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ROUND AND ROUND AGAIN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

So there on page 41 of Jeffrey Eugenides’ third novel, The Marriage Plot, I find he’s cribbed one of my fundamental arguments, the one about how the older you get, the faster time goes. Or, as he puts it, seems to go. And he didn’t even give me a footnote. Alas. (Where, oh where, by the way, has the year gone?)

At first I was going to say nothing new really happened this time around, but that’s not quite accurate. A stranger in one store did approach me to ask, “Has anyone told you how you look just like the drummer in Fleetwood Mac?” Could it be my ponytail? The one that would finally tie in the back?

And then, thanks to one inspired Christmas present last year (and wondrously repeated a few days ago), I’m swimming a half-mile daily in the city’s indoor pool. I wouldn’t say I enjoy it – laps are strenuous, after all – but the effort’s somehow refreshing and invigorating. Maybe it will also give my pun-prone physician a smile at my next physical. Could it be the giver’s in cahoots with him?

We did enjoy some all-too-short getaways through the year. Camden, Maine, in deep winter, instilled in me a fondness for tulips, thanks to a devotee’s store; Cape Cod in early summer included a panorama from the lantern room atop a lighthouse; Vermont in late summer, before the foliage turned, felt perfect.

Quaker activities have me hopping around New England, and with the Revels Singers, I performed in five concerts this fall, on top of weekly rehearsals. Add to that the release of four of my (experimental) novels and a brace of collected poetry as ebooks, which comes as a relief, and several public readings.

In addition, the Red Barn frequently draws readers from five continents, even if we’re still waiting for Antarctica. I even made my YouTube debut as the subject of an hour-long interview, as you may recall. As for the weeds in the garden or the snow in the driveway, well, can we get philosophical?

The one thing that’s been going all too slow is renovating the bathroom, which finally began before the bathtub could fall through the ceiling to the dining room. We’ll spare you the details. Could it be because everyone’s being paid by the hour? Or just the realities of trying to cope with a century-plus house? (The latter, mostly.)

So here we are, with the new year bringing us another presidential primary, the payoff on our mortgage by midyear, and my 50th high school reunion. If we survived a Social Security payment snafu at the beginning of last year, well, here we go again. Wishing you and yours all the best.

THE STASH

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

100_9689A woodpile needs time to season if it’s going to do any good in heating the house. It’s a relief knowing this is ready. This is how it looks in a typical year, unlike this uncommonly warm December. Last time we looked at the forecast, though, snow was finally around the corner. We’re hoping. This is, after all, New England.

NEW POTATOES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

We’ve tried growing them in barrels, but that’s a long story. Sometimes we’ve just harvested them from rows in the garden.

Either way is always an experience.

~*~

dig up the last of the potatoes
fill a large basket

roasted with garlic
the marble-sized ones quite tasty
along with the softest skin

another year
I empty two of our five potato barrels
amid spitting snow

poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson

KIDDIE CORNER TREATS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 11 Comments

Having voiced my theory about adults-only food, let me now counter it with kids-only tastes. Things you loved to eat as a kid but would rather avoid now.

(Dirt doesn’t count. I’m serious.)

Velveeta would be on my list, now that I’ve discovered real cheese in all varieties.

Angel food cake would be another.

We were even given slices of raw potato sprinkled with salt as a treat while dinner was cooking.

You get the picture. Now it’s your turn to add to that list.

F*** U-TURNS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Next time you see one of those “No U Turns” signs on someone’s driveway, think about their side of the story and the audacity of some of the public.

We know an old farm in Maine that has a driveway connecting to both the busy highway in front of the house and a country road to the side. It gets plenty of “summer people” congestion at the traffic light, along with drivers who try to beat it by driving taking the driveway – or worse, just driving through the yard.

Recently, during a sudden storm, one SUV dodged in under the tree in the front yard to deflect hail, in the process mowing down hostas and other flowers before then backing hard into the parked pickup truck on the way out, and gunning it down the road.

Later, when one of the residents of the house was turning up the driveway from the side road, another car, crowded with tourists, came the other direction – and gave her the finger when she refused to back out so they could pull on through. Look, it’s her home, not theirs!

Their New York plates did nothing to soften the reputation.

WALNUT ASSAULT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

Among the mature trees surrounding our house are several black walnuts, including one that hangs over the 1928 one-story addition where our kitchen sits. Its open ceiling allows us to hang pots, pans, and stemware from the joists – shall we just call it a rustic look? – and I’ve sometimes considered installing a skylight or two.

On the other side of that roof, squirrels strip the nuts from the trees early in the season of a typical year. Watching their frantic action can be quite amusing, first as the leaves on a branch shake furiously and then as a squirrel bounds away with a large ball in its mouth.

A few nuts might actually survive into autumn. More likely, we find them buried the next spring as we prepare the new garden and sift compost. Having lived here for a decade-and-a-half, we think we know what to anticipate as the seasons advance.

Not this year, to our surprise, at least as far as the walnuts go.

Our awareness that something was amiss began in the middle of the night. Was somebody trying to break into the house?

The next morning, though, as wind whipped around the house, the noise really picked up. Imagine someone hitting the kitchen roof with a baseball bat. Repeatedly, sometimes three or four a minute. The whack was enough to make us jump.

I moved one car further from the house – we’d seen what large hail did to a friend’s pickup truck and the damage wasn’t pretty. These nuts were larger and heavier, after all, and ones that fell on that side of the roof were bouncing into the driveway.

The tree still has a few nuts left on the branches, but the racket has slowed considerably. Instead, some of the pathways leading to the garden are now covered in walnuts. As my wife observed, it’s like trying to walk on marbles.

Between that and the noise, it’s enough to drive anyone nuts.

Or squirrelly.