Let me first try to explain my headshot. Think I was about to sneeze. It doesn’t look like me. Carlene tried to reassure me, by saying her photo was worse. That worked, not because her photo actually is worse, but because her words brought to mind the truly welcoming nature of MVR ringers.
This post is intended to expand on the bio, which already recounted highlights of my music career. Furthermore, Covid (temporarily) dashed the previously touched upon travel plans. A lengthy, yet restorative physical therapy commitment, after simultaneous double knee replacement, put the Masters Swimming on hold. (The knees warrant a separate post.) The best part’s still going on: enjoying life with husband.
My husband’s parents savored watching TV during dinner. After each nightly cooking spree, I’m queried, “Honey, would you like to dine, or be my parents?” More often than not the reply is, “Oh, let’s be your parents!” Nightly dinner theatre has updated us with The Crown, Bosch, Game of Thrones, Ratched, Ozark, True Detective, Westworld, Chernobyl, Treme… the list goes on.
Cooking is quite a sensual retreat. Friends know they can text me various ingredients, such as disparate farm share veggies, and then I’ll text back what to make with them. Sometimes this even inspires unusual kombucha flavors. Once I got stumped! Someone texted a photo that was more suggestive of a large, smooth turnip with a navel. Turned out to be a jicama. Who would have thought, especially in agricultural zone 5? Anyway, when binge-watching and doomscrolling (and addictively wolfing down potato chips) gets old, cooking becomes the healthy pastime.
The “garden” here is more of an obsessive, environmental mission. Our entire property was a serious fixer-upper. It had Japanese knotweed, about 10,000 square feet, and invasive phragmites grass in a large pond, all replaced now with native elm, birch, dogwood, viburnum, blueberries, sweetfern, etc. I had to get good at driving a large Kyoti tractor. The animals here largely have to fend for themselves, unlike Dianne’s lucky wild charges and Colette’s family’s fortunate ducks and chickens. Aside from fostering their plant community, we do little for the bunnies, turtles, frogs, snakes, otters, herons, weasels, groundhogs, foxes, ducks, birds, etc. See my blog, landremedy.com. (Because Covid times have been so demanding, I’ve been trying to wear the fact that it needs updating like a badge of honor.)
The blog is not exactly current, partly because like many of us, I’m often tethered to my computer. Instead of seeing students, conducting choirs and leading hymns, I’m teaching online, chairing virtual creative meetings, performing Zoom piano/vocals and producing music videos. Here’s one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lERYG5HfjWU
And now, instead of being chained to the computer, I’m going to go outside and blow leaves off the paths and back into our planting beds, using a battery-operated leaf blower. It’s free mulch, perfectly crafted for its purpose. Nature has been powerfully healing during the past year. I hope you all have a patch of healthy native plants and/or wildlife nearby, to walk through, be inspired by, and to enjoy. May you stay happy, healthy and safe!
