hump day nuggets :: falling

hump day nuggets :: little bits of the season in photos and words about the last week

I forget how much I enjoy this time of year.  The hillsides are slowly coming back to life with bits of green stretching to peek through the brown, crusty layer of dried grass that covers the sprawling farmland around us.  Wild fennel has gone to seed and the lemon-colored flower heads look like a mini-fireworks show exploding on the stretch of road between town and home.  The artichokes and sunflowers are spent and slowing shrinking into shells of their former, glorious selves.  It is time for a rest is what nature is telling me and I feel it, too.

nuggets.

:: Style.  School photos were scheduled for this week and the boy was all about setting out his outfit the night before.  This year's uniform consisted of slightly dirty cargo shorts, a button-down surfer shirt that says Rude Boy on the side, a green carabiner hanging from belt loop, a soaring eagle (or hawk?) pendant necklace, braided wrist cuff, electric blue shoes and his wild hair flowing.  Imagine it, if you will.  He tried to get me to say yes to donning his deep purple baseball cap with the missing button on top, but I felt that would have just taken him over the crazy line.  A mom does have her limits, right?  He looked like Grady and that's all I could want for a third grade school picture.

::  Jog-a-thon.  Grady has been hitting the streets in order to obtain local sponsors for the jog-a-thon at his school.  This year he wrote a little cheat-sheet for his speech and was a little shy in asking people to sponsor him.  It's hard to ask for money, but when he shared that this money would go to buy special art supplies and provide field trips for his third grade class - no one could refuse.  This is the only fundraiser that requires the children to solicit money and I think it's a really important lesson in teaching them that working for something, getting invested in the cause, performing the task, following up, sharing results and reaping the rewards is worthwhile.  He made a difference for his class.

It was a really warm day last Friday and he ended up running 19 laps (1/8 mile each) in about 30 minutes.  The principal was there spraying the kids with a garden hose as they went by and there was hip-hop music blaring from the school sound system.  He was so proud of his accomplishments and that his parents were there to see him run and take pictures.

::  Poetry.  I had the privilege to spend last Friday evening listening to the lovely and insightful poet, Mary Oliver.  She was witty, strong, wise, funny, insightful, calming and sharp.  If you ever have the chance to hear her read her work, jump at the chance.  It was amazing.

:: Chicken Model.  This hen's name is Kiki Larue and is named after my best friend (whose name is not Kiki Larue, but that's what G has been calling her for years).  Kiki's blond twin, Dolly, died a few months back from starvation and Kiki has been lost without her.  She roosts all alone on her perch and navigates the pasture all day by herself.  She has taken to hopping up to the highest point on our porch, stopping to survey the land, squawk for a bit and then elegantly fly down from her post and scratches & pecks just along the periphery of the rest of the group.  I talk to her a lot, but she just looks at me like I need to get a life.  Enough said.

:: Cooking.  I've been doing a fair amount of cooking around here and made my first ever pesto using Alice Water's recipe.  Spaghetti & meatballs just may be my new favorite Sunday night dinner, as there is really no better way to tuck-in a weekend than gathering around the table with a warm plate of pasta and recalling all that has happened in the span of a few days.  I also had a failed attempt at yogurt and not sure where I went wrong, but I'll try again.

Yes, another martini photo-op.  They are all the rage around here lately.

:: Reading.  All three of us are into different books at the moment, but we are all very much into reading right now.  I go through phases where I'm reading novel after novel (the phase I'm in now) and then I'll hit a wall and have to resort to magazines and cookbooks until the mood strikes me to delve into another book.  I just finished Joyce Maynard's At Home in this World: A memoir and I'm about to start Barbara Kingsolver's Lacuna.  Grady has been on a Roald Dahl binge for the last week and finished Fantastic Mr. Fox, Esio Trot, Revolting Rhymes, BFG and opened up The Witches this morning on the ride to school.  I love watching him go deep into a book and get lost in it.  Steve is having a harder time getting into the Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, but is giving it time and learning the meaning of a few new words in the process.  He has been the bedtime reader-on-duty for the boy and orates a chapter each evening from The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White.

:: Soccer.  The season ended over the weekend and a series of 5 games were on the calendar starting Friday night.  Grady scored his first goal ever on Saturday afternoon.  I got all teary, as he ran down the field to hug a fellow teammate and celebrate.  He's waited almost 10 months for a soccer goal and he finally got one (he played indoor winter and now outdoor fall season).  Good thing he had on his lucky underwear, right?  What a great kid-moment.

All blurry photos...they were moving too fast for me to capture!

:: Wrestling.  G wants to wrestle, or as he calls it "fight", with his dad almost every day.  I don't quite understand it, but just know that I will not be a part of it.  As I like to tell the boy, I'm too fragile to do that with you.  Go see your dad.  And off he goes.  Mild insanity dominates our living room almost every evening this week.

:: Loving.  I'm enjoying this season and settling in, paying attention to the changes and shifts going on around me in nature and trying to be still...to just be.

I love being the person Grady goes to when he wants to relocate a spider.

I love that I purchased $1.50 worth of artwork from that same little boy over the weekend.

I love that when we exit the car I always ask - Shall we? And the boy always responds - I think we shall.

I love the late afternoon light in my home right now, as the sun starts its decent just west us.

I love the daily parade of turkeys that clumsily strut through our yard, as evening approaches.

I love neighborly visits.

I love coming home to gifted produce sitting on my porch.

Happy hump day, friends.