I spent a month in England with AFS when I was 15, and a month in Greece with my Aunt when I was 13. Which has been on my mind because my kids are getting older. By 13 I had an unusual (absurd) amount of freedom. So I reflect on who I was, what I was doing as I became a teenager, and compare that life to that of my children.

In London one evening, busy ignoring a production of "The Pirates of Penzance," I spent most of the play flirting silently with an usher across the auditorium. He ended up keeping in touch, writing me poetry, and eventually visiting in the states. That's some fairly serious flirting for two people who never said a word face to face. In the end, though, he was mostly accent. The eyes really can't say it all.

Which shouldn't stop a girl from trying. In 1979 in Athens Greece I showed up for dinner in the hotel restaurant wearing pants. Where I was promptly asked to leave and return properly attired in a skirt or dress. Women were not allowed to wear pants. Its good for my daughter to hear such things, and reflect on the immediacy of history. (She's currently reading The Evolution of Calpurina Tate about a dress rejecting girl from the 1800s.) Dinners there, at that time, lasted several excruciatingly boring hours. One can only fiddle with iced butter curls (unsalted!) for so long before giving in to broader horizons. I spent all the time I wasn't eating moussaka silently flirting with a busboy. We stared and stared and STARED at each other, never saying a word. Days later an older waiter followed me into an elevator and pushed a piece of paper into my frightened hand with the name and (I assume) address of my friend.

Alas, I don't read Greek so I never wrote him or saw him again. My daughter asked why I didn't just have it translated online? "Because online hadn't been invented yet," I responded. There were no computers. And people were allowed to walk on the Acropolis. Which I believe was closed to foot traffic very soon thereafter.

My car died so until we get a replacement (possibly tonight) I'm not out and about. Its easy for me to discount the work I do at home. But being somewhat stranded (I'm not truly stranded--many folks around to help if I need a ride) makes my work more clear. I can't get to the store, but I harvest more than a gallon of milk and fresh eggs here a day. Today I pulled a bunch of beets, enough chard to share, and a cup of blueberries out of the yard. There are fresh flowers to cut. And yesterday I made fried flower fritters out of the day lilies in bloom. So the work I've been doing here matters. We have plenty. And its looking beautiful outside right now.

Which is good to say out loud. Because taking on a car loan sucks, mentally. Physically, I have nothing but 100% gratitude that we can take a loan. But I hate to spend the money. I feel constantly guilty about not earning wages. And often my job here at home feels invisible or superfluous...or something less than. Less than a career, I suppose.

Mark Twain said, "Despite the cost of living, its still a popular option."

 Presenting Dear Tulip, Alpine/Oberhasli extraordinaire.

 She is giving upwards of a gallon of milk a day. And she's a first freshener. We are delighted to have her. 

I come to you with Strange Foam.* When you milk into a bucket the milk froths up. Then you strain it into glass jars and put those in the freezer to quick chill before they are moved to the fridge. Often I'll take the last bit of milk, too little to dirty a jar, and pour that into a coffee mug which gets set in the freezer with the tall warm glass jars. Always there is a good inch or two of foam in my cup. And it freezes--strange foam, breakfast.

*The Indigo Girls come to you with Strange Fire. This may not look like much if you never saw them live. But Amy Ray could flat silence a rowdy crowded bar. I'm a bit of a performance snob and I'll tell you, few hold it over Amy Ray--unlikely little Christian lesbian. They were awesome live.

Back to the sweet consistent truth of reality (sweet in that truth is reliably itself, and sweet because my people are home.) Dear Boy has a mouth-full of metal, not only in a musical sense. Dear girl is arranging her own social life these days, whisking around in a blue wigged blur. My camera left for vacation without me, and returned home to unpack four images, each a variation on this theme:

See all those knees? The knees move me. Of course, mid May in the South Sea Islands isn't going to be all that hot. You can tell these dear folks sitting on the porch in the shade aren't exactly sweating. When we went to the beach when I was a girl it was always blazing hot--a kind of dehydrated perpetual inescapable hot which would truly defy the imagination of my children. They've never experienced anything like it with their ready access to a/c, a constant flow of appropriate drinks, and parents who prefer to vacation in the civility of off-season. But this picture puts me in mind of a time when no one would ever consider putting on long legged light weight cotton pjs. They hadn't even been invented yet. My childhood was bare kneed the whole season, naugahyde vinyl, barely potable tap water, and ice houses. Ice houses sound like relief but smelled like the fish house next door and, in any case, offered a product verboten insofar as children were concerned. Ice picks are "dangerous", styrofoam coolers must remain closed, and ice was only for making Salty Dogs or Canadian Club on the rocks.

Vacation day six: dark almond salted chocolate for breakfast with black coffee and a glass of goat's milk. Dark almond salted chocolate for lunch with strong mint tea and another glass of milk.

Fresh sheets for everyone's bed. Laundry done. Dishes washed*. Planted horseradish, fennel, pineapple-sage, and (in a nod to our souls) purple cosmos. Fresh roses on my window sill.

*Actually, that's lie. The dishes are totally not done...just saying.

A new goat has joined our flock. Her name is Tulip, she's a two year old first freshener Oberhasli/Alpine mix. Pictures to follow--as soon as my camera returns from the beach!

Twenty fertile eggs arrived today, carefully marked and placed under our broody hen. If she is determined to sit, then sit she shall.

One more day and my dearest angels will return home. Oh, how I have missed them! Hurry home, my loves.