Looking at life through a funhouse mirror
There are typically two times of the year when things break: the beginning of cottage season and the end of cottage season. Neither of these times is more preferable to the other. When we arrive in the spring, it’s pretty much a given that some things that were perfectly fine at close-up have decided not …
The Buicks have emerged from their winter slumber. The ones that live under the dock sun themselves with smug entitlement but startle and slip between the boards when I stomp my feet to gain a spider-free walkway to the swim ladder. I am not sure where the fuzzy dinner-plate-sized specimen that hangs out between the …
The goose migration is finished. Although they do, of course, fly, I cannot imagine them being classy enough to leave from an airport on even the most discounted of discount airlines. Geese must leave from a bus station, after they have eaten discarded French fries and pooped on all available surfaces. “Bus departing on platform …
Okay. That thing I said a few weeks ago about having had my last lake swim of the season? I was wrong. My definitive final lake swim was the last weekend in September. That weekend, and the entire week preceding it, was gloriously warm and sunny every day. Although I had not dipped my toe …
I am pleased to report that the family of dock spiders is enjoying the fine spring weather. They bask in the midday sunshine in a physically distant array. All seven of them, spaced out in their own isolated zones of dock real estate, ensuring I will maintain a distance of at least a ten-foot pole. …
You never know when your last cottage lake swim is your last cottage lake swim. I don’t mean the “swims” that can happen any time (whether ill-advised or not) when exiting the sauna. I mean the swims that are self-initiated and un-sauna assisted (whether ill-advised or not), starting with the May gasp of “It feels …