Slow return to what passes for normal

After the workshop ended and Melenie and Jay helped us clean up the night of the party, the next day I wasn’t good for much. I was physically and mentally exhausted. I sae on the sunporch with Woody and the cats, recuperating. Sunday I did half the wash as usual and got into the garden for a couple of hours. My gardens were very neglected. The pumpkins are big enough to defend themselves against weeds. I weeded the much younger butternut and other winter squashes. Later in the week I got into my other vegetable garden and weeded and thinned there.We’ve been in a drought and it looks like we’re headed back into it after some gentle showers this morning. We have to keep watering and watering, but there are many planted areas we can’t water. It’s triage in a drought.Monday Dale and I went to a nearby nursery. I needed to fill in some holes in the flower beds. It’s such a weird year that we’re getting yellow squash, patty pans and zucchini long before any broccoli or cabbages. I don’t know how much of those cole drops we’ll get this year. Woody harvested the last surviving bok choi and I made a stir fry. It’s amazing how many of my cookbooks have no recipes for bok choi. I have to do something with the rest of this enormous bok choi. Anyhow, Dale and I went to the nursery and among many other things, I bought some green and red cabbage plants for a good size – or so I thought. These were for Woody’s garden and they sure looked like cabbage, but when Woody went to plant them, he found a small label I had overlooked. I had bought red and green kohlrabi.Now I have never grown kohlrabi, I have never cooked kohlrabi, I have never eaten Kohlrabi and to my knowledge, have never ever seen a kohlrabi. I have been looking for recipes for this, presuming it will like our soil and make edible vegetables. Woody is excited about it. I am a bit dubious but willing to try. Tuesday I got back into poetry.Wednesday we went off to Wrentham to the outlets and then to the Whole Foods off 495, rather than go into the one in Cambridge we usually shop at very six weeks or so. I was hoping to get new Timex watches. For everyday, I like cheap digital watches. But Timex was no longer in Wrentham. I had to try to buy one on line. We’ll see if it’s what I like.I managed to work outside some on Thursday and Friday despite having a doctor’s appointment each day. I wrote a second poem and at myi urging, we went through a closet where stuff had been piling up for years. You wouldn’t think it possible so much junk to throw away could be on the floor of a standard size linen closet. I also went through the freezer and found a couple of half pints of pesto from 2007 and other old freezer burnt items, some unrecognizable. I’m in a decluttering mood, which often does not match Woody’s ideas. For instance, he’ll wear tee shirts with holes in them, often several. I never would do that.This morning I had an interview with an academic who drove out from Boston to see me She seemed very disappointed in the rainy weather. She’s from the Midwest and probably planned a beach afternoon once she had the interview. Woody went to a memorial for two friends of ours, If I had been asked to speak about Dan, I would have cancelled the interview, as after his husband Paul who died a couple of months before Dan, I was his best friend in Wellfleet. We were very close and I miss him a great deal. But the memorial is being organized and run by Paul’s family and they weren’t interested. It will be mainly a memorial to Paul, obviously. Dan and I exchanged poems, talked about everything, confided in each other and did things neither of our spouses were interested in, going to plant sales, rambling on about poetry, going to Ocean Job lots and other shopping expeditions. We had so many plans. He was joining a small poetry group I’m in, we were planning a dim sun excursion to China Town in Boston, etc. The very day his heart stopped and he dropped dead, I was scolding him in the afternoon about taking on too much that Paul had always done, cutting back and taking time off to rest. I miss him dreadfully.