It is 45 degrees outside this morning.

58 in the house.  

I pulled the flannel-line pants out of the bureau where they've lain folded for months.  

The rich, papery redolence of fallen leaf is what strikes you as you step out the door.  

And the blue jays grow noisy again.

Kiernan, Aidan and Nico were playing with leggos on the floor.  Kiernan's mother was patiently explaining to him that she had to "run home to feed the baby."  Nico stretched on the floor and deadpanned: "Well, that's pretty silly.  You should take the car."  I could see she was still in that explaining-mom mode as started to say to Nico, "No, I mean . . . " but then she caught herself and broke into laughter.  

The other woman standing nearby also laughed and remarked, "Oh, he took what she said literally!"  

 I said, "Don't take anything Nico says at face value," but I could tell she really didn't recognize that Nico was joking.  I know she herself raised an autistic child and she works with special needs preschoolers every day -- so maybe it's not surprising that she took it that way.  We all build up our own filters to be ware of, I guess.

Tree swallows wove in the air a twisty pattern -- skimming and skirting the dunes and wrack of Napatree Spit.  At the dockage of Watch Hill harbor, the 200 gracile, slate-blue birds compacted abruptly into an unruly flock, circling and fluttering awkwardly between uncertain perches on swaying bayberry and dune rose.  Then they rose into the overcast sky and flew across the Pawcatuck estuary westward toward Mystic.  

May they eat a million mosquitos on their way to the hills of Honduras.

 

First week of school finished and the boys seem untroubled.  

They settled easily back into a routine with homework and early breakfasts and teachers to get to know.  

The boys are charming and smart is what we hear.

I stood on Moonstone beach under a glowering sky.  A south wind carried cold salt-spray from the dour, restless, gray-green sea.  Clutches of ungainly black cormorants flew swiftly eastward toward their rookeries.  In four thousand million years of oceanic heaving, have two identical waves ever crashed and foamed upon the sand?

"Senora Gallego."

Monica started today as Spanish teacher for Pine Point's K through 2nd grade.  There were games, some tears, a feltboard story about hermit crabs (borrowed from Debbie at church), toy crab races, and - as Nico informed me - all the 2nd-graders taught her their Spanish alphabet song.

It was the water communion at church, where each family brings a small container full of water that holds some meaning for them.  Everyone pours a little into the basin and says a few words.  Purified, this becomes the "holy water" for our congregation -- used in blessings and welcomings.  It's water from travels or from home or from a favorite spot on the seashore.  Or it is just water -- Earth blood as one man put it -- the stuff that links us all.

And we all do love water, probably because we are in essence still sea creatures.  We sweat and cry seawater.  We have calcium bones rather than the more sensible carbony wood, because that's what sea creatures build their structures of and we never broke the habit.  Our bodies' cells live in their wet, saline habitats --  in their own microcosmic ocean.  Our ancestors didn't so much leave the sea behind 400 million years ago; they learned to pick it up and carry it with them.

Non sequitur of the day:

After seeing a video clip that ended with the icon for NBC, Monica said, "Look, it could mean Nico Brown Corbin."

"I wish that it were made by MBC", he said.

"Why's that?" his mother asked.

"Cause then it would be Mechanical Boomerang Cats,"  he responded.  And he turned and walked away.

Nico has followed his brother up into the trees.  

Monica says that the same thing happened when Porter was six.  

I don't remember.

The physics and the danger of this three-dimensional space are like new playmates for him -- able deliciously to terrify not only himself, but his father.

For 20, 50, 80 years 

the green leaves of trees

take in the summer sunlight

and make of it

a woody architecture.

Now felled or fallen, 

cut and split, 

the stuff is neatly stacked.

And we'll steal those tight-packed

summer days

to warm a home in winter.

Summertime and the living is easy

Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high

Your daddy's rich; your mama's good lookin'

So hush little baby, don' you cry.

One of these days you're gonna rise up singin'

Gonna spread your wings and take to the sky

Till that days comes ain't nothin' can harm you

With your mama and your daddy standin' by.

Sweet Pisces son, bright Leo uprisin'

A storm-born boy with a tiger's roar

Of travelin' clans - the wide world is your cradle

Across the horizons you are destined to soar

So hush little boy - don' let nothin' distress you

Just close your eyes and settle back secure

Dream of the sky and of mountains below you

And dream of the roads that the world has in store.

Deep winter boy - once born in the northlands

Brimming with stories of summer inside

With Raven's high magic to get to the answers

A tough sturdy soul of oak, steel and pride.

Settle down boys - just another day endin'

And Mama and Daddy not far from your side

Snuggle down boys - let sleep creep upon you

Sail on the dreamscape on the night's quiet tide.

Original lyrics by G. Gershwin

Additional lyrics by A.B.

The last night of music at the winery.  Jazz under sunset,

and Yiri mourned the end of summer.

Their boys, just back from Czechia,

had six time zones of jet lag nipping at their heels, 

but disappeared into the twilight with Porter and Nico.

S

Pungent tang of grasscut is reaching through the window as  I type.  Monica is out with the mower putting on eau de petrol.

Summer's flown and in that spirit I fly over the highlights of the last weeks.  Chris and Hanno come to visit, bringing the boys back, from 3 weeks being spoiled down in Pennsylvania and Maryland.  We convince

them to spend the week on our beaches and trails rather than drive off into the heart of New England.  

So there is good food and good beer and visiting into the night and in the morning garden.

The woods are full of mushrooms and I want to forage.

For a week, the boys spend their days at camp.  The parents spend their days at work.  The CSA is as merciless with its tomatoes as it was with the kale and chard.

A guinea pig, Chino, has gone missing -- taking its rightful place in the food chain.  Porter catches a pair of great bluefish out in Long Island sound, which we devour with garlic and cold drinks.

The geen saturn is wrecked by an absent-minded, SUV upon an S-curve, and no one is hurt.  

The cuckoos fledge some young, but one of the parents is murdered by a car -- and languishes now in the freezer to be stuffed for display at the nature center. Juvenile hummingbirds fight over the nectar in the feeder.

And the nights grow colder -- nearing the 40's as though it weren't still August . . . .

Kettlecorn.

There's a flame under the cauldron that comes roaring to life.  You check your protective sleeves, flick down your visor and toss a half dozen kernels of popocorn into the rapidly heating oil.  You wait until they start to pop and quickly dump in the scoopful of popcorn and then directly upon that a smaller scoop of sugar.  You grab up the wooden paddle and start stirring the bubbling mix of kernel, oil and sugar.  Back, forth, around, back forth, around.  A few begin to pop and then a few more -- and you stir more vigorously.  Spatterings of oily sugar and rogue kernels fly up and most, but not all arc back into the great kettle.  A needle-sharp jab of oil hits an exposed bit of skin on your neck.  And then things intensify into a shocking machine-gun crescendo of popping and flying.  Passersby pause to see what the commotion is.  As the climax passes you slam down the lever and the roar of the burner stops, but the popping keeps going and you keep stirring as fast as you can.  Finally, you grab a handle and lever the whole cauldron up onto its side to dump the steaming kettlecorn out onto the perforated metal bin.  Once you spread it, salt it, spread it again and salt it again -- you have kettlecorn ready to bag and sell for the fairgoers.

For 7 hours at the Washington County fair, I made the batches, one after another and Gordon helped to bag them.  It's the year's great fundraiser for the cub scout pack -- and in exchange for our sweaty shifts -- we don't have to distract the scouts with fundraising for the rest of the year.

The thunderstorms and their torrents had passed on -- leaving the clouds to shred themselves into sunlit tatters.  I drove the back roads to the winery in North Stonington for the Thursday night music.  It was The River Gods playing -- roots rock -- a little reminiscent of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but with a bit of Grateful Dead mixed in and put out with mandolin and pedal steel guitar.

I was alone for the first set (they played till they'd broken one string too many).  The nearly full moon was rising in a lacework of blue clouds, and the purple peach sunset was fading down over the back horizon.  A treefrog was chuckling somewhere over my right shoulder.  Monica had gone to Boston to pick up Hanno and they arrived the same time as Yuri and Sarka.  Then the zinfandel and merlot and conversation flowed and I lost track of all but the most soulful of the music.

The next time you hear someone describe John McCain as a "maverick" this is a nice video to show them:

The URL is: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBfngOsvmA0

Box Lots

I went to the estate auction for Florence Drew -- who died a month shy of 96.  With a distracted flock of other bidders you wander along -- following the auctioneer as he jollies you along through the mounds and piles and boxes of an old lady's stuff.  I bought a pile of her gardening tools and got a little green and yellow push cart for Monica.  Mrs. Drew had upholstered the seat of her old Model A when it had outlived the car.  I have a weird liking for the crunch of horsehair, and so for the fair price of 5 dollars that's become a bench in the basement.  A pair of nice oak chairs for $7.50 each (and the man who I outbid shook his head regretfully and said I got a very good deal).  And because I'd also been willing to pay 5 bucks for a few old Zane Gray novels, I ended up with a pile of 5 box lots tossed together.  One, of fabric, I opportunistically pawned off on a church lady, and I gave a framed photo to someone who knew one of the people pictured.  But the rest came home to be sorted into keep, donate or discard.  Pictures and books and old housewares mostly.  Ah, the guilty pleasures of being an auction bottom-feeder.

Bridget Gilchrist Gary Quillen Johnson

Welcome to the world, niece!

Cathie and Eric brought a new baby girl into the world last night.  Word is that baby and mother and father and grandmothers are all doing fine.

(Cue the image of a ball sending the duckpins flying -- and a new life knocks other lives end over end over end.)

Two weeks early, 19 and 3/4 inches, and 6 lbs 13 oz.

Gigi and the proud grandpa

A she-sparrow eyed a spider that hung in its web.  As she stretched her neck forward toward it, the spider vanished into a brownish blur, vibrating like sand on a drum-head.  The sparrow drew back, cocking her head and looking stupid.  A spider body came back into focus.  The sparrow stretched forward again and again the spider blurred.  The sparrow sat perplexed for a moment before some distraction sent her flitting off noisily with the other sparrows.  The spider hung in its web.