PopWars

We had 3 inches of rain in one day last week, a week in which it rained everyday, and two inches a few days ago. The garden and our trees, which were nearly defoliated by the gypsy moths, are loving it. My brother, who golfs every chance he can get, not so much. It is raining as I type this. But the last few days were lovely.

We crossed paths with Miguel at the entrance to the park and he was without his dog. He told us he takes one walk with the dog and then another by himself in order to get his miles in. We asked how far he walks and he told us he tries to get six miles in. He said he had just walked to Saint Paul Boulevard. We told him we were impressed and he said I have to do it, my partner is ten years younger than I am.

Not to be outdone by Miguel we walked through the park, along the beach and Lakeshore Boulevard to Saint Paul today. Peggi clocked it at 4.4 miles. Instead of coming back the same way we walked north to Rock Beach Road and strolled by the dreamy cottage-like homes that line both sides of the streets that deadens at the lake, the former White City.

We had nine miles under our belts by the time we got back home.

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Kathy used to go to a lot of estate sales. She has one of everything now so she only looks at the sales online. She spotted one of my old paintings in the upcoming John Borek and Jackie Levine estate sale. I think he bought it at a Pyramid Art Gallery show and it must have been sometime around 1980 because it looks a lot like the Sparky paintings. I’m guessing the bottom half reads “ . . Shall Be Saved.”

An option piece in the NYT this morning said “the most consistent threat to our democracy has always been the drive of some leaders to restrict its blessings to a select few.” That’s why this voter suppression thing pisses me off so much. They are playing with fire and the house is dry kindling. The US bishops are doing the same thing. Drafting rules that would restrict Biden, a devout Catholic, from receiving communion because of his defense of a woman’s right to chose. Pope Francis chided them by reminding them that “Communion is not a reward for saints. It is bread for sinners” but they insist on burning the house down.

Other than taking his vow of poverty seriously, all Father Jim Callan had to do to get excommunicated was let women say mass, bless same sex marriages and welcome anyone to break bread (receive communion) in church. That’s like crossing the street.

I escaped Catholicism but have a romantic soft spot for the customs, most of all the iconography. In addition to serving mass as an altar boy we played mass at home. We wore sheets as vestments and made our own hosts by rolling out slices of white bread with the side of a big glass and then cutting out hosts with the rim of a small glass.

As an altar boy I ate the Holy Eucharist by the handful, right from the clear plastic bag they came in. We were told the nuns in the convent next door made them. Hard core Catholics believe the hosts, once consecrated, were transformed into the literal body of Christ. They are big on miracles. The wonders of life are not enough. They, like every other religion, are always concocting lines in the sand, holding out paths to eternal salvation.

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My brother, Fran, let the the family use one of his spare bedrooms as a temporary storage space for our parents’ stuff when they passed. Years later there are quite a few items without a home including a stack of watercolors. Our cousin asked us if she could have one of my father’s paintings so Peggi and I visited the vault to pick one out.

We arranged to meet on a Sunday, the only day my brother takes off, but he called to say he would be working. We let ourselves in and found a beautiful, framed barn painting for my cousin ( a farm girl ) and a Charlotte lighthouse painting for her sister. My brother’s neighbor died recently and a crew was taking down their white horse fence when we arrived. I’m hoping that doesn’t mean subdivision. We took a nice walk along Lake Road and discovered our former tax preparer owns one of those funky cottages near Nine Mile Point. We took a dip in my brother’s pool before hitting the road.

When Peggi was doing her grand jury duty she told me nothing got underway until the stenographer walked in with her tiny typewriter (they were all women) and settled into her place at the front of the room. My cousin’s daughter is one year into a program be a court stenographer. To get your certificate you need to be able to accurately type two hundred some words per minute. Her stenographer’s typewriter is connected to her computer and she demonstrated her skills by typing our conversation in stenographer’s language and then translating it back to English on her monitor. She told us she can make up he own shortcuts for commonly used phrases. It seems like they are on to something. With their own language, their own shortcuts, less keys on their keyboards, they accurately record everything that goes on.

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We got off the expressway at Ridge Road in order to pick up more vaseline and Saran wrap, our Gypsy moth weapons, at Walgreen’s. Each day we suit up in our tick repellant clothes and wrap a few more trees. Twice around with the plastic wrap and then a stripe of vaseline. Our priority has been the hundred year old oaks which can only withstand a couple years of caterpillar defoliation. Our neighbor recommended we consult an arborist at Davey Tree. He told us our area was the worst in Monroe County.

Aman’s had their “Fresh Strawberrys” sign out on Ridge Road and so we pulled in. We had just walked up here the day before and they said they were not expecting strawberries until the week’s end. We drove home with three quarts of the darkest red berries we had ever seen. In the driveway we realized we forgot to stop at Walgreen’s.

I had a friend who on orders dropped napalm indiscriminately on villages in Viet Nam. They could have just let loose gypsy moths.

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I’m trying to figure out where the last five days went. I usually find time to check in here and I feel better once I have. I will attempt an accounting.

We miss the pandemic, not Covid but the down time. Hunkering down.

On Friday we went to the opening of a drawing show at Colleen Buzzard’s Studio. We had our masks on when we entered but someone told us everyone was everyone was vaccinated so we slipped them off. Six artists were represented but Pete Monacelli’s work stole the show. Saturday I did a Zoom talk for RoCo. I was asked to discuss my favorite pieces from the current 6×6 show, something I have only seen online. Rick and I barely finished the third of our best of three horseshoe game before I signed on.

Our garden is going great guns. Our early plantings survived the cold patch last week and our peppers are loving this 80 degree stuff. We’ve been bringing back mixed greens for salad every night for three weeks now.

Mostly we’ve been talking to neighbors about various strategies for combatting the gypsy moth invasion. This is year two. There are over a 1,000 caterpillars on our house as I write. Each is about an inch long. They are only wearing themselves out. Their brothers and sisters are are eating the leaves on our oak trees. A band of Saran Wrap, about five feet up the tree, with a stripe of Vasoline through the middle seems to stop the traffic both up and down the trees. Are we only trapping the caterpillars up there so they can get fat on our leaves. No one seems to know. We are waiting for an overpopulation boom to provoke a fungus which will collapse their colony.

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We walked along the river yesterday and missed all the action down at Durand where the City of Rochester Police, Monroe County Sheriffs, Irondequoit Police and New York State Troopers all have some sort of jurisdiction. They found the remains of a body while holiday picnickers were grilling along the lakeshore.

We met workers from a roofing company for a quote this morning and then Peggi had to make an emergency chlorine run. It is in such limited supply that they won’t hold it for you when they get a shipment and it’s on a first come basis. We got a late start on our walk.

We stopped at the pool and added some chorine and looked in on the the fawn that has been sleeping in the pachysandra by the fence, right where it was born.

Some contractors from hell were working on a house the next street over. They had right wing talk radio cranked and a van that had backed into the driveway had a placard in each window. One read “Ivermectin Defeats Covid” and the other “Re-Open NY, All Businesses Are Essential.” A worker’s car had bumper stickers on it that read “Freedom Isn’t Free” and “Christian Nation” printed on an American flag.

Down at the lake a man on a bike stopped us and asked if either of us remembered a day camp named “Three Lakes.” He said he rode a bus out here from his city grade school and they would cross the train tracks, go through the tunnel near the beach house and swim in the lake. Bob Begy came by on a bicycle and asked if the band was back playing at the Little. On our way home we ran into Kathy Krupp on Zoo Road and we chatted about the murder and gypsy moths.

Back on our street Jedi was out in the front yard sprinkling cayenne pepper and some stinky anti deer product around his shrubs. We headed down to the garden where we transplanted about forty pepper plants. No time for horseshoes today.

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We did a few parking lot pickups at Rubino’s during the pandemic and then started entering the store at off hours. The sloppy mask technique of some customers made it feel relatively dangerous. We were out of oil again so a walk up there was in order. 

At lunchtime the store was packed. It felt festive even, like a holiday, and yet it didn’t feel dangerous at all. Most customers still had masks on as did all the staff and you have to think at least half of them are fully vaccinated. So we’re getting there, the new normal. We buy Zoe Cold Press in 3 liter cans, two at a time. And each time I reach for a can I brace myself for a price increase but it has been $29.95 for three or four years now. I put both cans in my backpack.

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