Who’s old?

My ancient Sasha (going on 17) has been having some old lady troubles the past couple of months–things are just getting tired.  Many days, she will at least walk some of the way, even it’s slow (which annoys Jack to no end. “You’re kidding, right? You have to pee again?”), but some days, I leave her at home with a bone.   Cute, eh?

4th of July sunset on Lake Michigan.

Christopher Robin and I traveled to Michigan to celebrate his first 4th of July as a citizen.  Here are a few observations.

10. It is a long way from the Detroit airport to upstate, especially on the Thursday before a Saturday 4th of July, and especially when you’ve been flying since 6 am from Colorado, and you narrowly escape the crash of United computers at O’Hare Airport, where there are a lot of annoyed and exhausted passengers.  We arrived at Lake Walloon at 8 pm, just about as strung out as if we’d crossed the ocean to England.  Luckily, our hosts grilled exquisite fillet mignon and served them with perfect rounds of mozzarella, tomato, basil, and balsamic vinegar with a smooth red wine.

9. Lake Walloon is where Hemingway grew up.  It is surrounded by thick pine and leafy green forest that boasts no snakes except the friendly sort, and I’m not afraid of them.  900 (or so) people have “cottages” around this lake, some that are quite old and made of logs. There are also two summer camps, which made me think of Trixie Belden and my own girlhood at camps of whatever sort I could find–girl scout, High Trails (which is probably a Colorado thing), church, whatever.

8. On Lake Walloon I read Hemingway’s Nick Adams stories and found them dismayingly filled with the N word and had to stop.  I know he was a product of his times.  But I am a person of my times and the casual dehumanization was bothersome enough that I couldn’t keep reading.  Result: my love/hate relationship with Hemingway continues.

7. On Lake Walloon, we ate  s’mores, roasted over a fire pit by two boys in a still night with the lake rippling against the shore in sibilant commentary.

6.  At Boyne City, Michigan, the 4thof July parade is an Americana beauty, complete with little girls waving from fire truck windows, and flowers provided by the garden club. There were hats and pants and clowns suits and shirts all made of the stars and stripes, more stars and stripes than you have ever seen in one place, and it was all done without one tiny whit  of irony.  Three times people behind us leaptout of the crowd to join some marching band or float passing by.   Also, the entire downtown was still completely alive, populated with businesses like a hardware store and a fudge shop and whatever else.

5.  In Boyne City the day before, we met a man sitting with his beautiful labradoodle in front of an ice cream store. The dog was so lovely we stopped to admire him, and the man told his sad story of a wife who’d left him with the dog.  We all said, “The dog is a better deal,” but he was still so raw he didn’t know it yet.

4. Our host patiently taught me to kayak, and it was seriously fantastic.  I don’t want big rapids or danger or trouble, but paddling in the smooth waters of the lake was deeply, powerful meditative and I could do it for days unending.  (Note: as with all things, the secret is to relax into the whole thing.)

3. The traffic back to Detroit on the Monday after the 4th of July is also really insane.

2. In Ann Arbor I went with my aunt and uncle, who are practicing Hindus,  to a Guru Purnima celebration, which commemorates our teachers.  My aunt produced a flowing yellow outfit for me to wear, and we meditated and chanted and I loved being with them on such a sacred night. 

1. The next day, we visited Zingermans, a foodie heaven, where they have things like chocolate sourdough bread and exquisite olive oils, and my own particular reason for visiting:Balsamic vinegars, and I tasted several before deciding upon the 20-year-old.  My aunt, who is a foodie from before it was cool, naturally had a couple of bottles at home, along with her shelves and shelves of great ingredients and drawers full of utensils.

All vacations should be so filled with love, friendship, and the pursuit of passions.  I’m refreshed, renewed and ready to get back to work!

How was your 4th of July? Do you find it corny or uplifting? How do you celebrate in your corner of the world?

Chive blossoms are such a beautiful color.  My mother used to make chive blossom vinegar and set the jars along the window sill.  A dazzlement.  This morning, to celebrate the sunshine, I made some too.  And put it in my window.

The girls in the basement do love to play with images and color, don’t they? It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be wordless.   Here are a couple of shots I enjoyed playing with:

It’s a scented geranium leaf, that’s all. But it looked so extraordinary I fell into it for a good half hour.

This is from the Tattered Cover, LoDo, this afternoon:

Some of you have been shooting your favorite things, too.  If you have something you’d like to share, post a link in the comments so we can all see it. 

Uploading is finished.  I’ll be doing some more organizing and shuffling over the next day or two, but you can get a good look at the photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60255232@N00/sets/72157606862035227/

I have many thoughts to organize into categories for you. Australia turned out to be so much more than I expected, and so astonishing, and so nourishing.  I feel like the girls in the basement have been on a wild shopping binge–each one rushing out every day to gather up all the things she most likes from the environment we found ourselves in, grabbing colors or culture or accents or food or characters according to her job.  Every night, they all dumped their stuff in the Room of Creativity, collapsed overnight, the rushed out again at daybreak.   All those bags and boxes and observations are piled up in a messy tangle in the middle of the floor and it’s going to take a little time to get them all sorted.  

A couple of things I don’t want to forget, raw material from the past few days:

The Great Barrier reef knocked my eyes out of my head.  Especially from the air.  You think you know about something, and then you see it for real, from an angle you never expected, and entire universes open up.  

I learned so much 18th century history!  Again, things you sort of think you know, and there is so much more to them.

I had a very intense reaction to the Outback.  I think I expected to like it, and instead, it kind of freaked me out.  More on that as I sort it out.

In regard to those questions I posed at the beginning of the trip: many intriguing conclusions.  The first one is:  Australia is not America or Britain or Scotland or New Zealand or any other place.  It is its own separate self, very unlike anywhere I’ve been.   There is, undeniably, a strong British influence (though the food is better), but lots of other things, too.   More on that, too, as I sort it out.

THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS will be out in an Australian edition in February, so I hope you Australians will look for it on your shores.  I had dinner with my publisher and sales force on Friday night, and I’m excited to let you know that I’ll post cover art as soon as I have it.  I also came home to the news that Lost Recipe has now sold to Denmark.  Yay!  May there be many more.  I love the books to go around the world.

Enough for tonight.   Check back as I sort out the stuff the Girls brought back from Australia.  (Oh, I am both happy and sad to be back home!)

Most of the photos are still on my camera, but I’ll be adding them to Flickr as we go.