Route 153

Bullfrog August 31, 2012

There’s a chill in the air, but still I go with Laura and Gigi to the pool that sits on a property cared for by a friend, because when was the last time I was in a pool? It is surrounded by the farmhouse and a barn and other red outbuildings and willows through which the slight wind is made visible. I can’t remember the last time I was barefoot on concrete, and the walk around the edge, the particular way my feet pound on that surface so that I feel the impact to the top of my head—it’s a sensation I’d all but forgotten.

Laura is first to see the large bullfrog sitting in the skimmer drain. We are happy to have a good look, and we enjoy showing it to 2-year-old Gigi, but the frog is not nearly so happy to see us. We watch it swim across the pool, its long, strong hind legs making it a perfect swimming machine, it’s webbed feet astounding. I’ve been in water with frogs many a time, of course, but never with a bullfrog in clear chlorine, never in a way that I could watch this.

The frog bonks its head into the other side of the pool. Laura and I look in vain for the net to assist its escape. We hope that those who live here will later liberate it.

I am not much of a swimmer, and it’s not a hot day, but I dive twice into the deep end, and the frog sits still at the bottom of the pool, below the diving board.

If it was bigger, it would eat me. According to Wikipedia, “Stomach content studies going back to 1913 suggest the bullfrog preys on any animal it can overpower and stuff down its throat.” This makes bullfrogs sound more like humans than not. I can’t deny it: Watching that magnificent amphibian swim, watching those powerful, beautiful legs, this word offered itself up for my brain’s consideration: Delicious.

Indigo’s Latest Excuses for Not Blogging August 27, 2012

1. Work. After a very slow year, I’ve had quite a bit. My life has been more deadline driven than usual, and I’ve tried to be only grateful for that, but it’s tough in August when one watches, through one’s window, summer slipping away.

2. Deaths. Every time I come close to thinking I might have something to say, someone dies—a neighbor, a friend, a friend’s close relative. My own grief and the pain I feel for my friends’ grief has effectively shut me up. I can’t articulate. I can’t speak.

3. Nonfiction. I’ve been pushing through several books on topics I’ve felt I needed/wanted to know more about: hoarding, eating for blood type, menopause. I chose a menopause book that was supposed to be lighthearted and funny, but I got very little out of that and began to find the same jokes, over and over, annoying. I have to find a better book. I have never been remotely interested in going through menopause and will be dragged through kicking and screaming, no doubt. Because I finally found out what my blood type was, I figured I’d take a look at the blood type diet book. I felt I might be onto something when it said I should avoid olives and blue cheese—something I’ve been doing all my life and but feel terrible about—but then it also said I should avoid anchovies, tuna, salmon, peanut butter, ice cream…I don’t much like the sounds of this. The hoarders book was fascinating. I am not a hoarder, but I come from them, and although I have never watched a hoarder’s show on television (I couldn’t possibly), I do feel the need to sometimes ask “WTF?” and see what kind of answer I get. One interesting aspect of this book was discussion of other traits many hoarders have, some of which I can see playing out in myself, such as an inability to make decisions (this could be an entire post). I seem to have a huge inability to make decisions when it comes to travel plans, which may stem from some of this “once you decide on one course of action you’ve walked away from the other possibilities” hoarders stuff, coupled with my anxiety over flying, which has more to do with motion sickness (likely) than with hurtling toward my death (much less likely, but not impossible).

4. Making travel plans. Yes, I have been completely freaked out making plans to head to Denver/Boulder next month to attend a snooty black-tie function (my husband will have to rent a tux) and to meet the man I call my 86-year-old boyfriend, with whom I’ve been in contact since 1995 but have never met (who is one of the hosts of the snooty function). He is one of “my authors,” a man who writes for the journal I edit, and I will be meeting him and another of my authors for the very first time. The timing of points of the trip are odd enough that big blocks for playing in Rocky Mountain National Park don’t seem quite possible. I do, at last, have hotel reservations for every night we are in Colorado, and I feel much better having made this decision, even though it looks like I’ve chosen to not spend nights in the park—the not choosing of that was definitely holding me up. Maybe I’m accepting that this vacation is more about cities and people. But I still need to see some western birds.

5. Biking. My work schedule has been such that I stopped going to the gym (driving there and back was lost time) and worked out at home and on my bike. Biking is beginning to feel as glorious as it was when I was a kid—time to be outside, time to escape, time to be in the moment. I’ve had to add a bit of road riding to my route (which is mostly rail trail) because Tropical Storm Irene took out a bridge. It gave me an excuse to buy a fancy new bike helmet. The 20-year-old one I was wearing was beginning to embarrass me.

6. Other. To go into my obsessive worries and whines would just be way too much. I hope you’ll be seeing more of me here.

Special Delivery August 3, 2012

I went out this morning to walk to the post office, and Emily, outside with her gardening grandmother, called me across the street and handed me a flower, and when she found out that I was going to the post office, she said Wait! and she picked a flower for Jackie, the postmistress, and asked me to deliver it and tell Jackie it was from Emily, and I did, and Jackie sent a lollipop back for Emily—mango!—and I delivered it to Emily, then talked to her dad who was working on a project for my next-door neighbor, then Emily called me back over so I could watch her write

thank you indigo

in pink chalk on the slate sidewalk, the lollipop lodged solidly between her teeth.