July’s letter of the month was “M” for musical, Mom, Michigan, and MYSTERY.

The summer musical production that I play in every year was this month. This year’s play was Kiss Me, Kate, which is a comedy based on Shakespeares’s The Taming of the Shrew. We had 7 (seven!) performances, and my mom came up for the first weekend to see it (and Lena).

Rehearsals started in June, and I missed a few while we were in Colorado, but hey, it’s a volunteer production.

I genuinely enjoy participating with this organization. The other orchestra musicians are fun to play with. Some are better than me, but most aren’t, so I don’t feel a whole lot of pressure to sound “professional.” It is generally a relaxed atmosphere, and I like spending evenings outside for two weeks.

The actors are also pretty good. [Local city] has an “arts” tax to fund the production, and it attracts a lot of amateur thespians from the area. The set design and construction is always impressive. This year the stage back drop moved, so that scenes that were “backstage” actually looked like they were backstage (because it’s a play within a play).

Michigan

When I first met Chelsea, she always spoke fondly of summers with her family at Ranch Rudolph in Traverse City, MI. She would frequently mention “rump bumping” down the Boardman River and tell stories of spending time with here siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.

And now, nearly 9 years after we first met, I get to go experience the Wonders of Ranch Rudolph for myself! The family was brought together to celebrate Chelsea’s Aunt Chris’s birthday. We stay in pretty good touch with Chelsea’s cousins, but it had been a year or two since we had seen the entire family all together. Grandma Cravens even came out.

We spent three nights there. Most people camped: the Myers had a campsite, adjoined by Jenny, Brian, and Dorothy, and then we shared a campsite with Chelsea’s parents and Matt and Kelly. Chelsea’s parents brought their truck-bed camper, which turned out to be quite useful.

Chelsea, Lena, and I were in a big tent that Chelsea’s parents brought. We would have been very cramped in our 4 person tent, so we were thankful to have the extra space. (Babies require way too much stuff.)

We made meals within our own family unit, but generally spent the rest of our time at the Myers camp, or wandering around the Ranch. Chelsea’s parents watched Lena while we went “rump bumping.” I gotta say, it wasn’t as cold as Chelsea talked it up to be. Maybe the beer helped. (We went the next day, too. It was cloudy, and MUCH colder, so maybe Chelsea wasn’t completely exaggerating.)

There was a birthday dinner at the lodge, complete with lawn games and a campfire. We finished the (final) night with boardgames with the cousins while Lena slept on Chelsea.

We spent a night at the lakehouse in Pullman. It would have been nice to stay longer.

Illinois

We ended our trip by staying 3 nights in Mazon and Chelsea’s parents’ house. It was nice to take that time to just relax. Well, it was nice for me. Chelsea still had to do homework for her classes.

I enjoyed showing Lena the corn and other garden plants. It’s fun spending time outside of the city.

I also got to mow the grass on their riding lawn mower. I only broke one tree limb and rendered the mower useless, so I consider it a success.

Garden

The garden has gone to shit, but not before producing a couple of tomatoes. Too bad I don’t like tomatoes.

Next year I will need to be more diligent with garden pests, specifically squash bugs and squash vine borers, which have attacked our zucchini and pumpkin.

Me, alone

Chelsea and Lena left for Michigan before I did to make the trip easier for Lena. (See June’s update for context.) There were a couple of additional reasons for this. One being vacation time for me, and another being my commitment to the community theater production. (Chelsea and Lena got to spend some quality time in Illinois with Grandpa and Grandma, although they ended up leaving for Michigan a whole day late…)

Chelsea has been away in the past during the summer for a teaching program in Colorado, so I am familiar with being alone for an extended period. As an introvert, I welcome it. There is always a project that, if only I had all my time to myself, I could entirely focus on it and finish it. But, whenever Chelsea goes away, I find myself unfocused and without purpose.

I know there are things that I want to do, but I just can’t find a reason to get them done, other than a feeling of “I need to use this time wisely.” I end up staying up much later than I should, and waking up much later that I would (if Chelsea were there), which leaves me with less time during the day to do the things that I thought I would get done.

I guess all I’m trying to say is that Chelsea (and now Lena) give me purpose, even though it is frequently difficult for me to find time alone to focus on my own projects. When they are away, I think about what my life would be like without them: Productive. Lucrative. Successful. But that ain’t the case. I’m just lost.

I lied. There was no mystery this month.