Oh, Odysseus, It is Great to Return to Ithaca
We’e been in Ithaca N.Y. a number of times, usually for work. Both Woody and I have done residencies at Ithaca College, given readings separately and together at Cornell and/or Ithaca College and at a festival organized by Katharine Howd Machen. It’s a place we’ve come to love and over the years, we’ve also gained experience and appreciation for Fingerlake wines. Ithaca’s an attractive town with hills, gorges, waterfalls, Cayuga Lake, rambunctious and oddball architecture, lots of good food and great produce, especially apples. The west side of Cayuga Lake is splendid scenery with Taughannock Falls, fine sweeping views of the lake, hiking trails and excellent wineries. If we didn’t do anything there but visit wineries to taste and buy wine, we’d have a good time.It’s a liberal funky place, still lots of countercultural aspects. Once you get out of Ithaca, it’s Trump country. We took an overnight vacation there. Foliage was late and still close to peak so the drive along the west side of the lake was gorgeous. We always go to the Cornell apple store where they have many kinds of freshly picked apples, some you know and like, some that are varieties you never see in stores. We bought lots of apples, freshly made cider and local honey. This week I had a gig in Binghamton to give my powerpoint talk based on research I did for my novel SEX WARS. New York humanities council was giving grants for the 100th anniversary of women suffrage and including my novel. Binghamton had received such a grant and brought me in. Binghamton is one of those cities that were prosperous with lots of decent jobs before manufacturing was moved by the wealthy to Mexico or Bangladesh. It feels dilapidated and sad now. We were put up in a dingy old Holiday Inn that was depressing. We got up around 5:30 and drove straight home nibbling popcorn and apples. We got back to cats deliriously happy to see us. I think Willow purred nonstop all night. They like Melenie who stayed here in our absence, but no one can replace us. Schwartzie grew in our absence. His tail is as long as he is, a large graceful black plume. Everything is a mess in my office and bedroom. There are many tasks that remained undone while I was preparing for my recent returning poets workshop and then teaching it and then preparing for the SEX WARS powerpoint. We need to plant the remaining bulbs that arrived about ten days ago. The garden is still giving us Swiss chard, Chinese cabbages, six kinds of lettuce, endive, Brussels sprouts, radishes, herbs, red giant Chinese mustard. The tender crops are all done and pulled except for Cayenne peppers, still holding on although we had one light patchy frost. Both Woody and I love fall. I’m not looking forward to the end of daylight savings time, although I enjoy the 25 hour day. Getting dark so early curtails garden work. Since Trump pulled even and slightly ahead of Hillary, I haven’t slept well or sometimes much at all.