around the house | matching tracksuits

Inviting In, Keeping Out

Saturday 14 April 2012 | 0 Comments

It's not something we experience daily: we're often on our way or long gone when the sun shines through the kitchen/dining room window like this. That makes weekend light unique: we know it's a day off when we tumble downstairs to see something like this.

We invite it in, making sure all the blinds are open and even turning off a few lights to enjoy the warmth of early morning spring light.

We aren't the only ones glad to see the spring light.

The raspberry and blackberry canes are bursting with excitement, literally.

And so while some spring guests are welcome, others aren't: last year, birds ate every single berry long before they were even ripe. This year, we've put up netting -- a polite "Keep Out" that has me curious about its ultimate effectiveness.

Blossoms and Satan

Thursday 12 April 2012 | 0 Comments

Our lone rose is blooming.

And with our holly cut back, it's easy to see why the sweet gum that continually plagued me was ~~so difficult~~ impossible to kill, other than it being a sweet gum tree.

It wraps itself around all that's good and perverts it to its own nefarious ends. Sounds familiar...

Flowers for the Morning

Wednesday 04 April 2012 | 0 Comments

"I promised her!" K mouths to me as L thumps up the stairs to brush her teeth, disheartened by my casual dismissal of her idea to go down to the blooming azalea and pick some flowers to take to school. "You can just get some from our neighbors' azalea in their front yard," I said just moments earlier. They're out of town, but I knew they wouldn't mind: they're like long-lost family to the Girl.

"I'm not tromping down through the cold, wet leaves and grass to pick blooms for her when she can walk fifty feet..."

A few minutes later, I'm pulling small clumps of blooms from the bush, excited about the foggy early morning that promises a sunny mid-morning.

An hour later, the prophecy is fulfilled.

On Hiding and Emerging

Tuesday 03 April 2012 | 0 Comments

Our two hostas (Fortunei Albopicta) winter under decaying leaves and an ever-dwindling smattering of decorative rocks. After the new leaves of most all trees have fully unfurled and the crape myrtles have begun budding, the hostas finally begin to emerge from winter dormancy.

It’s almost magical to watch such perennials resurrect themselves every spring. Little buds emerge from even the dampest, thickest blanket of last autumn’s leaves — the strength to push stones and leaves away is a testament to life’s tendency to conquer death.

Then again, maybe it just likes to hide.

After all, who doesn’t like hiding?

Spring Break?

Monday 02 April 2012 | 0 Comments

The first day of spring break 2012 proper, and it starts like any spring day should: sun, warmth, clear light. Freshly emerged leaves offset the patch of Azalea blue (or is that purple? I've never checked, i.e., asked K) in the back corner. It would be great to be out in the warmth, to do some work on our small raised-bed garden, to work up the first sweat of the year. The grass needs mowing; autumn's leaves need raking; the raspberries need netting shortly -- yet none of these are options.

With a major paper due in a week, I'm sequestered, reading through articles, planning an attack, drowning in coffee and tea.

I spend the day filling a folder with articles from JSTOR, Gale, and seemingly countless other online resources that make it possible to research most anything from home. Then I write, write, write.

"In calling these stories 'parabolic,' we encounter an critical etymological parallel with geometry."

Did I really just write that?

Still, I take my own advice, the mantra to my students that I seem to chant daily: "It's a first draft. Don't worry about making everything perfect -- or even close to it -- in a first draft."

Evening approaches and with it, new tasks. I help the Girl get ready for bed; I trim tenderloin and prepare the brine for smoking later this week. K reads the Girl stories and prepares a salad for tomorrow's lunch. Having to go to work tomorrow, she trundles off to bed; I sit down once more at the computer.

Others I'm sure are enjoying a first evening at the beach or the sounds of crickets at a mountain retreat. Me, I'm just ready to turn out the lights and head to bed.

In the Background

Sunday 01 April 2012 | 0 Comments

Buds out of the focal plane will soon become the center of all attention — especially birds.

Atypical Saturday (Lent 2012: Day 32)

Saturday 24 March 2012 | 0 Comments

Saturday has a morning ritual that never changes. It begins with some Skyping to Babcia and Dziadek in Poland. The Girl carries on two-thirds in English, a bit in Polish, and the rest in squeals and laughs. Ballet follows, with me heading to a nearby McDonald's for a coffee and some paper grading. Returning home, it's time for polski cwiczenia, Polish practice. Saturday after Saturday it's the same, in ordinary time, Advent, Lent, or Easter.

A five-foot visitor in our backyard, though, is hardly an every-Saturday occurrence. If it were, I think we might be seeing less of Nana (and, by proxy, Papa).

A black rat snake Pantherophis obsoletus, this fellow came slithering along our side yard, and I noticed him just as he was winding his way among the Leyland cypresses that shield our deck from neighboring yards.

K was simultaneously fascinated and repulsed, wondering aloud whether I should kill it.

"Of course not!" I declared. "This guy eats rats, mice, chipmunks, squirrels, and a host of other things I'd gladly do without." But as a compromise, I took a pitchfork and scooted him down to the edge of our property where he promptly wound his way into an extremely large azalea, curling around the branches until it was four or so feet in the air.

Returning to the upper part of our yard, I discovered some moss that appears to have sprouts. First a snake, then odd moss -- who knew what else might come our way.