It’s the birthdays you should be celebrating, but aren’t.
Jiggety-jig
This newfound habit of mine, in which I post here on Monday through Thursday and then don’t post at all Friday through Sunday, is not an intentional habit at all; it’s just one of those seeming habits that gets dictated from without by external realities. In this case, it’s that we left town Saturday and did not return until Sunday. The reason for our trip was our annual visit to the Sterling Renaissance Festival. I took a lot of photos on this trip, and you can see them all at the Flickr album here (I’ll have more to say on the general topic of photography later this week, I hope), but here’s a small selection:
The Sterling Renaissance Festival remains one of our favorite getaways of the year, and this year’s was especially delightful because we all hadn’t been able to attend since 2019, before COVID. The Festival was canceled in 2020 and I’m not sure if it happened in 2021 or not, but that year we couldn’t go anyway, because of Reasons. In 2022 we were able to go and we pre-ordered three tickets, for The Wife, The Daughter, and myself–but then The Wife had ankle surgery in early summer, and that ruled out her attendance. The Festival is a ton of walking, and it’s rustic walking, with the Festival grounds occupying the side of a forested hill. Getting around the Festival for an entire day is tiring for a fully healthy adult, believe me!
We did notice that the Festival is showing some signs of wear around the edges, if that makes sense: buildings in slightly greater disrepair than usual, some decorations in desperate need of re-painting, and some vendor booths and buildings actually empty (though some of those boasted signage that their particular vendors would be joining the Festival later in the year). And the crowds were definitely smaller…but that did make for a bit more enjoyable time. I do hope that none of the above was indicative of a Festival in decline, and that they’ll be back up to full strength moving forward. It’s a quirky and fun way to spend a day, even if it costs quite a bit of money. Most things do, nowadays.
Instead of driving all the way home, we stayed overnight in Palmyra, NY, after having dinner at our favorite fried chicken joint in Webster, NY. One note about staying overnight in Palmyra: that town is literally holy ground for the LDS Church, so you will almost certainly be surrounded by Mormons. This doesn’t bother me particularly, but it might bother some…and who’s to say if I bothered the Mormons! I’m not usually attuned to people staring at me, but it was hard not to notice some of them being somewhat flummoxed by a long-haired bearded guy in overalls and a poofy-sleeved shirt walking through the lobby of the Best Western by the Hill Cumorah site.
Anyway, getting out of town and doing something fun was a delight–and as it happens, this year it felt like a necessary delight. (More on that…someday, perhaps.)
(NOTE: I am aware of the controversy that has erupted in recent weeks surrounding the Sterling Renaissance Festival, the people who own it, and one employee there. My comments section is not the place to litigate that situation, and I will approve no comments referencing it.)
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You’re still here?
Another few days of no posting! What gives?
Well…there’s a lot going on right now. A lot going on right now. Some of it I’ll almost certainly write about soon, when I have leave to do so; some of it I likely…won’t. But yeah. There’s a lot going on, and no, it’s not all bad. Some of it, though, is a struggle.
For now, here’s a nifty video from a professional wildlife photographer to whose content I’ve recently subscribed on YouTube. I find this man fascinating for a lot of reasons…some of which I’ll be going into at some point, soon!
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Unplanned Hiati!
Is hiati the plural of hiatus? Let me go check….
Answer: It is not. It’s hiatuses. OK then!
Anyway, I had no planned intention to take an entire weekend off from posting here, but that’s what happened. Nothing major happened, just a busy weekend full of stuff I felt like doing more than posting here. I’ll write about some of that at some point soon, but for now, just as a quick way of getting back into things, I’ll do something I used to do a lot: a quiz-thing! This one is from Sunday Stealing, which Roger faithfully does most weeks. Here’s this week’s quiz:
1) What is your favorite way to spend a lazy day?
For purposes of this question, I’ll assume that the lazy day is a day at home (i.e., not on vacation someplace) without much by way of expected activities or duties. My answer depends a bit on the weather: if it’s nice out, I might go to a park for some walking or hiking and photography. Also, sitting and reading and writing is always on the docket! Listening to music, too.
Basically, a lazy day is a good time to engage my various hobbies.
2) What do you look forward to every week?
The weekend!
OK, fine, let’s be more specific and less obvious. Saturday night, we usually have a cheese-and-cured-meat selection for dinner (yes, I could use the hoity-toity word Charcuterie for this, but come on, do we really need a fancy French word for cheese-and-crackers?). We also usually stream a movie on Saturday nights, so that’s a pleasure. I also follow some content producers who generate stuff on weekends; their work is always nice to see. One example is Critical Role, which I do not have time to follow in entirety (each episode is like, four hours long!), so I skip through quite a bit. I don’t always know what’s going on–no, scratch that, I almost never know what’s going on, but the geeky energy surrounding that table is always infectious.
3) Name three pet peeves you currently have.
Like, fairly new pet-peeves? OK: well, right now, thanks to some BS unfolding over the weekend, I’m sick of guys issuing challenges for debate. The latest example is RFK Jr., who has become a fountain of complete bullshit, and Joe Rogan, who has yet to find a shitty idea he won’t amplify, challenging a vaccine scientist to “debate”. My general position on debates is that they are always, in every single instance, a complete waste of time.
(Oh, by the way? Remember the 1988 Vice Presidential Debate, when Dan Quayle got the “If you became President, what would you do first?” question three times? And on the third time he dragged out his comparison of his Congressional tenure with that of JFK’s, to Lloyd Bentsen’s obvious delight? The obvious right answer to “If you became President, what would you do first?” is, “Well, it depends, doesn’t it?” Or even “How the f*** do I know?!” I mean, is he taking over because the President had a heart attack, or is it an assassination, or a 9-11 style attack that killed the President, or is it a huge scandal that forced the President to resign, or….” As cloying as it was, probably the most authentic and actual answer Quayle could have given was one he did give: “First I’d say a prayer.” Anyway, the Bentsen “You’re no Jack Kennedy!” line was a delightful piece of red meat for a Democrat like me, but it also started me thinking, “Maybe debates are kind of a waste of time?”)
Moving on…oh wait, I didn’t finish the question. Two more pet peeves: People who don’t clean up their dogs’ solid waste, and people who wear their overalls with one strap unfastened. I hate that last one. It always looks weird to me.
4) If you were to win an all expense paid vacation for two weeks to anywhere in the world, where would you choose to go? What are some of the things you would like to experience while you were there?
Ooooooh…I would not be able to choose, so I would do so randomly. I would roll a d8 (that’s an 8-sided die, for those of you who don’t play role-playing games), with these results, dependent on the roll:
1-2: Finger Lakes vacation, either in Ithaca or Geneva, NY
3-4: NYC
5-6: Toronto
7-8: Waikiki
In each case? Sight-seeing, visiting museums, shopping, eating, drinking, walking around, and folding in a few lazier days. I have no problem filling up time. The Finger Lakes and the Waikiki vacations would present opportunities for nature engagement that NYC and Toronto don’t, but the cities would have live theater and movies to a greater degree.
5) What was one of your favorite toys as a kid? Did you save any special things from your childhood that you still have today?
Check this out:
My parents gave me that little nesting doll set when I was in first grade (I think). I remember wanting nesting dolls because I loved the concept. I remember being a little confused by these because I was expecting the traditional “Matryoshka” style, but this grew on me quickly. I still dig this little sailor family–made in Poland!–and this item has a place of pride on my desk even now.
6) What is your favorite holiday? What is your least favorite holiday?
Favorite? Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years Day are all in a big tie. And honestly, Halloween is right up there. I love that the year ends with four months of cool celebratory days, each with its own flavor and air.
Least favorite? Hmmmm. It’s never really on my radar because I never get it off, but Columbus Day sucks and needs to be renamed to something better. As in, not honoring a racist colonizer.
7) Have you ever met anyone famous? What concerts have you attended?
The vast majority of concerts I’ve attended are classical concerts. Outside that area, I’ve heard Celine Dion (that was a great show!), the Trans-Siberian Orchestra several times (always a blast), and…gosh, that’s about it. I do think more about going to concerts moving forward, though. After hearing what I’ve heard about her current “Eras” tour, I’m intrigued by going to hear Taylor Swift.
I’ve met almost zero famous people, but as a kid I once went backstage after a Buffalo Philharmonic concert to get then-music director Semyon Bychkov’s autograph. He was very friendly and gregarious.
8) Are there any expressions that people use that really annoy you? If so, what are they?
Roger doesn’t like “common sense”, and I am in agreement.
Of course, some other expressions come and go depending on what pop culture does with them. Thanks to Letterkenny, I have a new appreciation of “To be fair”.
9) Do you like your name? Are you named after anyone? Is there a story how you got your name? Would you change it if you could? If so, what name would you give yourself?
My name’s fine. At this point, changing it would seem kind of pointless, and anyway, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t love it or hate it…I’ve never been one to find some innate connection between myself and the name I carry around, but it’s fine.
If forced at gunpoint to change my name, though? Hello, Max Power!
10) It is said that it’s the little things that make life worth living. Name five of those little things in your life.
- Mandarin orange sparkling water with cranberry bitters
- Sharing a Nutter Butter with the dog after work
- Walking around the Hamburg Farmers Market
- When I figure out how to fix something I’d never taken apart before
- This deer in my neighbors’ yard last week. The deer was determined to eat from their bird feeder, so she (I’m not sure of the gender, but no rack, so…she?) geared up, reared up and stood on her back legs, and balanced there while she ate. I watched her do this twice, and before executing her standing maneuver, she would suddenly wag her tail quickly.
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At the Ridge….
For the first time since Cane died last September, I went hiking at Chestnut Ridge Park yesterday.
Chestnut Ridge is an old park whose development by Erie County began back in the late 1920s, and a lot of the park’s original infrastructure, quite a bit of which still stands, was built by work crews of the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Chestnut Ridge is a very large park–at more than 1100 acres, it is 300 acres larger than New York City’s Central Park–and it covers a lot of rugged terrain, ranging from forested hills to steep gorges through which streams run. The most famous feature in Chestnut Ridge Park is the Eternal Flame waterfall, which is just that: a waterfall behind which there is a small grotto into which natural gas seeps from underground. This gas is almost always aflame, and if it happens to be out, you can literally reach in behind the water and relight it, if you’ve brought a lighter with you.
Chestnut Ridge was a common destination for Cane and I in our weekly nature walks and hikes, and we covered a great deal of the park’s terrain and trail system over our years of trekking there. My last visit to the Ridge with Cane was last July, I think…which was therefore the last time I was there at all. Shortly after that visit he started limping slightly, and that was the beginning of his end.
Yesterday was my first trip there alone in many years.
Being up there yesterday was many things. It was beautiful, obviously, and being in nature was honestly what the doctor ordered after what’s been a trying few months recently. I kept thinking, though, of the presence I was missing; I’d walk a hundred feet and suddenly realized that I hadn’t had to stop three times for a greyhound to smell this tree, that bush, this patch of dirt, that rock. When you’re used to walking those trails with one hand always holding a leash, it’s a bit strange when that hand is unoccupied. And when I made my way down to the side of the stream at the bottom of one of those gorges, there was no watching as Cane found a deep spot to lay in–you know, to cool off–and to drink.
I won’t be staying away from Chestnut Ridge this long again…but it’s not going to feel the same there again, is it?
Photos:
It was a good day, a good walk in the woods. There was even time for a touch of whimsy, like plucking a few wildflowers and wearing them in the bib of my overalls. One should always strive for a touch of whimsy. At least, that’s how I see it.
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Scenes from amongst the lilacs (and a bit of Rachmaninoff!)
The warm months of the year, for us, tend to be bookended by two specific festivals: the Rochester Lilac Festival in May, and the Ithaca Applefest in October. Lots of stuff happens in between, but those are the markers of “outdoor stuff” season. So, yesterday we were off for the Lilac Festival!
Which was, this year, well…we’ve been enjoying gorgeous weather recently. Today is sunny and wonderful. The days leading up to yesterday were also mostly pleasant and nice. But yesterday itself was…a soggy rainfest that started before we even left for the day. Here I am, staring existentially out the back window at the gray rains. (More specifically, I’m waiting for my water to boil for coffee.)
We got to the Festival and tracked down our favorite food truck for poutine, which we were lucky enough to eat out of the rain in a big food tent. So that was nice. Poutine is always lovely.
But then we were out into the rain to try to see some of the lilacs and the various trees in Rochester’s Highland Park.
We didn’t walk around nearly as much as we usually do, because it was raining. I had an umbrella, but it’s on the small side, and The Wife wore a coat that she believed to be waterproof. (This turned out to be incorrect, so we stopped into a tie-dye clothing vendor at the Festival’s art sale and bought her a shirt just so she’d have something dry to change into. Some years, the anniversary gifts aren’t as romantic as others, I must admit.) I stayed mostly dry, thanks to my umbrella, but I have determined that I need a larger umbrella, probably one of those gigantic ones that some folks carry around. I concluded this because it turns out that the sleeves of a poofy shirt can actually exceed the coverage provided by your small umbrella, with dampening results:
Not one but two wet sleeves. Oh well, live and learn. Onto the shopping list a bigger umbrella goes.
Later on we went to The Chicken Coop in Webster, NY for fried chicken. We love this place and it’s a favorite destination of ours now when we’re passing through that particular part of town.
So, the day was something of a mixed bag, alas.
Up in the title to this post, I mention Rachmaninoff. There is a tie-in here: specifically the lilac flower. In 1902 Rachmaninoff wrote a song cycle, 12 Romances, one of which is a setting of a poem about lilacs. From this sprang an odd gesture of appreciation from one of the composer’s fans, as described here by Bertensson and Leyda in Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in Music:
It was about the time of his return from America that the mysterious activities of the “white lilacs lady” began. Rachmaninoff could give no concert or recital without a bouquet of white lilacs among the floral tributes. Bouquets of white lilacs were also delivered on every birthday, every saint’s day; and if he happened to be abroad on those dates, the white lilacs would just as surely arrive at his hotel or the compartment of his train. The notes accompanying this tribute were always brief and tender, congratulating him on his birthday or wishing him success in the concert, and the only signature was the Russian initials of “White Lilacs”; the song “Lilacs” in Op. 21 appears to have inspired this extraordinary labor of love. Rachmaninoff appreciated the lady’s incognito as deeply as the simple, warm words of her notes, though sometimes the gift was a little flamboyant–especially when the everlasting white lilacs arrived on schedule in the depth of winter. Not only did bouquets, wreathes, and other ornamental florist’s designs arrive with these flowers but the gift took other forms, such as an ebony conductor’s baton engraved with a design of white lilacs and Rachmaninoff’s initials. The giver’s identity remained hidden from the composer and all members of his family.
Fortunately, the mystery did not remain so. From the footnote in Bertensson and Leyda:
It was not until 1918, after the Rachmaninoffs had gone abroad, that “White Lilacs” was identified. Sophia Satina [the composer’s niece] tells of this: “As I walked to my laboratory one day I heard a horse galloping behind me: I turned and saw a cabman whipping the horse frantically, with an elderly woman standing in the lurching cab, clinging to him with one hand and waving to me with the other. When they came up to me, this woman, breathless and agitated, said, ‘Thank God! How happy I am to find you! I am White Lilacs–my name is Rousseau.–Where is Rachmaninoff? Is he alive?’ She was overjoyed to hear that he was well and working abroad. When Sergei Vasilyevich heard about Mme. Rousseau, he offered to help her to leave Russia, but she preferred to stay in Moscow with her daughter.”
Apparently when it became clear to Mme. Rousseau that Rachmaninoff would not be returning to Russia at all, in the wake of the Revolution, she ceased the gifts of lilacs. I do not know what became of her after this, but I do wonder if Rachmaninoff missed the constant presence of white lilacs in his later life…perhaps not as a reminder of a specific admirer, but as one more way his beloved Russia of old was gone forever.
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Twenty-six
The Wife and I were married twenty-six years ago today.
The years keep presenting new challenges, on and on and on…but they also keep producing memories, more than a few of which are happy ones.
I used to note that I could imagine a life without her, but it was worse in every way. Now, in what I’m taking as a blessing, that part of my strong imagination is losing its power…or it’s simply saying, “I don’t want to imagine this.” Either way…I’m fine with only imagining this life, with her.
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Knox Farm: a bittersweet return
I returned to Knox Farm today, for the first time since last year. I’ve been wanting to return to my weekly nature walks; they were always calming and inspiring and gave me moments of quiet to recenter my life.
The problem, of course, is that I’d have to go alone. Cane is gone and can’t go with me.
The places we go with certain loved ones really hit differently when we go there without them, don’t they? It felt weird just not having a leash in my hand. Being able to walk or stop at will, without having to take into account the desires of a greyhound who feels it necessary to sniff everything, was…weird. That dog was my companion at such places for eight years. (I could take Carla, but she’s scared of car rides and I don’t want to do that to her. Maybe I’ll try again sometime soon, but I want to get my feet wet again, first.)
It’s been warm of late. The weather is about to turn sharply colder for a few days, but this entire week saw temps in the 70s, and today we’re in the 80s. This was enough to jump-start our spring a bit. The forests are still mostly bare, but…distant hills are starting to look slightly frost-tipped with new green. It’s coming. Hopefully sooner than later.
It was a beautiful walk, and there will be more. I’m going to be getting back to all the old familiar places…but they’ll all feel lonely for a while. I used to take a photo of the two of us and caption it “Adventurers!” on social media. Now, for a while at least, there’s only one adventurer.
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[insert clever title for post that’s mostly photos here]
I’m friggin’ tired, y’all. Here’s some pictures.
First, cats.
Here’s Remy, who is a big weirdo. Look at those mutant feet of his.
Here’s Remy and Rosa, in the windows. This week is the first time we’ve been able to keep windows open consistently since last autumn.
This is Daisy, my mother’s cat. She lives a life of quiet feline dignity.
It’s not all cats! Here’s Carla, being dignified:
Here’s Carla not being dignified:
How about food?
This chocolate bar was awesome. If you love those Ferrero Rocher candies, this is for you–especially if you can’t have the Rochers anymore because they contain gluten. This includes The Wife! Ferrero Rochers were one of her favorite candies ever. This is that exact flavor, minus the crispy interior that’s likely from the gluten.
Last week, I broadened my horizons: for the first time, I made tempura:
This was my recipe. It turned out really good! Everything was wonderfully crispy and flavorful. If you haven’t had tempura, it’s a Japanese batter that is used for dipping and deep-frying vegetables and seafood. I did cubes of cod, shrimp, onions, asparagus (between this and grilling, I may well be a new asparagus fan!), and small peppers. The batter is made of rice flour and uses carbonated water for moisture, and the result is a very light and crispy batter that in some places is almost translucent…and yet, it’s there. This was a terrific meal. As they say on The Repair Shop, “Brilliant! I’m quite happy with that!”
And finally, drink. Specifically, rum punch!
As for tonight? The weather has been gorgeous–even a cold-lover like myself feels the wonder in the return of warm days when they finally arrive–and tonight I’m firing up the grill for the first time. Steak and shrimp, here we come!
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Can it be?
A possible spring-like Spring?
We’re in a stretch of sunny days! After rain for what seemed like seventy-nine consecutive days, we’re finally drying out. Not only does it not look like rain any time soon, but we’re slowly warming up. We may be into the 70s by this time next week. Wow! Today it’s still chilly, but who knows…I may be retiring the sweaters-and-turtleneck look sooner than later, I hope.
Also, a long stretch of sun and dry weather will lead to a less muddy yard, which is always a good thing. Here’s the mighty Carla, sniffing the air for a moment whilst playing with her favorite toy.
And here is one of the cats, staring intently at what she is hoping is a mouse but is really a leaf that had been skittering across the deck in the morning breeze.
It’s also time to switch from knit hats to my wide-brimmed hat. The warm times are coming…I’m sure we’ll have some dips back into coldness in store, but for now, this is welcome!
