21 July 2024

The weather in New Hampshire this Sunday morning has finally returned to the celebrated New England summer temperatures this Florida girl once fantasized about when looking at Lands End catalogs:  is’t possible to wear shorts AND a crew neck sweater at the same time?  When I arrived home last Wednesday from a week in Wisconsin, the temperature in the house was 88, but that night’s storm brought relief.  Fortunately I made it back into Manchester airport well before the global CrowdStrike glitch hobbled air travel and everything else, including my Friday PT appointment.  Yesterday my bank’s computers were still down, and its ATM gobbling cards.

What a time we’re living through.  My brother-in-law’s 90^th birthday celebration in the Wisconsin Dells on 13 July coincided with the attempt on former President Trump’s life; when I returned to  Milwaukee on Tuesday the 16^th to visit the Art Museum before my flight home the next day, there were five armored SUVs—ominous, rugged, all-black vehicles looking like something from a Bond movie—parked outside; a bystander opined that they were Secret Service transport.  And yesterday, for the first time ever, I wrote to a sitting president, asking the candidate I’ve been campaigning for since the New Hampshire Primary to step aside.

So, as I negotiate the alphabet soup of tasks that pile up even after only a week away—check-in online for PT, schedule an MRI, consult with JP pest control, confirm AAA auto insurance policy renewal, continue to try to wrangle the complexities of publishing with Amazon KDP—I wonder how much of my recently acquired sense of fragility is the natural accompaniment to aging (pain in the ischial tuberosity, gimpy left leg, long QT syndrome—another g.d. acronym!) and how much is the weight of a world in chaos.

Challenging and at times exhausting, my travel WAS, however, tonic. First came four days wrapped in the embrace of the extended Andrew family, all gathered to celebrate their extraordinary patriarch, my wonderful brother-in-law Reed Chadwick Andrew; followed by two days at the delightful Silver Star Inn near Spring Green with dear old friends from my Kentucky days; and finally several exhilarating solo hours in the extraordinary Milwaukee Art Museum, a salutary break from horrific news and extraordinarily disturbing tv commercials.  Having become accustomed to ad-free streaming, I was doubly unprepared for Wisconsin advertisements for, among other things, “survival food kits” available at Costco (see 4Patriots.com).  Were these specially timed for the Republican convention I wonder?  Or just an over-reaction to the Ethan Hawke/Julia Roberts/Kevin Bacon vehicle Leave the World Behind?  Come to think of it, given CrowdStrike’s “accidental” cyber glitch, maybe I should get me one of those kits.

Anyway.  It was a good trip.  First there was meeting up with my nephew Rob and niece Pam, and Rob’s New Zealand nephew Rudyard and his mom, Carolie, all continuing the first part of Rob’s grandly designed scheme to show the Kiwis much of America, from Washington, D. C. all the way to San Francisco.

We met in Milwaukee over dinner at the Plane View bar and grill adjacent to the MKE airport, and spent the next couple of days first visiting Chad and his wife Jan at their Portage home, and then cruising the Wisconsin Dells and Reed Andrew’s Root Beer Museum before joining the 60+ family members gathered to celebrate their dad/ grandpa/uncle/great grandpa over dinner and a cake ablaze with 90 candles.

The next day Chad’s sister-in-law Emy hosted a lovely Sunday morning brunch in her Madison home for Rob, Pam, Rudyard, Carolie; her kids (Sarah, Becky, Miles, and Nathan); my step-daughter Susan; and me, a gathering memorable for all sorts of reasons, including beautiful, sweet pediatrician Sarah’s so remarkably recalling my late sister Jane’s prenatal concerns for her son Daniel, now 26+ years later.  And then came the hilarity inspired when Miles’s pause as he said grace over our meal was interrupted by Siri chiming in with “I’m sorry.  I don’t understand.”  Perhaps not proof that God is female, but certainly a moment worth further exegesis.

From Madison, I drove west to Spring Green and the charming Silver Star Inn so expertly managed by Elise and Kevin Dallman, venue for a reunion with dear friends Ed and Charlotte. We followed a pre-show picnic on the grounds of the American Players Theatre with a gangbusters production of Jean Anouilh’s Ring Round the Moon adapted by Christopher Fry as a frothy combination of Roman Comedy and Shavian social satire.  Twice interrupted by a downpour in the arena theatre, this production absolutely rocked, and the drenching was welcome after a sweaty start to the hazy, hot, and humid summer evening.

Monday brought a nostalgia tour back in Madison where Ed wrote his dissertation while Charlotte managed the SPCA, and their daughter Hannah was born.  Our tour of their old neighborhoods included lunch with friends of theirs, Russ and Carol—for them, a first-time-in-40-years in-person reunion—as well as a visit to their lakeside Craftsman home in Yahara Place Park, appropriately replete with their own extraordinary craftsmanship. Russ, born in a Colorado internment camp in 1944, is a master of origami, which photographer Carol documents in an amazing series of Christmas cards featuring Russ’s paper masterpieces and her elaborately threaded Temari.  Both of them knit teddy bears for African children and practice singing Italian art songs.  Quite the Renaissance pair, they:  Carol boxes to combat her Parkinson’s and Russ is her cornerman.   Russ sent me home with a small gold crane of his, carefully boxed by Carol:  both of them and my souvenir were unexpected treasures.

We spent the afternoon on campus at the lakefront, first at the University’s Memorial Union Building for ice cream and then touring the august Wisconsin Historical Society.  After an early dinner at Papavero, we drove back to the Silver Star Inn for a final night together, and parted next morning after another delicious and gorgeously plated breakfast.

The Silver Star’s 11 am checkout left me plenty of time for the drive back to Milwaukee and a leisurely exploration of the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) with its iconic Quadracci Pavilion designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.  This three-part marvel at MAM was completed in 2001: the magnificent cathedral-like Windhover Hall has a vaulted glass ceiling 90 feet high; the Burke Brise Soleil, a moveable sunscreen with a 217-foot wingspan, unfolds and folds twice daily; and the Reiman Bridge, a pedestrian suspension bridge, connects the Museum to the city.

The Quadracci Pavilion’s design, according to Calatrava, “responds to the culture of the lake:  the sailboats, the weather, sense of motion and change.”  I found the mashup of white whale, seagull, clipper ship, and Gothic cathedral quite awe inspiring and elevating, much-needed evidence of humanity’s better angels.  And for the week I was there, Museum admission was free thanks to Baird financial services—swag for the Republicans, no doubt, though I spotted no MAGA hats in the airy marble halls.  I’m grateful to and thankful for Sr. Calatrava, just one year older than I, for that spiritual lift, and for bringing me to a fine and inspiring American collection. 

‘Twas a good trip all around.  But it’s good to be home again, come what may.