Where I've been with myself on my way
Today the heat was brutal, so we waited until near sunset to leave the house and its marginal shelter of air conditioning; then we walked down to the river, which was new territory for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and familiar to me only insofar as I had learned to catch the 95 bus from the stop at the foot of Temple Street. We crossed beneath the overpass with its murals of wildlife and shipbuilding and the old dams of the Mystic River (I had no idea the Amelia Earhart Dam was a thing) and found the Blessing of the Bay Boathouse, where no one seemed to care if I walked out onto the floating dock and watched the rowers sculling on the far side of the river. The water looked black as coffee, the sun lying on it like dust. Frilled rosettes of water chestnut twisted up to the surface—a wildly invasive species that I wish were locally acceptable to harvest in season, since its spiky caltrop nuts are edible, although a different species from the crunchy white slices that come in cans from H Mart. According to the poster on the chain-link, we had just missed National Learn to Row Day. We followed the footpath up to the bridge at Route 16, counting fourteen swans as we went; they glided majestically among the waterweed and tipped forward to root in the silt with the no-warning of physical comedy, up tails all. Either some passerby had tried to feed them hot dog buns (which were now sinking slowly all around them) or they had recently murdered a hot dog vendor. I could see it going either way. Seagulls kept swinging overhead; sometimes they looked exactly the size of the low-flying planes out of Logan. I had not realized how much a little blue heron looks like a great blue heron with the aspect ratio wrong. There was a park on the other side of the river, with a wooden observation tower and a meadow full of rabbits at leisurely silflay. We climbed the tower to watch the rabbits: it looked like it was built of telephone poles and reminded me of the long-vanished climbing structure on the lawn of the Cambridge Public Library that always smelled like a sailing ship after rain, silver-weathered wood and creosote. The sky in the east had turned the light-holding space-blue of summer evening, in the west the sun looked as fiery as Florida. Neither of us counted the rabbits. It was probably unkind to refer to them as Hasenpfeffer, especially since some of them were so small and delicate-eared that we decided they were only a Hasenpf. We only came down from the tower when the midges found out where we were. The rest of the walk was somewhat less amateur naturalist, following the Mystic Valley Parkway past the part-demolished Meadow Glen Mall and the commercial-residential strip that did not exist a dozen years ago when Rob worked for roadside assistance. We came home across the river on the Fellsway. I had a strange moment in Ten Hills when I could have sworn that the sea lay beyond the slant of the houses, the crumbled violet of the after-sunset sky. In the nearly two hours it had taken us to circle back to Temple Street and Mystic Avenue, the City of Somerville had moved in a road work crew that was doing something with jackhammers and floodlights. It was loud. We came upstairs and made sandwiches for dinner, because it is still too hot to cook; Rob went to read about Whitey Bulger and I sat down next to him and wrote this. Autolycus helped by continually trying to interpose himself between my hands and the keyboard. It was a good evening.
spatch and familiar to me only insofar as I had learned to catch the 95 bus from the stop at the foot of Temple Street. We crossed beneath the overpass with its murals of wildlife and shipbuilding and the old dams of the Mystic River (I had no idea the Amelia Earhart Dam was a thing) and found the Blessing of the Bay Boathouse, where no one seemed to care if I walked out onto the floating dock and watched the rowers sculling on the far side of the river. The water looked black as coffee, the sun lying on it like dust. Frilled rosettes of water chestnut twisted up to the surface—a wildly invasive species that I wish were locally acceptable to harvest in season, since its spiky caltrop nuts are edible, although a different species from the crunchy white slices that come in cans from H Mart. According to the poster on the chain-link, we had just missed National Learn to Row Day. We followed the footpath up to the bridge at Route 16, counting fourteen swans as we went; they glided majestically among the waterweed and tipped forward to root in the silt with the no-warning of physical comedy, up tails all. Either some passerby had tried to feed them hot dog buns (which were now sinking slowly all around them) or they had recently murdered a hot dog vendor. I could see it going either way. Seagulls kept swinging overhead; sometimes they looked exactly the size of the low-flying planes out of Logan. I had not realized how much a little blue heron looks like a great blue heron with the aspect ratio wrong. There was a park on the other side of the river, with a wooden observation tower and a meadow full of rabbits at leisurely silflay. We climbed the tower to watch the rabbits: it looked like it was built of telephone poles and reminded me of the long-vanished climbing structure on the lawn of the Cambridge Public Library that always smelled like a sailing ship after rain, silver-weathered wood and creosote. The sky in the east had turned the light-holding space-blue of summer evening, in the west the sun looked as fiery as Florida. Neither of us counted the rabbits. It was probably unkind to refer to them as Hasenpfeffer, especially since some of them were so small and delicate-eared that we decided they were only a Hasenpf. We only came down from the tower when the midges found out where we were. The rest of the walk was somewhat less amateur naturalist, following the Mystic Valley Parkway past the part-demolished Meadow Glen Mall and the commercial-residential strip that did not exist a dozen years ago when Rob worked for roadside assistance. We came home across the river on the Fellsway. I had a strange moment in Ten Hills when I could have sworn that the sea lay beyond the slant of the houses, the crumbled violet of the after-sunset sky. In the nearly two hours it had taken us to circle back to Temple Street and Mystic Avenue, the City of Somerville had moved in a road work crew that was doing something with jackhammers and floodlights. It was loud. We came upstairs and made sandwiches for dinner, because it is still too hot to cook; Rob went to read about Whitey Bulger and I sat down next to him and wrote this. Autolycus helped by continually trying to interpose himself between my hands and the keyboard. It was a good evening.
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I am sure those swans did do in a hotdog vendor. They don't feel guilty about it, either.
I think I can hear Autolycus purring all the way over here.
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That sounds wonderful. I am glad you also had rabbits and water and birds.
It makes me very happy to think you and Spatch were experiencing similar loveliness at the same moment of skygold.
Same!
I am sure those swans did do in a hotdog vendor. They don't feel guilty about it, either.
They certainly didn't look like they did.
I think I can hear Autolycus purring all the way over here.
At the moment, that's because he's trying to wheedle angelfood cake with lemon curd out of Rob . . .
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Waterfowl feeding always remind me of people searching through steamer trunks.
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That's a great image.
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That's a beautiful image.
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Thank you.
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I'm glad!
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Thank you! It . . . sort of did.
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It was! I'd had no idea of any of the paths or parks around the river, much less the observation tower. At one point we were walking with I-93 whooshing and roaring on our left and a placid loop of river on our right, full of birds; it was a surreal but wonderful pocket of the nonhuman world. The swans didn't seem bothered by it.
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You're welcome! I am happy to transmit.
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Thank you.
Temperatures hit a hundred earlier today. At the moment, following a ridiculous cloudburst, it's only in the hot, soggy eighties.
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(today's high here is like sixty-five F which is a big part of why I live in Seattle)
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NEW ENGLAND IN THE ANTHROPOCENE, LADIES AND GERMS.
(today's high here is like sixty-five F which is a big part of why I live in Seattle)
That sounds nice.
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P.
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I'm glad! Thank you for telling me.
And the ineffable goofiness of swans when they abandon elegance.
That is itself a good line.
Canada geese also upend themselves abruptly and it always makes me laugh, but the contrast between their upright and inverted selves is not so pronounced.
"Dignity—always dignity."
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Why isn't it?
(I mean, I'd worry about whether it was safe to eat, given that I don't know how clean the Mystic is...*)
Neither of us counted the rabbits.
Another species that I wish it was socially acceptable to harvest!
I am glad you had a good walk.
* "...you've been suffering from a bacterial disease previously unknown to science - congratulations...and an amazing variety of precancerous polyps on and around your liver and kidneys, which I'm assuming were the result of the high levels of heavy metals and industrial waste products we found floating around your bloodstream." --Dr. Ithis, A Closed and Common Orbit
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Nobody ever seems to mention it as a method of control or even a silver lining, even though Trapa natans has been clogging the waterways of New England ever since some bright bulb in the 1870's deliberately introduced it. I have to assume that means it's not scientifically recommended, but aside from the fact that the Charles practically glowed in the dark for my entire childhood and adolescence (and let's be honest, it only became non-stunt swimmable within the last ten years: I still wouldn't want to swallow any), I don't understand why. It's all over the ponds and reservoirs of the Boston area. They can't all be full of heavy metal runoff.
I mean, I'd worry about whether it was safe to eat, given that I don't know how clean the Mystic is...
I think the Mystic has a similar history to the Charles: more than one of the murals depicted industry and a recent one mentioned cleanup. I feel weird linking to the EPA nowadays, but when it reports that ten years ago it gave the river a D in water quality, I assume that's still accurate information. The bit we were exploring yesterday seems to have gotten better.
Another species that I wish it was socially acceptable to harvest!
Is that also for health reasons, for reasons of public safety, or because many people don't like the idea of blasting bunnies?
I am glad you had a good walk.
Thank you. It was definitely the right thing to do after the day.
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*I also found out upon digging that some people, obviously not I, sing "Head and shoulders..." to the tune of "London Bridge."
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A character in Assignment 2 of Sapphire & Steel sings "Here we are on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up gold and silver" which I had seen before as lyrics but had not realized had essentially the same tune as "There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o."
I also found out upon digging that some people, obviously not I, sing "Head and shoulders..." to the tune of "London Bridge."
I've never heard that!
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Oh, my.
I've basically spent the day asleep, so yours was more productive than mine, but there may just be time to squeeze in my daily waddle before full dark...
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I hope it's nice where you are!