Adaptation

Happy hour by the lake

Sunny, clear, and gorgeous today, but the lake is not mirror-smooth like it was last night when Colin and I at out there with two dogs and watched dusk turn to dark. The wind is up today, and the surface of the lake is ruffled, the windmill (decorative only) spinning fast. Even the swimming pool has tiny waves. Lisa has suggested happy hour by the lake tonight, with a fire in the pit. We’ll see how that goes.

Sophie and I are adjusting to different schedules than we keep at home. In the cottage, I usually take a short after-dinner nap and then work until eleven or twelve. Here, I’m in bed at ten—and I’m the last one up in the house. I laugh at Sophie—having once been shut into the bedroom, she won’t go in there with me unless I bribe her with a treat. But about nine o’clock, she decides it’s bedtime and crawls into her crate. When I come into the room, she looks askance at me as if to ask, “Why are you up so late?” But after that first rocky night of being in strange surroundings, we both sleep soundly all night. And she no longer sits anxiously outside the closed door when I disappear into the bathroom—the first day we were here she didn’t want me out of her sight and seemed to think the bathroom was a black hole which would swallow me.

For me, adaptation is a bit more difficult. At home in my cottage, I can roll around on my Rollator and fix my meals, take care of myself; Sophie can come and go out the patio door at will. Here, the house is on many levels, so I pretty much live in the section that has the family room, bedroom I’m using, and bathroom. For morning tea, meals, and the like I have to depend on others—and it makes me feel like a bother, though all four Tomball Alters are sweet about taking care of me. And about walking Sophie—when she comes to me and barks, I have to call for someone to come take her outside on a leash. No fenced yard. It’s a learning lesson in gratitude—gratitude that this branch of my family cares enough to take care of me and my dog and cater to our needs, cares enough to have me visit them even though my visit entails inconveniences.

Adaptation has been good in another way. Everyone here is busy—Colin working from home, Lisa getting ready to feed a multitude tomorrow, the kids busy with whatever teens do, from phones to working out. Where at home I can distract myself with everything from cooking to Christmas shopping, here there are no distractions. I’ve gotten a lot of work done, some of it things I’d been putting off.

Dogs and people, I’ve decided, are adaptable creatures, if they want to be.

No happy hour by the lake. Clouds came out in the afternoon, and by five, it was almost full dark. And then we were off to Lisa’s parents house, with Morgan driving that short distance, carefully and slowly. It was fun to see the house—they just moved in last July after some family remodeling updated floors, counters, paint, and the like. Torhild, Lisa’s mom, is quite happy with it. Now, we’re home, bellies full of Norwegian hamburgers and noodles. It’s time to sleep.

‘Night all. I hope your Thanksgiving is filled with thanks for many blessings and brings you the kind of day you want—a turkey feast or a tofu turkey, a crowd or dinner for two. Make it your day!

Grandma and Grandpa's house across the field

Somehow   going there made me think of 

Over the river and through the woods

to Grandmaother's house we go

Bright skies, old friends, and dogs

When I was in elementary school, we had to memorize a poem about October’s bright blue skies. As I went out to meet a friend for lunch today, I looked up and almost recited that poem. It was the brightest, most beautiful sky I’ve ever seen, even if it was November and not October. A beautiful day that lifted the spirits.

Otherwise, Monday was, well, Monday. Baking cookies, odds and ends at my desk, lunch with my good friend, Fred, the man who saw me through graduate school. Love I that I can talk to him about the projects that interest me—few other people get excited when you talk about George Pullman, the Pullman railroad cars, and the Pullman riots in Chicago in the 1890s. Fred gets my enthusiasm—and I get his for the early aero plane culture and particularly the women pilots. Good lunch at the Black Rooster, where it’s quiet enough you can hear each other talk.and the sandwiches are great.

Interesting and fun happy hour tonight. In grade school and middle school, Jordan and Sarah were good friends. Although they were always friends, they drifted apart with adulthood and marriage. Recent events have brought them back close to each other in the last couple of years. I remember Sarah’s parents from those early days but hadn’t seen them in years. They came for happy hour tonight. In an interesting parallel, they now live in a cottage (converted garage/guest house) behind Sarah’s house, a situation so similar to mine.

You’d think given the connection and situation we’d have spent a lot of time “catching up,” but we really didn’t. There was a bit of talk about tiny house living—theirs is almost twice as big as mine and they have a real stove—and a bit about when the girls were young. But then there was a lot of talk about politics—we are all on the same page—and a lot of talk about dogs. Sarah has three Labrador pups, and Sophie was begging for attention from anyone who would love on her. We talked of dogs past and present. It always delights me to talk to people who care as much about dogs as I do.

Got most of my molasses cookies baked—maybe two pans left to go. A good project for tomorrow, when impeachment hearings will again be on TV. I can roll balls of dough in sugar while staring at the TV. I’ve decided of late that trump is taking way too much of my time and thought, when I could be doing more constructive things. But as I said in our discussion tonight, I feel a moral obligation to keep informed on what’s going on and to share the news when appropriate, offer my own opinions less frequently but occasionally. We talked at length tonight, without actually quoting it, about the saying that’s been around for a few years: This is not your father’s Republican Party. These are wild times we live in, and I can only imagine how history fifty years from now will assess them.