He's more of a trip-hop kind of guy.

Phone conversation:

The historian: When you're not at home, I like to listen to jazz. With the volume up. But Bruiser really doesn't like it. Like today, I was listening to an old LP. Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Which is pretty great.

Me: (laughs: "Lockjaw." HA.)

Historian: He just gets up and goes outside.

Me: Not so much of a jazz fan, I guess.

Historian: I went out to check him--he was lying on his dog bed on the patio--and he looked up at me kind of shamefacedly. Like he thought I was punishing him.

In other news, the people, I am again in Idaho, this time with big writing plans. However much of these writing plans can fit into a three day container, we shall see. In the meantime, I have shuffled through a manuscript, using a writing compatriot's sage advice, and I have mapped out the official Big Writing Plan. If you happen to hear a lot of genius from up north (or from whatever direction Idaho is from where you are), that means things are going well, and therefore, bully for me. If, however, you hear no genius and on the other hand things seem a little sweaty, please just avert your eyes. Sometimes writing isn't very pretty.

A handful of decisions.

1. Some of my shorter skirts may be a bit too short. Alas. *

2. Purple faux suede shoes? Brown brogue-ish heels? Endless pairs of slightly uncomfortable ballet flats? Gone.**

3. I am willing to pay money for someone to make my window wells less dungeon-y.***

4. New dishwasher? New swamp cooler? Completely worth the money.

5. When you're feeling a little bit bereaved, it is completely okay to do whatever you want, as long as it's summer and you're pretty much letting no one down.****

*I can feel myself talking myself back into those skirts. As we speak. Maybe with tights, for instance.

**Although, since they are still stacked in my hall (as opposed to in and around my closet), maybe I'm speaking too soon?

***Calling all sons? or their friends? Cash money!

****i.e., wandering the aisles of stores and buying nothing; watching the end of Season 5 of Lost, then launching directly into Season 6; taking a nap; eating crackers and drinking iced tea.

My top ten summer activities.

1. watching ideas for writing flit into my mind and trickle out my other ear.

2. sorting stuff, and then throwing stuff away. Or giving stuff away.

3. admiring the new green and lavender paint in our bedroom.

4. eating popsicles and watermelon.

5. driving to and from Idaho.

6. having fun with grandchildren. And children.

7. wearing my vast assortment of white clothes.

8. eating cherries.

9. reading detective fiction.

10. watching Lost.

For the visually inclined:

And they're off.

Where have you been? you ask. Well, thanks for asking. It has been awhile. When I clicked "New Post," the iMac of Power hesitated a little--"Contacting www.blogger.com," it said, as if trying to remember what Blogger even was. Have we met, Blogger? You look awfully familiar.

The Scotlands left yesterday afternoon, the dad of the lovely family first, then the mom and two girls. And by "the mom," I mean, of course, my daughter, and by "two girls," my granddaughters. Their leaving doesn't abolish the fun we had. But I keep thinking of that fun in elegiac terms. I am an elegist by nature, I guess. Can't help grieving.

My middle daughter texted me yesterday: "Are you lonely? I sure am." The particular magic of this trip was that all the children--everyone here in Utah, and that's almost everyone, save my son the soccer coach--wanted to be with one another most of the time. It was mayhem and chaos and it was pretty much glorious. There were some quiet mornings, just us and the Scotlands, and a few quiet evenings; there were also more full-family dinners than I can count, some going out to lunches or the movies; some slip-n-sliding, some running through the sprinklers, lots of random imaginative games, story-reading, a few tantrums. A large-scale family hoopla, in other words. The full extravaganza.

I went to sleep last night with sense of a palpable absence--no small girls sleeping in bunkbeds downstairs. And woke up this morning to the same. We'll all get used to it and get back to our routines. For now, this quiet just seems empty. Empty-ish.

The meaning of July.

July, the fulcrum of summer, the point on which the delicate balance between delight and dread balances: each year at about this time, I can no longer banish the mathematics of summer, that accounting of what one has actually done divided by what one had originally hoped to do, the resulting figure indicating just how little time is left.

This accounting is, of course, happening, in some back corner of my brain. The numbers guy back there is using an abacus, probably, and also is smoking a rank cigar. The faint curl of smoke you can detect in a certain light, coming out my ears? That's him, all right. He will not let me forget.

However, since the arrival of the Scotland Contingent, with its retinue of granddaughters, the capacious front rooms of my brain are filled with popsicles and sprinklers, bathing suits, going to the park, story-reading and drawings and sweeties and cousins and grandsons, parties and magic. And in a snug downstairs bedroom of my house (and also my brain), two little girls are sleeping, one with a bunny, the other with a bear. And tomorrow, we will pile into cars and motor on up to Idaho, so that we can all do a little river magic together this summer.

What I'm suggesting is that at the moment, the big overstuffed life I lead is allowing me to ignore my grouchy accountant. I know I will have to talk to him sooner or later. But right now, there are a highway, several dinner parties, a bundle of rivers, hopefully some wildlife, and lots of watercolors, paper dolls, chocolate, cookies and wildflowers between us. Later is way better than sooner to settle the accounts. In the meantime, hooray for July!

Two days and counting.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, today I looked into the abyss that is my soul and was a little terrified by what I saw there. Which is to say, my daughter came over and helped me clean my kitchen. I had already done a once over and a twice over and was congratulating myself a little bit on how spiffy certain areas of my kitchen were looking. But my daughter does not believe in congratulating yourself on a clean (-ish) counter when there is the devil behind your cupboard doors. And by "the devil," I mean pretty much everything about the way I carry out my daily kitchen affairs.

Let's take, as just one example, my candle situation. I had, in the way of candles, many a votive, tea-light, pillar, and taper. I also had a half-burnt candle in the shape of an evergreen tree. Well, half of an evergreen tree. As you might surmise, this candle was a Christmas purchase. I had not actually set eyes on this candle in at least a couple of years. At least! Moreover, I also had candles that were set into pieces of bamboo, or maybe simulacra of pieces of bamboo. These I had purchased when this same daughter got married, for a party along a luau theme. Which was about five years ago. Literally, the last time these candles cast flame, it was five years ago. The world was younger then, and probably my cupboards were just as messy.

My daughter held up a lone little votive candle. I sobbed a little. She held it ever more firmly for my inspection. My shoulders sagged.

"Okay." I said.

"Good girl," she said.

This went on and on. There are many categories of kitchen items that were culled, sifted, and within those categories, many items weighed in the balance and found wanting. It was a veritable Day of Judgement at my house. Many were the colanders, old hand mixers, sandwich makers, electric kettles, ancient food items, spent tins of spice, and bad tea choices that were cast into the fiery pit, aka the garbage bin or the Goodwill bag.

Each and every cupboard and drawer is now organized, spare, and sparkling. I am chastened. My daughter is something of a champion--something like Jesus driving the moneychangers from the temple, but with kitchen dirt and stuff as the moneychangers, and my kitchen as the ancient temple. Well, now it's a temple.

And in two days, there will be visitors from Scotland at my house. I dare them to mess my kitchen up.

This is the truth, the whole truth, the absolute effing truth:

It is too hot. It is also too windy. Windy + hot equals horrible. It is so hot, I literally can't think. Moreover, even though I just this very moment told myself that it's lame to whine about the weather, I am helpless. I can't stop myself from whining about the weather. I know, I have whined about the weather on this blog about a million times. That picture--it's a plate from Inferno, and I've already made that reference on this blog as well. Couldn't I write something thrilling and original instead? like a poem or an essay or movie? or maybe read a book or something. Nope, all I got is: ugh, hot. And windy.

Okay, I am officially pulling it together now. Today, I did do some cleaning and organizing, which necessitated a prior trip to Target. A shockingly expensive trip to Target, it must be said, the result of which was the purchase of some plastic storage bins, potato chips, cleaning supplies, and other inconsequential whatnot, as far as I can tell. That stuff apparently adds up.

I exited the Target with my cart laden with all of the above and some miscellaneous other things, and drifted about the parking lot like a tumbleweed. Or maybe like Paolo/Francesca from Inferno or something like that. I flung myself from the car to the front porch, dragged in my goods, and hastened down the stairs, where it is kind of naturally cool (also: icy in the winter--I should work on remembering that the frigidity of January is but a foretaste of the cool refuge of July). And as long as I stay downstairs, I am semi-functional. Fortuitously, the cool downstairs happens to be where there is a bunch of organizing and cleaning to be done. I'm lucky like that.

Changes.

Singing son said he thinks this blog looks crazy now and he can't figure out what is what anymore. "Change it back!" he said, over burritos at lunch yesterday. Well, sonny, you can't go home again. Especially if you never saved a copy of your old template, like some folks do.

Other changes:

1. We are painting our hall bathroom (blue) and our bedroom (green and lavender, which will either be soothing as all get out or will be reminiscent of the Jack Nicholson Joker of the Tim Burton Batman ilk. Or a little of both.). Our eminent housesitter and his able compatriots took down wallpaper while we were gone. They would have painted but the wallpaper was possessed of the spirit of the devil, and thus we are still scraping pugnacious little stripes of ancient wallpaper paste. Wallpaper begone! We hope to have painted by the time the weekend is through, hurray.

2. We bought a new dishwasher. I kid you not, the first thought I had upon waking, after dreaming, I'm pretty sure, about bok choy--why?--was this: I wonder if the dishwasher got the dishes clean? And lo, it did. The dishes sparkled. I'm considering washing every dish, pot, and pan in this house.

3. We bought a new swamp cooler. Our old one was rusting out at the bottom and every year when the historian climbed to the roof to get it going again, he'd say that we needed to get a new one and this had to be the last year. The very last year. We could have gotten refrigeration, but we did not because we're old fashioned like that.

4. We are cleaning and straightening like it's our job because the Scotlands are coming to American next week, and they will be here in the SLC for two and a half weeks. I will spare you all the cleaning details, but let me just say that my books are all on my shelves, mostly, and I have done the once over two or three times on some kitchen counters, and I have a list, I tell you, of the straightening and tidying and cleaning that must be done here, there and everywhere.

It was a big transition (read: change) when, on Monday, we came down the mountain into the valley where it was hella hot, especially compared to the mountain, and for one night, there was no swamp cooler. Luckily, there was a basement, because there is no sleeping in the room of the ancient wallpaper, the palimpsest of which is still, but only barely, visible on our soon to be vivid walls.

THAT was a pretty good vacation.

Our last night. See you soon, the SLC.

Blackbird.

New 500 words: "Four and Twenty Black Birds."

Fresh words.

New 500 Words entry: "The 99 Names."

Updating.

New entry on the 500 Words page: "Seven Days."

Now: who wants to guest-write a 500 Words piece? I know you have 500 words you want to say about *something*.

Pages.

Blogger has static pages now. I will now pause briefly, so that you may reflect. Or maybe you already knew this, in which case, why didn't you let me know?

Here's how to make some static pages on your very own Blogger blog. In case you don't already know.

And now, I have two static pages: one, for my summer reading list, and another for a project I'm calling 500 Words (mouseover for links). I will spare you the background on the latter, but I am hoping to write several short prose pieces on various topics, to which I will alert the readers of this blog in the regular posts. There's one about Don DeLillo up there right now.

Carry on.

Requirements.

For a good two weeks at the Idaho cabin during an unseasonably cold June:

1. More wool socks than you brought.

2. A cozier sweater than you brought.

3. Piles and piles and piles of firewood.

4. The foresight to recognize that you're going to wake up to snow, therefore you should leave the heaters on.

5. Toast. A ton of it. And warm beverages.

6. Many, many, many books.

7. The patience to sit by the fireplace and tend it. Alternatively, a partner who exhibits that patience, aka The Historian.

8. Fortitude. And blankets.

9. Mittens.

June 17, ladies and gentlemen.

The sound of today.

is:

Memo from Idaho.

Up the road, they're excavating a site where, formerly, there was a cabin. This was a place on the river--we used to use their pier to walk out to the water, and to clamber up after a river float. Now, there's a truck rumbling up and down, carrying away dirt and rock from that site. Eventually, maybe, there'll be a new cabin there.

In the spirit of home improvement, we have purchased two new mattresses. The old ones were pretty darn old--fifty years old, my dad says. Below, the miracle of a box spring, naked and still shiny. It was very springy, which made it not such an excellent mattress for sleeping. For making a lot of bouncy noise, it was awesome.

Hardly anyone is up here in the village. So we walked up the road past the cabins, at the moment unoccupied, to the river.

There are birds everywhere. We found a couple of nests in the eaves.


We also have burrowed in, with our food, our paints, our woolly socks (it's a bit chilly here), our cameras, our books.

On our evening walk, the birds let us get pretty close:

Overheard in a Subway in Malad, ID.

The historian: Sometime, I want to take the time to stop at all the museums.

Me: So, like, a museum tour of eastern Idaho?

The historian: . . . there's the one here. And one in Idaho Falls. And the one on the reservation.

Later, passing through Rigby, ID:

The historian: . . . Also, that TV and Pioneer museum.

The people, we are in Idaho.

Should you, too, want to take the All-Idaho, All-Museum tour, this will prove to be an invaluable resource.

Start the party without me.

The people,

I was in California for the last few days. It was glorious.

Yesterday, I came home to the historian in a bower of roses, and the leaping up of dogs.

Tomorrow, we will be driving to Idaho. I'm thinking at the moment of never coming back. Oh, except for the part about the children, the grandchildren, Bruiser, the roses, the farmer's market and the Scotlands coming to visit. Also, later, my job. Other than that, I will be staying in Idaho forever.

Love,

htms

New thing.

My new camera arrived today. It is excellent:

Among its clever tricks: it can take high speed burst pictures. Tonight, I took a series of high speed pictures of singing son eating that are so hilarious I don't know what to do with myself, or these pictures. They would make an awesome flipbook. Perhaps I will get on that right away. Okay, you've talked me into it. Note: this flipbook will be available for only a limited time. [UPDATE: flipbook availability now over. Woe.]

In other news: after aiding college daughter by taking her car to get it inspected whilst she was laboring away at managing sandwich artists, I came home, let Final Cut Express teach me important life lessons, did the laundry, cooked some elegant and delightful white beans for dinner, read a story by Jonathan Franzen, and packed stuff for a trip to Sonoma County, where my oldest darling friend lives. Me and my camera are going to have a great time on our visit.