Sarah Wynde's Blog, page 54

The haunted chicken coop

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It’s not actually haunted. At least, I don’t think it is. I certainly haven’t heard any sepulchral clucking coming from its direction. But it definitely looks like it should be, doesn’t it? Especially on a gray day.

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Slightly less spooky when you put Serenity right next to it. Those are raspberry vines in front of it. I’m more interested in the blueberries, because I like blueberries better than raspberries, but there are three rows of raspberries — red, yellow, and purple. All green now, of course, but I expect to be nibbling within a couple of weeks.

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And there are the blueberries. I’m feeling too lazy to walk across the lawn and count — also, it is gray and wet and sort of chilly and I don’t want to put my shoes on — but I think there are 24 bushes. Four rows of six bushes each? Or maybe 32. Plenty of blueberries, which is good because the competition for them will get fierce. It’s partly the season, but the birds here are almost as noisy as they were in Alabama.

Grace hasn’t been going very well — I feel like the gears of story are starting to grind again, but they’re grinding very, very slowly. But I am thoroughly appreciating the cozy peacefulness of my surroundings.

June in Pennsylvania

The Best. Vacation. Ever. ended a week ago: we got back to the States around 10PM Saturday night and by 10AM Sunday morning, I was on the road, headed north.

It was the same drive that I made on July 25th of last year, with my house closing behind me, driving to PA with Serenity overflowing with stuff. This time the stuff was everything left from my storage unit: a cedar chest, a chair, plastic crates holding my mom’s china and R’s childhood. And overflowing was no exaggeration. A leg on the cedar chest broke when we were moving it into the van, so its contents were in another plastic crate and the bed was piled high with stuff. I had a sliver of bed on which to sleep, small enough that rolling over meant bumping into a crate.

But my attitude was not at all the same. Last year, I was still running down checklists in my head, still tight with tension and uncertainty about what I was doing. I was excited, but even finding a campground for the night felt like a challenge. I vividly remember stopping at a rest stop and having that, “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” feeling because the air smelled different. Ten(-ish) months later, it felt familiar. And I didn’t bother with a campground: I drove until it was almost dark, then found myself a quiet corner of a Flying J parking lot and settled in for the night.

It was actually only my second night in a real parking lot, and my first night on a highway parking lot, but I’ve spent enough time camped in driveways and on streets now that it didn’t phase me. My first parking lot night, sometime last August, was almost sleepless, jolting awake at every flickering light, but this time, I just crawled into bed, apologized to B, who had to sleep on the floor, and crashed. At 5AM Monday, I woke up and started driving again.

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The view from Serenity’s door.

Several years ago, the Best Brother Ever bought an old stone farmhouse for the sake of the land around it. It’s in a strange location, not exactly rural, not exactly suburban. Costco and Whole Foods are a mile away, across a highway, and it’s on a road simultaneously too busy and too narrow to feel safe for walking. The house is not really livable, although it could be lovely with a lot of work and probably a ton of money. But the gardens… well, expect to see a lot of pictures of them over the next few weeks. I intend to stay here until I finish writing Grace. Probably with some interruptions — I’ve got some fun weekends planned, spending time with friends and relatives — but mostly, I am going to sit here and write.

And watch the blueberries get ripe.

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1500 Photos

I took over 1500 photos. Seriously. For a person who didn’t use to like taking photos, I may have gone a little overboard. (Ha. Yes, pun intended.) After some reasonable amount of sorting, these are my favorite ten, not including the ones I already posted. In no particular order!

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Uh, eleven. Apparently I can’t count this morning!

Best. Vacation. Ever.

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The catamaran, Sealandia

When the Best Brother Ever gave me the Best Vacation Ever, he said he and my SIL weren’t so sure it would be fun, so I was on my own. My dad and stepmom were equally doubtful. In all fairness, a week on a sailboat involves a lot of wind, water, motion, salt, sweat, and sun, so it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. But it was more than my tea, it was my champagne. I spent the whole week pretty much giddy with joy.

Sometime around the last day, I was sitting in one of the bow seats in the front of the catamaran. They’re not the most comfortable of seats — small, wooden, with a metal brace for a back and wires on either side. Plus you’re in the very front of the boat, which means you’re getting the spray and the motion and the wind as strongly as possible. And they’re totally exposed, so the sun beats down on them. Matthew, the captain, came up to get the lines ready for mooring, and said to me, “Not tired of the sun and the wind yet?” I laughed as I shook my head no. Later, Suzanne (the friend who came with me) said that she and Nikki (the chef) had been up on the bridge questioning how I could stand it in front. As S said, when the one Jamaican on the boat thinks the sun is too strong, it probably is. But I was filled with happy. Also coated in sunscreen, reapplied liberally at every possible opportunity.

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook on sale

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco’s Beloved Restaurant: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco’s Beloved Restaurant[image error] is on sale today for $1.99.

This was an absolutely formative cookbook for me. I read it cover to cover, learned so much from it, made some of the recipes (the baked artichokes) repeatedly, and was so, so pained to give it up when I moved into the camper. I had to close my eyes to drop it into the library donation box. Actually, I think I rescued it the first time, then closed my eyes the second time. But it’s an absolute bargain for $1.99. I’ve been trying not to buy cookbooks, but I didn’t even pause before hitting click.

My next adventure

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The dogs, patiently waiting with me.

I’m currently sitting at my RV dealer’s showroom, waiting for Serenity to get a few final fixes. Ah, old home week. By the time I make my next trip, Serenity will no longer be under warranty, which — given the number of times I’ve found myself sitting in this very spot — makes me nervous. But I’m hoping that so many issues in the past eleven months means she’ll be immune from more for at least a couple years.

It’s a nice thought, anyway. Don’t scoff.

On Monday, I drove from Sarasota up to Mount Dora for a couple days in my dad’s driveway. I did a presentation at his computer club on Monday on social media — not a subject on which I consider myself an expert, by any stretch of the imagination, but I knew more than I realized. At the end of the presentation, one of the guys asked how I ever managed to get outside, which made me laugh. I know more than I use, I suppose, although I really do like Instagram. I also like Goodreads, which I included in my list of social media apps mostly because it’s the one that I use most. Not for posting so much, but I like reading other people’s reviews. I also like giving presentations. I should figure out some sensible way of making that part of my life, with writer’s conferences or book groups or some such thing. But that is seriously not a thought for today, because I’m smack in the middle of my busy week.

Yesterday I took Zelda to the vet and discovered that I had my days wrong. ARGH! So I finished cleaning out the things that I’m not keeping from the storage unit, dropped them off at a thrift store and did a little thrift store shopping with my stepmom. We had much fun. She believes in getting all the pieces of an outfit together ahead of time — none of those belated “huh, none of my shoes are going to look good with this” issues in her wardrobe — and so I wound up with a dress, shoes, earrings and a necklace, for plans I have in three weeks or so that require dressing up. Well, not require. But warrant, anyway. All for under $20, which means that after said plans, I can drop it all off at a convenient thrift store. Serenity doesn’t have a lot of room for dress-up clothes. I like the dress a lot, though, so I might waver when the time comes.

Afterward, we went to a Beall’s outlet, where I more practically got myself a pair of black jeans to replace the pair that I have basically worn to death over the past six months; a pair of navy blue capris, to replace the khaki ones that I literally wore to death — they shredded the last time I tried to wear them and I had to throw them away; and a sundress. I love the sundress. I tried it on and thought, “If this is under $10, it’s a yes,” and it wasn’t, it was $11.99. Bah. But I didn’t agonize for long, under $15 was good enough.

Today is the RV dealer (obviously) and tonight, dinner with my writer’s group. Along the way I need to go to the grocery store so that I can make a double-batch of dog food, enough to feed the dogs all next week. Tomorrow is the real day for the dog’s vet appointment, so I’ll be doing that in the morning and then picking up my friend Suzanne at the airport in the evening.

And then Friday… oh, shivers of excitement. In the morning, I’m dragging Suzanne to the storage unit and loading up everything that’s left into Serenity, ready to drive north. And then Friday night, we’re getting on a plane together. First stop, Puerto Rico. Second stop, St. Thomas. Third stop, a ferry ride to Tortola and the British Virgin Islands.

Last summer, my brother asked me what my fantasy fiftieth birthday was. I thought for a little bit and then told him that it would be sailing in the Caribbean. Not a cruise, but on a sailboat. He didn’t say it had to be a realistic fantasy, so it wasn’t. But he made it real. As I’ve said before, Best Brother Ever.

So yeah, Suzanne and I are going sailing, with Festiva Sailing Vacations. I’ve been looking forward to it for months. Now that it’s almost here, I’m caught up in worrying about whether I’ve got my passport (yes, I do), whether the dogs are going to be okay (yes, they are), if I need more sunscreen (definitely, always), what I’m going to pack… all those good questions. But four days from now — or thereabouts — I will be wearing my new sundress over a bathing suit, looking out over an expanse of blue-green water and probably drinking some non-alcoholic, fruit-based beverage. I don’t know whether I’ll be blogging, but I will definitely try to post some pictures!

Mother’s Day Weekend

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One last Cedar Key sunrise

I broke my walking streak this weekend. For 158 days in a row, I reached my daily step goal, ranging from the 3000 I started with, up to the 7000 that I’ve been doing since March. But on Friday, I spent several hours driving down to Sarasota and it was oppressively hot. I needed to go grocery shopping so I figured I’d do some walking in a nice air-conditioned store, but I couldn’t find the store and so ran out of time. In the evening, I went out to dinner with R and his friend A to a cool Peruvian restaurant and by the time I got back to the campground, it was full dark. And I still had over 2,000 steps to go. I looked at my step-counter and just said, nope, done. The end of my streak!

But yesterday R came to pick me up at the campground and he didn’t want to pay the parking fee, so asked me to meet him out at the front. I grumbled a little inwardly — I’d walked all the way out to the front when I was here in the fall and I remembered it as a really long walk. Six months later, not so much. It was satisfyingly easy, even in the heat. I will definitely be starting a new walking streak, and maybe even raising my goal, but maybe not until I get out of Florida. Only two weeks left here, I hope!

R took me out to the movies — Guardians of the Galaxy II. I don’t know how many years now we’ve been going to superhero movies for Mother’s Day, but it’s a very satisfying tradition. The movie was a little darker than I expected it to be, though, and some of the jokes were surprisingly… mature. In an entertaining twist of roles, R — who works in a preschool and babysits in his spare time — said afterwards that he couldn’t help thinking about the uncomfortable conversations some of the parents of the small children in the audience were likely to be having. It’s rated PG-13, so I’m thinking those parents should have been a little warier.

In other news, I’m feeling dramatically stressed about this upcoming week, for no real good reason. It just feels like I have a lot to do…

(So much to do, in fact, that I forget to finish and post this blog post on Monday. But I’m posting it now and following it with another!)

Imaginary arguments

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A conflict arose between me and a friend this week. Passive voice = terrible writing, but that’s what it felt like. Not really a fight, not really an argument, but a conflict. Neither of us started it, neither of us wanted it, but there it was, rising up between us like an ugly, fast-growing weed.

Hmm, I like the image of friendship as a garden. Different friendships, different gardens? Rose gardens and tea gardens and straight-lined vegetable gardens, rock gardens and English gardens. Hedges and bougainvillea…

Bougainvillea is so beautiful and yet so mean. If you’ve got bougainvillea in your friendship garden, it’s just waiting to stab you unexpectedly. It’s not like a cactus, screaming “do not touch” but more of a hidden danger. Maybe a judgement that hurts? I have one friendship that mattered a lot to me — it was a gorgeous garden, lush and flowering and colorful. But it’s basically a desert now, all dried up and barren. I think it was bougainvillea that did it.

Anyway, not the point. My conflict this week is resolved, more or less, but I’m still having imaginary arguments about it. Ruminating, in other words. After lots of therapy, a couple years of therapy school, and plenty of self-help books, I know how to deal with ruminating — when I catch myself having the thought again, I stop and say, “I’m having a thought about X, what’s the feeling behind it?”

For me, ruminating about something that’s over and done with means that it’s not actually done, that there’s an emotion that I need to experience in order to let go. I am completely mystified by this one, though. I don’t know what the feeling is. Hurt? Rejection? Anger? Anger is usually a secondary emotion — at its root, anger is usually about hurt or fear, maybe shame. Fear and shame don’t fit either, though. I tried talking to another friend about it, but it didn’t help. Would that I had a good therapist on speed-dial, because I feel like I’m hovering on one of those self-awareness breakthroughs good therapy can give you, if only I could get there.

Speaking of getting there… I am leaving Cedar Key today and Grace is not finished. Sigh. I am not going to blame my ruminations. I am not going to blame my Lois McMaster Bujold purchases, either, although they definitely had something to do with it. I made progress, just not enough progress.

As with every step of this book, the problem is too many characters. At every moment, I’ve needed to know what all the characters are doing — not just Noah and Grace, my ostensible hero and heroine, but Dillon, Rose, Sophia, Joe, Nadira, Misam, and now Akira. It’s like juggling, I suppose — even when the ball I’m juggling is not in my hand, I need to know where it is and where it’s going.

But I refuse to be depressed about it. I’m heading into a really busy week, to be followed by a really exciting week, to be followed by a really busy week… and then I will sit in Serenity in Pennsylvania and not move until I’ve finished writing Grace. Well, probably I will move. But I will really try to focus on Noah and Grace. Someday these two are going to find a happy ending!

Meanwhile, my really busy week starts today: I’m headed to Sarasota for a Mother’s Day weekend with R. I liked sitting still for two weeks — it was not as productive as I wanted it to be, but it was relaxing to grow familiar with a location. There’s a balancing act between “on the road” and “living in a tiny house” and I don’t think I’ve quite found my balance yet, but writing definitely gets easier when I’m not constantly moving. A point to remember as I plan my post-July time!

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Chowder (non)-recipe

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Bay scallop chowder. It was delicious, even better the second day!

I love reading cookbooks and recipes, but I don’t actually follow them when I cook any more. Mostly, I make stuff up. It’s more fun that way and since I’m mostly cooking for myself, I don’t worry about screwing up. And when I cook for other people, they’re always people who love me enough to be appreciative, whether or not I’ve screwed up.

Monday mornings

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Sunrise from the bridge leading into the town of Cedar Key.

I’m sitting outside Serenity watching a giant white bird — I think a great egret, but maybe a snowy egret — stalk its breakfast in the water and wondering why those birds are so cool. Partly it’s the color, of course — it’s such a pure, almost shocking white. But it’s also the mix of awkwardness and grace. They look so ridiculous when they’re standing still or when they’re just beginning to fly — legs too tall, neck too long — but their movement can so quickly become beautiful. And their stillness has such an expectant, waiting quality to it. A predatory peace. Hmm, that feels like the beginning of an idea. Probably just because it’s alliterative, though.

My weekend was glorious. The storm brought a cold front in and the temperatures dropped, into the 50s at night, only up to the 70s during the day. It was delightful. I baked cornbread and made a bay scallop chowder, grilled pork chops with a spice rub and chicken marinated in yogurt and garlic, made salad dressing with my homemade yogurt… I also took some nice long walks with Zelda and wrote some good words, but really, it was the cooking that made me happy, I think. Well, or vice versa — I was happy so I was cooking. But either way, I had a lovely couple of days.

Yesterday, though, I looked at the weather report for the week coming up and thought, ugh. Back to the high 80s by Tuesday. Then I looked around me at the open spaces in the campground and thought, hmm… so I strolled over to the office and asked about moving to a different campsite. The ones I asked about were already booked, but the campground host suggested another one. My old site was on the water, but in the direct sun most of the day. My new site is not on the water, but it’s got trees all around it. Also, a concrete pad and a gravel driveway, which I didn’t know enough to care about until I realized last night that Zelda was no longer bringing a handful of sand into the van with her with every step. Yay for gravel and concrete! And trees. It also still has a lovely view, which could disappear if someone moves into the site across the way, but for the moment at least, this campsite is all good things. It’s in the very center of the campground, too, which I probably would not like if the campground was crowded, but in its two-thirds empty state, it just means that we’re getting to meet all the dogs that wander by. I’ve counted either eleven or thirteen this morning. (I’m not sure whether there are two sets of people with two labs each or whether those were the same labs being walked by different people.)

My summer plans have reverted to their previous state, which means I’ll be heading up to PA in June, down to North Carolina in July, with destinations along the way to be determined. R, in a move that I find both amusing and also somewhat gratifying, turned his summer internship into a tutorial, applied for funding, got it, and now has his transportation issues resolved without relying on me. My lecture on settling still feels appropriate — I really think he underestimates himself — but I think he would argue that I just think he’s great because I’m his mom. I’m pretty sure he’s great, though. But I’m looking forward to my Pennsylvania blueberries and my North Carolina beach days, so no complaints.

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My bay scallop chowder. Next time I wouldn’t use broccoli but might add some bacon. The mushrooms, eh. Not sure about those either. (Made with no recipe, obviously, just what I had on hand.) The bay scallops are amazing, though. I might have to buy some more before I leave.