House and home

We have been living in this house since 2002. Ten and a half years. We bought the house during the infamous housing bubble, when banks were slap happy with loans. 

Starting a couple of years ago, about once a quarter, large important looking envelopes began arriving by UPS. When I realize what it is, I fuss and fume and throw it away. It is from our mortgage company, encouraging us to refinance what remains of our mortgage with an interest rate that is more than two points below what we have been paying. I have always dismissed it as a bad idea without really knowing why. I just knew I didn't want to tamper with the stability of our original loan. Another envelope arrived a couple of weeks ago.

Last weekend I finally picked up the phone and called the bank to ask them to stop sending the offers. The man who answered the phone agreed to take us off the mailing list, and then slipped in a comment very quickly about why the offer would be advantageous to us. I asked, why would you encourage us to do something that means less money to the bank? Customer retention, he said. That's nonsensical, I thought to myself. Banks succeed by keeping money, not customers.

The seed of doubt was planted. I spoke to my husband, we called for more details, and then sat at the kitchen table putting together the pieces of information we had. We made a few calculations of our own, and then I realized why the bank has been pressuring us now, near the end of the loan, confirming my suspicion that refinancing would be a costly mistake, even though the percentage rate appears to be lower, and even if we paid it off quickly. Loans are structured to pay off interest first and principal last. Of course the loan officers on the phone will not mention that detail.

The comment that gave rise to my doubt was that, with a new loan, continuing to make our same payment, we would save X dollars. After our calculations, my husband and I realized that continuing with our existing loan, we will save twice that amount.

The upshot of a half hour's discussion is that we realized we are closer than we thought to being finished, and I now know why I was right to follow my hunch and throw those offers away. When I reflect on what I have to be thankful for this November, at the top of the list is my husband who, like my father, does not let go of an issue until he is sure he has all the facts needed to make a good decision.

Hamlet in Skyfall

I was very taken with the performance of Ben Whishaw as the new Q in Skyfall. Turns out he played Hamlet onstage to good acclaim, at age 23 playing the 30-year-old prince. One reviewer said he played Hamlet as a privileged brat. I have always seen that side of Hamlet in the middle of the play as essential and effectively off-putting, so we see his flaws before we see his strength, in much the same way we lose confidence in Oedipus when he rails at Creon and Jocasta. The hero dips in our esteem; this modulation makes his rally all the more impressive. Daniel Craig does a brave job of trying to take a heroic dip, but he doesn't waver, and I never lose confidence in his Bond.

Everything's vine 2

Since the weather turned cooler a month ago, I have been spending one morning every weekend clearing vines and digging up tree seedlings that have sprouted in the flower beds. Today I also pruned the Mermaid rose on the trellis in the paisley bed out back and dug up the Cherokee rose out front. There is another Cherokee out back which I will deal with another time. It needs a big space, like the Mermaid, and an arch. The one I planted out front was in too cramped a space, without enough room for an adequate trellis. The Cherokee and the Mermaid were both gifts from a neighbor, and I think the leaves of the Cherokee are the prettiest rose foliage I have ever seen.

No rose without a thorn, the saying goes, but I have several roses without thorns. A sport of Cecile Bruner, Duchess de Brabante, St. David Bermuda mystery rose, Louie Phillippe, Mutabilis. These are the ones the deer eats when she comes around. If she would just munch on the Cherokee and the Mermaid, that would be helpful, but she doesn't.

The islands 2

Seahorse Key

North Key

Thanksgiving this year was a break from tradition for us. I enjoy cooking a turkey, making dressing and gravy and all the vegetables, but this year, instead, on Wednesday night, we loaded up the kayaks and I made turkey sandwiches.

Starting Thursday morning aroung 9 am, we paddled ten miles around the islands, launching from Cedar Key's downtown beach. The wind was onshore from the north, so we headed for Seahorse Key first. We ate our turkey sandwiches on the beach there. Among the stands of sea rocket we saw Gulf Fritillary, Monarch, Painted Lady, Great Southern White, and Cloudless Sulphur. Then we paddled behind Seahorse and Deadman's Key to North Key, where we landed on the birds' favorite strip of sand. White pelicans, brown pelicans, Caspian terns, common terns, double-crested cormorants, and the usual little sandpipers were there. Lots of basket sponges blown up on the beach during the last storm. The wind shifted slightly as we were heading back between 3 and 4 pm from North Key to downtown Cedar Key, so we didn't have the wind on the beam as we expected.

After trailering the kayaks and sprucing up a bit at the outdoor shower near the dock, we walked a few blocks to the Island Hotel for dinner. It was our first time to try the Island Hotel and we walked in to find a pleasant atmosphere and a rich and elegant Thanksgiving menu. We both chose Grouper Elizabeth accompanied by, my husband insists, two dozen side dishes. Really I think it was only one dozen. He asked the waitress, so do we choose 2 or 3 of these? She said no, you get all of them. It's Thanksgiving! The servings were modest, but it was still a generous meal and tasty. We'll definitely be going back to the Island Hotel.

The cats forgave us for being late as soon as we fed them; however, only three showed up for dinner. I followed a hunch and sure enough, Daisy had been locked in the closet all day. Her favorite game is to dash in the closet when we go in to change. It's not the first time her hide-and-seek has resulted in a long session. She was more cautious about running in at bedtime, but today she's back to her game.

We could not have asked for a more beautiful day on the water. What a great way to be reminded that we are grateful for our lives on this earth.

The islands

The islands are on my mind right now as the light of a winter afternoon declines. It has been our second sunny day in two weeks. Specifically Ireland and Scotland, and generally the islands that are outliers to both this world and "the undiscovered country" to which Hamlet refers: sleep, dreams, and what lies beyond this life.

over the wall

One of my most pleasant and rewarding reading experiences recently caught me off guard. At breakfast at the end of an overnight trip with students, I was flipping through last week's New Yorker and read "Over the Wall." I finished reading it on the school bus back to town. The link is above, but alas only to an abstract as of yet. A summary of the organization of ideas in the piece doesn't begin to account for its appeal. I especially like the quietness with which the author, Angell, catalogues things his wife doesn't know, because she has passed away, and relates his father-in-law's dream. He dreamed he saw his daughter, Angell's wife, walking a dog in Central Park, then sprouting feathers, then flying away over the low wall. It is a dream of leaving and losing and letting go.

That is two times in the past twenty-four hours that I have been reminded of my dream about the lighthouse. Angell's father-in-law's dream made sense as a narrative, which dreams rarely do. The other thing that reminded me of that lighthouse was the shaky tower used for launching on a zipline at the YMCA camp we visited.

Then in a totally different mood, the satire of Nate Silver's election statistics on the next page of the magazine was refreshing.

Although I slept last night, a nap was still in order. I fell asleep after reading about thirty poems by Irishwoman Eavan Boland and awoke to hear my husband working out "The New Highland Laddie" on his baroque lute. It's old to me, he said, but it's new to this lute. It's an old tune, from a twenty-first century standpoint, with a musical sensibility beyond its time.

Vancouver in Florida

Florida winter traditionally modulates between warm and wet or dry and cold. The beauty of this pattern shelters subtropical plants by wetting the ground before a cold front moves in. The warmth of the earth is more easily conducted by wet soil, and sensitive plants are less likely to freeze.

Occasionally we get an aberrant weather system moving through. Farther north, they expect it may come some years and call it blackberry winter, or Indian summer. This week, we have had a cool grey system sitting on top of us for days. People began to comment after a couple of days.

"I hate this rain!"
"Well, don't move to England."

"It's like Ohio!"
"And Nashville."

The early X Files were filmed in Vancouver for the light. We have had the same light in north central Florida this week, and everyone noticed. Seasonal affective disorder strikes all over the country, but it seems people in Florida are more likely to comment on two days without sunshine in a row.

Pale Sapphire

The Little Sapphire, Alachua County, appeared in a setting of pale blue on election night.

I woke up in a reddish purple state on November 6, 2012 and did not go to bed until my state started turning blue just after midnight.

Votes were still being counted throughout the state the next day.

No princess in Hamlet

No, I told the junior who asked last Friday, there is no princess in Hamlet. There is a young noblewoman, and there is a queen, but no princess. She frowned with disappointment.

Our president is not a Hamlet. He is a thinker, but he also acts. I do not agree with those who say he thinks too much.

The Little Sapphire

The Little Sapphire of Florida, Alachua County, has 80,000 Democratics voters, 46,000 Republicans, and 38,000 others. My husband calls it a blue oasis in a red desert.

We have made a home here for twenty-six years. Since we have been old enough to vote, we have voted in every primary and general election. Today is the last day of early voting. We have have already cast our ballots, a week ago on the first day of early voting.

In this graphic map, you can see how each county voted in the 2008 election: 
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/states/president/florida.html



In this graphic map, you can see how each state in the union has voted during past presidential elections:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/15/us/politics/swing-history.html?ref=politics 

Florida moves back and forth-- not as a pendulum, more as a fist with one finger pointing toward Cuba. It is "the state with the prettiest name" in Elizabeth Bishop's poem, built on shifting sands, moody and unpredictable as a mesocyclone, turned this way and that by wind and tide.

I do not like to think back past 2008. It chills me to think of 2000, when votes were thrown out and we realized how fragile is the integrity of an election even in a nation that believes in universal suffrage. I am looking forward to election night on Tuesday, with excitement and apprehension. Every scenario has been anticipated but not played out. My father said about basketball, "A lot can happen in two minutes." Our president plays basketball, and this election feels like it has two minutes of playing time yet to go.