Three things

On turning ivy into... ivyade, + links for improving weird days

• There are spots remaining in my memoir workshop at Asilomar, in Monterey, California, this October 27 to 31. All are welcome, regardless of whether you call yourself a writer. I’m told that my workshops have changed lives, and while that’s a big statement, I can tell you that they do change my life, every single time.

• The ACLU has an excellent primer on immigrants’ rights. It’s straightforward, practical, and available in many languages. Let’s share it widely.

Thing 1

Last Friday I made a forty-foot ivy garland for a middle-school graduation ceremony. Prior to this occasion, I had never made a ivy garland of any length or even used the words “ivy” and “garland” in that order. But it is tradition at June’s school to have an ivy garland over the stage at its graduation ceremony, and this garland has always been made by a parent volunteer. I learned this because, for the past year, I have had an ongoing volunteer role as one of three “Parent Coordinators” for the middle school — uber-volunteers, basically — and each spring we help make graduation happen. For this we need many additional volunteers, and we need ivy, and we need one specific volunteer to make a garland from the ivy. How convenient, wow, that I have a untamable backyard teeming with English ivy that I’ve never wanted. Turns out, a plant I’d previously believed useful for nothing but killing other plants can be coerced into a pretty decoration.

One of my fellow Parent Coodinators came over last Thursday evening to help me “harvest.” We spread out a tarp and lay strands of ivy across it like strips of meat in a tortilla. It was immensely satisfying, prying the ivy from the old cedar fence along the road — not only for the fact that we were getting rid of it, but also because the nasty little hook-like roots that hold ivy to a surface make a pleasant popping sound when they rip loose. It sounds like pulling up one of those anti-slip bathtub mats, in miniature. In less than an hour of picking — even with us being choosy, keeping only strands with closely-spaced, healthy-looking leaves — we’d harvested enough ivy for a taco two feet in diameter, which we then dragged into the cool of the garage for overnight storage. The next morning I drove June and the ivy to school — along with Gilbert, who never misses a chance to go to school. Gilbert lives to be mauled by children.

Perhaps you too are new to making ivy garlands? You need just four things:

1. ivy

2. florist wire, cut into roughly 8-inch lengths

3. garden clippers or heavy-duty scissors for trimming the ivy and the wire, and

4. a piece of thinnish brown rope, roughly ½- to 3/4-inch-thick, cut to the desired length of the garland

First you lay out the rope. You can either do this on the ground or, if you’ve got a bunch of tables that you can push together, lay it across the tables. Then you place strands of the ivy along the length of the rope, overlapping as many strands as it takes to get the thickness and the look you want. Working from the middle of the garland out, you then secure the ivy to the rope with florist wire. Finally, you hang the garland on the wall, and then you recruit some seventh graders on terrifyingly wobbly ladders to poke fresh flowers — each in its own wee vial of water, prepared that morning by other volunteers — along the length of the garland, as many flowers as will fit.

But who am I kidding, none of you is going to make an ivy garland, not unless you absolutely have to. (Though if you do, LOL, HMU — we barely made a dent in my supply.) I myself will not be making another, either. Though we have two more years of middle school ahead, each with its own ivy-garlanded graduation, June will be going to a new school this fall.

It’s our first time changing schools, and we are doing it at an uncommon juncture, not at the beginning of middle school but a year into it. When I tell other parents at the school that we’re leaving, I watch the questions form behind their eyes: But WHY? What HAPPENED? June’s been at this school forever. When other families have left, I too have wondered: surely something happened and they’re just not saying? I felt gossipy. I felt rattled. I wondered if those who left knew better somehow, were on to better things, than the rest of us. It is disorienting, now, to be the one who’s leaving.

We’ve been at this school since June was three years old. We started without long-range plans; we needed a preschool, that’s all. But once we were there, we wanted to stay, go all the way through eighth grade. We said we’d stay as long as it worked for June, and it worked beautifully for a long time. But the school is very small. I had reservations last summer, as June geared up for sixth grade. I wanted to be proven wrong, but I wasn’t.

I’ve had a sense for a while that our kid would benefit from a larger social pool, and maybe a wider curriculum. I believe they’ll get both this fall, at a different school. But I don’t know. Wherever you go, middle school is the Ben-Hur chariot race of school experiences. I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing. I think I’m mildly depressed about the whole situation. But I do feel hopeful. We feel hopeful.

Thing 2

We have reached the point in the year when morning sunlight comes through our kitchen windows at a blinding angle. I could get a sunburn making coffee. I love it. When I open the fridge, a ray of light beams through the face of the crisper drawer and makes a lone apple, some old celery, and a plastic-mesh bag of Kroger lemons look like a promise of something, maybe summer.

Thing 3

Finally, as the world turns and burns, here is a smattering of things that are improving my days, in no particular order:

• Bioré UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence SPF 50, the only sunscreen I don’t hate putting on when I can’t wash my hands afterwards. The best sunscreen is the sunscreen you’ll use! I’ve never bought it from this seller, but it looks legit. I’m sorry to say that I’ve bought mine from Amazon.

• Champion Wine Cellars, an independent wine shop in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle. I am new to this place, even though it’s been around since 1969! I am currently into drinking less wine and being willing to pay more for what I drink. The people at Champion have pointed me to wonderful bottles in the $16-$25 range.

• Seattle Public Library’s annual Summer Book Bingo. June and I both play.

• Pulling up really tall dandelions. The roots come out easily, and when they detach from the earth, it sounds just like a horse grazing. (This pleasure does, however, require you to let your dandelions grow really tall in the first place.)

• Watermelons.

• Lemony Greek Chicken, Spinach, and Potato Stew (gift link). I’d call this more soup than stew. It’s bright and lemony, and we all love it.

• Soy-Butter Bok Choy Pasta, from Hetty Lui McKinnon’s Tenderheart (affiliate link). We always get bok choy in our early-season CSA boxes, and this pasta is a June favorite.

• L.L. Bean’s Everyday Lightweight Tote, which I learned about from the great

  Youngna Park
  and which we own in two sizes and use constantly in the summer. Inexpensive! Sturdy! Perfect for the beach, overnight trips, picnics, or as an airplane carry-on!

• Owls in towels. Come on.

• Kathryn Schulz on The Ezra Klein Show, especially the snippet below about how grief changes us. H/t to

  Lindsay Cameron Wilson
  , I believe, for the recommendation?

• And finally, the aforementioned Gilbert, my best/worst boy, at the dog park yesterday, being the best:

Happy Friday,

M.