Bioregion: Crosswords

Bear with me.

Spignel. Penstemon. These were just two of the recent plants that I came across in trying to complete puzzles in The Times Jumbo Cryptic Crossword Book (5th entry in this series). Plants where I knew how to get at the answer (the former an anagram of pleasing without the "a," the latter a combo of a synonym for "writes" and an anagram of "Monet"), but I didn't have enough horticultural knowledge to get the right answer, and had to resort to looking up plants that I thought should exist.

Before, I had been just finding the answer and moving on. Now, with lockdown and the increased sense of curiosity I'm trying to cultivate regarding the natural world, I have been looking them up. Penstemons do not trigger any memories for me, but spignel... something I have seen on every walk in the countryside at home, yet have never known the name of, nor cared to find it. Just part of the scenery, something there to observe but not investigate or get to know. That saddens me, but also opens up such a world of potential for observation and a deeper experience in future walks.

It also deepens my experience from my lockdown living room, too.

Quaking Aspen. Trembling Aspen. Trembling Poplar (this being the answer). All different names for the same tree, all delightfully evocative.

Asphodel. A pretty, elegant flower; also the flower of the Elysian Fields, apparently, and one whose name and story I only encountered through a crossword last week. It's also mentioned in many, many poems, and led me to this by William Carlos Williams (excellent name), Asphodel, That Greeny Flower:

Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
                        like a buttercup
                                                upon its branching stem-
save that it's green and wooden-
                        I come, my sweet,
                                                to sing to you.
We lived long together
                        a life filled,
                                                if you will,
with flowers.  So that
                        I was cheered
                                                when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
                        in hell.

And, heading further down the rabbit-hole, this poem, lauded for being about a love poem to a wife and not a mistress is, it turns out, from a man facing his mortality, causing him to profess his love and confess all his adultery.

Still.  The poem is pretty and so is the plant. I'll leave you with that.

Finding Things to Do

I'm not the only one who's been fairly astounded by how hard it is to do so little despite having so much time on one's hands. Early on, I ticked off numerous things from my to-do list - learn how to fold a fitted sheet (nailed it!); tidy the linen closet; clean out and sort my bags (which were a disaster zone and required a second organizing today); and so forth. The last couple of weeks, however, have been tougher.

One thing I have managed to do is the Tolstoy Together reading group led by Yiyun Li at A Public Space. I have never read War & Peace (nor really had the desire to do so), but this is such a good way to approach it - rather than seeing it as one big slog, taking the time to read fewer pages in each session and trying to fully absorb and appreciate it. A friend with boundless enthusiasm suggested it and I, being in a particularly susceptible mood, agreed and started reading after downloading the free version from the Gutenberg Project. 

Although I started late, I've only occasionally done two reading assignments per day, instead trying to honor the pacing Yiyun Li suggests - for good reason: "Dear Friends, Let’s go—slowly, without rushes, without impatience, without fatigue, without weakness. With some random thoughts from me and many more from you." As she said to those of us late to the party, "Friends who are worrying about catching up: Tolstoy was late, running behind schedule. We can be too, while reading War and Peace. As long as nobody is eaten by the bears, we shall prevail." I love this, and it was exactly what I needed to keep my pace a plodding and focused one, rather than skim reading to skip ahead.

In the portion I've just read, my least favourite character (Prince Andrei) experiences some intense emotional upheaval that he connects to nature, feeling himself reflected and justified by what he sees. Tolstoy's description of an unexpectedly hot, late spring day and his surroundings were perfect:

"It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed in green. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed to bathe."

It transports me to Black Rock, where we've hiked and bathed and been surrounded by green; I can smell it and feel the ground beneath my bare feet as we flung ourselves into the water. Despite two small children rending stripping off and jumping into the pond infeasible, somewhere inside me I resolved to do so, and soon; as soon as this is over. One of many such nature- and travel- and experience-based resolutions everyone, everywhere, is no doubt making.

And this, in the next chapter, takes us back a couple of weeks later, remarking on the changes in just a short passage of time:

"In the forest the harness bells sounded yet more muffled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was thick, shady, and dense. . . ." 

This hit particularly hard as it's so clear to see the huge changes in nature when I only venture out once or twice a week at the moment. We have, once more, utterly failed to see the bluebells come out at the BBG, something we've missed each year we've lived in Brooklyn and been members, a decade or so now; I caught some of the cherry and magnolia blossom (swoon), but already the catkins are forming on trees and green is replacing the brilliant pinks, plums, and whites of the blossom.

Tolstoy got it, apparently, despite such a different time and place, which is no doubt why we're reading it; you can listen to Yiyun Li expound the project on the New Yorker hour - highly recommended. As is taking time to do things when all I want to do is get to the end of this period in our lives.

Bioregion: Birds

I bought the Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City by Leslie Day (foreword by Bloomberg completely ignored) just before the lockdown started; sadly, I've not been able to use it as I would like as a result. Not only have I not been going out as much, but far too many of my walks are with hunched shoulders to try to keep my scarf on or tense because I'm irritated at people who haven't understood what six foot or social distancing mean (obviously, in this scenario, I have convinced myself I know how to behave and therefore am in a fine place to pass judgment on others' perceived non-compliance). Accordingly, it's been hard to stop and observe the nature around me - a sudden stop doesn't help with keeping the requisite distance and feels self-indulgent (ignore the expression of this thought through blogging).

We have seen a lot of sparrow life in the last few weeks - sparrows fat, sparrows thin, sparrows large and small. So I looked them up. All the ones we see are house sparrows. Apparently, 100 were introduced to the US in 1850-51; there are now 150 million + here, and they are the most common bird in New York City.

The lockdown has coincided with the arrival of the first starlings I've seen in New York this year. I adore starlings - their glossy, shiny coat of that remarkable bluey-purpley-greeny-black, that oil puddle like sheen; the flecks; and their glorious flocking in those seething, chattering balls, the gloriously named murmurations. European starlings were introduced as a result of an attempt to introduce all bird species named in Shakespeare to the US. (Result: over 200 million starlings now reside in the US).

The presumptive imperialism here - the expansionism, lack of regard for native beings, and the whimsy of Shakespearean birds (who could possibly argue against it!) - is rather breathtaking; how many other things like this did we do that I'm never going to know about?

Nonetheless, for your viewing pleasure, here is a murmuration somewhere else that my people decided was theirs.

Handwashing

I'm a slob; I cannot pretend otherwise. I shower regularly, clean myself, but am not obsessive about these things, and I'm sure that this would lead many to disgust.

Hand washing is, of course, foremost in the world right now. In particular, how people have not been washing appropriately. (We have all heard about that bowl of peanuts on a bar and its urine traces, no? Here is a particularly badonkers article from a couple of years ago that advocates not washing ones hands because of immunity.)

The first time I learned just how inadequate my handwashing was came around 2001, when my mother got sick. Really sick. Intensive care, don't know if she'll live, not sure what damage will emerge when she comes to after 107F+ temperatures sick. I was embarrassed to learn just how poor my technique was as I studied the blue hands on the posters outside intensive care: the backs of hands, the crevices between fingers; WRISTS! 

So when this awful situation all kicked off and the handwashing instructions, memes, songs came around, that's where my brain went - my mum, sick, and me focusing on keeping myself as clean as possible to make sure I couldn't hurt her or anyone else. The smell of stress-management cigarettes emanating from all the nurses. The uncertainty of what would happen. And, to pull me through, I remember how Mum pulled through and battled back to learn to speak again, to walk again; how we watched, in disbelief (and fortunately, given the noise we were making and it being after the end of visiting hours - the whole ward could hear us) as England stuck five past Germany in Germany; and how she swooned over her very dishy ENT specialist. She was really brave; I'm savouring and carrying that with me.

And rewatching those highlights. Such joy.

Bioregion: Sweet Gum

In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell argues for getting to know ones bioregion. If I hadn't been persuaded by the rest of the book (note: I had), remembering something from my in-laws' last visit at the end of 2019 should have prompted me to at least reconsider my relationship with my local surroundings. My in-laws were fascinated by a particular type of tree that I had noticed, vaguely, but had no idea what it was or enough curiosity to investigate it. That, now, seems embarrassing and odd - why didn't I have that interest to know more? Why don't I look up? Why do I take the trees and blossom for granted? I enjoy the foliage a huge amount, both when green and when in the blaze of autumnal colours that hits us here; blossom and the feel of freshness and new life in spring provides me with a huge boost each year (and annoyance that it comes so late in New York). My goal is, therefore, to learn something new about the nature around me each week.

Our kid is obsessed with small, hard seed pods that he finds round the roots of various trees in Brooklyn. He calls them lollipops, sometimes, with an occasional early ill-advised attempt or two to bite into one. Until today, I hadn't thought about what they were, despite my abiding love of conkers and other fascinating ways in which trees distribute their seeds.

So, yesterday, I called up my app - Picture This, if you're interested - and found out what they were. These are sweet gum seedpods, and sweet gums grow all over the US, but not much further north than NYC.

The Nahuatl name provides answers for how it interacts with us: Ocotzocuahuitl, which translates to tree that gives pine resin from ocotl (pine), tzotl (resin), cuahuitl (tree), which refers to the use of the tree's resin - it was used, among other things, to flavour tobacco. While that is less common, it is apparently still used as a mild antiseptic or to treat sores (???). Although the pods are lumpy and spiky, goldfinches, purple finches, squirrels, and chipmunks manage to eat its seeds. Humans also use the infertile seeds to create one of the major chemicals in the Tamiflu treatment, somewhat unbelievably - they contain shikimic acid, something discovered after there was a shortage of star anise (which is another rabbit hole I want to go down, but am trying to resist). How do you tell which are infertile? According to Eat the Weeds, "[f]ertile seeds are black with wings on either side, infertile seeds are yellow and wingless." The pods have many names: "burr (or bir) balls", "gum balls", "space bugs", "monkey balls", "bommyknockers" or "sticker balls".


A list of alternate names for sweet gums (some which will clearly help with Scrabble): American storax, hazel pine, bilsted, redgum, satin-walnut (particularly pleasing), star-leaved gum, alligatorwood (due to the way the bark looks, apparently), or simply sweetgum.

These trees blaze up the parks in Brooklyn in October and November; the leaves litter the ground in November and December; I cannot wait until that happens.

Sources:

• The Mean Seed of the Sweet Gum
• Liquidambar styraciflua
• Sweet Gum Tree
• NYC Street Tree Map

Finding Routine

With a very small baby, there isn't really a routine one can follow; one of the best pieces of advice we got when we had the first one was that "everything is a phase." And it's true--each time you think you're on top of things, the baby develops, changes, and you need to learn anew what works for you as a unit. And that rings even truer when you already have a headstrong and stubborn wonderful little person whose life has been twisted upside down, quite deliberately on your part but with no say from them at all.

Nonetheless, this time round knowing the whole "phase" thing really does feel very different. A second child truly can be an excellent demonstration of the difference between intellectual knowledge and experience of a thing. Luckily for me, this has resulted in a calmer (for me) and relaxed state of being. This time I'm trying to take advantage of that experience to think about how I want to spend my down time--those brief pauses between feeding and snoozing and naps and changes of nappies--without giving into the need to feel bad about not being "productive."* %%

So, in that spirit - trying to enjoy the luxurious time I have right now and revel in it without succumbing to pressure to do everything and fix everything, here is what I am trying to do:

• Reduce the pile of old New Yorkers. Yes, like every lefty pseudo-intellectual household in New York City, we subscribe to the New Yorker. And, like almost every household, we do not get through them at the rate that they are produced. I miss Tilly Minute and the filtering of articles desperately, and my consumption has suffered (unless you count my reading of the restaurant reviews). Therefore, for about 5-10 minutes a day, while sat in my lovely glider with the gentle light streaming through the french windows, I am slowly going through old copies. So far, I've read a moving but deeply sad reflection on god and race by James Baldwin and a terribly depressing insight into the Oklahoma teachers' strike from a couple of years ago. So... terrific!
• Build my indoor herb garden. Herbs come in far too large quantities (and I never, despite my best intentions, freeze/dry/make frozen oil cubes from them) and in a lot of unnecessary plastic, so this is one thing that I'm aiming to do that will reduce consumption and environmental impact.
• Get to know my bioregion. In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell recommends (I believe - please bear in mind I'm reading this at 3am while bleary-eyed from just waking up to feed the bairn, so I'm not confident in my absorption of her argument) that one can disengage from the attention economy by engaging with the bioregion in which you live. What plants, birds, water sources, microclimates are you surrounded by and living in? I'm planning to learn about one aspect of local nature once a week to build up my mental database and learn to pay attention to how they (and I) interact. More to come...
• Classical music. Thanks to Year of Wonder (an absolute delight) and Classical Fix (same), Clemency Burton-Hill has had quite the impact on our lives. Through her work, I'm slowly learning about what classical music I do and don't like and starting to feel a little more confident in expressing and pursuing those tastes. 
• House projects. I'm not planning anything that large scale, but there are a few things I like to do that make me feel like an absolute boss for having done but the benefits of which aren't necessarily enjoyed every day. Taking an inventory of our kitchen equipment to work out what to replace/donate; clearing out and cleaning the freezer and fridge; sorting out our books (I did the reorganization but now we need to do a Marie Kondo to create a little space and be honest about what we want to read / keep on our shelves); clearing out my wardrobe so I can think a little more clear-headedly about how I want to dress now that maternity clothes are never, ever, ever going to be necessary again. 

So, that's it. Not too much, but enough to make me feel I am happy with my time and did some things for me as well as raising a small person.

* Having read this book on low wage work with a discussion of the history of emphasis on productivity and currently reading How to Do Nothing, I'm working through ideas of what makes me feel good and useful but how to separate that from the need to be engaged and doing something for the sake of it, without really thinking about it.

%% ARGH I JUST FUCKING LOST THIS WHOLE POST AND I AM PISSSSSSEEEEEEDDDDD OFF.

Scoffing

What I will be eating now that I can eat what I want:

• A baguette with soft, salted butter
• Pizza
• Strawberry cake with cream
• Cadbury's Whole Nut or Ritter Sport Milk Chocolate with hazelnuts
• Chocolate hobnobs
• A banh mi
• Blackberry & apple crumble
• Pad thai and Mongolian beef with crunchy noodles
• Cold sesame noodles from Han Dynasty (handynasty.net - be very precise about that URL)
• Lasagne with garlic bread
• Scones with clotted cream (note the plural)

But... I am going to try to stick with the food ratio I've learned for most meals: 50% non starchy veg, 25% protein, 25% carbs/starchy veg. Because that makes me feel lighter (not weight wise but energy wise), better, and kept my moods more even (generally; my other half may have something to say about that).

Nurturing: February Update

The growth from friends' IG accounts to people I don't know has led me to identify several main pillars of what I choose to see. High up there are plant-based ones* - I love seeing greenery everywhere, and also a delight are those showing beautiful plant accessories, and I am obsessed with the cut flowers at Brooklyn Blooms, a gorgeous place near where we live.

The inspiration from seeing lush greenery hasn't quite led to that feel within the apartment just yet, but definitely played a role in my resolution to keep things green and alive this year. I have lost a couple of air plants, it's true, but it turns out I may have been drying their roots wrong - thanks to Houseplant Parenthood's timely tip, I've switched to drying them in bright light (i.e. the grow light that I finally invested in and have yet to affix to the herb-growing alcove where it will live). I'm hoping that this will help the rest survive.

More importantly, perhaps, I'm approaching this as a less static experience. I've somehow managed to start seeing this as an ongoing thing in my life, rather than a "leave them once I've watered them once" or even "I water them when I remember, every couple of weeks..." For example, the app I'm using doesn't seem to want me to water my golden pothos as often as the plant wants, so I have been keeping an eye on it and, as indicated by its leaves drooping, watering it when it tells me it needs the hydration. I'm checking the soil regularly. And I'm moving plants around - to where the shafts of sunlight are, rotating the airplants so they all get some exposure, trying to be more responsive to their needs. The app I'm using isn't super precise and doesn't respond to my needs without paying for premium, and I'm not there yet, but having the app has provided a base level of checking what's going on so that I have been freed up from that remembering portion and can be more actively involved in the plants' care. And this has been a real source of pride and delight thus far, which was sort of the point.

* Others: HAES and intuitive eating nutritionists along with food stuff generally; Bookstores, writers, and blogs; and makeup artists, which provides a great deal of beauty in my feed.

Nourishing

Gestational diabetes is a shitty thing. I'm really lucky to have great insurance and access to a wonderful doctor, so I'm in a good position. I was diagnosed at 31 weeks, not the 8 weeks that a neighbour got hit with. And diabetes has a lot of emotional resonance from the way my mum struggled with Type II Diabetes for a lot of her adult life.

Nonetheless, I have been able to treat it as a little bit of an experiment - what spikes my blood sugar (oatmeal, bread, alas), what works (POTATOES I LOVE YOU I KNEW THERE WAS A REASON I HAVE ALWAYS CHOSEN YOU*), and a whole new world of snacks and recipes. Things I've learned:

• Triscuits are awesome. Specifically, the rosemary and olive oil ones (but shout out to the black pepper ones, too). The plain ones are like eating shredded wheat. Which is not bad, but not what I want in a snack.
• Unsurprisingly, I have really, really, really enjoyed putting avocado or sour cream on everything to make sure I get enough fat to keep my blood sugar down.
• Side note: eat full fat! Full fat sour cream. Full fat mayo. Full fat cream cheese. JOY.
• My aim to reduce waste has been hit by my need for cheese strings and KIND bars, but these things have been necessary to my survival.
• KIND bars are... good? Mostly? Sometimes they are a struggle, but I generally like them. I've been allowed the nuts and spice variety. They're all pretty decent.
• This kale and sausage "lasagne" is delicious.
• Beyond Meat stuff is... pretty good. As are Alexia frozen rosemary & garlic & olive oil potato wedges.
• Blanched cauliflower lightly mashed with cream and black pepper is perfection.

Also: the placenta is an incredible thing that people don't really understand. One thing we do know is that it seems to bugger up insulin reception and so that's why people get gestational diabetes. There's a really big effort to understand it underway, which sounds like it's not before time...

* A question that will get you surprisingly high mileage in life: If you could have only one starch/carb for the rest of your life, would you choose 1) potatoes; 2) bread; 3) pasta; 4) rice; 5) another one that you can think of. And, for me, the answer is potatoes. Always. Even though I really, really, really want a baguette and a pizza. Anyway, tell them you heard it here first.

Resolving for 2020

In addition to ranking (in related news, my top twenty lists for the year and decade upcoming on this blog soon!), another thing we're not supposed to be doing is resolving. As with almost everything, there is a replacement, of course: while resolutions are not good, intentions are. Yet it seems these are not really that different for everyone - intentions seem, often, to be a different shade of paint but the same furniture underneath. I read a piece from a planning blogger I follow (I know) who explained intentions as about the journey, not about the end result (unlike resolutions - okay so far) - but then their phrase for 2020 was "the year I get it done." That does not feel like the journey, but very much about the end result. I might be ungenerous here, but often "intentions" strike me as being akin to the wellness/diet conflation that is so prevalent (and is much more pernicious).

Anyway, I'm down with resolutions (for a while, I wrote a whole blog about them. Didn't stick to it). I think they can be a very useful tool for thinking about what you want to do and how you want to move through the world. It's not just about the end goal - but how would you do it? One thing I resolved to do for 2019 was to be able to do a pull-up. That will not happen for, well, many reasons physiological and emotional, but it was good to break it down - what does that mean? Follow a routine at the gym. Plan my time so that I can make it to the gym a certain amount of times a week. Make sure I'm on top of my organizing time and shopping so that I can have post-gym protein rich snacks. Get good sleep to help me repair muscle and be well-rested. All these things are what I want and achievable - one useful thing I have taken from the rather intense-bullet journal pieces I have read is that breaking down a goal helps one actually take the steps toward it, and that's helped me deal with some events and things (hosting Thanksgiving, for example) that I often find overwhelming.

I've already set out my intentions for plant growing this year. I've set up my air plants and put in place my alerts for watering and taking care of both those and my cacti.

I also went through the process of the Year Compass reflection and planning tool yesterday. A very dear friend and I got delicious food (crabcakes, plantains, and salad), then headed to a lounge to sip tea and work through the exercises in the booklet. A lot of it was tough - it's been a rough year in many ways - but it was so much fun to think about how I'm going to try to make my life more fun, cosy, and how I'm going to value myself more. This year I finally started to accept that my personality is not a flaw, but I can adapt things to suit me - problem solving to make my life smoother and more comfortable. I'm excited to meditate more, to read even more (and I did well with reading fun, interesting, and challenging books this year), to get strong and look after my mental health and my family. If it doesn't all pan out, sure - this year proved that you can't plan for everything and anything, and that you can be derailed. But trying is important. Trying to be good, trying to do better - both for yourself and for the sake of doing and being good. Although try not to make it about weight loss - for you, your friends, and society.

Ordering

This morning, as the day lightens and people are busily getting ready for their days, my kid is creating ginormous traffic jams on the dining table with his cars (is there any truer sign of a child born and raised in a city?) while I fight with my top ten albums of the decade list. TOH and I have been doing this for more years than I care to remember - writing down things we have loved and sharing them in a card to each other.

There has been pushback against ranking and ordering and pulling things apart to give them an ordinal value (that article was linked to in at least three newsletters I subscribe to, all of which I adore and value immensely). I get it, I do. I understand the arguments. And, apart from anything, how much weight should we really give to your opinion? I really do not care what most people think, particularly when they display what is dreadful taste.

But, to quote an inarguable truth:

The end of year (or decade) list matters to me (and others, I am presumptively inferring) because it is a time to pause, reflect, and think about where we were when we started. Yes, a decade is probably arbitrary, but I like the practice of going through how my life has changed and doing it through my cultural consumption. It's a chance for me to think more closely about what I consumed then, what I consume now, and why; what mattered to me, what songs really seem to resonate and hit hard and others that I listened to a lot that I barely think about now. I found a 2012 playlist and didn't recognize a couple of the songs; not just the names, but when I played them. It was as if I'd never heard them before. I was bewildered by them, and wondering what was going through my head to place them on a list when I no longer recognized them. 

Looking back at my decade, the early time of going out a lot - discovering (belatedly) how being a crowd of sweaty people and just dancing (as opposed to swaying at live music, something I've always loved) was a delight - you can see that in my musical choices and how much that has influenced the rest of the decade (particularly compared to the previous two, although those tendencies were germinating, clearly). It reflects the new friends I made, how I chose to spend my time with them. But also how much my tastes and life have changed such that albums that were super important to me at the end of the year came out are fond memories but not things that move me now. 

And yes, of course I've changed; I changed careers, my partner and I now live in the same place as opposed to commuting, we own a house, my mother died, I had a kid, friends have come and gone, politics has changed, things look so different. Time does that. But I don't think there's anything wrong with examining how and why, and that is what a best-of does for me. So when TOH and I exchange our lists in Christmas cards, it's one of the Christmas presents I value most - the time and effort gone into it, thinking about what has meant a lot to the both of us, how two people can spend so much time together, doing and listening to the same things and yet having completely different favourites. It gives me an insight into him and his life that I don't see because I'm not with him when he listens to some of these things. 

So make your lists, people! Or don't. Whatever. Listmaking might be in my top five things to do for Christmas. But you don't need to have a list. I promise. Just don't feel bad if you do like making lists; that's okay, too.

Nurturing

I kill plants. I do. It's a sad, sad thing to look at the ponytail palm in our living room, with its measly covering of green and mostly brown, drooping leaves. Outside plants fare somewhat better, although I haven't yet figured out how to get our wisteria to bloom (sulphate fertilizer, apparently, is the key?) and each time that shoots reappear in spring, I am surprised and inordinately pleased.

I am gearing up to a new goal for 2020: try to keep green things alive. A friend of mine, the Decider, has an apartment that is lush in its greenery and fills me with envy; she clearly is pained by our state of affairs, albeit gracious enough to generally keep her thoughts to herself. I, for one, conveniently blame my lack of care on the lack of light.

But no more! I have taken steps (all of which I shall post-fact put into my planner to make me feel accomplished) toward success. I have subscribed to a delightful newsletter, Houseplant Parenthood, and will try to take on board the benefits of the earned wisdom there (and on the corresponding IG account); the Decider has also shown me a delightful app that reminds you when and how your plants need watering and fertilizing and generally being taken care of; I have researched indoor plants that 1) do well in indirect light and 2) are non-toxic to cats (the Psychokitty doesn't need anything else to send her into a frenzy); and I may even download a gardening game or two to get me in the right mindset. All of this combined with my following of plant inspiration IG accounts and I'm sort of all set.

Clementine

Clementine. An insistent, persistent cat whose intense desire to have her head scratched was only matched by the loudness of her purring.

We got her when she was a few years old - I'm fuzzy on the details - and she lived with us in all the homes we've shared - Washington Heights, our first Brooklyn place, and now here. We soon discovered she was not a lap cat and hated being picked up, but loved being snuggled up next to us, scratching her head or cheeks. She developed a habit of tapping you repeatedly with her paw to get your attention so that you would bestow the head scratch.

She liked people far more than other cats or animals; her later years were marked by stoically attempting to ignore Lyra and our kid.


She was an idiosyncratic cat. She seemed to be happiest squished up in our paper recycling box, a suitcase, or in the shower, where she sat and drank running water. Her method of taking in liquid was strange, to say the least - she'd thrust her head under the tap, it would trickle down her face, and then she'd bat it into her mouth with her paw. We'd never seen anything like it. For a long time, while His Professorship was working in another city, she'd be my hot water bottle, snuggling under the covers with me for about 10 minutes until I was nicely toasty, and then surfacing to sit next to me.

We adored her, but we still probably under appreciated her because she was so solid and reliable. She definitely lost out in attention terms after we adopted a psychopathic (and I do not say that lightly) kitten and had a child. But she was such a reassuring presence. The house feels so much emptier without her. I'm glad we had the 12 years we did with her and grateful we had the time and means to say goodbye peacefully and with as little discomfort for her as possible. And we'll eat crab rangoon tonight in honor of the time she stole one from us and caused us to argue over who had nicked beyond their fair share. What a cat.

Heat

New York has been doing that thing that New York so frequently does at this time of year, and been absolutely glorious. It's been bakingly hot, but without the sting of the humidity that we get for so much of the summer. I've managed to be careless and have slightly reddened shoulders from wandering around the last couple of weekends.

Yesterday, the wandering took place at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where there was a chile pepper festival. Neither of the adults was quite sure what this would entail or how long different types of hot sauce would hold our interest, but it turned out to be a delight to mooch around the Cherry Esplanade, sampling different mango or habañero or spicy brown sauces (yes, the latter a nod to our beloved HP. It was a tad vinegary for my taste).  We ended up purchasing some absolutely delicious blood orange cooking sauce, ate our way through chocolate orange cardamom spiced cookies, and purchased some spicy honey to hopefully recreate the incredible dish we had at Misi a few weeks ago - slow roasted tomatoes, coriander, fennel seeds, and spiked honey that was unlike anything I'd eaten before. Dragonflies and mayflies droned around in huge numbers, and the kid potted and took home his first plant - a chile pepper that maybe, just maybe, will survive more than a couple of weeks.

Regathering

A lot has happened since that last post.  A lot.

The thing that is inescapable and pervading, despite my attempts to block it out, is that my mum died. Suddenly, yes; yet, it seems that we had been dodging it for years - the blood poisoning after an emergency hysterectomy, the breast cancer, the triple bypass. It seems that it only just happened and forever ago, as if it always has been; sometimes it feels as if I cannot grasp the life I had with her, it was so lacking in reality, and that is one of the most terrifying parts of this.

Grief is so deeply personal, and so hard to fathom when you are not experiencing it, I do not plan to spend much time on it specifically. But it is everywhere, at all times, with me in differing intensities, and always with the capacity to wind me, suddenly, in its sharpness - the episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour on Yesterday, which I could not get through; the fiftieth reading of Where the Wild Things Are with the peanut which suddenly cut through me; the start of a football season without her.

I have a lot to work through, frankly. I do not want this to be the space for that, but it will seep in, inevitably. But what I do want to use this for is thinking about the good in my life, the things that I cannot share with her but want to, desperately.

I am not quite sure why I am doing this but putting it out in the world feels peaceful and calming. A way to somehow make solid everything that feels so shaky and insubstantial otherwise.

Birdlife

It's been bastard cold (a technical term, that) for the last few days. NYC schools had a snow day on Thursday, so we hunkered down for the day, and then the cold has kept us from doing much out and about; despite my beloved's general refusal to admit that maybe it is a little too cold to do things, even he has only had us out once or twice a day in the below freezing climes.

We bought a bird feeder when we first moved into this apartment, and the last few days it has proved its worth as entertainment, as well as provider of nourishment for the little things.  Sparrows we always get in abundance; one or two ringed doves appear, as well.  But the colder weather and scarcity of food have brought a female & male cardinal pair to us; even better, a pair of blue jays has graced us with its presence.  Their plumage, something between grey and blue, with that bright splash of a tail, always inspires wonder.

Things That I Have Read at Ungodly Hours While up with the Bairn

We have a very, very small child now.  This is going to be a cumulative, ongoing list of things that I have read to try to keep myself entertained while the kid does not sleep.

• A Challenge to Lepton Universality in B Meson Decays - throwback to my dreams of being a particle physicist.  I even have a copy of this somewhere, for goodness' sake.  I actually understood some of the paper, too.  (Can't wait for the little one to read this beautiful book, too - and the author's whole series of books.)
• When should you take a child from his parents? That one was as fun as the title suggests. I knew acorn this article because I vaguely know the attorney who represents the main subject of this profile, and life working there is as important and rough as it sounds.  Although not as terrible as having your children taken from you, clearly. 
• A paper on neutrino scattering!
• An old book review discussing the friendship between Einstein and Gödel. 
• An amazing ACLU amicus brief responding to a coal magnate's desire to shut up John Oliver.  
• Bees and the concept of zero. 
• A dinosaur mummy!
• This astonishing interview with James Baldwin from 1968.  It's frightening how much still applies. 
• How to escape from quicksand!
• Aptly, in the wake of the horrors in Charlottesville, the myth of the kindly General Lee. 
• A wonderful interview with the editor of two extremely exciting books - Exit West and Home Fire. 
• A celebration of BBC 1Xtra.
• A recognition of the legacy of the sculptor Augusta Savage. 

Burgeoning

Spring, as you may have noticed, is a favourite of mine.  It's not so great in on the US east coast, where we get about four weeks of reasonable weather starting in April, then it becomes so hot one cannot breathe without sweating.  Pollen is abundant here, too - I read something (possibly nonsense; I don't have enough biological knowledge to discern that) about the type of trees that the city uses to avoid shedding too much blossom; apparently these have more pollen than the other kinds.  Either way, I understand why people here are not so keen.

But, as someone brought up in a city where March (at the latest) brings magnolias, crocuses, snowdrops, bluebells, and the glorious scent of hyacinths, it's so exciting to see what has survived the winter, and be pleasantly surprised by the small victories.  Our oak leaf hydrangea is back with a vengeance; miraculously, the wisteria seems to have gone from all brown to green shoots appearing and multiplying each day.  Even one of our hostas, which seemed a lost hope, have suddenly grown inches in the past few days.  Similarly, out of nowhere we have ferns coming back to life, shoots pushing up, with their tight spirals unfurling into those beautiful, ancient leaf formations.  These are just small beginnings, but after our plants struggling last year, our first growing season in this house, they are exciting to watch, and encouraging for more growth this summer.

Springing!

Now that spring finally seems to be coming to Brooklyn, I'm in a much sprightlier mood.  This may  be connected also to my having the week off work (although correlation does not equal causation, clearly).   The hydrangea is clearly back with a vengeance - buds everywhere! - the wisteria has buds, much to my relief, and one of my hostas is going to make it back, which is a surprise.  We have new geraniums in our boxes, the daffodils are springing up, and it feels like the soil under our feet is finally getting warm.  I'm not ruling out some snow before April departs - it's happened before and can definitely happen again - but, for now, I'm going to do some grading outside and enjoy the growth before the mosquitos arrive.

In accordance with my spring-induced enthusiasm, I am doing the Apartment Therapy Spring Cleaning Challenge - 20 minutes a day, one small task.  Number 2 (yesterday) was to clean the fridge.  I did not really do a... thorough job, it's fair to say, but the fridge looks so much better thanks to just a quick clean out and wipe down.  Hallelujah.  So it's definitely worth it.  Today: the shower head, something that I have genuinely never considered cleaning before.  

Some Resolutions: April Update

1. Eating Something Green.
1. I have enjoyed eating something green every day.  One day was really pushing it - a lettuce wrapped burger was my only source of green, three small pieces of romaine, maybe, covering a big chunk of meat - but generally I've been okay about it.  I've also been trying to eat more of the darker kale (thanks to this delightful breakfast that I've been making a lot) and food along those lines.  
2. I just read Eat, Sleep, Move, and it's fair to say that I was not greatly enamoured of the tone of the book.  The whole "small changes" lead up to a lot of different changes each day - 30 days to implement them doesn't seem much like small, incremental change.  But it did bring home that I need to eat more varied green things, too, and particularly a wider range of vegetables.  My green intake is mostly spinach and cucumber.  I should chop up a shedload of broccoli at the start of the week and take it with me; I need more collards and chard, too.  Time to get on this.  So that's how my resolution will adapt this month.
2. Reading toward Book Riot's 2017 Read Harder Challenge.
1. Got a good chunk read this month: Blacklands by Belinder Bauer was my debut novel; The Wangs vs. the World was my book with a central immigration narrative; Human Acts was the book set over 5,000 miles away (it's in South Korea), and Homegoing was my book for all point-of-view characters being persons of colour.  So I did well here, clearly! I really enjoyed my March books - all pretty great in different ways, all books by women, too.   I've taken a mini break since then, so it's time to get back on it after I clear some of my books from the borrowed from the library shelves downstairs... It's a constant battle.
3. Cutting down on screen time.
1. I wanted to keep my screen time below 2 hours per day.  I've generally stuck to that, although there were a couple of days where that did not work. Those were usually:
1. Work days when I was working out of the office and needed to check email / communicate with colleagues.  I suppose I don't really count those because I would be doing that on a computer anyway, but then that tells you that I usually spend a lot of time on the computer - i.e. in front of a screen.
2. Days travelling, when we needed to look things up / use google maps.  
2. Stats breakdown: 
1. I've apparently reduced my daily use by about 5 minutes per day.  As of March, it was 1h59m per day, already down, and now it's 1h55m per day.  That has saved me a massive THREE HOURS IN TOTAL.  IN TWO MONTHS.  TOTALLY WORTH IT!
1. (No, seriously - I think a LOT more about using my phone now, even if I'm not reducing the time as much as I'd like).
2. It's still 59 pickups per day - but I just had to do that twice because I'm on low battery mode and the screen locked, so I'm going with that being at least part of the reason... 
4. Walking.
1. My average in March was over 11.5k steps - 12,233!  Which is why I've upped my goal to 11.5k.  I've even won a weekly challenge at work! (Although it was a low standard that week, but still!). 
2. My new goal is to keep my average up at the weekends - I do the bulk of my walking during the week, then slack off.
5. Planning.  I've been a bit better about this, and got on with some work.  This week is spring break, and so I set myself some goals for the whole week, but didn't want to get into a daily task list so that I felt harassed or out of sorts.  
1. I'm really coming to the conclusion that the planner I got, while useful, is not right for me.  I need to see what I'm doing for the week, and the weekly section does not do that.  You list all the things you need to do, but there is not a way to easily assign that to a day for each week.  That is what I am going to look for in a planner next time.  I'm going to keep using this one up, but that's going to be the change, I think - this is just too hard to use.