It's all over but the shouting

Softball banquet. Check. Turned in the uniforms. Check. Lockers cleaned out. Check. Instruments returned. Check. And absolutely nobody on Facebook in the computer room.  Check.

JV Softball, not a winning season but a team come together in the end

Yep, finals week has begun.  Nobody but Chip and me and the pets in the family room watching the Brewers, the girls deeply embedded in their rooms.  Maybe studying, maybe not.  Not my gig anymore.

Junior Prom 2010

Another school year coming to a close, another summer begins. I cheer on behalf of most but not all kids this time of year because having worked as a school nurse I know that for some kids of poverty or those with trouble in their families, summer is a time of worry, instability and boredom...lacking in structure or any kind of summer fun that many of us take for granted: swimming, vacations, barbecues, time to dream, rest, plenty of food.  School is a safe haven for more kids than my heart can ache for.  Not so much a problem for these sassy pants below, my favorite picture ever of the waning days of the school year.

Today I shopped for a personal calendar and although the 2011 calendars are not out in the stores yet, the academic calendars continue to suit my needs fine. January Schmanuary.  My sun continues to rise and set by the Madison Public School District calendar for a few more years.

Good job again, my girls.  You don't read often but in case you read today, I'm proud of you and love you more than I can ever put into words.  Looking forward to a fun summer with you.

Ten Chimneys...well nine just didn't work aesthetically

If out of town guests are good for anything it’s that they always get me to those places I’ve yet to go.  It’s a little tricky with my mom having visited regularly for the last eight years because although she still can’t reliably pronounce most of them, she’s been to most of the sights of the region.  We’ve done art tours, festivals, small towns, big towns, Ho-Chunk, Taliesen, House on the Rock, downtown, both malls and plenty of softball fields.  I shake the keys and Mom comes runnin’.  She’s a lifelong non-driver who rides shotgun with enthusiasm and wonder wherever we go.  She has no urgency because she still thinks it’s just marvelous that anybody knows how to drive a car.  She never really knows where we are but it's of little matter to her.  I could drive around the block a hundred times and she’d find a new thing to spot out the window every time.

Ten Chimneys, Alfred's aesthetic choice for a name even though there were nine at the time and as many as 11 or 12 

This week we visited Ten Chimneys, the lifelong family home of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.  Alfred and Lynn were probably the most famous stage actors of American theater from the 1920s through the 1950s performing in 24 plays together and the toast of Broadway for much of that time.  

Tucked into the countryside outside of Milwaukee, the home sits in the town of Genessee Depot, Unincorporated.  Not sure what that meant back in the day but I know it now means it’s a pain in the ass to try and start a business there...that is to say if you talk to the newest shop owner in town.  You can easily miss the sign for Genessee Depot and the town itself for that matter.  After winding off the highway through miles of rolling farmland (now dotted with awkward beige housing developments named lamely Country Meadows and Rolling Hills-ish type names), there’s a sharp left onto what feels like a promising main drag that quickly fizzles into rolling farm land again.  However, if you make a right at the turn, you amble into the woods and therein lies Ten Chimneys.  

Dioramas tell the tale in the visitor's center

The family house started as a place to stash Alfred’s spendthrift mother away from the shopping of downtown Milwaukee.  Soon after they were married, Alfred and Lynn made Genessee Depot their annual summer home to relax, play farmer and be celebrity hosts to the literati and fellow actors of their time:  Noel Coward, Carol Channing, Helen Hayes and Lawrence Olivier to name a few.  Although not included on the tour, there is good information that the compound in its heyday was a destination of wild sexual decadence.  It would seem given the house has only four bedrooms and they reportedly hosted a multitude of guests each summer, the math suggests there had to have been some doubling and tripling up.  Just sayin.  Also Noel Coward liked to walk around the grounds naked causing at least one cook to quit.  But that’s as racy as the tour got.

Six of the ten

What I took away most from this tour was that despite their fame and the adulation of their peers and their fans, they maintained a lifelong commitment to their leisure time.  They never acted during the summers so they could travel to Wisconsin and recharge their creative and personal batteries and build more chimneys.  Then they did something really radical.  They retired to Ten Chimneys in 1960 and enjoyed 17 more years together before he passed away.  She died about six years later.   Our trip was a great segue to my own annual summer recharge in beautiful southeast Wisconsin.  If the Lunts could enjoy their summers off, then so will I.  Maybe I’ll return to Broadway in the fall.

A happy post for a change

The week’s chores are done.  A thing I was dreading is done and I was sort of right to dread it.  It didn’t go great.  But it’s over.  And a mother of teenagers moves on easily from less than perfection.  Because everyday I epically fail at something (“We’re out of juiceboxes and you said you would get some!” Stomp stomp stomp) so why should this feel different? Moving on....

The humidity has finally lifted leaving behind a perfect series of sunshiney days ahead. My peony bushes have bloomed in their usual glorious manner.  The roofers at my neighbor’s house are playing oldies on a boombox for everyone to enjoy whether they want to or not.  I don’t know if it’s a function of my age or of a relatively hectic life that I feel I should celebrate and savor these moments.  Kind of like when the kids were little and sick every other week it seemed and we would all wake up in the morning and I would say to myself, “hmm…everybody healthy this morning?” and if we were, I did a little dance.  Because it frequently turned on a dime with a whiney “my tummy hurts” followed by a hurl upon the sofa.

My friend was profiled this month in a magazine about working women and she reflected that after breast cancer treatment last year she now makes a point of scheduling time for herself to slow down and enjoy regular breaks in her days and honors these moments or hours in her schedule as if they were doctor’s appointments.  A clever and healthy functional outcome of her breast cancer experience.  She’s the best example of a working parent who manages to do it all but with reflection so that, like a sailboat, with occasional adjustments of the keel and the mast she keeps wind in her sails.  I’m not sure she would say she always made a point of working hard on that balance before breast cancer but I am glad she strives for it now.  And I think she'd be the first to say you don't need a health scare to work on that balance for yourself.  She's the one who keeps trying to get me to take a job at Starbucks because it looks like fun.

I usually make downtime for myself but not without involving little projects if I can that achieve something noble or kind to counter any niggling guilt. The peonies are so ridiculous right now that I made bouquets for my neighbors.  But then I made myself a giant bouquet as well.  So much for guilt.  Life balance. And now here I sit luxuriating in the written word, listening to the birds and the oldies while my mom reads me articles in the newspaper that I’ve explicitly stated I've already read.

Savor. Savor. Savor. 

The naked and the unwashed

A recent sobering and yet comical event that needs no further elaboration drove home the point to a woman of a certain age that she should always visit the lav before ever hopping on a treadmill.  Ugh, the women's locker room...ick on so many levels.  Public bathrooms are stressful enough without adding nude people sauntering about putting on deodorant and hair gel while grabbing looky-loos at themselves in the mirrors.  I unaffectionately call them "the nakeds."

Pompeii nudes.  A most decadent civilization that would have enjoyed and may even have founded the YMCA

I grew up in a houseful of women and then lived four years with college roommates who never ever closed a door unless there were boys or dads around.  It’s not like I can’t handle nudity.  I like to think I'm very nude friendly with close friends and family and I do enjoy a nude artfully posed.  But as for the rabble at the gym….nope, no thank you.  And the thing of it is, health club nakeds seem just a little too into being naked in front of strangers and I’m not alone in this feeling having talked with several friends.  We agree that there are definitely fitness exhibitionists.  Their swaggers taunt my priggishness.

Today I escaped nudity in my mad dash through the locker room but was unfortunately not spared a myriad of glamour don'ts that come from getting ready for work out of the bottom of a gym bag.  Tragic.

He was on the elliptical next to me

25 years and it's like yesterday

Sometimes it’s good to have a little distance from one’s computer if only to spare dear readers from the minutiae of one’s thoughts and feelings at a 25^th college reunion.   In a nutshell:  I had great taste in friends in college and it’s good to be me.

Our approach into the Philadelphia airport was almost balletic, slow motion pirouettes one wing up around and around again until finally it was our turn to land. I always look out my window for familiar sites, I-95, the Delaware River bridges and finally the familiar tall buildings of my hometown. 

Crossing the river from downtown into West Philadelphia, my former stomping grounds twice

The University of Pennsylvania.  Still not Penn State.  A place in time where I met these tragically hip people who strangely continue to call me friend.  We don’t talk often but when we get back together it takes just a minute or two to fall into old patterns of silliness and easy intimacy.  This weekend was the finale of a whirlwind month filled with old friends from childhood through college.  My cup runneth over.  I’m spoiled and ruined forever.

Gorgeous women of a certain age

The only guy on our dorm hallway with a computer.  He would have to kick us out of his room to do his homework.  We liked to play a new thing called video games.

Why anybody thought this foursome was a good idea is beyond me and also beyond belief

We were once called the 4 Wah Stop 

and I'll leave it there

An unexpected benefit to spending time with a whole bunch of people exactly the same age as myself was commiserating over the universal experiences we’re sharing in real time.  Prom dresses, sex talks, college tuitions, under-age drinking, spastic first-time drivers, marital troubles, aging parents, losing parents, alcohol recovery (not me yet), high school athletics, ACTs, ADD, STDs, SSRIs.  An inexhaustible amount of topics straight out of ABC afterschool specials of our youth and Dateline NBC.  None of us has perfect kids or marriages and everyone seemed quite open and anxious to share.  Most of us have been moved to great acts of love and, at times, despair in managing our families and we were delighted to sit and catch up leisurely while grabbing each other Yuenglings for the better part of the afternoon. 

It's was if no time had passed at all

I had to laugh at the 10^th reunioners bringing up the rear of the parade down Locust Walk, a weary stroller brigade starring harried parents and screaming tired 5 year olds. Been there, done that….and so not fun.   I may have teenagers who don’t do their homework and sass me up down and sideways but they had no interest in attending or ruining my reunion Saturday.  Ours was a jolly tent and no sippy cups in sight.

Kids present only on cell phones since we no longer have strollers

Home sweet home with my mama in time for my birthday.  She deemed my kindle "kind of cheap looking."  It's going to be an awesome month.

How can Milwaukee look so beautiful?

Garbled thoughts of a dreary week

My mind's a jumble again and I'm not alone.  No sun for five days.  I can't quite alight on one thought or one task.  I'm worried about the little Dutch boy who is the lone survivor of a plane crash in Libya.  I'm shocked about the coalition government in England.  I want to know exactly what a coalition government means.  I thought we were out of peanut butter but then I found a jar thus sabotaging my trip to the grocery store.  I worried I might ruin the mashed potatoes at dinner.  I saw a movie this afternoon with a friend who is always on the go and when she suggests a movie rather than a bike ride or a run, well, it's time to look out the window for hail, fire and brimstone.  The movie we went to see, City Island,  was a lot of family yelling and miscommunication in a Shakespearean fashion that all felt about right given the mood in Madison right now.  Everybody is down.

Chip, possibly the sunniest and perkiest of personalities, sent me a text that he was crabby about the weather and the rainy day golfers.  Also a sign of the apocalypse when weather affects the big man.  Olivia is positively out of gas and tested out from APs this week and taking a mental health day on Friday to watch a Toddlers and Tiaras marathon and eat simple carbohydrates like puddings and crackers.  Ally's playing softball in Under Armor and so cold that last night that she had to shower for 30 minutes before dinner just to bring up her core temperature to eat.  I'm not sure how much more we all can all take.  The sun is supposed to return tomorrow.

I'm off to my 25th college reunion tomorrow and to fetch Nana back to the Midwest.  Hopefully Nana will bring the sun with her or it's going to be pretty cold smoking her ciggies on the back porch.  She of course refuses to use the little portable heater I bought for her out there for fear of....yes, you guessed it, a fire.  Because cigarettes aren't unsafe at all in that respect.

The veggie patch has been planted, the garden is in good shape.  What everything living needs right now is a little sunshine.

I'm cold and my sneakers are wet

I have stood in the rain for two days now as part of my civic duties and all I can say is, volunteerism sucks in bad weather.

A plant sale in early May in Wisconsin can easily be one of the coldest events to attend during a year.  Just because it says May on the calendar does not mean it can't be in the low 40s and snowing an hour north.  Indeed we had sleet here.  My days of celebrating Mother's Day by gardening are long gone with our move to Wisconsin.  Tomorrow, I'll be curled up trying to figure out my birthday Kindle (thanks Dad) watching probably bad TV and wet snow out the window.

These plants were actually shivering in my garage.  I saw it.

All the volunteers at the plant sale were good sports because it's for a good cause, children's charities, and I will say that if there is one benefit to having a plant sale in miserable weather is that only the heartiest of gardeners are out shopping.  I learned a lot about plants and how to take care of them from the customers alone.  There weren't too many Mother's Day shoppers out while I worked either day, except one baffled looking man with his two daughters today.  Presumably those folks who buy one plant a year (exactly the opposite of the sort of gift you'd advise giving a mom who already has eight million things to take care of) are scared off by clouds and cold temperatures and instead head to Walgreens to select from their line of fine fragrances by Prince Matchabelli and Oleg Cassini.

And Farmer's Market, can't forget that, as part of my ongoing and so far incredibly lame efforts to shop local produce.   I headed off to the west side market without a plan again (note to self: stop doing that!) so ended up with only fresh cut rhubarb and potted mint to plant for my soon to be veggie patch on the side of my house.  Chip, becoming desperate for morels, ignored my negativity about finding said morels and braved the Capitol farmers' market coming up with these gorgeous beauties, soon to be in our bellies.

Morels I love u

Strawberry Rhubarb crisp.  I'm not a huge berry dessert gal but this was delicioso.  Thanks, Handy Ann... a person with the best recipe box in the neighborhood, readily accessible to her fingertips and always willing to share.  I don't even think she leaves ingredients out of the recipe either...you know, so yours never tastes as good?

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and Aunties who have a hand in raising up all these damn children underfoot everywhere.  I hope you have a moment tomorrow to savor the day in between brunch and cleaning up what the cat dragged in and throwing in a load of laundry and organizing for Monday morning.

Happy Mother's Day to my three cybermoms, Faye N., Gerry C., and Ann P.  Love you.