Twelve Hours Is A Long Time

 

Especially when you're driving from Lexington, Kentucky to Green Bay, Wisconsin all in one day.  I started in the very start of dawn and SNOW at about 7:15am (6:15am CST) and pulled into my garage in full dark at just about 6:30pm CST.  Granted, I stopped about six times (maybe more) for gas, food, and potty breaks but, folks, that is one long day and drive.

An hour from home, just as I passed Sheboygan, the big beautiful orange full moon rose up over the city.  It took all my self-control (exhaustion helped) not to drive down to the lakefront to gaze upon the moon and take its picture.  I took it when I got home but by then the moon was high in the sky, white, and small.  Trust me, the Sheboygan moon was huge, orange, and barely above the horizon.


Yesterday DD took the day off work and we went tourist-ing around.  We looked at horses and horse farms, stacked stone walls, and other cool stuff that I'll show you later but I was most impressed and befuddled by these huge chartreuse balls that had fallen into this running roadside stream, looking for all the world like a Chihuly installation.  SIL1 looked them up for us and they're Osage Oranges.  Aka Hedge Apples or Monkey Balls.

We stopped at RP Fabrics which is a polite iteration of the store's name: Rag Peddler.  I found this orange leaf print to make a caftan from and DD found some chicken print fabric for a shopping bag--for only $5/yard.





12November--Barbara Malcolm, Spies Don't Retire. 

Irina glared at Dimitri at the beginning of April when he expressed a need for a better mask and more comprehensive fish identification book when his birthday was imminent.  When she questioned him about his burgeoning interest in snorkeling, he answered that Jeffrey Minten and a few of the other husbands had a bet on who could identify the most fish before June first.  They were planning to donate the pot to the Marine Preservation Society.  “So much more fun than just writing a check, don’t you think?” he said to his suspicious wife.

“You’re not getting to close to that Major George, are you?”

He put an arm around his frowning wife.  “Of course not, dushka, I know you think he is a bad man.”  But that was a lie.

Soon after their first breakfast together, George and Dimitri realized that their wives were, if anything, more vehemently opposed to détente than any two warring governments could ever be.  They had agreed to keep their meetings secret; after all they both had a lifetime’s experience in keeping secrets.  They were careful not to be seen alone in each other’s company too often and then only seemingly accidental meetings in the market or on the street.

There were long-standing groups of snorkelers and birders on Bonaire, so each man developed an interest in the other’s pet hobby.  That way they could say truthfully that while they did see each other at the outings, it was just casual contact.  It was easy to keep up the charade during the winter months when the flood of tourists was heavy.  Airliners from Europe, America, and South America brought planeloads of people in every week to their island popular with scuba divers, windsurfers, mountain bikers, and birdwatchers.  The meeting dates and times of the snorkelers club and birdwatchers group were published not only in the local newspaper but in the free paper distributed to each resort and shop on the island.  Just as Rotary Clubs, Alcoholics Anonymous, and the various churches encouraged visitors who attended at home to attend, so did the bridge clubs, the avid tennis players, and other groups.

During the height of the tourist season many groups offered weekly competitions with the inducement of meeting like-minded people and sharing a meal, so the extra time George and Dimitri spent with each other was easily explained to their disapproving wives.  How could Sonia blame George when she appeared at a dive and snorkel club sponsored burger fry to see him flipping ready-to-be-eaten burgers from the grill to buns on a tray held by Dimitri?

“Honey, I’m not the one who controls things.  It was accidental that he carried the buns when I called that the meat was done.”

“I suppose,” Sonia said with a frown.  She made a point of sitting as far from the Russian as possible.

When the birders hosted a sunrise pancake breakfast for a visiting tour of European birdwatchers, a more serious and dowdy group you’d never see, Irina was incensed when she arrived to see Dimitri standing alongside George, one serving coffee and tea, the other offering various juices.

“Dushka, dushka, it was not my fault,” Dimitri said as he escorted her to a seat with the leader of the tour group.  “Mike asked me to pour the coffee and what could I say, no, my wife wouldn’t like it?  It’s too early to make an embarrassing explanation like that.”

“What do you mean ‘too early’?”

“Too early in the morning, dear.  Now, can I get you a cup of tea and some of Bibi’s delicious banana pancakes?”  He introduced Irina to the tour group leader, an earnest bespectacled man from Hungary who was a fan of Irina’s poetry, knowing that a morning’s flattery would dilute her irritation at seeing him standing next to George.  When he went to get the tea he had promised his wife, he leaned toward George and said, “That was close.”

“Uh huh.  I’m ignoring you from now on today, friend.”  George poured more guava juice for one of the Hungarian lady tourists with a smile.  “Your wife may be beautiful but I’m afraid of her.”

“Me, too.” 

And now I'm falling asleep.  Sorry I didn't blog last week but I was away having fun and didn't get my computer out once.  I promise that I thought of you though, almost every day.
--Barbara