Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Emily from band camp. I borrowed this picture of them arriving at Allegheny College in Meadville directly from the band's Facebook page. This is Emily's last year at band camp, next year is Laura's first. 

Caroline and Laura back from horse camp. Astride their trusty mounts this morning, displaying their riding skills for Aunt Beth. Note the dust on their boots and the horse drool.

As the girls sat shoulder to shoulder and boots to boots on my sofa this afternoon, Toby appeared, full of joy at the reappearance of the last of the missing household members. He commenced sniffing Caroline's jean leg, then Laura's. When he reached the boots he was ecstatic. 

The debris on their boots, the dust, the horse drool, and, as the girls delightedly squealed, the horse pee, was better than the best catnip he's ever been offered. He rubbed and rolled, clasping their ankles for leverage, until the boots looked close to brand new.

Caroline

Laura

And Grandma, back from Wisconsin, which looked like this for the entire week.

Pictures later.

Sweetheart soap and other pleasant things

I took Emily and Laura to work with me this morning because no one would be home. Laura slipped into the front seat. As we were backing out of the garage, I sniffed a couple of times and finally said, “You smell nice.” This is not like “You look nice,” which would have elicited a smile. It embarrassed her and she looked away.

As I turned the car around and the nice smell wafted on the breezes from the open windows, it struck me. “You smell like Sweetheart soap.” I stopped the car to for a minute for a couple more inhales. Laura was so embarrassed, she looked away. All the way up our street I rhapsodized about Sweetheart soap at my great grandma’s house. She did not look at me all the way to work.

Look at that bar of soap. That’s exactly how my great grandma’s bathroom looked. The bathroom was huge, converted from a bedroom when indoor plumbing came along at the turn of the previous century. Big claw foot tub with a wire soap hanger over the edge. A porcelain sink big enough to bathe a baby. Nickle plated fixtures, the hot and cold handles with little ceramic labels inside captain wheel taps. The rubber sink stopper on a chain. And, the Sweetheart soap, there on the right, in another wire holder.

Grandma's Cox's sink was a huge oval. I couldn't find one, so think big on this.

From the time I could step on the stool and wash my own hands, I knew that soap was the smell of goodness. It smelled like Grandma Cox, and I could take it away on my hands. Not like that brown stuff, Camay, my mom had at home. I boarded with Grandma Cox the first year I was in college, so I have a long history with that soap. I have no idea what Laura uses in the shower, but I may track down a bar of Sweetheart soap for her for Christmas.

In other nice things, Laura, Emily and I are all leaving town next week. Emily is going to band camp, Laura is going to horse camp with Cousin Caroline, who is an old hand at horse camp and champing to show Laura what it’s all about. And, I’m taking my camera and going to Wisconsin. After an extremely intense and unhappy executive session at the township this week, the trustees wished me a good trip, and one trustee wistfully said, “I’ve always wanted one of those cheese head hats.” We all looked and he mumbled, “I just think they’re cool.”

He is the director of our library and runs a great children's program. He came to another very important board meeting this week in his best batman tee shirt. It was the children’s talent program day at the library. We just let all the VIP’s in the meeting conclude for themselves this trustee knows his township business, too. I’ll bring him the hat, and he will say, “Holy cheese head hat, Robin.”

Glads they are

July 20

July 21

July 22

I have inquiries out to people who gifted the garden.

We need to know the origin of gladiola bulbs that survived last winter in the ground.

Framing the moth and the butterfly

 My sister called my attention to a swallowtail in the garden.

My first sighting of the year. She's seen several.

 Completely oblivious, I'm sure, a hummingbird moth is mining the same flowers.

Of course I had to try to photograph them together.

Neither one was interested in my objective.

But, not too bad.

The best I got.

Now here is a real mystery.

These can only be glads.

Where did I get them?

More to the point, why did we plant them last fall?

My biggest recollection of glads is my dad digging them up every fall and storing them to spring.

That doesn't happen in this garden.

Emily thinks they came home in a bag of bulbs from a very old garden in Peninsula.

Perhaps they have become accustomed to our winters.

Perhaps I was to save them to plant in spring.

Ha.

Perhaps all the snow last winter protected them.

We'll see if they come up again next summer.

Choosing

Emily narrowed her college choices to Ohio Northern, Wooster, Heidelberg and Hiram, all in Ohio. All offer the degree she wants, and were recommended by her programming teacher. We have a window of opportunity in August to visit, and I began looking at how to get to the first three. Hiram I know.

Looking at the maps, I saw I could easily narrow my choices, too. Emily was booking a tour reservation with Heidelberg while I continued searching for Ohio Northern, in Ada. I called her to come look. Route 30 runs straight through Ohio, about a quarter of the way down. Demographically, it separates the blues and the reds. Ada is south of Route 30.

A liberal arts college is not necessarily liberal. If ON leaned right, it could be an uphill slog for a young woman with liberal views. I zoomed in on the town and the college. The latter is bigger than the town, several square miles in size, looking like a separate county, filled with parking lots, probably surrounded by cornfields. And a football stadium and sports complex consuming one third the campus. She fell in with my prejudices, and Ohio Northern may never be visited, except possibly for a visual illustration of my prejudice.

While she went back to fix a visit to Hiram, I looked up the College of Wooster. I’ve lived in Ohio all my life, have visited every part of the state many times, and must admit I’ve always had a slight prejudice against Wooster. Not because Route 30 slices neatly through the bottom of the city, leaving the college on the north side. No, I questioned the mindset of the town after they hired a dynamo friend to integrate the IT systems of all the schools, and after she had them humming like a top they “downsized” her in favor of a person half her age and half her salary.

To be fair, though, I looked at the city website. The first thing I saw scrolling through the side bar: Weekly Community Prayer Services. Finding Emily’s grandma too liberal to be pleased with that, in spite of a lovely little campus in the heart of the city, we sent it down to right above Ohio Northern. We may never visit.

Heidelberg and Hiram both are in charming old Connecticut Western Reserve towns. I know several Heidelberg graduates who think Emily would fit right in there, and one Hiram drop out who dropped out of even the University of California at LA. She won’t care where Emily goes. We’re off to Heidelberg as soon as Emily comes back from band camp, and the Hiram date will be settled on Monday.

I hope Emily takes a great liking to one or both of them, and then we can begin the funding process. And, dear universe, please keep us north of route 30.

Heidelberg

 Hiram