Past Blogs

I propose a moment of silence to remember the dear departed known as travel agents. Once upon a time, a phone call to them stating your travel destination and budget would bring a fat envelope to your mailbox a few days later. Plane tickets, hotel and car reservations, itineraries and travel tips all would be neatly arranged in a packet……at no charge.

Sadly, the airlines have sacrificed travel agents on their corporate altar of greed. We are forced to be our own travel agents. Anyone who flies now knows the hours of time wasted in securing a fairly priced ticket.

The nightmare is compounded by the fact that the airlines no longer have any set fares. The price varies from minute to minute based on what the market will bear. Gotcha!

One quick story will illustrate what ludicrous heights this situation has reached.

My husband and I were relaxing after dinner Friday enjoying our last sips of wine and beer. In a mellow mood, I said to my guy, “What cities have we never seen but would like to visit…….Calgary, for instance?”

We decided to check the airfares to Calgary. Bear in mind, we weren’t expecting any bargains. Americans hardly comprehend that Canada exists up there, and Calgary is not an airline hub.

The following is one of the first itineraries that popped up:

1. Chicago O’Hare to Houston
2. 23 hour 55 minute layover
3. Houston to Heathrow London
4. 1 hour 25 minute layover
5. London to Calgary

The trip was on Austrian Airlines, took three days to get there and covered 10, 441 miles. The price was $9,655 for one ticket in coach or $19,310 if we both wanted to go.

I do believe America has turned into dystopia and our prime job now is to keep our sanity. Someday, we will pack a bag and a cooler of food, hop in our Fiat 500 and drive the 1,515 miles to Calgary.

Fall is tardy this year. Autumn officially arrived on September 23, but the foliage has yet to explode into technicolor. A relative of mine who is here on a short visit from California was recently bemoaning our continued greenness.

I’m personally giving fall a tardy pass. Take all the time you want. A week of days that hit the 70 degree mark is fine with me. And nights that hover far above freezing keep the flowers blooming profusely.

Though the trees are showing only a few tinges of color, other signs of fall are at their peak. The roadsides are resplendent in purple and gold. More and more asters are coming into bloom each day with their rich palette of violet, magenta and purples. Interspersed with the asters are brilliant goldenrods which can light up even the cloudiest days.

The mild days are also ideal for viewing the monarch migration. Although their numbers have precipitately declined in recent years, the monarchs still cluster on our asters and false sunflowers lapping up nectar to fortify themselves for the long journey to Mexico.

Fall spider activity is peaking now as well. We wake up each morning to windows, doors and porch railings draped with orb webs. The fall window washing has been postponed until our busy weavers have stopped their frantic spinning.

No need to hurry things up, fall. About two more months of this slow show would be a joy.

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“What do you have against tea?” I asked my husband many years ago.

“It tastes like hot water and it’s weak,” was his immediate reply.

“You mean it’s not coffee,” I countered, and we both laughed. I found his answer to be analogous to saying, “I don’t like apples because they are not pears.”

But my spouse’s  decades long aversion to tea has one very positive aspect. If I offer him tea when he is sick and it’s accepted, I know it’s time to take him to the emergency room.

I am an ardent lover of good coffee, but also an admirer of tea. Tea soothes, calms and relaxes. A fragrant cup of herbal tea accompanies me to bed every night. And I would never decline an invitation to a tea party.

Tea is steeped in more than tea leaves; it is also steeped in tradition. The Japanese elevated the making of tea to a fine art. Consider this passage from The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura :

The tea ceremony was an improvised drama whose plot was woven about the tea, the flowers and the paintings. Not a color to disturb the tone of the room, not a sound to mar the rhythm of things, not a word to break the unity of the surroundings, all movements to be performed simply and naturally…

The British afternoon tea is another version of ritual. Time is set aside to enjoy the company of friends or family, manners are paramount, lovely dishes are used and a delightful array of small treats are indulged in.

Almost every afternoon my husband and I have “tea time”. Because of my spouse’s tea phobia, coffee fills in for the tea. It’s the quiet break in the day that matters.

The little cat feet came last week. And I’m not referring to the 36 paws that pat around in our house every day. Fall is fog season, and for those of us who live beside a giant lake, the fog is intense.

I frequently will be heading home on the freeway in brilliant sunshine and then turn my gaze toward the lake and see a solid roll of fog. “Socked in” is the local phrase describing this condition.

There is no scientific difference between clouds in the sky and fog formed near the earth’s surface. Consequently, I will frequently be walking around with my head in the clouds this fall.

Lake Michigan produces advection fog when warm, moist air advects, or blows, over the cold water of the lake. Massive billows of fog smother the lake and drift over the land.

The haziness gets compounded by radiation fog when the earth cools down after sunset. “Ground fog” happens on still nights and creates amazing Halloween effects.

One night last week we dined on our front deck and watched the fog envelop our known world…no field, no road, no barns, no mailbox. We were encased in a quiet, white cocoon.

But the flip side of fog is horror. Unsuspecting drivers race seventy-five miles per hour down the freeway that follows our shoreline. When suddenly they are staring at a solid white wall of fog, they slam on the brakes. Despite the fact that this road is the deadliest in the state, no fog warning signs are posted.

Travelers at Milwaukee’s Lake side airport are luckier. Fall flights are frequently grounded by fog. Drinking a latte and waiting for the fog to burn off should definitely be viewed as life enhancing.

When I was three, I decided to be an artist. My beloved Aunt Vi encouraged me in this endeavor. She was the head file clerk for a large company, and when she culled her files, she gave me boxes of discarded paper to draw on. First, I would sort it by usable drawing space (all had type on at least one side) and second by color. I felt rich.

Perhaps this gift explains why I am a one woman crusade to get paper the respect it deserves. Paper is such an ordinary, omnipresent part of our daily lives that many people squander and discard it without a thought.

Every child who has been an art student of mine knows my mantra. “Paper comes from trees, and we don’t throw trees in the garbage.” Invariably, some students will reply that they deserve a second piece because they recycled their first one.

I counter that recycling involves great quantities of energy, and it is more ecological to use the first piece more wisely. “If you mess up, you fix up. If all else fails, turn the paper over and start again.”

A short incident many years ago involving children and paper is etched in my brain. I was at a workshop for children at New Mexico’s Folk Art Museum. A group of Huichol Indian children from Mexico were guests of the museum and joined local children to do an art project. The Indian children did not speak English, but art is a universal language,   and they eagerly worked on their drawings alongside the American kids. Then, all of a sudden, one of the local girls scribbled over her work, balled up the paper in her fist and tossed it in the trash.

The looks on the Indian children’s faces  were of shock, horror and fear. “Is she going mad?” their expressions conveyed. To some of the world’s young people, a beautiful piece of drawing paper is a treasure.

As our American children head back to school, I hope they value all the school supplies in their new backpacks……and, more importantly, their chance to get a good education.