Monday Meander - August 24, 2020

August Adventures

A very welcome drenching thunderstorm last night left behind its signature on my chairs. A forecast of high heat and humidity this afternoon had me up and out early for my walk this morning and to check in with the garden. 

All is well out there - thanks to Ma Nature and when her rains go AWOL, my watering can. The flowers will be bright and beautiful for days after a soaking rain. Would that I could be so easily and simply refreshed and renewed. What I need is a vacation! 

It's been just over eleven months since my love and I embarked on a travel adventure. We headed over to explore Scotland on September 16, 2019, and returned seventeen days later on October 3. 

Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties in Edinburgh

We have slept in our own bed every night since then. That has got to be some kind of record for us, one going back to the 1980's when the children were toddlers and money was tight. Going to the zoo was an adventure as was going to the Royal Ontario Museum, and even the McMichael Art Gallery. Just the library could be exciting with a four and a two-year-old in tow. These days excitement is ordering a sushi/sashimi combo platter delivered to my door and tracking the progress of the delivery on my smartphone. I've never done that before and it worked as planned! 

But I still really do need a vacation, a time away that's new and different in a place that is as close to being as safe as home as is reasonable. It doesn't have to be long. I think three to five days would do it. I'm going to work on that idea for a bit this week. See what I can come up with. I feel a road trip coming on.

Stay safe. Stay sane.

Find some adventure.

©2020 April Hoeller

 

Monday Meander - August 17, 2020

The view from here..

Here I sit in my wagon at the top of CoVID Week 23 just rocking back on forth, one foot firmly on the ground ready to push off the other tucked up safe inside not quite ready to launch. Yes, no, maybe.   I can't blame the weather for holding me back. It's a lovely sunny summer's morning. So what's up? 

I don't know. It's just one of those day when ambivalence seems to be in charge. This breakout from the blankie fort which I embarked on last week is proving to be somewhat daunting this week. It was fun but now I look out at the sea of options before me - things I could do, things I ought to do, things I want to do, and things that others want me to do - and I'm lost in a whine of indecision. I may be free of the blankie fort, but uncertainty dogs my days.  Should I go, or should I stay?

Either way I slice it, nothing will get done if just sit here stewing and then I'll be really annoyed with myself for having arrived at the end of the day with nothing to show for it. There are times when empty days are exactly what one needs to restore balance, but I know that for me, this is not one of them. So I'm just going to grab my mask and push off into this day without a plan and see what happens.

And that's the way it is at the top of Week 23.

Stay safe. Stay sane. 

Get out there.

©2020 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - August 13, 2020

In praise of all things ordinary...

When so much of the news is about all that is not normal, not desirable, and not good for us, today I need to revel in all that is so wonderfully ordinary, beautiful, and oh so very good for me, body and soul. Here's my August cornucopia of ordinary:

Comet Swift-Tuttle brings us the Perseids every year at this time. 

Last night I scanned the midnight sky and was rewarded with two falling stars. Looking up at that vast expanse of darkness decorated by so many twinkling lights of stars and galaxies, somehow I was reassured that all was well. It was nothing short of awesome.

Closer to earth and during the day, the birds, bees and their kin, and stick insect go about their business without missing a beat.

I've been fascinated by a stick insect that visits the daylilies and tomato plants.

The gladiolus - a bloom filled with so many warm memories of my grandmother. The lilies too open warmly to the world.

And then there's the fruit and vegetables arriving from farmland Ontario. Niagara peaches and nectarines, wild blueberries from up north, all jammed and canned to warm the palate in winter.

And I cannot forget that quintessential August treat - corn on the cob boiled or grilled but always dripping with butter.

All of these delights are nothing more than the usual harvest of ordinary August, but this year it feels like so much more. It is like an extraordinary waterfall washing away all worry and angst, leaving one refreshed, renewed, and ready to enter the world, mask and all.

There is plenty to enjoy and celebrate. 

Stay safe. Stay sane.
And get extra butter!

©2020 April Hoeller

Monday Meander - August 10, 2020

 Report from the Blankie Fort - Week 22

Sitting in my wagon at the top of this week, I'm thinking that it's time to take down the blankie fort. It's taking up a lot of room in my living space and now seems to have morphed from a place of comfort and reassurance into a fortress of worry and irritability. Though it may be a safe place it is no longer my happy place.

It's time to step outside the fort and go about my life because CoVID-19 will be around for a while yet. The current pandemic statistics for my town show just one new case in the last week and 11 active cases while the whole of York Region (population 1.2M) reported 7 new cases yesterday and 248 currently active cases (source). So I'm putting the blankets away and gearing up to get out there with face masks, physical distancing, soap and water (or hand sanitizer when I can't wash properly), and an abundance of caution. If the case numbers take off again, I'll have that blankie fort back up and me inside it faster than greased lightning.

The bears and masked rabbit will remain on station in the sunroom window. Their pandemic job of "Bringers of Good Cheer" continues and continuing in that vein, they are still nurturing the brew of vodka and blackcurrants as it morphs into cassis.

An Easter cookie that was originally a decorating fail, I anointed as an emblem of isolation back in April.

I vowed that it would not be eaten until isolation restrictions were removed. We're not there yet, so the COVID Bunny remains in place, though it did sustain an ear fracture in May (to the culprit: you know who you are!).

There are no crowds, no parties, no indoor dining, no movie theatres, no planes, trains, or buses in my list of acceptable places to be. My family bubble of ten people remains the same. So what has changed? My approach to pandemic life, a change in focus from pandemic to life, my life, a mind shift away from what I can't do to what I can. Because it's time...

And that's the way it is on this day in Week 22.

Stay safe. Stay sane.

©2020 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - August 6, 2020

Hello August my old friend.

These past few weeks have taken a toll on me as a recurrent dental infection (first feared to be CoVID) heated up again bringing chills, aches, and sapping me of all energy. "Save the tooth." they cried in January and I reluctantly agreed to an apicoectomy.  Today it was, "The tooth has got to go." and again I agreed, but this time with enthusiasm. It's not out yet, but soon I hope. I so need some beach time!

Mom and I - 1958

If this were an August of my childhood, then a trip to the beach is exactly what I would be preparing for today. I often envied my pals who spent the entire summer at cottages by shining lakes in Muskoka or Haliburton. It seemed to me that all the cool kids had cottages up north, on a lake with tall trees and big rocks, with boats and fishing and all-day swimming, and all just two hours away from home. BUT then came August and our annual trip to the beach. It was a long commute involving taxis and planes and a foreign country!

1961

My mother's family had a cottage on Long Island, New York. Perhaps you've heard of  "The Hampton's" - well not there, but rather a more modest community on the southernmost tip, just east of Manhattan, called Breezy Point. Sadly the Point is now famous for the great fire spawned by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, which turned to ashes every cottage in the old original Breezy Point, including the cottage of my childhood. But memories are forever and there are photos too!

1970

It was always an adventure every year to make the trek to 147 Oceanside. We always dressed up in our fancy duds (dresses, white gloves, and hats!) because in those days air travel was fancy stuff. From Toronto, we flew TCA (Trans Canada Airlines, later Air Canada) to New York's Idlewild (later JFK) airport on a Vickers Viscount or Vanguard prop job, a flight that took about ninety minutes.

Mom - 1963

The cottage was far from grand but I didn't mind. At Breezy we had the Atlantic Ocean, with waves great for body surfing contests. Getting clobbered by a big one was as thrilling as it was humbling. We had the best beach in the world - white sand that stretched for miles.

Mom 1957

Mom - 1957

Mom & her girls - 1960

On a hot day, the walk from the end of the boardwalk to the firm sand near the water's edge was ... well hot, sole burning hot. And it's not easy to walk quickly on shifting sand carrying all the beach gear - big umbrella, chairs, tarp, food basket (containing pop tins wrapped in tin foil, sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper and all full of sand anyway), and towels. Sometimes a hike all the way to the jetty was on the menu.

Mom & Dad 1968

Me - 1968

My sister & I - 1961

At the jetty - 1956

My sister & I at the jetty - 1970

We had lifeguards on the beach, tall bronzed men in bright red swim trunks who sat atop blue lifeguard stands, or sometimes underneath them in the shade, whistle at the ready.

My sisters and the guys - 1960

We had parties - fancy hat, and card parties at Christ Community Church (Auntie Lilian always won 'The  Basket of Cheer', the one full of booze), fashion jewelry parties and clothing sales (Aunt Lilian hosted and gave the profits to charity). There were friends and neighbours who were always thrilled to welcome the 'Canadian Invasion' each August. One was president of a large bakery in Brooklyn that catered to the Jewish market. When he came to visit he always brought a huge paper sack, almost as tall as eight-year-old me, filled with bread (pumpernickel and light rye), rolls and chocolate donuts. He was the biggest man I'd ever seen - quite tall but also quite wide - and his shoes were the biggest shoes I'd ever seen - must have been six inches wide and fifteen long. As big as he and they were, his heart was bigger. He spoke slowly, thoughtfully and everybody listened.

1967

We had doctors that made their rounds on motor scooters and delivery boys that rode bikes, front baskets loaded with bottles from the liquor store, and prescriptions from the drug store. We had cops who drove around in jeeps equipped with big tires to get through the sand.

1961

AND, we had a volunteer fire department (Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department), with trucks with names like 'Big Jack' and 'Sand Flea'. When the big air raid type siren went off summoning fire and/or ambulance crews, it also summoned at least half the beach residents including us.

Late one night a fire started in the hardware store off of Market Street, opposite the drug store and we all trooped out to have a look. Dad carried a big red flashlight. He managed to make himself look so official that the fire crew from Brooklyn (they had to cross the Marine Parkway Bridge to get to Breezy) asked Dad,  "Is it all right if we set up over here?" Dad mumbled something and waved his red flashlight around a bit before discreetly disappearing into the crowd.

We had ferries that we could ride from Rockaway Point to Breezy for free, or take to Sheepshead Bay to check out the catch from the fishing fleet.

1958

1967

Sheepshead Bay 1967

Clams on the half shell at Randazzo's

From there, a subway took us into Manhattan - the United Nations, Times Square, Battery Park, the Staten Island Ferry, and the Statue of Liberty all there to behold. We had fireworks -  actually Coney Island had the fireworks, but we could see them from the bayside. We had the best pizza ever at a real soda fountain store that was just beside the Trunz grocery store. We had Ebinger's crumb cake! The competition for the crumbs is the stuff of family legend.

My versions of THE Crumb Cake

Mom bought real butter and the steak, chicken, and fish (mackerel and flounder fresh from the Sheepshead Bay fleet) all tasted better. We had the best food ever at Breezy Point. We had the best time ever at the beach!

It was about sand, salt air, ocean waves, body-surfing, ferry rides, fish, and fun.

But mostly it was about love. 

 ©2020 April Hoeller