Hibernation Practice

Fall is here for keeps this time, and that means remembering how to dress for 55º weather (answer: a medium-weight sweater, a light field jacket, and an extra scarf in the bottom of your bag like a security blanket) again. Every year there's a premature calm as the air cools down and the space inside your head opens its windows again and you look at words like "cinnamon" and sound them out as though they're slowly recovered memories. But after that---and here we are right now---comes the mild panic of realizing that you needed new jeans in April but never did anything to solve the problem before skirt weather arrived. That the duvet has been coverless since it was relegated to storage for four months. That yes, IF you wait long enough the empty flowerpots on the deck will be hidden with snow, but we're really not quite at that point yet and they're taunting you when you look out the kitchen window with your coffee every morning.

Behold: a new duvet cover in the subtlest ivory check, woven out in organic cotton. Thank you Muji!

Everything lately is busy and cloudy, and the former is only somewhat evened out by the latter. I started doubling down on keeping a to-do list in my phone and I'm not sure what's better for me, the satisfaction of ticking items off, or the tiredness that comes with doing so. The temptation to hibernate early is a compelling one, but stubbornness works wonders. 

Tonight it's baseball, and the sting of watching the (now officially, historically bad) 45-110 Baltimore Orioles  play the 105-51 Boston Red Sox at Fenway. While I'm a Bad Baseball Fan for admitting this, I'd really rather not be moping through the game tonight under these circumstances. What could make this worse, you ask? That's a great question, and the answer is that I'm going to the game on Wednesday as well. What can you do?

This past week's dahlia share featured this goth beauty that was bigger than my cat's head.

No work for me on Friday, Cynthia and Jason are getting married and I get to be there (which makes me so happy). This has been such a strange year for everyone I know, it seems like. I feel relieved when the changes taking place are good ones and not bad ones, but I wish there were more good to outweigh everything else. The worse things get in the world at large, the more motivating it is to try and make tiny improvements in our personal worlds. I'm still impatient and mean, but I've been getting better at making the bed in the morning. Maybe that's a first step to bigger and grander improvements, but if it comes to nothing I at least appreciate having a tidy place to come home to in the evening.

Mid-September

It's September 18, and for whatever reason I thought I'd take another look at this empty storage locker of mine. Hello, here I am, nice to see you again.

Summer went by in waves of sleeplessness and humidity, wasps inadvertently jailing themselves in the overhead bathroom light fixture and people living on cold watermelon and gin. We broke down (I broke down, to be more accurate in my heat jocking) and bought air conditioners, making this only the second time in my life that I've lived with something other than pasty stale heat for 3 and a half months. I will charitably admit that it's not so bad.

The cats didn't seem to notice the selective change in temperature and continued laying around as usual. Heat must be easier to tune out when you're sleeping 14 hours a day.

It's mid-September and everything is flowers and the feeling of rushing around for that last capture of blooming life and natural warmth. My dahlia share from Fivefork Farms is buoying me through uncertain weather one bouquet, one week at a time, and I realized that we might not get the last chance for beach weather that we did last year. I think I'm okay with this? I pulled my sweaters out two weeks ago and I'm reluctant to retrace my steps, but just one more day or so should do it. Get behind me, Florence.

Fivefork Farms' shares go on sale in winter and always sell out. Please give them your money; I only want the best for you.

Saturday was our 1st wedding anniversary, which seems kind of goofy to make a big deal about since we've pretty much been together since 2010. Since the 1st anniversary is traditionally the "paper" anniversary, he bought me scratchers, which is the perfect gift for every occasion (as the Massachusetts Lottery reminds everyone each holiday season) including this one. I won $60 and felt like we'd both come out on top.

Cynthia and Jason bought us champagne when we got married, but we saved it for our 1st anniversary

We went out to dinner at Puritan & Co. and it was one of those magical situations where everything we ordered was exactly as good as we hoped it would be. I had the best lamb that I've had since I was in Greece a decade ago and watermelon gin cocktails that were just right. It was about 62º outside when we left and we listened to early 2000s hip-hop in the car on the way home with the windows open. What more could you want? Nothing.

Earlier that day we stopped at Allandale Farm (2 farms in one post!) and bought ingredients for potato leek soup. Ian is ever a romantic and bought me the fiddle-leaf fig I was going to purchase, and which will probably not last as long as our marriage already has (my track record isn't so great with these).

The month is halfway through, it's almost time for playoff baseball (next year, fellow Orioles fans, next year) and rescuing flowers from the yard before cold snaps. I spent much too much time the other day alternating tabs on my computer between the weather forecast and linen duvet covers. Fall is coming and it might even be here already without my realizing it, equinox dates be damned. Wash the wool blankets while it's temperate enough to line-dry them, make the chili while the air is pleasant enough to lug the supplies home. Keep an eye on the flowers in your own backyard.