Lisa's Camera

The Cat Days of Summer

It’s so hot here. I did my due diligence and researched how best to run the air conditioning so as not to break the bank or suck maximum usage out of the power grid. I have the mini split upstairs running “low and slow” and I have blackout curtains on the windows and skylights up there. I hate to cover the skylights in the summer, but doing that helps with the heat enormously. I turned the AC temp up on the unit that cools the rest of the house a bit during the day, during the week, because I spend all day upstairs working. I have my soaker hoses set up in my garden and run them in the morning every few days. I had laundry to do today, so I did that in the morning too.

The heat wave is supposed to break over the weekend. Then there’s going to be a ton of rain. As long as it’s not severe, I’m good with that. It’s a bummer when it’s so hot like this— you can’t enjoy being outside.

So far so good with my garden this year.

My coneflowers bloomed while we were gone. They’re so pretty! I need to photograph them with my good camera to add them to my garden photo collection. My basil is super happy. I need to start cooking with it. A few of my cherry tomatoes are ripening, and I have a cucumber that’s almost ready. My pepper plant is still Not Dead But Not Doing So Great, so I don’t think I’m going to get peppers this year. It’s weird— I had them in copious amounts the first few gardens I planted here, but the past few years— nada. I don’t know how well my large tomatoes are going to fare either. We’ll see.

Poe was excited that I was doing laundry. He loves warm laundry. He’ll come running when I dump it onto the bed and immediately start tunneling into it. It’s pretty cute. Lookit his little beard on his chin. ❤️

It was a good day to get caught up on work. The 4th of July weekend is this weekend, so it’s been pretty quiet.

I have stored my violin in its case under the bed since I started learning. The temperature fluctuates too much upstairs to keep it up there, and the HVAC vents run from the basement up through the closets in the bedrooms downstairs so I can’t keep it in there either. The case for my rental was made out of the same fabric that suitcases are made of, and the cats were all too interested in sitting on it or scratching it, so I couldn’t just leave it out, so I kept it under the bed because I really had no other option. The case for my current violin is an even more tantalizing to Fitz for scratching, so I keep it under the bed as well. Last week, I experimented and evicted some sweaters from my dresser to see if it would fit in there.

C attended his fraternity’s biannual conclave last week in Charlotte, North Carolina and also wanted to visit his cousin, who lives in the Raleigh area, so I went with him and we made a little vacation out of it.

The conclave was at a Marriott next to the UNC Charlotte campus. There were a couple of days when he was busy with sessions and such during the day, so I was on my own.

Some people would not like exploring an unfamiliar place by themselves, but I love it. We took our new car, and I could’ve driven somewhere, but I wanted to walk around and not drive, so I explored the UNC campus and nearby area both days.

The first day, I walked over to the botanical gardens, which are on the campus grounds. They are actual gardens and not a building like some botanical gardens are. I didn’t realize that until I found them. It was hot— not as hot as it is now, but hot enough. I brought workout clothes on the trip and wore those. Walking through the forested areas had a bit of a rainforest vibe. It’s plenty humid down there in the Carolinas. The gardens were lovely.

The UNC Charlotte campus was nice too. I’d never been to Charlotte before, other than catching a connecting flight. It’s an American Airlines hub, and being as you can’t hardly fly direct anywhere from Louisville’s rinkydink airport, I think I’ve flown through there quite a bit. Walking around campus, which was deserted because it’s summer made me wonder what it would’ve been like to have gone to a real college. All the colleges I went to were suitcase colleges/commuter schools. The “student life” was pretty lifeless. UNC Charlotte was sprawling, full of stately red brick buildings.

The second day, I wandered campus again, thinking I’d go back to the botanical gardens, but I saw an inviting walkway which led to another walkway which lead to a paved mixed-use trail. I wished I had my bike. Alas, I did not, so I hoofed it. I’d packed my tennis shoes and my AirPods, so I had a nice ramble. It was so pretty, and I got moving before it got too hot.

After both my walkabouts, I took luxurious showers and lounged in the hotel with my Kindle. I follow the writer Suleika Jaouad on Instagram and I’d never read her memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, so I read that. She and her husband the musician Jon Baptiste made a movie together, American Symphony, and I watched it when it came out. They are two extremely interesting and talented people. Now that I’ve read her memoir, I need to rewatch that movie and get a copy of her other book, The Book of Alchemy, because I know I’ll love it. After I finished Between Two Kingdoms, I started reading another memoir that I’ve had on my list for a while, Violin Dreams by Arnold Steinhardt. Some people might think, “dude you spent part of your vacation reading in your hotel room?” and yup, I did and it was awesome. I don’t often have big chunks of time free to read like that.

In the evenings, we dined with C’s brothers from the fraternity that he’s stayed close with since college, and their wives and family. One night, we all attended the Conclave banquet. I’d never been to an official fraternity event before. The chapter C and his friends belonged to is no more, but there are active chapters at other schools, mostly in the Midwest and surrounding areas. The CEO of the fraternity is gay, and is married. C and I had a delightful brunch with the CEO and his husband when they were in Louisville earlier this year. It’s definitely not an organization for jocks and dudebros. Both the CEO and outgoing president talked about how fraternities help address loneliness and social isolation in the male population, which is something I noticed too, as I’ve listened to C tell me about the programs that they do. It’s a brotherhood for college age men but also for all of these alumni that were there, ranging from recent grads to men C’s age to a few elderly brothers. The notion of community has always been important, but I think it’s especially important now. It’s interesting to be a part of an event like this. Those of us attending as spouses or family had “friend of Sig Tau” on our lanyards.

After the Conclave concluded, we headed over to Goldsboro, NC, to visit with C’s cousin and one of his sons. C’s cousin has ALS, the same condition that his mother died of years ago. We saw C’s cousin and son in Delaware this past February, at C’s uncle’s funeral. His cousin was mostly okay then, and used a cane. When we saw him this time, he was using a walker. He’s still himself, though, could converse and have a meal and a beer with us and his son, who is a stellar young man— a firefighter with a Carolina drawl that is helping his dad out and spends time with him regularly. They said they’re going on a cruise with C’s cousin’s sister and her grown children and her boyfriend’s children next week, I think. That’s really good. For me a Hail Mary bucket list trip would be to Paris, but for this man, a cruise to the Caribbean with his kids and family is that, for sure. In August, C’s flying to with his parents to see these cousins. They were all close when C and the cousins were growing up, and now that both of the cousins’ parents have passed, my in laws are as close to parents as they have. That will be good too.

The other day I was practicing “The Kesh Jig,” and Fitz kept hanging around, and he jumped on my chair and meowed at me. “Do you like this one,” I asked him. I don’t think it was the violin or the song, he probably just wanted attention. He’s so funny.

The Kesh Jig is one of those spritely Irish fiddle tunes. There are two popular Irish fiddle song types, jigs and reels. Don’t ask me what the difference is. 6/8 rhythm is common. After 2 1/2 years I finally figured out how to count 6/8, but I definitely don’t have that rhythm, or any rhythm embodied. Tutorials I read go on and on about “feeling the pulse.” Okay. That does not come naturally to me at all. But with a peppy Irish tune, yes, yes I can hear the bounce, but OMG I cannot play it. That’s why I didn’t even attempt trying to learn a jig or reel until now.

When I first started learning this one, ooh, it sounded like ass. Now it sounds slightly less like ass, but in order to try to play it with the bounce, I need to memorize it. I realized the other day that I do have the first part memorized. Songs like this are repetitive so memorization isn’t as difficult as it would be for some things. I’m probably going to play this for the fall recital, as a companion for Hallelujah, instead of playing Hallelujah and the Game of Thrones theme. I might still do GoT, but it would be more fun to have one moody piece and one peppy piece. Plus GoT is hard. I don’t know if I could play that one for an audience without screwing it up. We’ll see.

The other night, Fitz was curled up next to me in bed. He doesn’t usually sleep near me because Poe likes to sleep on or near me too, and he will bother Fitz because he’s a stinker. Predictably, Poe came along and he settled in right next to Fitz and there was cat peace. It was really sweet. They like each other, but they don’t snuggle next to each other like that.

The weather continues to be pretty decent and my garden is happy. Soon, I will have some cucumbers. My pepper plant is still Not Dead But Not Doing Great, so I don’t know about it, but the tomatoes are doing okay. They have at least another month before they’ll ripen.

Orchestra season starts back July 12. We are playing “World Music,” but don’t know what that will entail yet. I’ve spent all summer thus far drilling myself on flat notes, since we had so many last season and I was completely unfamiliar with them. I also finally cleared a major mental block about reading rhythm in sheet music, so I hope to not get completely schooled by the repertoire. I’m learning a jig too, so it would be great if “World Music” included a tune from the Emerald Isle, but we shall see. I haven’t played anything like a tango or anything middle eastern or Asian or African either, so it’ll be a good learning opportunity. I have serious doubts that I can actually play a tango. I can’t really play a jig either, though!

The levels of learning a piece of music are:

Can you read the notes?

Can you read the rhythm?

Can you play the notes?

Can you play the rhythm?

Can you play the notes in tune?

Can you play the rhythm correctly?

Can you play it at tempo?

Can you play it at the tempo the orchestra is playing it?

Can you play it with feeling?

OMG. It’s a lot. But it’s so nice to be preoccupied with thinking about all of that instead of whatever fresh hell is happening in Washington, DC or World War III or the collapse of Western civilization (which might not be a bad thing, actually, were it not for the fact that chaos would ensue and despots even worse that the ones we have now would take over) or work shit or obligation shit, real or imagined.

When I took up the violin, I had no idea that it would give me something I’ve never really thought I could take up: space. It’s also undoing other things I thought about myself, including that I was not meant for the stage; that I belonged backstage. I got yanked offstage in seventh grade and never even questioned it. I never saw the parallel to my overall life pattern either. Eldest daughter. Helper. Good girl. Honor student. Project manager. I’ve spent my whole life supporting other people. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, I left nothing for myself, thinking I didn’t need it. As long as my family, friends, colleagues, pets, the checkout people at the grocery, my neighbors, the committee, that random bird singing in a tree were happy, I was happy. Right? I’m not saying I’m going to change my entire way of being, but yeah. Maybe I am meant for the stage. And it is my right to get up there and play, unabashed.

I mean that both literally and figuratively. I am who I am and I don’t want to be a soloist or the loudest voice in the room, but I do want to assert influence where I can. And that’s subtler than it seems. I’m learning how to work the system at work to secure my lot as best as I can. I have volunteered to help with fundraising for the music organization I belong to and with sponsorship for our professional development day that the local project management chapter is having this fall. I did not volunteer to do any creative work. I did not volunteer for either of these things because I felt I had to. I did it because I wanted to.

It feels radical to seize agency in your own life, but that’s what I’ve been practicing lately, in addition to violin.

My dad taught me how to ride a bike, but when it came time for me to learn how to drive a car, he offloaded that duty to my mom.

One of my most cherished memories is of him holding the back of my kid’s bike, sans training wheels, as I navigated the sidewalk in front of our suburban bungalow. I remember that once he sensed I had my balance, he let go, and I looked down with amazement as I soared down the green tunnel of my parents’ street all on my own.

I grew up in the 1980s, and until I was 10, my mom stayed home to raise my little sister and me. She entertained us, taught us all of the practical things, kept us in line. We were pretty good kids, but every child gets on their mother’s last freaking nerve at times, and I remember days when Mom had had enough, and scolded us, when my dad came home from work, I’d run into his arms. “Daddy’s home!”

My dad served in the Army before he married, and he and his buddies took a trip to Japan while he was overseas in Korea. He bought a Yashica rangefinder camera and he faithfully photographed our entire childhood with that camera. To the point that when he died, Mom didn’t have a huge amount of photos of him to choose from when I scanned them to make a little digital memorial for him.

My dad was supportive when I decided to go away for grad school. He drove a rental truck full of all of my worldly goods over the mountains to Richmond, Virginia. He listened compassionately to my stories about my uncaring professors and mailed me a set of earplugs to “help me with Dale’s (my MFA thesis advisor) carping.”

When I first started dating C, my mom loved and accepted him right away. My dad was slower. He had to give him the up and down and side to side, tip to tail examination and ruminate on him for a bit. I think he sensed that this was the guy I wanted to be with for keeps, and as a girl dad, he needed to make sure C passed muster. Of course he did.

C and my dad had a lot in common. My dad loved listening to NPR as he got ready for work in the morning. C listens to podcasts on his phone when he gets ready for work. Dad was always there for everyone at his work, and C is the same way. My dad never formally managed a team like C does, but he was everyone’s go to.

Dad and his family enjoyed long, leisurely meals and gatherings, and he instilled that value in C and me. Our favorite thing to do together is to enjoy a round or two of drinks before a meal and then enjoy the meal, after. Mom and Dad had cocktails every night before dinner, and they would always sit at the kitchen table and talk while they had them. Drinking might not be the best habit, but sitting down and talking with your spouse and best friend— giving them your undivided attention— is.

Dad wasn’t perfect. He was of 1/2 Lace Curtain Irish ancestry, and 1/2 taciturn German ancestry. He was born in 1942, so he was part of the Silent Generation, and so they were. Feeling your feelings wasn’t a thing. Anything unpleasant, you just swept that under the rug. That generation’s parents didn’t raise children with much demonstrative affection. Dad’s repressed emotions would sometimes emerge after a cocktail or two, when he’d pound the kitchen table to express a point, or sometimes unleash wrath upon an inanimate object. He rarely got angry at people. He’d sometimes snap at my mom if she interrupted him when he was speaking, and he’d yell at my sister and me to “stop thumping,” because our bedroom was right above the kitchen and our boisterousness interrupted the peace of his cocktail hour. He was also a cultural snob and judgmental at times. I inherited those traits, so I thought that was part of his charm.

In the last years of his life, he was not forthcoming about his physical maladies and decline. Not to us, not to Mom, not even to himself. This was where I was grateful Mom is pretty much an open book, because she told me. I saw him fade. So did C, so did C’s brother. He was five years older than Mom, so I always knew he’d go first. That, and no man in his lineage has lived past 80. Dad was 78 when he passed.

I am so very grateful that the last meaningful conversation I had with him— I think it was in August of 2020 when I took a sack of homegrown tomatoes from my garden over to their house for their anniversary on August 5, all masked up because of the pandemic, and they let me in. We sat in the kitchen and talked, masked. My dad told me about one of his childhood best friend’s children— and he described her as “a force, like you.” Dad would never say outright anything other than I love you, but to hear him acknowledge me like that meant the world to me. And I carry that through these days without him.

They say when your father dies, you look for him everywhere, and that’s true. I look for him in things— music, food, cocktails, the neighborhood where he and I grew up, at Mom’s house, at my house.

But I also look for him in people. If you lose your father, there is this father shaped hole in your heart. I find him in C, who cares for me unconditionally. I find him in my boss at work, who is a dad of 4, and who listened to me last year when I needed to peace out of a toxic project. I find him in my violin teacher, a dad of two and stepdad of two, as he works with me patiently as I try to learn a difficult instrument in my middle age. I find him in my conductor, a dog and cat dad and music dad to over 100 musicians, as he begins our orchestra rehearsals with punny Dad jokes. And I find him in some of you guys, several of you dads and dog and cat dads, as you read and heart my posts. Thank you for listening to me. ❤️

I was practicing/playing violin earlier and Fitz thought I was taking too long to take a break and give him his wet food dinner, so he took a 💩 in the catbox we have upstairs, which is right outside my studio/ office. Faugh! Okay, okay Fitz. I went downstairs and fed him & Poe and scooped the catboxes and then went to playing.

After I finished, I was sitting in my office chair watching some videos I recorded of myself playing (it’s good practice to do this to analyze yourself and also make future you feel good that you’ve progressed when you watch the video a year or more later) and he jumped onto the back of my chair. “Pay attention to me!!!!” he said. He’s such a Velcro cat.

On this day, 6 years ago, we adopted him. Happy Gotcha Day, you little stinker. Literally! 🐈💩❤️

Look at that! They used the photo I took for the sandwiches section in the DoorDash menu. I got paid a whole three bucks for it, which is more than I got paid from some of the freelance photography gigs I did back in the day. This was more fun, because I could help out this local business and also eat the subject of my photo. I definitely recommend subbing onion rings. Mmm.

The organization that the community orchestra I belong to is a part of will celebrate its 10th anniversary this fall. It is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide music lessons and opportunities to anyone who wants them for free. The organization’s headquarters is in downtown New Albany, a little Indiana city just across the Ohio River from where I live in Louisville. The HQ building has classrooms, office space and recording studios. In addition to the orchestra, the organization also includes a choir, a Big Band group and probably some other functions that I don’t know about. I’ve only been involved with them since January. They do all of this on a shoestring budget.

Here are my backyard lilies, blooming with enthusiasm. We had a storm last night that knocked the ones on the right over, so I tied them to my neighbor’s fence this morning.

I saw this on Instagram the other day. A lovely notion. My garden is absolutely bursting with flowers right now. I have hydrangeas in the front garden, and flowering hostas, and in the back, I have a profusion of lilies, my knock out rose bush is going strong, my daisy is blooming, the marigolds are doing well and my coneflowers are getting ready to bloom. The only casualty I’ve had so far is the red coneflower I planted. I think the damn squirrels killed it. I don’t know what color the other coneflower I bought will be.

This evening, I looked out the kitchen window and saw a monarch butterfly flitting around the garden. So pretty. My butterfly bush is doing well too. I didn’t see the monarch on that bush, but nice to know my flowers might have caused it to pay my yard a visit.

Soon, I’ll have to put my soaker hose system to the test. The weather has been pretty decent this week. But Hot Season will be here and here to stay until October. During high summer last year my garden really suffered. I’m going to try to water it more this year.

This afternoon, I snuck out for a bike ride on my lunch break. I almost didn’t, but I get an hour lunch break, I didn’t have any meetings until much later, nothing was on fire, so I suited up and went. That was so nice. I created route that combines two of the lunch time walking routes I do. It’s fun how you can cover so much more ground on a bike. I like to ride around the neighborhood and look at people’s houses and see what they have growing in their gardens. It’s really great that I can do this during lunch.

Truth: I have been slowly, but surely reclaiming some of the time I gave up years ago when I was working myself to death. I used to feel guilty being away from my desk. Not anymore.

The quote above is right. We can’t hold on forever, and the way our society is, you really have to make a concerted effort to stop and smell the proverbial roses. I am trying. Though right now in my garden, you can’t really smell the roses due to the sheer volume of lilies in bloom. They are super fragrant. And beautiful. I’ll have to get some photos of the full plants. They are really happy this year.

It’s both a blessing and sometimes also heavy to live in the same town where you grew up. Often, I’ll include some nostalgia into my bike rides.

Had to photograph the cats while I had a good camera out.

My garden is so pretty this time of the year. The hydrangea is the star of the show right now, blooming in a profusion of pinks and purples and green. My front yard greenery is doing well too, ferns, ivy, sedum and bishop’s weed.

My backyard flowers are ready to steal the spotlight, though, the stargazer lilies are starting to open today.

The weather has been hot and humid and we have had a few soaking rains. My veggies are growing. My dill is very happy so I got supplies to make:

Salmon with dill

Roasted dill potatoes

Yogurt dill dip

Dill vinaigrette