(Please don’t send me hate mail.)

Let’s face it: as much as I enjoy summer – sunshine, bare legs, potlucks and all – it’s usually around now that I start pining for fall.

The wind kicks up, little by little the leaves start turning, so gently that you almost don’t notice until finally poof! Summer’s gone and fall, in all its brilliant bronze glory, is upon us. I tend to encourage this change in small ways: pulling out the knit beanies to wear in the morning, lighting candles at home. Drinking tea, wearing wool socks, taking the window fan down. If it weren’t for the fact that winter is always so close at fall’s heels, I’d swear this one is the perfect season: crisp and beautiful, the air clear, that foggy stillness in the morning.

And yes, I even love the rain.

(Here is a lengthier and more articulate post on this very topic – from two years ago.)

It’s probably a metaphor for my deep-seated fear of, um, house-cleaning

I have been writing a lot lately about houses, and I can’t explain that. It seems especially odd that the houses I choose to write about are most often places in which I’ve never lived, and in at least one case, places that I’ve never even seen the insides of.

No, really. This is where I get it.

This is one of those awesome, total-cop-out blog posts where I just copy and paste text from an email I received from my dad (via my step-mom). It is worth noting that the girls my dad is babysitting belong to a different sister than the one sleeping on the couch. Without further ado:

 

I’m well into the third hour of my vigil. Only just now have I been able to get online: comcast.net doesn’t recognize this computer and has blocked me from accessing the outside world. Remembering my .Mac email account, I open apple.com but this Windows device refuses to display the .Mac chart tab that I need to open my account. Cleverly, I search the site for “.Mac”: Great Success! High Three! I open a New message and struggle to remain conscious, that the world may know my story.

 

Hour 1. I arrive on scene. The bucket of bolts in which I limped up the street rattles and clanks while I park. The engine sputters, even after I’ve removed the key, so I step on the brake and pop the clutch. Great Success, the engine dies but then clouds of steam, or perhaps white smoke, billow out from under the hood. I could pop the hood, but fear immolation. The neighbors seem intrigued. Children rush to greet me, their parents long departed. My sister slumbers on the couch. Luckily, she has rallied at some point, just in time to remove the pizza from the oven, and it now cools on a counter. I realize that I have no idea where, if anywhere, there’s a fire extinguisher, so stand peering out the front door window until the haze dissipates above the car. High Threes!

 

Hour 2. The girls and I sup silently while they watch TV. I am strangely soothed by the dulcet tones of my sister’s breathing. Thinking to bribe the girls into cleaning up the kitchen, I offer ice cream. Sadly, they’ve already had some, as an appetizer. I wash the dishes while the children disappear upstairs to watch TV. Then: “Uncle Patrick, can you come upstairs?” Shannon leads me to the bathroom where Abby sits on the toilet, suffering: “I wanted to poo, but it wouldn’t all come out. And even though I’m sitting down, my legs feel weak.” She hyperventilates while sobbing vaguely. I find that my legs, too, are weak from the fragrant ambience and that I, also, want to sob. Retreating, I offer hope for her future health.

 

Hour 3. Shannon and I watch Hannah Montana. Abby sits toileted with the door partially open–but suitably distant–calling out from time to time to ask what we’re doing. Our answer doesn’t change. We are well into The Suite Life of Cody and Bob (or some such) when Abby appears, miraculously restored. My eyelids surprise me by growing heavy. I remember that I’ve been up since 0300 but vow upon my Mother’s urn that I will not be the next Michaelis to fade. I rise and go out on the deck. The air is vaguely refreshing. After a few minutes I remember the computer. I log in and open the browser, but it resists me. Only just now have I been able to get online: comcast.net doesn’t recognize this computer and has blocked me from accessing the outside world. Remembering my .Mac email account, I open apple.com but this Windows device refuses to display the .Mac chart tab that I need to open my account. Cleverly, I search the site for “.Mac”: Great Success! High Three! I open a New message and struggle to remain conscious, that the world may know my story.

 

Hour 4 approaches. The girls, upstairs, watch TV. My sister, on the couch, slumbers. I, like the Dude, abide.

 

One more thing to knock off the list of “Things I’ve Never Experienced”

Item #137: Food Poisoning.

Yikes. Last night was a long night.

Veg’ables!

Today it is supposed to rain, but by the time Mitch and I get out to the farm the sun is already shining, showing acres and acres of green and gold, the patterns of foliage shifting every few rows as green lettuce gives way to red lettuce which gives way to beans, which gives way in turn to corn.

For Mitch, this is a return to the familiar, stepping out of the car onto the very spot where he started work every day for the last three summers, this one being the first year he’s not worked in these fields but instead, in an office; for me it is a return to a seldom-seen, mysterious place that holds within its grounds some of my best memories of recent summers: the Feast on the Field, lunchtime visits with donuts and “jet fuel,” late afternoon harvests for our own kitchen, farm dinners that extended far into the evening with lots of wine, lit candles and delicious, home-cooked food – the sort of meals that I return to for days afterward, remembering onion tarts, butternut squash lasagne, chicken with figs and green olives.

We came out here to work for the day, both of us, in exchange for fresh vegetables, and to visit with the crew, which has seen only a few changes over the last few years. The morning passes quickly since we arrived a bit late, but by the time break hits, we’re all hungry, and we squeeze around the lunch table to a meal made up entirely of sweets: Kim’s “black and blue” berry pie, Amber’s zucchini bread, my chocolate cupcakes. All three are gone within minutes, victim to the legendary Cedarville sweet tooth, and we all go back to work. (However, I must add that lunch, when it arrived, consisted primarily of fresh vegetables: raw corn, tomatoes, basil, cucumber… Not all is chocolate and pastry, no, it just happens that that is my favorite part.)

By the time we come home at the end of the day, we have more vegetables than we can, as Mitch says, “shake a stick at,” and I have grand plans for them all: pesto, zucchini bread (which is in the oven right now), blackberry pie. We’ll eat well for a while – and then we’ll go back to work for more.

So darn cute. Seriously.

This post made my morning:

The Proper Way to Eat an Olive (from Gabe and Ashley)

Those photos take me right back to the days when I used to eat olives ten at a time, one on each finger – which wasn’t all that long ago, actually. I still eat them like that when no one’s looking.

I’m an enormous warrior

To which Middle Earth race do you belong?

Numenorean
Take this quiz!

 

A writing exercise gone awry

Today is the day I start writing again. It’s been a long time – over a year – since I’ve written regularly, and I have gotten out of the habit of making observations, of documenting the conversations and gestures of those around me, the details that make the place I’m in a particular, memorable place.

For example: today I am at the Black Drop. Having consumed most of a small pot of Earl Grey tea, an everything bagel with cream cheese, and a matonella brownie over the course of the morning, I am now pleasantly caffienated, well-fed and reading typing reading typing surfing the Internet reading. I am also eavesdropping on other customers.

I have been here for nearly four hours.

Effectively, I have moved into this table – unpacked my bag, tucked my pen behind my ear, plugged my laptop in. I have listened. I have heard, from a woman in her sixties, who is red-cheeked and unmistakably happy in a deep, deep way that has more to do with life in general than with this moment in particular, a few great stories. She wears wire-framed glasses, a T-shirt from some beach-front town (is that a starfish on front or a seashell? Difficult to tell from here) and she tells her friend, whose face I cannot see but whose hair is dyed darker and is more deliberately styled than my lady’s charming gray windswept pixie cut: “The last person I took up there was my best friend and I could’ve kept her there forever. I mean, she just understood the place, she got it–she helped with what needed helping, and she just loved the place. Of course, there are some people I wouldn’t dream of taking up there.”

I think immediately of Howards End. I imagine an estate at first, but then, stealing a second glance at the woman (who sees me looking and smiles), I decide she’d be more the sort to own a cabin in a clearing with water close by. For some reason, Canada comes to mind – Vancouver Island, perhaps? She has a family, of course, but her children are grown and she has this cabin that she visits with her husband a few times a year, and it has a big porch, lots of light, a garden full of brilliant blooms like xenias, chysanthemums and tulips, and white bookshelves full of books. Rag rugs, pale blue dishes, watercolors on the walls in white frames.

By the time I catch up to her conversation again, she’s talking about her aunt, who had succeeded in alienating the rest of the family before she died, all except for this woman, who went on to tell about how her aunt would drop in unannounced for sixteen-day visits and demand to be taken garage-saling every Saturday during her stay.

She tells how this same aunt worked for the CIA, while her uncle was a mole for the CIA for years, and about how the aunt had all this excellent really valuable stuff in her house that she kept from the family by bequeathing it to the executor of her will, one sketchy friend, and, in a particularly interesting case, a museum.

See, one of my lady’s cousins, the son of a sister that the aunt was particularly furious with, had admired a certain painting for years – apparently the work of a well-known artist who also happened to be a family friend – and when the aunt died, she willed the painting to the museum in the cousin’s hometown “so that he could go look at it.” Thoughtful.

See what I mean, though? You can’t make stuff like this up. It’s great.

The peacock of Cornwall Ave.

Every year in Bellingham, we have this splendid festival: the chalk art festival. And every year, I forget about it until the next day, when my walk into town reveals a sidewalk more vivid, more illustrated than that sidewalk has been during the last eleven months. Every year, I think, belatedly, that I’d like to participate, but every year I forget – again.

Last year was the exception, because I actually looked into participation fees and then promptly changed my plans – who knew chalk and sidewalk could be so pricey?  I abandoned any plans of participating for a few more years, at least.

This morning, however, our weekly trip to the Farmer’s Market revealed a sidewalk that was not only illustrated, but also populated, as the festival kicked off for this year. Cornwall was blocked off and full of white tents and art vendors, as well as the chalk artists themselves, all smudged in brilliant shades of chalk, fingertips, elbows, knees and all.

My favorite piece-in-progress was easily the peacock in front of Kendrick’s: all feathers and eyes, in blue, yellow and green. Tomorrow I’ll keep my eyes open for the winning ribbons.

Looming on the horizon: many fun things

While I’m enjoying a nice, sparsely-booked summer, with a mellow show here and a mellow show there, I’m starting to look forward to the fall. Though I still don’t have a whole lot booked for the next few months, there’s tons of peripheral music projects cropping up that I thought I’d fill you in on:

• Go Slowpoke has been recording their first album over the last few months, and I got to sing soulful ooos and aaas to Peter’s sad, angry, beautiful songs. He’s recording at Actual Air, out past Deming, and I had a great time singing in the living room of a cabin decorated with gnomes and enormous green glass lamps. This one should be out in the next month or two, I hear.
• Peter Tomaszewski is also recording his first album, with the recording expertise of Dave Brown. Both Mitch and I got to play on this one: Mitch and Peter played dueling guitars on the legendary “Mountain Song,” while Peter and I sang a darling duet on “Stranger.” Both Rosenburgs appear in the epic choir of “The Ring,” in multiple, harmonizing tracks. Recording with Peter involved lots of white wine and a trip to the Horseshoe for coffee and potato burritos at midnight.Another fun aspect of Peter’s CD is that it’s as close to an Avon Lady reunion disc as I think we’ll ever get (for those of you who remember from high school), with appearances from Nathan B., as well as Mitch. Sadly, no Matt, and even more sadly still, no Nate, but Greg McBride (formerly of Can I Be She-Ra?) shows up at least once, as does Shane Winje. This CD has been months in the making, and though it will sound gorgeous when it’s finished, it could easily be months more in the mixing.
• Armonikos is releasing their first album on Murder Mountain Records this month, and I got to do the album artwork. Clouds, barges and crosshatching, oh my! I had a great time figuring out how the hell to draw a barge, but once the guys at MM got it all laid out and tinted red, the case looked fabulous. I hear the CD sounds fabulous, too.
• What’s Up! magazine is apparently joining forces with Murder Mountain, Clickpop Records and some other local peeps to release a compilation of local Bellingham music. Originally slated for release in September, there have been some rumored delays, so I’m not sure what’s happening now – but “That Old Trick” has been included in the line-up, as well as tracks from tons of great local bands: The Gallus Brothers, Black Eyes & Neckties, The Mission Orange, The Braille Tapes, Yes Oh Yes and more more more. I nearly passed out when I saw the list, I was so excited.
• Bug Jerome’s dance EP, Scary Parking Lot Club, is still in the works, too, but everything I’ve heard from it is stellar – the best Bug yet – and I got to sing, creepy-Thea-choir-style, on one of the coolest songs he’s come up with so far. Not sure when it’ll be finished, though. Hopefully soon.
• Halo of Bees has been on a summer hiatus, while half the band is in Alaska for the sunny months, touring with The Growers. When they come back, who knows? We might just take Bellingham by storm.
• On another note entirely, I’ve had some opportunities come up at our church, Oikos, to lead worship, which is both humbling and terrifying at once. I’ve been playing the band for most of the past year, but now I’m gearing up to lead in both a community group and a women’s retreat this fall, and it is a tremendous challenge for me to actually lead other people in singing (and playing), rather than go off on my own little solo-y tangent. I’m glad for the challenge, though, and I’m looking forward to serving God in this new way, apprehensive though I may be.

What a month September will be! And what a month August has been so far. It’s seventy-nine degrees.