Daffodil Ladies

 This week the Daffodil Ladies moved into action.  It’s the vision of a former high school English teacher who decided she wanted to beautify public spaces around the state of Michigan by planting daffodil bulbs.   I was invited to join this group as they went to the Grand View Cemetery in Detroit.  It sounded like something I’d like to do and like an adventure, so I cheerfully accepted.  What they didn’t know was that  I have a history with daffodils starting from a young age.  I love their bright yellow color and cheerful shape.  When I was in college, I recall buying bunches of daffodils and sharing them with my friends in the dorm.  To this day, I have a watercolor painting of a daffodil from a friend at that time.  It’s labeled on the back of the picture “Julie’s daffodil of happiness.”  Over the years, I’ve planted daffodils where we’ve lived.  In Tennessee, I planted perhaps fifty in the forest behind our house.  I recall it was hard work using a pick-ax to dig the holes.  In Berkeley,  our sons helped me plant more than a hundred in the dirt barrens at the bottom of our yard where the gophers reign.  I’d heard gophers don’t like daffodil bulbs.  Sadly that is not true and the gophers feasted.

There were six of us who went to the cemetery.  We all chipped in $15 to help pay for the 150 bulbs. We were lucky with the weather.  It was warm and the overcast skies cleared as we worked.  We’d been warned ahead of time, this was going to be hard work.  The soil was heavy clay and uncultivated.  We had  many shovels and began to dig holes 6” deep and big enough for three bulbs.  It wasn’t so hard.  One shovelful of grass then two shovelfuls of soil and the hole was dug.  All in all we dug a few more than 50 holes in a wavy line along the pond.  After a while I switched to planting the bulbs.  All of it was very satisfying.  We were done within an hour.  I loved doing this with a group of lovely ladies who also loved doing this.  Whenever I see fields of daffodils or many flowers along country roads, now I will think of those who planted them.  Planting daffodils brings brightness, happiness and hope to our world.  

Fall Colors

 Yesterday afternoon, I headed out for a walk on the MSU campus.  It was a beautiful autumn day, 43 degrees and sunny.  I was intimidated by the temperature, unacclimated to cold as I am, but the sunshine lured me out.  I put on 5 layers which kept me toasty warm, puffy as a marshmallow.  When looking for fall colors, the MSU campus is the place to go because there are so many trees there.  I wandered about the campus, enjoying its peacefulness and all the amazing trees.  The MSU website says there are 973 different kinds of trees and 22,522 trees total on campus.  It is a very large campus.   MSU has been named “Tree Campus USA” for the seventh consecutive year.  

I’ve always had special relationships with trees.  As a child, I remember climbing the huge deodar cedar tree in our front yard, enjoying the secret hidden views I’d get snuggled in among the needley branches.  I felt the tree protected me.  It was my safe space.   I remember other special trees from places we’ve lived.   Trees are amazing factories, producing vast amounts of sugar by photosynthesis in their multitudes of leaves.  A tree is an amazing ecosystem, all by itself supporting lichens, moss, multitudes of insects, birds, squirrels, even sloths.  Trees change any environment where they grow, providing shade and coolness to the landscape.  Now we know trees aren’t just growing all by themselves,  they’re all connected underground by tiny threadlike fungal strands.  Trees help each other out, providing nutrition for nearby struggling trees or by sending out warning chemicals to other trees of insect infestation.  As a teacher, I used to try to get my students to appreciate the wonder and beauty and aliveness of trees.  I’d ask them to imagine they suddenly developed green skin so now they didn’t have to eat because they could photosynthesize.  First they’d realize they didn’t have enough space, surface area to produce the food they’d need, so they’d have to develop many appendanges like leaves.  Then they’d have to have support system to hold all the leaves up and roots to soak up the water and support the limbs in place.  Eventually they’d realize they were describing becoming a tree.  

Coming to the Midwest in autumn one of the things I look forward to is the incredible display of color in the changing leaves of the trees.  This year the colors are spotty and late here in E. Lansing.  Locals say it’s the wet summer and that they’ve had late warmer temperatures.  Climate change is affecting the fall colors.  It’s happening so fast there aren’t any long term studies about this.  But we see it happening around us.  It’s not so bad for the trees, they get to photosynthesize longer, make more sugar, grow more.  But it is a change we can see and I for one don’t like.

Greenfield Village

 Halloween is a big deal in Michigan!  One of our favorite activities is going to Hallowe’en at Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford Museum.  Paula gets tickets every year and this year was no exception.  She spares nothing for us to have a great time starting with renting an SUV for us all to ride together for the trip to Dearborn.  Before we left I asked Sonja to make up my eyes to complete my witch costume (she’s really into make-up).  As we neared Detroit the weather cleared and warmed up from the dreary day we had in E. Lansing.  We donned our costumes in the parking lot and excited, we entered the park.  It wasn’t crowded, perhaps only a 25% of usual crowd.  They must have limited the tickets for better social distancing.  I soon found a coven of witches to join for a photo.  The one with the white face had the best cackle I’ve ever heard.  They have many people in costumes wandering about to increase the fun and atmosphere.  We wandered about, the girls getting food,  all of us soaking in the atmosphere and having trouble keeping together as a group.  There was so much to see, groups playing music, decorations, looking at the costumes other people had on.  About 5:30, we decided to ride the train that runs around the park.  I was excited because I’d never been on the train there.  It brought up memories of the train ride around the park at Disneyland which I always loved.  The light was amazing.  It was pure golden hour light giving everything a shine.  The green lawns, the corn stacks, the buildings, the covered bridge, they all looked great.  We even saw “Bigfoot” and a gathering of Druids in the big meadow.  As the sun set, we went into the glass blowing studio and watched young people making glass rods.  We were mesmerized by the bright orange glow of the molten glass.  Then we found the weaving studio crowded with all sorts of looms.  We ended up by the field where The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was recited and then acted out with two horsemen, one being Ichabod Crane and the other chasing him through the field was the Headless Horsemen.  In the fading light, the near passes of these two horses right by us was exciting.  The Headless Horseman even knocked my witch hat off my head with his sword!  Next we walked to the Top Hat Side Show where they put on an old time show with a fantastic juggler juggling balls, then knives, then flames and a magician.  It’s one of the family favorites as someone in the family always seems to get called up on stage.  It was getting dark so we headed off to see what we could find near the covered bridge.  Just before it was a coven of witches dancing with lit up brooms.  We saw scarecrows that danced, old timey cartoons, and even real live pirates.  The time for our evening meal was drawing near and we found our way to the Village Inn.  We were ushered in and seated at a long plank table for just the seven of us.  Only every other table had people, so we felt safe.  The room was dark, lit only by candlelight and cold even though there was a fire going.  The menu was 19th century food-heavy in meat and squashy things.  But it all tasted great, especially the pumpkin pie.  Did I mention how many carved pumpkins there are at Greenfield Village?  There must be thousands, carved by local school children and local groups, lining all the walkways, sitting on steps and even in a pumpkin pyramid.  All in all it is an amazing extravaganza.  I had the time of my life.  We all did.  

The Girls

 Events this week and most weeks center around the girls and their activities.  Monday was the Greater Lansing Middle School Cross Country Championship races at DeWitt High School.  With 34 schools participating, there were hundreds of kids milling about when we got there.  The budding adolescent energy was crackling.  First, the teams walk the 2 mile course across the green field and circling through the woods before they come back to the finish line to learn the course.  We saw Sonja from afar happily walking the course chatting with her friends and waved to her.  At 4 pm, the Girls Top Ten Race began.  Each school could enter only ten participants, many schools had fewer so there were probably 200 or more girls starting off not 300.  I never saw Sonja go by among the crowded field.  After 12 minutes the first girl, dressed in red from St. John’s (who knows where that is?) bounded to the finish line all alone.  She looked like she was out for a stroll.  Slowly more and more came in.  I missed seeing Sonja go by again, running in a pack of girls as she was.  She was handed a medal when she finished which made her very happy.  She finished  second from her school and in the top 20% overall.  From then on, we just waited, through the Boys Top Ten Race, then the Girls All-Arouind and then the Boy’s All Around.  It was fun to see how happy Sonja was sitting in the little pod of her girl friends with two boys straining to be included in their group.  She’d pop by to get snacks from her mom and then be off again.  It was a perfect beautiful day, warm with a clear blue sky.  

Yesterday we attended Sonja’s Middle School Band Concert.  I was assigned to go to the Mall with her after school to get her concert pants and perhaps dress shoes.  Sonja carried wadded up her concert dress shirt, I guess to try on with the needed black pants.  As we entered the Mall, Sonja took off.  She knew just where to go —-Aeropostale, a teen shop.  There they were, the black jeans, right at the front of the store.  I mentioned to Sonja I thought for the Concert,  plain pants would be appropriate.  She picked out some and as we walked back to the dressing room, she spotted some black torn pants and picked them up too.  Then she proceeded through at least 8 tries to find the pants that fit just right.  Somewhere along the way she dropped the plain pants and only tried on the torn pants which she considers the height of fashion.  Finally she decided on the torn black jeans.  On the way home, she remembered that she’d left her trumpet in her locker at the Middle School and the concert was to be held at the High School auditorium.   It could have been a disaster, but Uncle Erik has his trumpet here.  It all worked out, she borrowed Erik’s trumpet and the band sounded great.  It was exciting to go to a concert again, maybe life is slowly getting back on track.

    Erika is around at dinner which is great but we’ve not seen that much of her otherwise.  Whenever we do see her, she is always her kind, sweet quiet self.  I don’t think we’re as interesting to her as we’ve been in the past.  Her life at high school and her tennis and music lessons and her friends keep her fully occupied.

Dinners have settled into a routine.  I cook Mondays and Thursdays and we eat over here.  Paula cooks on Tuesdays, always an amazing gourmet meal, Paul cooks on Wednesdays and so it goes.  We are happy to see the family altogether for a time each day at the dinner table.  Our days pass by without much pressure and always time for a walk.

Adventures Up North

Yesterday our adventures with our friends took us North from Charlevoix to the town of Harbor Springs.  We went through Petosky, famous for its stones, but we weren’t impressed with the town.  It was modern mostly and very busy.  So we went past it on to the back road (Route 199) near Lake Michigan to the little town of Harbor Springs.  It is a charming little tourist town right on the edge of the Lake Michigan. The first thing we noticed were the Halloween decorations of skeletons dressed up in all sorts of customers sitting all over the town.  Michigan does seem to love Halloween.  The guys spent time in the glassblower’s shop talking with the artist while the ladies popped in and out of the fancy shops.  Then we took a stroll up to the woods and walked several miles.  Back in the car, we decided to move on through the “Tunnel of Trees”, a narrow drive along the bluffs overlooking L. Michigan,  famous here for its spectacular colors in the fall.  Unfortunately, the trees are late in changing so the predominant color was green.  I was very disappointed.  Halfway we came across a tea shop called “The Broken Buddha” and had to stop and have tea.  We were headed for Legs Inn, a Polish restaurant, in Cross Village at the end of the road.  We’d figured out if we arrived late for lunch there wouldn’t be a long wait.  Were we ever wrong.  Our wait was 2 1/2 hours!!!!  We sat in the dripping rain in the garden overlooking the lake surreptiously sipping boxed red wine.  The guys continued their philosophical conversation while the ladies explored the rest of the village which was two gift shops.  As the time passed, the weather improved and we mellowed into the wait.  By 4:40 we were seated in the outdoor patio.  This 100 year old restaurant is famous up North not only for its food but for the art decorating the space carved by one of the early owners.  With good appetites from the long wait, we enjoyed our hearty Polish lunches.  

This morning we met our friends for breakfast and after breakfast the ladies went shopping in Charlevoix. We both found something and felt happily successful in our outing.  Returning, we found the guys sitting on the patio of our room continuing their philosophical conversation (they really got into it).  We said a heartfelt goodbye and off we went in our separate directions.  Bob said how nice it is to spend time with folks, where you can enjoy just sitting and talking and don’t feel pressured to be going off on adventures every moment.  Indeed!!!  Long time friendship is a true blessing.

Bob and I headed south to meet our former neighbors from E. Lansing, the ones we bought the new house from.  Along the way we stopped at a pumpkin farm I’d spotted on the way up North.  The pumpkins were even more beautiful and orange than I remembered.  Our friend’s new waterfront condo in Elk Rapids was incredibly beautiful.  We were greatly impressed by their upgrade.  They took us to lunch at the pub really just next door where we sat on the patio and shared stories of the last 3 or 4 months.  Then they took us on a walk down the boardwalk to downtown Elk Rapids.  It is a charming old town with a bakery, several restaurants, lots of little functional shops (for lawyers, insurance etc) and even a single screen movie theater.  It was lovely to spend time with them and see where they now live.

Then we headed East to the Grand Lake Resort near Presque Isle.  The trees all along the way were at their peak colors and I enjoyed driving the back roads.  The “Resort” isn’t very restort like,  it’s pretty minimal old motel with a long soggy green lawn down to the lake.  But the only restaurant nearby, Woody’s, was fabulous.  Bob and I both thought our broiled whitefish dinner was the best dinner on the trip.  It was a happy friendly restaurant.  One of the other diners came up to us to recommend what to get and then we asked her where we should go tomorrow.  Michigan folks are really exceedingly friendly and we are happy to be exploring a part of Michigan we’ve not seen before.  

A Trip Up North

 Yesterday Bob and I left on a five day trip up North.  It was inspired to join up with some friends from the Bay Area planned to travel in Northern Michigan.  We worked it out to meet them for a couple of nights in Charlevoix.  Tuesday was our first day out.  We left East Lansing and drove through Grand Rapids, in the rain, to Montague on Lake Michigan.  We visited our favorite bookstore, the Book Nook  Bob enjoyed his afternoon latte there.  Then we drove some of my favorite back roads through the farmland of Western Michigan to the public beach by the beach cabin we rented for many summers.  We all have many lovely memories from the area.  I had packed a picnic lunch and wondered whether we’d have to eat it in the car, but the clouds parted as we arrived.  Under clearing blue skies we found a little wooden dock on the sand and sat and ate our lunch on the lovely beach.  It made me so very happy to be there on this familiar beach once again.  Then we drove straight north to Ludington, a beach town about an hour away.  It is about half way to Charlevoix.  Our reservation was at a “B and B” described as a 1950’s retro motel, the Summer’s Inn.  I didn’t know how it would be.  Our room, really a suite, was lovely with a garden and a koi pond. 

This morning, after a nice breakfast of Greek yogurt with sweet fragrant local honey and granola plus bit of fresh fruit, we headed out in the rain.  It rained for the first hour and half of our drive through the countryside of Northern Michigan.  The colors haven’t yet peaked, but there were small areas teasing us with their great beauty and trees colored yellow, orange and red.  I loved the rolling hillsides with the road like a band stretching out straight going up and down.  At one point we passed a very picturesque farm with all red buildings and a huge display of the orangest pumpkins I’ve ever seen.  We arrived to Charlevoix just in time for lunch.  It was great to see our friends again.  We had a lovely afternoon, walking on beaches, picking up stones, one after the other that just couldn’t be left on the beach and then heading up over the dune to walk back through the damp forest with mushrooms, red sugar maple leaves on the green moss and many fallen silver birch trees.  It was all incredibly beautiful.  Then we toured the town of Charlevoix looking for mushroom houses (houses that look like mushrooms) and even had a trip to the St. Mary’s Cement Plant.  

It is hard to find a restaurant up here.  Many have already closed and the ones that are open are seating at a lower capacity.  The first restaurant we went in had an hour wait.  So we walked around the town and found a Bar that seemed very lively.  After about a ten minute wait we got in.  The place was crowded, loud, populated with younger folk with not a single person was wearing a mask (after I took mine off).   It turned out the food was delicious and the evening was really fun.  Nothing like sitting in a bar talking about the meaning of life among other things.  It was a great day—it didn’t rain, we had wonderful company and lovely adventures.  

 

A Quiet Week

 It’s been a quiet week here in E. Lansing.  It seems like I’ve been here for a very long time, much longer than the actual 12 days.  The most exciting thing that has happened is that Paula decorated our house for Halloween.  She loves to decorate and is stopped by nothing.  I call her the Halloween Queen.  She discovered this house has no outdoor electric outlets.  Not a problem, she ran a very long extension cord from their house to light the bright orange lights along the roof, the white lights inside the three friendly ghosts and the purple nets of lights over the bushes.  And if this weren’t enough, she got a bright Halloween wreath for the front door and a doormat that says “Boo.” “This ought to attract a lot of kids to your house on Halloween,” she said.  How wonderful is it to have a daughter in law that decorates our house before her own?  

The granddaughters are busy with their own lives.  Not even a trip to Groovey Donuts could lure them over here.  We did have a good game of Hearts on Friday night.  I sit often in the glassed in porch and read or watch birds in our yard.  I moved my art table into here because the light is the best in the house and managed to break through a two year lapse in doing art.  Bob sat with Sonja as she explained her math homework to him one night last week.   I enjoyed finding a street with sidewalks of gold —-multitudes of bright little golden leaves lining the sidewalk gave a decidedly golden hue.  

Tonight, at Bob’s suggestion, we are taking the family out for pizza to Zoobies in Old Town Lansing.  On Tuesday Bob and I are going on a little trip up North to meet up with friends from N. California and to see the fall colors.  It should be a fun change.  

First Week Activities

 We’ve been here in E. Lansing for a week now, though it seems like much longer.  It’s like we’ve jumped into a fast moving river.  Of course, a family with two working parents and two teens has a very busy life with everyone’s activities  So far, though, we haven’t been asked to chauffeur once so they’ve clearly got it down.  We come to be a part of their lives and to spend time here in Michigan.  Bob has reconnected with his pickle ball friends and found a new venue that’s indoors.  I try to take a walk each day.  I’ve joined a 3 month long Bible Study at the local UCC church studying “Bad Girls of the Bible.”  

Highlights so far involve time spent with the family:  meals, apple picking, a Cross Country meet and a MSU homecoming parade down the Main Street in town.  The apple picking was my favorite.  We went to a nearby apple orchard, Clearview.  It is a family run orchard.  There were three middle aged men with bright red shirts on and rosy round cheeks manning the fruit stand and passing out the bags to put the apples in.  They were very friendly and one explained how they prune the many trees each winter, one by one by hand and all the spraying they have to do.  There must have been a couple of hundred trees of probably ten different varieties in long rows.  The apples were huge, 3 inches across.  I was in heaven walking up and down the rows of trees, eating apples of the different varieties to decide which I liked best.  The Empire and JonGold got my vote.   Sonja picked apples riding up on Paula’s back.  Bob carried my heavy bag of apples.  Erika would bring me apples she had picked.  We were laughing and all having a great time.  Erik picked a bag for his friends.  And then we got to choose pumpkins and outrageous gourds.  Sunday,  I peeled about half the apples and made a big pot of applesauce which I divided up and passed around.  

Yesterday Bob and I went with Paula to watch Sonja’s Cross Country Race.  It was a big deal.  There were five Middle Schools participating.  First, the girls ran at 5 PM, then the boys at 5:30.  There must have been a hundred girls lined up to start (you can find Sonja in the picture if you look for the blond girl in the front row with a headband and a blue uniform  next to the girls’ with maroon uniforms).  The referee shouted, “On your mark, get set….” And then the gun went off and the multitudes of girls began to run.  They ran down the field and around to the far side on to a path that went through the woods and back again.  The course was 2 miles and the fastest girl ran it in 14 minutes and a few seconds.  Sonja came in 8th or 9th.  It was exciting!!!  All the parents were cheering the girls on.  

And so we watch and cheer, support the on-going efforts as we can and try to be a blessing not a burden for our very busy family.  

Aunt Jean

 Early Friday morning, October 1, Bob got a call from the hospital in Roseville saying that Aunt Jean had died.  It was only in the previous evening that she had gone to the ER with signs of a stroke.  In fact, just that afternoon, the last day of September, she’d paid for Trident Cremation services, to get the $200 discount just under the wire, at 5 pm.   It is always a shock to hear someone has died even when they’re 96 and in decline. They’re here and then they’re not any more.  Her death is the passing of the last of our parents’ generation, the last apple on the tree, so to speak.   Now we’re next, always a sobering thought. 

Over the years, our family had gotten to know Aunt Jean and Uncle Chris.  They lived on the East Coast in Annandale, Virginia and Bob’s family was on the West Coast when I got to know them.   After Erik grew up and moved to Washington DC in 1996 for his first job, he got to know Uncle Chris and Aunt Jean, going over to their house once a week.  He continued doing that for the next 17 years.  When Paul moved to Washington to work there, he joined Erik, going over on the weekend, to have a big meal and play board games.  Paula also remembers going over to Chris and Jean’s fondly.  Tonight we had a little celebration in Jean’s honor.  Paula cooked a wonderful meal of free range chicken from the Farmer’s market with apples and Brussel Sprouts.  We raised our glasses in her honor.  After dinner with chocolate cake, we told stories about Jean.  How can we possibly in a few minutes give honor to a whole lifetime of experiences and to the complexity of a human being?  At the end Erik summed it up when he said,  “It was a perfect dinner for a tough old bird.”   (the chicken we had was incredibly tough).