caught merganzers doing merganzer things. Boys following girls. Running across the water to launch into the air, diving for fish.....and doing some kind of boy merganzer behavior with their heads. Stretching up and showing off.....not sure the girls noticed, but we did.

 A beautiful merganzer morning!

You Can't Make Me.....

It's going to be raining all day today - Fenway's favorite kind of weather. I had to drag him out this morning just to pee a few drops.....and he raced back to the door.

Two hours later I tried again.....on goes the raincoat, the leash and Fenway's ears go down. How does he know it's still wet out there? (Probably the raincoat!)

So we go down the elevator and out the garage door to the closest tree. He lifted his leg and stood for at least ten seconds to empty his bladder....and then he raced for the door.

We'll have to try again later to see if he'll do anything else!

His body language says "You can't make me!"

Technicolor Dreams.....

Over the past few years I've been having some pretty wild dreams......some are so clear and detailed it's like watching a movie on the inside of my eyelids. When I wake in the morning I can remember just about everything about some of the dreams. The other day I had an amazing "story dream". When I woke in the morning I rolled over and told Dave the entire, complicated story. And it kept running through my mind...so I decided to write it down and share. At the risk of making my cat-loving friends really mad I remind anyone who reads this that it was a dream.

And so....here it is.....with very minimal changes just to make it readable. All of the details are just the way they played out as I slept and watched this girl:

It was the kind of cold that makes your bones ache. The kind of cold that settles in and makes you ache all over.....and the wind didn't help.

She turned up the collar of her jeans jacket and pulled her baseball cap down as far as she could. She was tired. At 26 she was young, and physically active....but walking 18 hours straight was not a normal activity for her. Now her feet protested with every step, but she couldn't find a safe place to stop.....not yet.

She looked at the red scratch on her hand. It didn't seem to be getting any worse, but it did look slightly infected so she would have to address that as soon as she could.

Her nightmare began when she got home from work the night before to find Josh in a pool of blood, dead on the kitchen floor. Their cat, Samantha, was sitting on his back. Screaming she dropped her purse and ran toward him and that's when Samantha, hackles raised, jumped up hissing. Their beloved cat scratched her, hard enough to draw blood. Stunned she stopped.....and as Samantha advanced, she turned and ran back out the kitchen door.

It was here.....at their house.....and she had to get away. They'd felt secure in their small southwestern Wisconsin town. The terrifying headlines from cities all around the world seemed so distant. They were sure Summerville was protected by all the undeveloped farm acreage surrounding it in every direction.

While there was still news coverage, reporters claimed that domestic cats were suddenly and savagely turning against their owners and feral cats seemed to actually be hunting humans. The talking heads, before all the networks went silent, began to call it Feline Hemmoragic Fever. FHF was sweeping the globe in a way that made the bird flu and Ebola virus of the 20th century seem small by comparison. And this was moving so fast that scientists were unable to develop a treatment or possible cure. Everyone was susceptible...young and old, rich or poor.

It was almost as if, within a matter of hours, every house cat in the world experienced a sudden gene mutation that carried a deadly flaw. A switch flipped, and cats shared a fatal virus with their owners. FHF moved so quickly and so savagely no one could keep up with it. Suggestions that owners quickly kill their beloved pets fell on deaf ears. The big cities fell first. Newspapers, television and internet coverage just stopped. People shared rumors via social media....but then even those streams dried up as well. There seemed to be no one left to share any information.

She fled the house at dusk. Passing their few neighbors she saw no signs of life, no lights on inside, no activity. She didn't turn up a familiar driveway, she just ran until she couldn't run any more and then she walked all night. Her night vision seemed particularly acute so she just kept going.....away from Summerville, away from Josh's body.

It was now late-afternoon and she was exhausted, very hungry and so alone. She had no idea about her exact location but did see a few houses on the horizon. With the wind at her back she slowly approached the first house.....moving between rows of tall corn stalks to get closer. At the edge of the corn field she stood quietly....waiting and watching. Shivering, time moved slowly.....she saw no people, just one lighted window. Suddenly a door opened and three large dogs emerged. They ran around the yard for a few minutes until a whistle called them back.

She stood and thought about it. The presence of dogs gave her hope......perhaps that meant there were no cats nearby. Gathering her courage, she moved toward the house and quietly up onto the porch. And then she knocked on the door. Loud barking greeted her knock and the door slowly opened. The dogs crowded forward, hackles raised but tails wagging. Just behind them stood an elderly man holding a gun. As the door opened wider she could see two younger men sitting at a kitchen table.

"Who are you and what do you want?" The first question was followed by a second...."Do you have a cat with you?" Raising her hands she explained her situation. Promising she meant no harm she begged for a drink of water and maybe something to eat. The older man turned to the others and, wordlessly, they seemed to reach an agreement. She was allowed inside.

Thankfully she fell onto a kitchen chair and accepted a large glass of water. Her thirst quenched, they gave her a plate of their evening meal. Dogs at her feet, she shared more details as she finished the meal. They all talked and shared what little information they had......new facts were few.

As the sun began to set she tearfully explained she had been awake and moving for almost 24 hours and was desperately tired. Again, wordlessly, the three men seemed to agree that she could stay for the night. The only source of heat was the wood stove in the kitchen.....and it was obvious that all the men were camped around it in sleeping bags or on make-shift mattresses. They found a few extra blankets and made her a semi-comfortable pad on the floor, close to the stove. Thankfully she took off her jacket and collapsed on top of it. Everyone seemed ready to turn off the light and settle in for the night.

She curled up, warm and safe for now. Around her she heard the men and dogs settling under blankets.....moving and shifting to get comfortable. She closed her eyes, willing herself to relax. Within minutes the small room filled with the quiet sounds of sleep. She felt the tension leave her body for the first time in days.

Drifting off she licked her hand where the cat's scratch still festered. With a slight smile playing across her lips......she began to purr. 

Flipping Back and Forth.....

When you take a road trip through the sort-of-center of two time zones it can get confusing. If you look at a map of the United States and try to track the "line" that separates the Eastern time zone from the Central zone it's tricky. There are zigs and zags that don't seem to follow any kind of logic.

As we traveled south through Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and down into Florida the clock on our phones would re-set itself to match the time zone. Not so our watches or the clock on the RV's dashboard. So I found myself asking over and over again...."What time IS it?!"   The same thing is happening as we go back north. I woke up on Eastern time.....heading to bed on Central time.

Never mind the fact that we pushed our clocks ahead one hour for daylight savings time.

I give up...I am just going to follow my stomach

Unnecessary Reminders.....

I've been wearing my Fitbit for about a year and I like it. I like that it reminds me to get up and start walking.....between Fenway's big eyes begging to go outside and the "guilt band" on my wrist, it's been no problem to get to at least 10,000 steps a day.  And it feels like an achievement when I do!

Most days I put in between five and seven miles give or take, so yea me! I have friends who use their wrist band to check lots of other things......how many times they wake up at night etc. but I just want to count steps.

But the last time I updated the app something new popped up.

Now, every night about 9:20 I get a message saying something like "It's time to wind down and get ready for bed." Really? If I could talk to my Fitbit I would tell it that by 9:20 I've probably been in bed for about a half an hour......reading, or watching TV.....but I've already begun to "unwind" and need no reminder.

An electronic thing on my wrist dictating my schedule......no thanks.

Right now it's noon and we've spend much of the morning driving in the RV....but 3,289 steps so far....yea me!
😀

Those Small Places......

This happens to me every time we get to wander in our little RV. I spend time looking at the paper map when Dave is at the wheel. He listens to the GPS......I ignore "her" and examine the names of the towns and cities on and just off our route. Some of them really make me curious.....I wonder about who founded this place and why they selected the name? Imagination takes over as the miles fly by.

Some seem obvious, Southern Pines, Swansboro, Hickory Grove, Peachland and Lake City. But how would you like to have an address in Black Gnat, Miser Station, Boiling Springs or Pumpkintown? I haven't been to any of these places, and they are on light grey roads on my map so we probably won't venture out to any of them. Maybe they are very nice.

Towns that seem to be named after people are probably because that family posted their claim first and the town grew up around them. Leeville, Taylor, Maryville, Waynesville, Wilson, New Ellenton and Earles. Some towns sound like nice places to be......Love Valley, Fairfield, Cove Creek, Darlington or Sunrise.

Looking at any state map and you see thousands of towns and cities......inch by inch....across the map....across the country. People came, people stayed, towns were born and many died when progress or the highway passed them by. Always makes me wonder.......

A dot on a grey road......Trio, South Carolina. Three brothers?

Someone Else's Kitchen......

I knew gong back to The Farm would be hard.....and it was. Our first time back since my cousin's funeral. But we wanted to visit with her husband, Rob, and really love the place. So on our way south to hunt for spring we planned to stop.

Driving down the long gravel road and up the hill to the farmhouse the memories flooded back. It was like ripping a bandaid off a wound.....the grief came roaring in. But it wasn't as raw as it was before.....so maybe time did provide a little solace.

Our first evening we enjoyed time with Rob, hugs, smiles, a good soup supper, Claudia-as-farmer's-wife stories, laughter and a few lump-in-the-throat moments. It was good for all three of us....sitting around the kitchen table.

The next day the guys drove into Corydon to do some errands and have lunch. I stayed by myself and puttered around Claudia's kitchen. I cooked some pasta, emptied the dishwasher, hard boiled some eggs. I found a broom and swept the dead sticks, leaves and seeds off the deck and the porch. I watered a few plants and cut off their dead leaves.

I looked at the unfinished watercolor paintings on my cousins painting table in the sunroom, I sat in her chair and read a book.

And I hated every minute. She should be here.....I wanted her smiling face to come through the door and say "Come on, time to take the dogs for their morning walk!" I wanted to see her moving around her kitchen fixing one of her fresh from the farm garden-to-table side dishes. I wanted her to say, with a laugh, "Seriously Cousin Linnea!"

It will always be Claudia's kitchen......her spirit inhabits every inch of that farm.....especially the kitchen.

One Disturbing Read.....

I just finished a Jodi Picoult novel, The Storyteller. It flashes back from World War II Germany to the present time as an elderly man shares a horrible secret and asks a young woman for an extraordinary favor. It's not an easy read as much of it tells the story of how the Jews were persecuted, rounded up, put in concentration camps and "selected" to be gassed, or worked to death. But it is a book that grabs you and won't let go.

It got me wondering about boundaries.....and lines I would not cross. About moral compass and ethics and love for your fellow man. It got me wondering about a lot of big ticket items.

Early on in the narrative the author explains through the young boy Josef's voice, what happened to his family after WWI. He says...."To understand what I became you must know where I came from. ...My father was a machinst by trade and my mother kept house. My earliest memory is of my father and mother fighting over money. After the first Great War, inflation spiraled out of control. Their savings, which they had diligently put away for years, were suddenly worth nothing.....A cup of coffee was five thousand marks. A loaf of bread two hundred billion.....Most middle class families like mine were ruined."

Joseph and his younger brother joined the Hitler Youth....as did most everyone of their age. He excels because he is phyically strong and wins at competition. The leader of his troop is proud as are his parents because his efforts reflect well on his family.

On page 149 Josef says, "To be honest I do not know if my parents believed in the Nazi philosophy.....And if my parents had their doubts about Hitler's vision for Germany, they appreciated his optimism and the hope that our country could regain its greatness."

And that last sentence stopped me in my tracks. I think I re-read it four or five times....putting it in context. Thinking about all the people who seem to believe that the ends justify the means......not just in historical settings, but now....today....here.

Just change the names......

Two Kinds of Beauty......

We were lucky enough to spend last week exploring Puerto Rico with some very good friends. They've been living there during the cold winter months for years, so know the island very well....and happily shared it with us. We left Wisconsin's winter (even though the temperatures were in the 60's!) and fled south with swim suits.

Our two condos overlooked the ocean and beach covered with silky sand stretching for miles. Palm trees, little coquis singing in the trees at night, a swimming pool for water aerobics, and an activity room where we played dominoes with several couples. We had movie night and watched Russell Crow's "Beautiful Mind", took a walk to Loquillo for coffee (delicious) and enjoyed several meals out to explore the local cuisine.

They took us up to the rain forest.....a first for us! And we explored historic Old San Juan with it's narrow streets filled with colorful Caribbean homes as well as Fort Morro. On Saturday they took us across the island to Guavate for a pig roast and salsa music. The best was the ferry trip across to Culebra to snorkel.....beautiful coral and lots of colorful fish.

So.....we enjoyed Puerto Rican beauty....lots of it!

We flew home on Tuesday.....and spent Wednesday enjoying a different kind of Wisconsin beauty.....coating every branch.