Planted

My mom visited for a few days, and it turned out to be the best visit maybe I think we’ve ever had. We built in an extra sorta flex day, so that she could leave if she wanted, or stay if she wanted. She ended up staying until Saturday, “because now I want to help you get that garden planted!” We spent Friday shopping for seeds and topsoil and just turning the whole thing over and raking it through. Heavy, black, clayey stuff it is, too. I’m afraid it’s going to be troublesome. My mom made these little markers after we planted on Saturday. More.

Garden just before planting

See more garden photos.

rage

Wednesday night, I came home, and then Ben came home and told me that someone had broken our front door. (So it happened after I came home but before Ben did.) That’s how he put it, that someone had broken it, like they did it on purpose. The next time I passed I checked it out, and there it was: a sun of shatter right about at the bottom of your ribcage, with gorgeous long beams shearing up to the left corner and down to the bottom. The front door of our building is made out of glass and has a bar across the middle on the outside, a bar that crosses the epicenter of the shatter pattern, so whatever hit it probably hit it from the inside. Right about at the level of your fist at close range, was the first thing I thought, and the next thing I thought was, whose fist in this building is the most likely? But what was I assuming, really? It’s also the same level of your elbow if you happened to be slipping backwards into the door, or about where your hand might brace if you were falling and trying to catch yourself against the glass. Or a baseball. Or any number of things.

But your first thought was probably the right one. Someone probably hit the door on purpose. That’s the most likely explanation, really.

But I don’t want to choose an answer just because it’s likely. I don’t want to choose an answer at all. I don’t want to have thoughts like that. When I see evidence of rage I want the…the strength? I don’t know. Whatever it is, whatever it takes to believe in something finer, to leave the possibility open.

oh, man.

Who would’ve thought that the best Polish sausage in Chicago would be in Skokie? I just ate and it warrants a journal entry. It was a “Char Cheddar Polish” from Poochie’s on Dempster. It had cheddar cheese sauce and grilled onions and mustard on it, too. It was like, love. They also have fries made from real potatoes, and lots of old bachelors eating their lunches. “A little more ice,” one of them said as the girl was getting his soda. One ordered “just” mozzarella sticks “with barbecue sauce instead of marinara.” One man looked at me as I hurried out. He had a mustache like a push broom. Even his eyebrows were waiting for his food.