Nothing at All

Gainesville

Well, at least I opened the window for this post while it was still Friday, when it's spozed to be Thursday that I telecommute, and now Windoze tells me it's Saturday, EDT. And it's still Friday in Wisconsin. The fun of living on a spinning globe.

Thanks for continuing with Sandy's Paris letter, Mom. It's wonderful, and at the same time maddening. I don't know which is more annoying, the fact that she got to do this and I didn't, or that she wrote so much better at 20 than I ever will if I live to be 100. Ah well, at least we'll always have Paris as seen by Sandy in the early 60's. More, please.

The rest of the Dark Materials books of commentary fell on me over the last few days, plus Lyra's London and Pullman's edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, a work I successfully avoided throughout my college career. Til now. Seems I only skimmed the surface of (and thoroughly enjoyed) Pullman so far. I will look through the books and offer a comment or two on each, Sandy, and you can decide which are of interest to you. I realize now I forgot to give the particulars of the one I mentioned Wednesday: Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy: a Reader's Guide, by Claire Squires. (Continuum Contemporaries), 2003.

Also in the mail today, the new FL calendar plus the water bottle. It's a neat design, with a wonderful flip-top straw arrangement, but it isn't insulated: which means it sweats and doesn't keep water cold for as long as other, less well-designed things do. Close (and very beautiful), but no cigar.

Loved the other pictures of the MB salad and the potatoes and reluctant climber beans. Remember, they are only half Kentucky -- the Blue Lake part may have predominated in this particular batch. Still, how bad can it be, if that smaller, more tender trait prevails?

What a wonderful picture of you, Mom! Happily shelling peas. I'm so envious. Probably the most labor-intensive home-grown vegetable, but well worth the effort, assuming you don't eat more of them than you shell (always my problem).

Sounds like your lunch for Ann went well too. No doubt you'll get back on track with FL and NT next week.

Will catch up on some other loose threads over the next few days-- I don't have to go back to work until Wednesday. And more about last few days, about which I've said nothing.

peas, please

I'm happy to see this letter about my real introduction to French food. I'll never be able to figure out exactly how they made the wonderful vinaigrette that they served with cold artichokes. What I still quote about the soufflées is how we'd ask the serving girls for more after they'd given us what seemed like a small blob. "Mademoiselle, c'est deux oeufs!!" Two eggs didn't seem like enough, though. And then there was what we called "scrambled egg pie." I didn't learn the word quiche until after I was married and found it in the Joy of Cooking. I probably didn't start making them until the Julia Child era, though. But that food was probably one of the things that got me started being interested in serious cooking.

As far as my classmates went, it was very hard to live with them, in general. I was the only one who'd been to a public high school. They were all very rich, fairly snobby, had all "come out," etc. The ones I finally became friends with (both named Marty) were quite nice, though.

I must make this brief, since peas cry out to be picked, then shelled, then frozen. So far we have fifteen new packages in the freezer (and have eaten them several times, too, of course). Need at least twenty more. Last year we froze 35 packages, but I didn't serve them as often as I could have, since it seemed that there weren't very many. We still have six of the old ones left. If we get enough new ones, the old ones will be doled out to family members. Even a year old, they're way better than anything from the store.

The garden grows apace. We've eaten our first cabbage (delicious!) and are awaiting the broccoli. Onions will come full circle. There are still a few viable ones in the basement, but the ones in the garden are now getting big enough to use, too. Some concern about the Kentucky blue string beans, which, despite what it says on the package, do not seem to show any interest in climbing our poles. If they are only bush beans, we won't have planted enough. We'll see. Maybe they're late climbers.

On the cooking front. I've now cooked the pasta on the back of FC 79, to rave reviews from both Charlie and DO. On Sunday when Mom was here I made the beer-brined butterflied chicken. Used two bottles of Corona. Charlie was very skeptical (as was I, really), but it was very good. Got pretty black in the barbecue, but stayed moist. I've been butterflying chickens for years, but most often cut them in half --after butterflying -- and freeze and cook them that way. I recommend this for two people. I also made the tiny stuffed tomatoes in the basil section. These are extremely wonderful, seeing how simple they are. I took most of them to a cocktail party on Sunday and brought the rest to Marty's when Wayne was there (also Sunday, on our way to said cocktail party). Use good olive oil. For mozzarella, I used the little ones that come swimming in water, since they were a little firmer than the shrink-wrapped balls that I use for a lot of things. These will reappear when our cherry tomatoes are ripe. This is the dumb time of year when one buys the items that will, in a month or so, appear as surplus. We never come close to eating our cherry tomatoes (two plants this year, but I don't know why -- usually we have only one) because by the time they are abundant, the other tomatoes are in and keeping us busy.

I shall do some quick answering of blogs since I wrote. I should have known that your OCLC game was based on Adventure. It now makes perfect sense to me. As far as earth-shredders goes: Charlie popped the mantis into the back of my car last week to see how it would work. He'd never really given one a try. This one is electric, and required running some 300 feet of extension cord to the garden. It didn't want to run, but after he tapped on the switch a couple of times, it started. And actually, it didn't do a bad job on small weeds in an area that had been tilled twice in the last month. He tilled in the trenches beside the potatoes to scrabble up the weeds before putting down heavy hay mulch. It worked fine for that. It won't break ground, however. I didn't realize he'd borrowed it, and he will bring it back to RF soon.

The only Costello album I know is "King of America," the title song of which contains that quote. I like your quote, too, Suze (just googled it); it's more useful than mine.

I really want to see the Eroica thing (a movie?). I think about that symphony a lot, particularly how revolutionary it was. I once saw the Chi symphony play the Beethoven 2nd and 3rd as a concert program (went alone, pregnant with Marty, I believe). What an amazing contrast.

I have much more to say and to answer, but I really have to go to the garden. Will add a couple of photos, though!

But before that, one more thing. A cry of anguish rose when you (Suzy) mentioned the "Summer on the Side" section of FC 79! I'm so close to having made everything in the magazine (desserts will come soon; I'm waiting for blueberries and raspberries, and still putting off the brownies), but I'd forgotten about that part! Oh well, I've made a few of those things before, since they're from old magazines. The wheatberry salad is particularly good, but it makes an awful lot.


This is a salad from Mario Batali's book, made with roasted romas from our garden last year. These are the mozzarella blobs I was talking about.


Mom will probably kill me for this, but I think it's a cute photo and makes her look very animated and lively. Which she is!


Charlie and the potatoes. This is about a week old, but they've not grown much since then. They're busy underground, we hope and assume. The mantis is on the ground next to him, and the scrabbled weeds in the trench are what the mantis was able to do. Peas on the right, tiny edamame on the left, photographer in the foreground.

Complicated

Gainesville

I'm about 6 hours in the minus column for sleep this week, and it's only Wednesday-- no Thursday telecommute to sleep later and grab a brief afternoon nap. Hope I can stay awake long enough to post this.

What a social-butterfly day for you, Mom. Isn't it too bad that these things seem to happen in clumps, instead of being spread out, where they could all be appreciated. Seems to be some deep law of the universe, as I see this pattern of bursts of energy followed by glides all the time.

Thanks for posting that letter from Sandy-- what pure gold! My favorite phrase was "...bananas brought in burning in brandy" Masterful alliteration, and a strange presage of FBR, which was, after all, the Flaming Banana Ranch. If only we'd known, it could have been the BBBB! :-) But I also loved that you could follow the lectures in French unless you stopped and thought about the amazing thing that you were doing -- another language! Sigh-- that happens to me only in dreams. Many dreams. Damn those dreams that never came true.

Forced myself, with the idea of a timer of not an actual one, to get back to working on sorting through my comics section ads scans and arranging them in a very rough ppt series. This organizing activity is what sparks my ideas about what I have to say about the stuff that fascinates me so-- it's me talking to myself on a very basic level. I'm very happy to be in touch with that level again.

We went out to to *lunch at Sonny's with Barbara (her choice), and she detailed her idea to have a small dinner party in honor of my retirement. She really WANTS to do this-- she has a certain routine that she knows well, and loves to have an excuse to do it. She has given me a month to think about it before deciding yes/no, and if yes then who. God help me, I'm actually thinking about it! And hating the decisions that I'd have to make because it seems I do have more than six friends who might qualify. But the calculus gets very complicated after the first four.

Somehow managed to put a nice meal on the table after getting home late, and taking a 7 minute nap. Chili Lime Pork Strips (all you need to know about that one, and quite good), spaghetti squash in the mike, and bag salad.

Late UPS delivery yielded Love & Rockets #12 and the first of the Philip Pullman Dark Materials critical works-- a slim volume designed for teachers and book clubs, ie, just the facts, ma'am. No index, but a nice bibliography. We'll see what the others are like.

Gotta crash. Tomorrow is the big bye-bye party for my boss. Swamp is the theme, and they called for stuffed swamp critters. Our non-bio family is represented by a racoon (*Zorro), two turtles, a frog, a flamingo and one other I can't remember now. I need to be there to watch out for them, if for no other reason, but of course, there are many other reasons. Boss was chair of the search committee that hired me back in 1983. I needed that job, at that point. And look at all the fun things that have happened since...

[*corrections made, 30 June 06]

Bricks

Gainesville

It's JULIA DAY! Hope you had a fun one, hockey girl. It's the big 1-5. I had just started sophomore year in high school when I celebrated that one. I kept a diary that year, but who knows where it is now. I do remember that I was deep into tennis at the time, and reading Desiree, which is what inspired me to keep that particular diary.

Be nice if someone up there with easy access would post us a new picture of birthday girl...

Woofers, what a dismal day here. Gloomy and rainy most of it-- not that that's a BAD thing, as we surely do need the rain, but it does dampen spirits as well as ground. Had to cancel a lunch with Barbara because she did not want to venture out. I consoled myself with the particularly nice lunch I'd brought in: a leftover bacon-cheese dog, some of the tomato/feta salad, a few cherries and some cottage cheese.

Said lunch turned out to be the culinary high-point-- after taking me home, Bill had to immediately go back to work, so we picked up Subway on the way. The pork stir fry I'd planned for tonight will wait til tomorrow, and the crock thing will keep indefinitely.

Intensely boring day at work. Good thing that the latest volume (8) of the Babylon 5 scripts was here waiting. I fall on these the instant they come into the house, not to read the scripts necessarily-- I know all the episodes Very Well-- but for the marvelous commentaries and supplementary stuff from the creator known as JMS. This is a Cafe Press production, their biggest one to date-- a milestone in Internet self-publishing. It will be 15 volumes when it's done, and they are large brick-like volumes.

Expecting a deluge from Amazon and friends soon-- a bunch of "your order has shipped" emails arrived. The new Love and Rockets volumes will let me continue wallowing in the Hatfield book.

Happy you had such a great day, Mom. I'll be interested to hear how your new sprinkler system works.

And thanks for the rest of the stuff about Rachel. Poor Dan-- two older sisters lording it over her for just being older, and then a dynamo of a younger sister, with all the academic credentials Dan always wished she had. Rachel had a school named after her! I'd be happy to have a little patch of cement outside University Auditorium, where I liked to sit of a spring day and listen to musical rehearsals inside, named after me.

Summer on the Side

Gainesville

I went back to work. I survived. What else is there to say about that? It was quieter than usual, since many of the usual suspects were off at the ALA national conference-- held where, you ask? Why, fun-filled New Orleans, where else?!

It was overcast all day and not all that hot, so tonight I braved the oven and stuffed the hot dogs with pepper jack, wrapped them in bacon, and broiled them. My adjustment to the recipe is to mike the bacon on paper towels for a couple of minutes before wrapping. Makes the end result much less slimey. Miked some kraut. But then, my big Mistake: I took on the Tomato Salad with Feta, Olives & Mint from FC#79's "Summer on the Side" supplement. Don't get me wrong, it was wonderful, and I had everything I needed in fresh, perfect shape. It just took a long time to make, is way bigger than we'll ever be able to eat, and seems kind of overkill as a side to a '50's meal like dogs 'n' kraut.

I started reading a book last night that I already love: The Geographer's Library, by Jon Fasman. I picked this up at Borders on a table of "3 for the price of 2" trade paperbacks, to go with the two I knew I wanted, and see which I picked up first! But how could I resist a title like that, especially when it's billed as "a brainy noir" and "Eco meets Fowles"? As I used to say in my diary, will keep you posted, but so far it reads like a winner.

Thanks for the stuff on Aunt Rachel, Mom. What fun to hear all those details about her. Dan always held her up to me as a model of why it was good to be a librarian. Alas, I don't think I ever quite measured up to Rachel's Miss Firecracker career. Never knew she remarried in her 90's! Ah, those crazy Bauman girls... Her scandalous motorcycle date with Addison reminds me of visiting Birmingham with Lee's family sometime early on. His teeny-bopper little sister, Dianne, wasted no time in attracting local interest-- within a day or two, she was dating one of our Workman cousins, who cruised by in his pickup.

Enough for now. In the morning, gotta get up and do it again. Amen.

Radio Radio

Gainesville

We got some rain today too, and likewise, not nearly enough. Not nearly as hot as it was yesterday. Made it bearable to wear jeans, t-shirt and lace-up shoes again.

All caught up with the week's Blessings. In addition to changing the sheets, Bill turned the mattress, and I washed the mattress pad, both long overdue. It will be an especially fresh and clean bed we drop into tonight.

It was cook enough to cook tonight. The shrimp ring I bought yesterday was a large size (all they had) so I had half of it to use up today. I changed plans and made Leanne's Spicy Spanish Shrimp-- it called for raw shrimp, so I skipped sauteeing them at the start and just put them in at the last. It was a nice dish-- Bill and the cat both loved it. Had some yellow squash from last week I needed to use; sauteed them with mushrooms and onions. Cherries have appeared in the store again, which inspired a fruit salad of them, some canteloupe, honeydew and grapes. Nice meal.

Back to work in the morning. I can't say I accomplished everything that I set out to do this past week, but quite a bit. I especially love looking over at the six shelves (plus some overflow behind me) of my comics library. This is something I've been wanting to get done for a long time, and it feels wonderful as well as inspirational. I also got the main Library room decluttered; I'd had stacks of paper stuff that needed sorting there for weeks. All gone. Good Suze.

Thanks for the report on your outing, Mom. Great sounding food! Yes, you spelled edamame right-- I love it. I still want to try that particular recipe. I'll be taking it easy cooking-wise this week, though, easing back into the workday grind. If it's not too hot tomorrow night, I'm going to fix hot dogs that way you used to: stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon, then broiled. The one time I made these for Bill, he was enraptured. If it's too hot, though, I'll just plop them on some kraut and mike 'em.

Bill spent much of the weekend bonding with his Nano. In less than a week, he already has more loaded onto his 4GB unit than I've put on my 60GB one in over a year! I guess he likes it. Although sooner or later, we should probably consider switching units.

I, on the other hand, have started listening to the radio again. I recently discovered that there is now a Gainesville station I can stand to listen to for more then ten minutes-- FINALLY we have an alternative or "college" station (which I call "white boys whining," although I do love the stuff). I turned my car radio off sometime in 1996 when the only good radio station (the wonderful and dearly missed 97X, the next best thing to WHFS in Baltimore) was gobbled up by Clear Channel. I've listened to nothing but audio books ever since, until this week. It's good timing, actually, as I'm all out of taped books, and don't want to buy any more, since Moonbeam has only CD. I've probably "read" about two dozen books, which has been a wonderful experience. I'm considering putting a CD-player in Blue.

Hot, Part 2

Gainesville

Hope the sleep-over is going well. I want to hear all the latest from the garden, and details of the cooking. Pictures, if possible!

A low key day here. We had some nice thunder-showers in the afternoon while I was shopping. But it was so hot that my glasses steamed over when I came out of Publix and stayed so until I got to the car-- steam was billowing across the asphalt parking lot as if it were on fire. Our air conditioning is working overtime, but still can't keep the house really comfortable. I wonder what the heck I ever did with my old tank tops and light weight sleevless things? I seldom wear such anymore, since it's usually so cold in the house with the AC on, and they keep the stores cold too. Shoulda spent some time decluttering the closets-- bet they'd have turned up. I looked under the bed, and found, instead, a plastic bin with winter clothes I'd been missing for 6-7 years! D'oh!

Too hot to cook. We did sushi, shrimp ring, and I made a really good salad that's kind of like tabouli, but with cauli-rice, chopped spinach and sliced green olives in addition to the standard stuff (parsley, scallions, celery, tomatoes). I made a half-recipe, since that's all the leftover cauli-rice I had, but next time I'm going to save enough to make a full recipe. It's the kind of thing that gets better for the next day or two.

I've now run out of the "Palomar" stories in Love and Rockets-- will have to wait until the order I placed with Amazon today comes in. Probably just as well, since work next week will definitely put a crimp in my reading schedule. Meanwhile, of course, I can go back and read the "Locas" stories I skipped. They tend to be more light-hearted. Good thing, as "Duck Feet," which I read today, is very dark and disturbing. It's gritty stuff, but brilliant and compelling.

The order also includes the various handbooks and critical works about Pullman's Dark Materials, so I'll be able to tell you about those too, Sandy.

And speaking of orders, I was delighted to see FL is offering a water bottle. I have been pressing the plastic mug-with-top I use for bathroom water (which must be transported to and from the kitchen where the water is filtered) into service as an all-purpose hydrator. When it's this hot, I like to keep frozen bottles around, but that gets complicated-- they're either frozen or no longer cold. Anyway, I ordered one of hers along with next year's calendar. It looks like it might be a great solution to having cold water beside the bed that won't spill, but doesn't have to be unscrewed. We shall see.

Even the terrazzo floors are not up to this heat: I have to keep moving my bare feet around to find a cool patch. They tend always be cold. I'm astonished that Al Gore, of all people, has become the poster-boy for global warming/warning. His film opened in town and was mobbed such that the multiplex had to actually open a SECOND SCREEN for it. And this for a documentary, no less. Hello. I think we have a problem here that might be bigger than it seems.

Fire on the Fingertips

Gainesville

My last day of this week's vacation, and I made the most of it. Finished the Comics Collection consolidation to the point where I could finally take down the card table I used for staging. It's lovely to be able to move around in here again.

I've got the Blessings reasonably up to date, even got the bills paid before sitting down to write this. Best of all, I made huge progress reading "Heartbreak Soup," to the point where I'm able to read a page or two of Hatfield without spoilers. Once I made up my mind I needed to bypass "Locas" for now, it became much easier to read and keep track of characters.Now I need to acquire more: I only have 1-7, 13 and 20.

But if this week has been a preview of retirement, I'm so up for it. What I am not up for is the hoopla that is supposed to attend this particular transition. There are so many people making exits of one kind or another right now, that just one more seems like wretched excess. Besides, I've left here so many times already, with Goodbye Parties, that it's redundant. Plus, since I became "Mrs. Director," the few casual friends I had around here have shrunk away in fear that anything they say to me might be heard by my husband. Which indeed it might, unless they swear me to secrecy--but what a drag, and a gamble that is for them. The intrigue is miles deep. My Brilliant Career ends with a whimper. How appropriate!

Well, where did that rant come from? I'm always surprised at what pops out at the end of my fingertips late at night.

It's good to hear you are progressing with decluttering too, Mom. FL is right-- it is essential to understand what is important to you, and get the other stuff out of the way so you can actually concentrate on doing it. And the 15-minute rule is critical! When there is something I know I need to do, but don't want to, setting that silly timer and just seeing how much of it I can get done is an amazingly powerful tool. It's a fulcrum of sorts.

It is ungodly hot here. I mean, even for Florida. Our AC is not up to it-- needs some overhaul. If it doesn't rain soon, we'll need to go somewhere where it does. Or else stand in a cold shower several times daily. Seems like I did that a time or two while house-sitting in Shannondale.

What are rice chips?

Can't help but notice that Dan starts calling him "Leo" by the end of the long letter instead of "Pa."

Solar Heroics

Gainesville

Happy Summer Solstice-- sometime mid-morning local time. At sunset, the sun shines into the house from the northwest at a particular angle I have tried to memorize. Maybe tomorrow night I will be able to draw a line across the floor.

Another glorious day at home, doing what I want to do. Which turned out to be compulsively reading Love and Rockets, vol. 2. I've reached the part of Hatfield's book where he covers the "Heartbreak Soup" (Palomar) arc, and I don't want to continue without having read it. Alas, it's 18 volumes long... and I can't bring myself to skip the "Locas" (Maggie and Hopey) stories either. This is a project that will take months. [happy sigh]

I had a big load of big white undies to fold this afternoon, which gave me the perfect excuse to FINALLY watch the Eroica DVD. Of course, I loved it. They did a remarkable thing, building the entire drama around its first performance, a dress rehearsal, little scenes with dialog fitted in here and there, but during the music itself, relying on amazing, wonderful face-acting of characters listening to or playing the music for the first time. I'm probably the only person who weeps through most of the first movement of this work, and only sporadically during the other three. Sandy, you'll love this too, and I'll be happy to lend you my copy after I watch it a few more times.

Best of all, I have a spanking-fresh copy of Symphony in E-Flat for the inner jukebox, and I'm astonished and how much detail had been lost. Note to self: Time to refresh other important copies.

Fixed actual Steak Diane for dinner, and it was a success with man and beast. Steamed asparagus and leftover cauli-rice on the side. It is still hideously hot, even inside, so even that much hot food was not much fun to fix or eat. Another note to self: Salads, baby, salads!

Thanks for the anniversary wishes, Mom. We too are very glad we settled on that particular plan for a wedding, and have nothing but happy memories of the whole event, which we remarked upon at length over dinner at Bonefish. Bill gave me a stunningly beautiful gold necklace-- it came in it's own little "theatre"-- you'll have to see it to understand. I gave him an iPod Nano-- a considerably more complicated gift! It's a toy, really, but he likes toys, and seems to be having fun with it. And... it's just so gosh-darn cute!

I burst out laughing at Dan's rant about bare legs vs black panyhose! And why was she was paying such close attention?! I'm guessing that she was referring to Bert in tonight's part of the letter where you have question marks-- it makes sense.

Enjoy your weekend at the Farm Central. More pictures, please!

I have a routine dentist appointment tomorrow morning. If I'd realized this sooner, I'd have moved it to a non-vacation day. That'll teach me to check my FL calendar more often-- it was there all the time. I've let that particular habit languish. At any rate, I must to bed. But first:

Okay, I want all the For Better or For Worse fans to take a look at this on the official FBoFW website. Just look at it for a bit, quietly. Tell me if it freaks you out.

Adventures

Gainesville

Happy Birthday, Marty! I have sent you something, but it won't get there until tomorrow at the earliest. And thanks for the comment on the Adventure Game thread. I'm glad you remember it, and how amazing it was. (Tell us about Lee and Roger!)

Bill remembers it well too, and it's amazing how many sig blocks I see with a variation of "You are standing..." I was online a little earlier than that (OCLC in the library) but other than an infamous apple cake recipe cleverly hidden in a bibliographic record, I'd never seen anything fun online prior to Sandy showing me Adventure at work, and its interface was a Telex printer! I never forgot it, and when Chris gave me a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy game a few years later, I was already to hit the ground running with it, which in turn, inspired me to make to my CAI tenure project into the form of a game...

Worn out after a long hard day of Vacation. It's pretty obvious that I will have much less time to waste once it is actually my own. Did all my routines, including towels and sheets. Went out to run some errands in the midafternoon, only to discover it was perfectly beastly HOT. It hadn't been all that bad when we were downtown on Sunday, and Saturday afternoon when I shopped it had been perfectly, miraculously glorious-- clear skies, dry air, heavy breeze. I felt like dancing in the Publix parking lot, but thought the better of it. This made the contrast with today all the more hideous. I drastically cut short my errands when I realized getting to and from my car was a life-threatening journey. The all-important liquor run was accomplished, though, and the Publix dash to pick up a few things needed for the pasta recipe.

This latter, which I dub Rata-Pasta, was good, but didn't blow me away like the one from the FC79 back cover one did. Perhaps part of this was due to my having lost my grip on sanity sometime around 5:30 and sticking my face into a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia Lowfat Frozen Yogurt. ("I'll just have a few little scrapes of the spoon, it will energize me..." Do I sound like a Cathy strip, or what? To my credit, I only ate half of it, but it was a near thing. The POINT being, I'll reserve judgement on Rata-Pasta until I'm decently hungry. It also left major cleanup debris in its wake, which I was still dealing with after opening the bar at 10:30. I resorted to setting the timer for 15 minutes, and as usual, what seemed insurmountable turned out to be just a minute of two longer than that.

Once again, no time to watch famous Eroica. However, my inner recording, unlike any other media, becomes clearer and sharper as the days go by. Thanks for picking up "famous," Sandy. I know your grasp of the classical canon puts mine to shame, and you could beat the pants off me at any drop the needle game (now there's an expression about to disappear). It's been years since I listened to that stuff regularly, and undoubtedly, the inner jukebox is the poorer for it.

I would have gotten the "ABC News" quote eventually-- I'd narrowed it down to Don Henley/ Eagles and Elvis Costello, on the basis of snarkiness and rhyme pattern-- but when I asked Bill about it, he headed off to the Web Oracle, and had the answer before I'd even cleared the table. I was surprised it was on that late of an album. And here's my favorite Elvis C quote: "Well, I used to be disgusted / Now I try to be amused" Ring any bells?

Beautiful pictures of salad prep! They could easily be used in the magazine-- way cool.

Mom and Sandy, thanks to both for the input on earth-shredders. As I'd feared, there's not one out there for the likes of me. On the other hand, my "garden" amounts to two four-squares, and another patch that the lawn has completely reclaimed. If I were to try to hire anyone to till it, they would laugh. I think I need to buy myself a pick axe and just go at it early in the morning, 15 minutes at a time.

Speaking of which, you did good today, Mom. Got your routines done. I know all about the problems of trying to throw stuff away that is full of memories. But we must keep at it, lest the stuff crush us. Open, empty space is beautiful.

If only I had some. Alas, my comics collection project suffered a set-back today-- I realized I'd overlooked a three-foot shelf of the stuff hidden behind the DVD's under the TV. Originally, I could still see the tops of the books, but then I started piling up more on top of the foreground, and, well... This meant a major rethinking of the shelving in here. I got most of it done. And I'm pretty sure that is the last of my comics-related holdings! (knock knock)

More to say about both posts today, but it's now shockingly late. I know I'll tend to rock around the clock when on vacation, if left to my own devices. With just a week, that's not a good idea.

famous

Famous Beethoven's famous Eroica symphony has recently been recorded by the Minnesota Orchestra, and very nicely so, I might add. I was listening to the radio in the car the other day and heard the last movement (my favorite part, maybe) played wonderfully but with two tiny quirky things, so I knew it wasn't a recording I was familiar with. I was pleased to find out it was our local group. Think I mentioned seeing the Mahler fifth a month or so ago and how wonderful the orchestra is sounding. My game when I happen to turn on classical radio (which I rarely do, since I generally listen to books -- this all in the car, of course) is to see how many notes it takes me to identify the composer and then the work. Not usually very many (with the Eroica it was one). Makes me think of Marty (happy birthday!), who knows every note of the standard rep (having been surrounded by it for years) but has a hard time identifying things. I am amused by your mental jukebox, Suzy, and I'll bet Mom has one too. One of the reasons I don't listen to music much any more is that I just have to think it. (And here's a tough earworm: "She said that she was working for the ABC News/But that was all the alphabet that she knew how to use./Her perfume was unspeakable, it lingered in the air . . . ." I've had this stuck in my head for days. Maybe it's triggered by this thought: "Now I try hard not to become hysterical.")

But I digress, and I haven't even started.

Charlie is working today, and my goal is to finish weeding the poppy bed. This will keep me up by the house, which is good, since I'm doing laundry. It's cloudy but not supposed to rain, so I assume it'll get dry. I hate to use the dryer in summer because I prefer the feel of outdoor-dried clothes, particularly towels. And, hey! If it rains, that's good. When Mom got half an inch on Saturday night we got one tenth. Watering will resume tomorrow.

Mario Batali is the only TV chef we like, and I guess we've only seen him a couple of times. We don't watch foodie TV for two reasons: too many ads, too many moronic chefs. The good food shows are on public TV anyway; that's where we discovered Jacques Pepin, whose cookbooks are quite wonderful. Anyway, Mario is almost a cult figure. You could follow this link: http://topchefs.chef2chef.net/recipes-2/batali/, and I'm sure there are many many more. But on this site is the tomato sauce recipe, if anyone's interested. Be sure not to use "crushed" tomatoes, an inferior product that has lots of skin in it. I'd use four cans of diced tomatoes in juice, if I didn't have my own in the freezer. There was a good profile of Mario in The New Yorker a year or so ago.

Lunch out on a Sunday! We never do that either. Your stirfry sounds good, Suze. I've got to get my hands on some skirt steak. Marty's cooked it recently and liked it a lot.

Now dig this (think all caps, dot matrix, please):

The wizards of WAAC welcome you to

*Adventure*

Good luck to all who dare enter.

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully . . . .

Yesterday when I was looking for old letters, I ran across a mile-long printout of this, my first experience of a computer game. I used to go over to the fine arts building at night to play it (I didn't dare get involved during the school day); Christopher Lonie (Marty's age) would often accompany me. So when would this be? 1977? Computers reached out and grabbed me very early, as they did my siblings. When Chris sent me a very simple word processing program (by this time there was a primitive screen; Adventure was played from the mainframe with only printouts, which I loved), I learned to use it right away, and despite the fact that it was hideously primitive, I put my typewriter up for sale the next week and never looked back.

As for the chicken question. I don't remember buying or cooking much chicken then, but I'm sure you could always buy it cut up. Mom? Or the butcher would cut it up for you. My basic menu for the week started with a sirloin tip roast, which we'd eat twice more as leftovers. And this was three pounds (or less) of meat. Other standbys: lamb patties, the occasional lamb chop, mock oysters, Soares beans, some weird dishes out of the cookbook Pa gave me (like hot dogs arranged on a bed of canned corn), and of course meatloaf. Here's the meatloaf story: I'd made it a few times before, probably from some recipe, but on this day I decided to be creative. I'd heard that real cooks did without recipes, so why not me. So I made meatloaf, flinging in this and that, whatever seemed appropriate. When I served the gloppy mess to Dad, he said: "Don't ever make me meatloaf again!!" I didn't. In fact I didn't make meatloaf for years and years, and I VERY rarely cook without a recipe!

The Troy-Bilt horse is a monster tiller. I can't even consider using it; it's too heavy, unwieldy, awkward, horrible. Charlie hates using it (it's hard work!), but it does the job. The main tilling is done with one that goes behind the lawn tractor, but the Troy-Bilt fits between rows. We also have an old one that was the original snowblower/tiller from River Falls. That one I could use and I rather liked it, but it barely runs now. So here are some answers to your questions. When you begin your garden, absolutely hire someone to do the initial tilling. In RF I had someone come every year to do that, and that's what I'd advise. Even a small garden is hard to get started each year without some serious dirt turning, and you don't want to do it with a shovel. As far as getting a tiller is concerned: Small ones stink. The Mantis, such a nice idea, will only turn soil that is already thoroughly broken up. And it's so light that it prefers to skip along the surface of the ground. I've tried them several times (it would be so nice!), but they really don't even work for minor weeding. Mom has an electric one (even lighter) that I struggled with there once or twice. A couple of years ago I was getting serious about getting a tiller I could handle, but we never found one. Your best solution is a season-opening tilling by someone else, and then weed control with mulch, plastic, back-breaking labor, or some combination of the above. All that said, maybe the smallest Troy-Bilt (above the Mantis) would work.

Having fun with the Mario cookbook, though I did have a failure yesterday. There's a wonderful-looking polenta loaf, with sausage, red bell peppers, garlic, and mozzarella. Took me a while to put it together yesterday morning early (we deemed it too wet to go to the garden, though we ended up there later for a couple of hours). It was a fair amount of work. Mario wanted it to sit overnight in the fridge to set up, so we decided we'd better have it for supper. For lunch I made a fish dish from Mario (fried sole, supposed to be monkfish, but anyway) with a terrific sauce using red wine and a little of his tomato sauce. I don't like tomatoes with fish, and who would use red wine with fish?, but it was delicious and was perfect with the sole. So suppertime rolls around, and we carefully unmold our polenta loaf. It looks a little wibbly, and cuts badly. Instead of neat squares to bake we had messy piles. And once it got into the oven, it melted and moogled into one single blob on the baking sheet. When we deemed it sufficiently heated, we scraped it off into a bowl. It was positively delicious (I had a blob for breakfast today), but hardly the beautiful presentation we'd hoped for. (Don't ever make me polenta loaf again!) Actually, I'll try it again, but I'll use different corn meal (I used very coarse) and proportions for firm polenta. I was suspicious of Mario's 10 cups of water for 2 cups of cornmeal. I'm sure he uses something different as polenta.

So anyway. I've managed to put off weeding for an hour and a half, what with laundry, this, and other puttering. Time to go to work!

But I shall append a couple of food photos: This will make me feel better about the polenta failure.


Here is Vera helping with the salad. Notice, Suzy, the nice things you gave me hanging on the wall behind her.


Mise en place for the salad.


And the salad itself.

South Beach Sunday

Gainesville

Good Mom, Good Mom! [pat pat pat on the head] It makes me so happy to hear you are keeping up with your routines, including NT and organ! You are an inspiration. Glad to hear you got some rain, too. We've had nothing since Alberto breezed through, but that was enough to make the azelea bushes perk up again. Those things are incredibly drought resistant, as we never water anything in the yard. Ditto out at FBR-- the azeleas always thrived, despite massive neglect. The magnolia trees still look pretty pathetic, though, and are still dropping large yellow leaves. Will take a lot more rain for them to recover.

We did something unusual today-- went out for lunch on a Sunday. We both slept late, and Bill had been wanting to try a new place downtown called South Beach that Barbara recommended. It's "South Beach" as in southern Florida, not the low-carb diet-- stuff like conch fritters and Cuban things. We had a heavenly appetizer of seared tuna with a pineaple/onion salsa, and sandwiches-- Bill an amazing Reuben, I a Cuban about 3 times as big as I could eat, with pork, ham, salami and swiss cheese. Nice low-key atmosphere with beautiful design details. We will definitely go back there again to explore further.

I still haven't found time to watch any DVDs. My mental jukebox has finally recovered a decent excerpt from famous Beethoven's famous Eroica Symphony, and it gets longer and clearer by the hour. I really thought tonight would be the night, but somehow the evening was subsumed by dinner and its aftermath rituals. A very nice Mexican beef stir fry (skirt steak, onions, green & jalapeno peppers with cumin, oregano and garlic in the oil) with cauli-rice. The cat was in heaven-- she is a major Beefeater.

Speaking of Carrot, suddenly it is the season to occupy the tube part of her condo. It's been at least a year since she occupied it, and I was wondering if she ever would again. What is it that tips her off that the time has come to Tube?

Did some more work on organizing the books in my office space. Comics stuff all has a home now, and a little space to grow. Poetry is looking for a new home, as is Shakespeare. I have a "To Read" shelf close at hand, and have stacked up over two feet of obsolete computer hardware and software manuals-- including some from my very first computer, a Toshiba 100 laptop. It is hard to imagine how primitive this thing was-- and what a revolution it made in my life! It had a tiny screen eighty characters wide and about 20 lines long. No graphics. No backlight. No hard drive. Ah, but it had a MODEM -- I could, if I was lucky, DIAL IN to the campus network, and keep working far into the night! Oh joy! And very soon, thanks to Genie, I could waste countless hours managing a text-based fantasy league baseball game (team: the Twisters; coach: Rocker) Ah memories. This is what makes it so hard to throw this shit away. I guess that blogging about it, then pitching it is the best solution.

Slight but obvious correction to last night's G&T recipe: right before "serve," add a very brief "stir." Otherwise you have a sucker-punch when you reach the bottom.

Also, I should point out that Hickville is a fictional New Zealand town, not some place to whence I'm planning a pilgrimage. The pilgrimage will of course be to the locations for LoTR-- me and everyone else who comes to N.Z. from now on, no doubt. Mom & Dad's postcards from there were what sparked my serious interest in the place, though, pre-movie. Raising sheep there sounds better and better, given current events. Either there, or Scotland.

And how appropriate on Fathers Day to remember what a great trip planner Dad was. He certainly was able to devote his retirement years to doing things that he loved. Good think you liked to travel, Mom!

To continue commenting on Sandy's post: I too remember shopping for the week's food and having exactly $20.00 to spend. No doubt at some point you took this on yourself, but at least in the beginning, we both did it, or maybe we traded off weeks. It was a challanging exercise, to be sure. And there was a time, boys and girls, when beef was cheap (well, not steak, of course, but hamburger) and chicken was a luxury item. Could you buy chicken already cut up back then? I think not. I know the Rancho Market had a meat counter, and that may have been the only way you could buy it.

I want to hear more about the Troy-Bilt horse. I know I need something like this, even for the tiny little garden in the back yard. I'm less able to do the physical labor, especially here in the jungle of rampant root growth, and even when I was more capable, it's never as good as what a mechanical monster can do in a fraction of the time. I probably could get by just renting one for the initial till, but what is it I should be looking to rent?

I want also to hear more about Mario. Is this a TV chef? I confess, I'm clueless about foodie channels (are there more than one?) And I agree about the wonderful olive relish recipe. I think I cut it in half too, but at any rate, I ate the leftovers myself over a few days, and loved every morsel.

Half past midnight here, and the eyes are at half mast. The bar is still open, so the bartender remains at the ready. Ah, the happy prospect of NOT having to go into the Tank tomorrow!

G&T

Gainesville

Okay, first things first: Chris' Gin & Tonics. I have stage fright because The Master himself reads this blog occasionally, and he will certainly be able to correct any errors. Of course, I can always claim that they are my own personal variations on a theme...

Take a lime. Put it on a cutting board. If it is smallish, cut it into quarters. If big, 6ths will do.

Take one medium-tall tumbler. Squeeze the lime piece over the empty glass, then rub the juicy part all around the rim of the glass. Toss what's left into the bottom or the glass.

Pour a shot (however you happen to define that-- for me that is 2 oz. YMMV) of the gin of your choice into the glass. Very important that the gin go in the glass BEFORE the ice.

Fill the rest of the glass with ice. Then fill whatever's left with tonic.

Serve and enjoy

[Sz Note: Subsequent rounds are served in the same glass, same order. Lime pieces build up in the bottom. Shot size remains the same, ice decreases, tonic decreases. Fun increases, at least for awhile...]

Not much of day here. Got up late, and things just got later from then on. But it turned out to be the perfect day to read Hicksville by Dylan Horrocks, which, due to the comics reorg, happened to be just sitting there in plain sight. I'd started it once before, but was not willing to take the time to figure out what the hell was going on. Today I took the time, and it was well worth it! Hicksville is a remote town in New Zealand where everyone takes comics Very Seriously Indeed. And where the ultimate comics libraries (two of them) reside. I need to make a trip to New Zealand. Didn't you and Dad go there once, Mom?

By the time I got out to shop, it was after 5:00, so we had things that needed no prep, let alone cooking: Sushi, shrimp ring, edamame in the shell, prefab salad. It was either that, or call for the pizza man. I think this worked better.

I forgot one part of my shopping list, which meant I had to get creative. As it turned out, I have the ingredients to make Penne with Eggplant, Tomato & Basil (I have some of the wonderful Dreamfields low carb pasta) and Seared Rib-Eye Steaks with Edamame & Garlic, from the famous FC #79 Q&D. Never mind that I already had edamame this week-- I'll get some more.

Sandy, I loved your farm pictures. I remember a classic picture of Pa, the happy farmer, standing in front of a pile of manure at the Farm in the early days. This image of you and the hay had the same feel. And it just astonishes me to see the peas just starting to bloom-- down here, we harvest peas in February, if at all. Do we even live on the same planet?

Mom, thanks for the letter from Dan. Yes, it is typical in so many ways. I feel the weight of her expectations, and how interesting that she is talking about perfectionism, yet being so ambivelant about it at the same time. I think FlyLady might have helped her too! What a concept.

More tomorrow.

racoon ramble

Saturday already. Time's flying; nearly the solstice!

I'll try to do some catching up. Fun to get news from storm central last week. It's good that you got rain with minimal damage. As Mom's been saying in her blog, we are desperate for rain here. We've been teased over and over with clouds, warnings, wind, but still no rain. Yesterday we had a ten-minute cloudburst which did not even register on our rain gauge. More promises today, but now when (and if) it rains, it's sure to be violent. I just want a steady, wet inch or two. Anyway, we're spending a lot of time watering. Most of it is done with soaker hoses, a slow process, but very effective. We water some things (tomatoes, cabbages, beans, broccoli) by hand, because they are not in tidy rows.

(this will be kind of rambling, since I'm flashing back and forth between it and previous blogs)

Like you, Suzy, I cringe to read old letters. But it's good to have them down, painful as it is. And how lovely to have the first reference to Bill: "someone." I love it.

I did make the chicken/olive dish towards the end of the week. Used some huge dryish green ones I got at Kowalski's. Something exotic but not too heavily brined. It was really awfully good. Nice recipe. We finished up the relish (I made half) easily in the next couple of days. But then I've been "derouted," as they would say in French, by Molto Mario, our favorite chef. Our first MM cookbook. Charlie picked out a couple of recipes, which I made on Thursday: Mock Tripe (who would want such a thing?) and Neapolitan Crostini. The latter was thin omelets sliced into thin strips in a wonderful, simple tomato sauce. It was pretty good, not great (except for the sauce). I'll send along the tomato sauce recipe, if anyone wants it. The crostini were made with ricotta, a lot of black pepper, and anchovies. Quite good. We finished up the crostini yesterday and today for lunch, bathed in the tomato sauce. Last night we had steak, and out of Mario I made roasted potatoes with garlic cloves. He blanches one-inch chunks of potatoes (unpeeled red ones, in this case) for two minutes before roasting them for 30 minutes at 425 degrees with chopped rosemary, olive oil, and unpeeled garlic cloves. It was excellent, but next time I'll put the garlic in ten minutes into the roasting time; it got overcooked, which makes it kind of disappear. Anyway, it's fun to have such an interesting new cookbook. I finally remembered to buy (actually Mom spotted it at Kowalski's and reminded me to buy) FC #79 for Marty. It's really a wonderful issue.

I have disciplined myself to order Fun Home from the library. Our network has one copy, so I'm on a short waiting list for it. I had to do it, since I just bought a new book on the French Rev (I think I told you this) as well as the DVD of "The Passenger," one of the great movies of all time, and just now out on DVD. It's very wonderful, and Charlie and I both recommend it. Terrific commentary by Jack Nicholson.

I wish you a great week of proto-retirement, Suzy. It's nice that you have such a fun and interesting project, too. Yeah, it would be fantastic to get Chris Ware to the conference!! Let me know when he has a new book out. There are several projects hanging fire (Rusty Brown surely will be continued, and the building stuff from the New York Times Book Review will surely be published . . . ).

What makes Chris's GT's so special? Please let me know. We've been drinking them for the last few days, since David Olson (henceforth known as DO) is home and Charlie is working on his kitchen. At about quarter to five each day, I've gone over there and the two sweaty men and I, cool and fresh from the A/C at home, sit down for a couple of GTs. This means I miss my normal see-through (I just have one, since I have wine with dinner), though. Looking forward to it tonight, as it's not a work day. At least not there. We worked over at Florence's this afternoon, as she is sure to tell you, until she got so overheated I was afraid we'd killed her. Just doing little stuff, but she did a lot of running around in the heat. I was glad I noticed how red she'd gotten and made her sit down!

I have loved the Rancho stuff, too. Also about baby consumers; it's where we learned to shop. And of course when I began cooking, I'd do the weekly shopping at the market. Dad would be at work in the record store, and he'd give me a twenty-dollar bill. For this I shopped for five (well, four, really, since Mom didn't often eat with us) people for a week! And if I ran over, I faced the humiliation (in the market) and the opprobrium (from Dad) of running over to the record store for more money. I was very careful! And of course I remember the coffee shop (though had also forgotten the name), and the flavored cokes. We were playing at being teenagers, of course, though our ideas were formed by the soda shop/drug store of the forties, I believe. Sammy Kahn's was kind of a prototype of that, though unlike in the movies (and our fantasies) there was no juke box jitterbugging in either place.

Well, that's scattered and sketchy answers to recent blogging. Glad you're getting the Black Box back together. Glad we don't have such a thing; it'd be me struggling with it.

So today's garden news and photos! Last Wednesday, when Mom and I were shopping, Charlie and DO got busy: When I got home there were 48 bales of hay in a corner of the garden! DO has a barn at his place with tons of hay in it. It's ancient, and most of the bales are broken. Getting it out of there is a nightmare, so we always take the bare minimum, usually just enough to mulch the garlic for the winter. But they went in through a little side door and found the mother lode of unbroken bales; there's a little raccoon pee and shit on some of it, but I consider it beautiful.


Here is a photo this morning of the happy farmer! The red thing on the ground is my weeding mat. It's a poncho that says "Ozark Trail" on it, a souvenir of one of Mom & Dad's trips. I love it because I imagine him buying it so he can hike some, even though it's raining.

Things are growing nicely in this heat.


Here are our beanie babies, with peas to the left of them. Some of the peas will be ready by next weekend; that's early, since they normally start to bear on the fourth of July. To the left of the peas are the potatoes, and in the corner is Charlie, tilling. Some can be done with the riding tiller, but most of it involves wrestling the Troy-Bilt Horse around.

I weeded for two and a half hours this morning while Charlie tilled and distributed some of the hay here and there. By nine-thirty it was way too hot to do any more; seven is too late to start. Tomorrow I'm determined to be down there by six! Of course then we worked in the heat at Ma's, but that's somehow less grueling than to be toiling in one place under the hot sun.

Enough already!!

Baby Consumers

Gainesville

Today was supposedly vacation. And what did I do? For the most part, same thing as I did yesterday-- read about comics (the wonderful Hatfield Alternative Comics) and work on organizing my comics-related collection, which is looking very good indeed. Spent a little time on home Blessings, though more is needed, especially hot spot control.

Bill has made great progress getting our AV system functional again. We now have TiVo back, plus the DVD player. If I'm still awake when I finish this, I'll take advantage of the latter and watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica on the big (all of 27"!) screen for the first time. I also have lined up Neil's fantasy drama, MirrorMask, and Norman's surprise gift, BBC's Eroica. Then on to the rest of the huge backlog of movies and TV shows. An embarrassment of riches. Anyway, this leaves just a VCR and the feed into the kitchen TV to go, and we're completely back in business.

Haven't faced up to next week's menu plan, because-- well, what's the rush? I have all next week to figure it out and go to the store as needed, plus I want to go through FC and pick out a few things to make and... Bzzzz! WRONG! This is a bad way to look at it, I know. I need to keep to the cooking routine that works. Making basic decisions in advance saves a world of hurt later in the week. I will do it in the morning, and go out shopping in the afternoon as usual. Need to make a liquor run and a Best Buy run too.

While I'm thinking of it-- does anyone out there have any suggestions for what to do with whiting filets? I have some frozen-- they turned out to be relatively little fish, and I don't have good ideas about how to deal with them.

Enjoyed last night's details about the original Rancho shops, and who owned them. I'd forgotten the drug store started out as Clifford's. And how nice to remember Tony and Bill at the "Bottle Shop". It was a kinder and gentler time, when kids could actually go into liquor stores without people getting hysterical about it. And the little restaurant was named "Barbara's" -- of course! Sweet memories of discovering cherry cokes, lemon cokes, chocolate cokes, vanilla cokes, and the grand slam combo, suicide cokes! All to be accompanied by french fries, if possible. They had great burgers, too. A nice little upscale greasy spoon.

Rancho was where we kids learned to be consumers. It was like a miniature town, on a scale we could deal with, walk around in and feel safe. We learned what a given amount of money would buy. Prior to that, the only independent shopping I remember doing was in downtown Los Altos, walking from San Antonio school to Girl Scouts meetings. There was some sort of candy store we stopped at and spent our precious pennies-- they actually bought things back in those days. That, and candy/popcorn purchases at the movies.

'Nuffa this. And probably too late to think about watching DVD's. Time to kick my [lace-up] shoes off, do not fear, and bring that bottle over here...

Level Five, Grey (Matter) Sector

Gainesville

Tonight we have slightly improved video capability-- Bill spent all evening (until now) working on getting things hooked up again with the new Black Box. We now can see the satellite's programming, but TiVo isn't getting any signal. We can talk to it, and it remembers what it's supposed to be recording (my various season passes), but all it's recording is green screen. We also have picture to the kitchen TV, but no sound in there yet. It's going to be a long, iterative process. Truth to tell, I haven't really missed it that much.

Made it through one more boring day in the Tank-- and after a day working at home tomorrow, I'm off Friday and the entire next week. I know I mention this every post, but I'm just so happy to have this looming ahead of me, I kind of revel in it.

An unfortunate dinner tonight-- I knew when I looked at the recipe it wasn't going to work, so why did I persist in doing it anyway? Baking porkchops with tomato juice and sliced onions at 325 for 30 minutes is crazy talk, but, well, it looked wonderfully easy... Of course they were nowhere near done, so I miked them for about 5 minutes, turning them into overdone shoe leather. Live and learn. The leftover fauxtatoes, 4-bean salad and broccoli were fine, though. And the cat absolutely loved the pork.

I loved the article on the opening of the Rancho! I had forgotten that it was Lee Gentry's dad who designed it. It really was far ahead of its time, and is still a very pleasant place to shop. We were lucky having that within walking distance. Good to have the date fixed, too-- this means that it had been open less than two months when I began that 1952 diary.

Glad to hear you had a good shopping/errand trip. And that you feel so spry-- that is really good news! I think you're allowed a break from NT when you shop til you drop.

I found a strange post tonight where you apparently pasted my blog from yesterday into a new one. I was very confused for awhile, but once I figured out what had happened, I deleted it.

Bill insisted on G&T again tonight, even though we are limeless. I made them with RealLime -- oh the horror! My bartender pride is deeply offended, but he is satisfied. And after the first one, the pain lessens considerably. (I, of course, am sticking with See Throughs, with one Sacred Olive per evening.)

I know I mentioned my pride in completing a 4-star Sudoku last week, but think I forgot to brag about the Level 5 on Monday-- huzzah! It didn't even seem all that hard, and I don't know what it was in my brain that finally clicked into place and let me see how to solve them. But here's the really weird part: I can't do even the simplest ones with pencil and paper-- I have to do them online. There are no special helps or clues (except a square or a row will shiver a bit when it is filled in uniquely-- but not necessarily correctly), and it does tell you at the end that you got it all right. On paper, you can't tell til you go compare the correct solution block by block. Yuk! If I could find the right interface, I could see getting a handheld of this game. It's a level of abstraction beyond crosswords or cards. It's nice I can tell myself I'm actually exercising my brain as I waste time doing this.

This & That

Gainesville

Nothing much happened with the storm here-- we didn't even get all that much rain. It continued wet and blustery all day today, and there's a good selection of little stuff down in the yard, but nothing major.

It was nice to not have to go to work. Bill, however, was not so lucky: He got a call around 10:00 this morning that the guy from the compact shelving company had arrived as scheduled from Michigan, so Bill had to go in and do the walk-through with him. He was gone most of the day. The joys of upper management.

Finished up An Atomic Romance this morning. Very disturbing. It made me think about you, Chris, and I'll bet it's one of the few novels ever to talk about dosimetry in any detail. (And thanks for checking in with details about early Nag's Head visits and your recent travels.)

I got back to work on gathering and organizing my comics collection. I've completely filled those two bookshelves right beside the door on the right as you come in-- and that's still not all of it! And of course it doesn't include the funny books, which are in bins. There is stuff piled up on a card table in here waiting to be shifted to somewhere else. It's quite a collection.

Also spent some time perusing the new books of comics criticism I got last week. The Hatfield is particularly wonderful. He not only writes well-- he thinks well, too. It's going to be a fun read.

Sandy, I forgot to say last night that there is a lot of buzz about Fun Home on both of my comics-related email lists. It seems to be the must-read comic this spring, so I will be picking it up soon. Also, I talked to Jana yesterday. She said planning for next year's UF conference is well underway, and guess who they're hoping to lure? Chris Ware!! I have my doubts that they'll succeed, as he is one hot property right now, but wouldn't that be fantastic?

Another day when you did all your routines, Mom. Fantastic! I'm especially glad you're taking the Baby Steps business seriously and not trying to do everything all at once. My timer is my friend.

I ate breakfast again, and made a concerted effort to drink a lot of water. It does seem to help with the headaches. I belatedly got both bathrooms and their floors done today, too.

It never got out of the low 70's (!) today, so a meal of all hot dishes was good, for a change: lamb chops, 'baga oven fries and blanched broccoli.

Our replacement Black Box (Bill says its generic name is "audio-visual receiver," but that fails to capture its awesome Star Ship interface and capabilities) arrived today. Bill has begun the arduous procedure of getting everything programmed and hooked up again. We will retire one of the two VCR's (the one that no longer records) and maybe the CD player, since the DVD player will do both. At any rate, the TV room is in a state of transition chaos second only to my study.

The past few days, Bill has been requesting Gin & Tonic instead of his usual Grandad on the Rocks. Alas, this was the day after I'd shopped, and I'd let the limes in the fridge get away from me-- had only one that was viable, and it was rather tired. I've managed to stretch it out over three days, but after tonight, it's gone. I use the G&T technique taught to me by Chris, and a fresh lime is essential.

One more day in the office, then I won't have to go in again until the 26th. I should be able to finish getting this phase of the home library reorg in shape. Another preview of the future, when my time is my own. It's not quite time to start tearing the square yet, but getting close.

Live from the Storm Track

Gainesville

Omigod. I was gagging and cringing, as I always do when reading anything I wrote long ago, when I noticed the line:

I got someone (not Terry) to fix Version 2.0 problem, so we're about to release it. I need to find another programmer to work with & decide "what's next."

My dear blog readers, that "someone" was Bill! I had seen him a few months earlier during his interview for his first job at UF, but this was the first time we interacted and noticed each other! I guess I found another programmer, and a whole lot more... Thanks for keeping the letter and transcribing it.

Meanwhile, back in the eye of the storm-- it's raining. It rained most of the afternoon, a slow, sullen, windless soaking, and a very welcome one. We were all surprised when at around 5:30 we got notice that UF would be closed tomorrow! This is unheard of-- in the old days, no way would we have closed for this. I am calling this The Katrina Effect-- after that catastrophe, no one wants to be responsible for putting our Customers in harm's way. What if one of them were to get hurt trying to get to class?! It would be UF's fault, even if unrelated. So everyone stays home. Am I complaining? As if.

Rain stopped shortly after we got home. It was preternaturally quiet during dinner-- none of our numerous electrical devices was humming, nor those of our neighbors. It was weird! Then I remembered, it's the sound of a hurricane, when none of these things works, and you suddenly hear the world as it really is.

Raining again now, though. Started about the time I started this post, and getting harder. No wind to speak of, no thunderstorms, either. I'm relieved that we now have enough rain to ease the drought. Uh oh-- starting to get some winds to speak of, nothing too scary yet. It could be a long night. And after six hours of sleep last night, it's good to not have to face the tank tomorrow.

Thanks to my heroic efforts last night, dinner tonight was a breeze-- the marinade was sun dried tomato-based, so I got to use some of the ones Sandy sent me. Quite wonderful! Bill remarked on the tomatoes in particular. Recipe called for round steak, but I substituted London broil-- which came already cut into small wedges. Probably crispier than it should have been.

Thanks for the farm and kitchen report, Sandy. Potato bugs-- eeewww! Ah, the romance of the garden, picking them off by hand. But that's the reality. Chosing sides, destroying other plants and insects that threaten them. How nice to have guests and an excuse to cook up. As for olives in the chicken recipe, I didn't get a chance to get any good ones, and god knows, I wasn't going to sacrifice the Holy Moreas for a mere relish. After perusing Publix's offerings, I chose some Lindsay large green ones stuffed with jalapenos. I painstakingly removed the pepper stuffing, using one of those olive picks, then rinsed them. They retained just enough of the kick to make them interesting. Not ideal, but a good choice, I think.

I'm so proud of you, Mom, doing all your routines! Awesome. If it were'nt so late, I'd hunt up a star to post here. My token routine tonight was to change the towels and get the dirty ones laundered and put away.

Okay, now the winds are starting to sound scary. We're glad we had those trees taken down recently. Which is not to say that others won't decide enough is enough, and even one across a power line can ruin your whole day. Knock knock. We have enough supplies of the basics to see us though a day or two. Shit, I didn't really believe we were going to have to go through this drill so early in the season. I just heard the sound of one coming down. Ah yes, and the first flicker of the lights. Think I'll pour myself another drink and hunker down for the night.

potato patrol

One of the jobs in the garden today, which Charlie and I both did, was to go carefully through the potato plants and collect full-grown potato beetles, larvae of various ages, and eggs on the undersides of leaves. All these are dropped into a small bucket of paint thinner, not good for their health. What a nasty job. I remember years ago reading gardening books which said, for some pests, "hand pick." "Yeah, right!" I thought. But this is the worst and earliest infestation we've ever had, so there's no choice. Luckily the eggs are bright orange and easy to spot.

Also some weeding, the last cucumbers planted, reseeded the empty spaces in the corn (now about 2 and a half inches high), and planted a little more dill. This year I have a special corner of the garden reserved for arugula, cilantro, and dill, all of which reseed themselves enthusiastically. I figure I'll let them fight it out next year. Normally we plow most of them under, very sad.

Everything is looking good. We had amazingly good germination on beans; usually we replant them several times. Our soil is so dense that it's hard for them to push through. This year all of them are planted in a top layer of miracle-gro potting soil. This worked great.

I continue to race through FC 79. We had company over the weekend (Tom and Vera). We were out when they arrived Friday night (at the Woods'), so I didn't cook then. On Saturday for lunch I made the avocado/pancetta sandwiches in Q&D. I'd made one for myself the day before, just mixing garlic with regular mayonnaise, and it was fine. Actually made from-the-ground-up aöli on Saturday, and the sandwiches were even better. Vera loves to cook, so she helped. On Saturday night, after going briefly to two parties (one graduation, one retirement), we made the Greek chopped salad. Instead of arugula, (what we saved from the volunteers has already gone to seed and the new is still tiny), I used the first batch of cut-and-come-again mesclun, of which I never plant nearly enough. The salad was truly good!! Then after they left late in the morning on Sunday (I made crèpes for breakfast), I made the Dijon chicken on a bed of thyme. I have two thyme plants that got big fast, so it didn't hurt to shear one pretty hard. It was quite good, too. Served with small red potatoes roasted with rosemary and the last of last year's broccoli. For supper (on Sunday dinner is at noon) I made the eggplant/tomato pasta in Q&D. It was good, too, though if I make it again I won't cut up the eggplant so small. Half to 3/4 inch pieces would be better than the tiny dice they suggest. Anyway, I'm running out of recipes! I plan the green-olive chicken breasts this week, but I need to get some decent green olives. What did you use, Suze? I'd really like to use luques, one of our favorites, but Kowalski's didn't have any last week. It sounds very good, so I'm glad it was a success for you.

Tonight it's just spareribs, french fries, and corn. One can only do so much. I'm waiting for our berries to ripen before I do the berry recipes. We have strawberries, raspberries (red & black) and even blueberries, our first real (though small) crop of them, starting to ripen. The only recipe I don't anticipate doing is the waldorf salad (sniff) because Charlie will not eat it. But you've covered that, Suze. Oh, and I don't know if I'll do the basil recipes (except for the stuffed cherry tomatoes, much later in the summer). They seem a little much. But we'll see . . . .

It sounds like you had an overbusy Sunday, Suze. Just imagine what it'll be like to actually have time to do stuff, though I find it's hard to make myself do things sometimes, just because it seems that I have all the time in the world. Mom understands this.

I am, for some strange reason, rereading Moo, one of my all time favorite books. Suzy, do you know anything about the recent graphic novel A Fun Home?

Photos soon. We are desperate for rain!!

Sunday, Sunday

Gainesville

Here it is, half past midnight, and I've neither showered nor blogged. Just finished getting the kitchen done-- I went in there at 5:30 to start what looked like an easy dinner-- and it was: only took a little over two hours to get on the table. Then just a little bit of prep for tomorrow's meal, a simple marinade-- 45 minutes-worth. Then there was the aftermath: both big and little cuisinarts, the steamer, the grillpan, two large glass bowls, etc., etc. Counters. Sink. Floors. And here we are.

Yeah, there was the time spent actually eating the meal (15 minutes tops) and the time spent drinking the espresso Bill made while I put leftovers away and put things in the dishwasher (30 minutes tops). And the time spent folding and putting away two loads of clothes. (Changed the sheets and did a load of them earlier.)

Just a nice relaxing Sunday. How come I'm too tired to move?

It's very hot inside the house, despite the fact that the temps dropped drastically (into the upper 70's) this afternoon in advance of the storm. We had a blustery blow, but no rain. Groan. Too hot to wear my lace-up shoes except for short periods, which doesn't help at all.

The meal was the Grilled Chicken with Green Olive Relish. We all loved it. Along with Faux Taytoes and leftover four bean salad.

Back on your routines, including NT-- good for you, Mom! I'm very proud of you. And how lovely that you're having such good sleeping weather. Must be nice.

Thanks for the gloss on the postcard, Sandy. Of course I remember the Barbar stuff, but not the postcard incident. Good catch, Mom! Of course, you were forced to listen to those records over and over as we played them-- I'll bet you got plenty tired of them!

There, I've blogged. Time to get into the shower, and then between those nice clean sheets.

Alberto Lindo

Gainesville

Yes, that is a very nice quote from John Lennon, one of my favorites. A reminder to take a look at what is going on here and now.

Which is: High of 97-- equal to a record for this day.

Which is: a bleeper-bleepin' proto-hurricane in the Gulf, to be named Alberto. Projected to pass right over us. Assuming he behaves himself, and bring lots of rain, we roll out the welcome mat. The lawn is ghastly brown, the surviving shrubs and the low-leafing trees are displaying foliage that resembles dirty laundry hung out to dry and blow away. Need. Rain. Now.

Which is: Barely made it out to shop, very late, and was grateful for the proximity of the new Publix. Too hot to cook, so we had a Leanne shrimp salad, a four-bean salad, and a tropical fruit salad. The cat was not pleased with this menu, but the humes thought it was about right. I shoulda started marinating the steak for tomorrow, but it will have to wait.

I am reading Bobbie Anne Mason's Atomic Romance (I got to meet and talk with her briefly at the Springsteen symposium) and also, for some unknown reason, had to pick up Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise again (why now?) and realize I only own 2-3, then skip to 13-16. At least, that's what I THINK I own. Until I face up to finishing the sorting and shelving of my comics collection, I can't be sure what exactly I DO own. Anyway, I adore this comic; it's one that I will plunge into come October.

MMM, cold terrazzo. Tempting to just sleep on the floor tonight. If only it weren't so bone-crushingly hard.

Forgot to mention that yesterday I solved my first Sudoku Level 4. I was so proud of myself that I printed it out! I can only do these online, though. The pencil/paper interface is still too daunting, even on the easiest level.

Roll Off, Cool Off

Gainesville

Got well into the upper 90's today, and nary a sign of a thunderstorm. We continue turning into a tinder-bowl. A more normal pattern (afternoon thunderstorms) is expected next week. Bring it on! We're ready for a daily deluge with all the loud stuff. Then having it roll off, and the air cool off with it. Ah, the good old days.

Bill needed to go home at noon to pick up his digital camera, so we picked up Subway on the way and ate it at home. Tonight I had more leftover FC #79 pasta, and it smelled so good that Bill had some too, and we finished it.

I've got the week's meals planned, more or less. Inspired by Sandy's descriptions, I've decided to incorporate at least one item from the fabulous FC #79 each week until a new one arrives. This week it will be the chicken with green olive topping. I'm also trying to get into the habit of checking out what's unused but still viable in the fridge, and factoring it into the plan.

Here it is Friday, and not a single bloody thing done in The Zone (Kitchen). Will have to be content with getting the Big Three Blessings plus towels done yesterday. Next week I'll only have to go into the Tank three days-- work at home Thursday, then Friday and all the next week are vacation-- the June allotment. Yessss! Maybe more than one FC recipe during that span.

Mom, I'm happy to hear your energy level is high. And I'm here to remind you that your NT routine has probably been a big factor in this. Don't blow it off and let it slip away. I know how easy that is to do-- I've done similar things many a time, and have watched Bill lose his grip on positive habits also. I am the voice of your FL conscience. And I trust you'll be mine when you see me doing something similar.

BTW, I also blogged this morning. Since I do that so seldom, I realize some of our regular Fly posters (to say nothing of the lurkers) may have missed it.

Morning Mumbles

Gainesville

A rare daytime post. This morning is even slower than usual here in the tank, and I'm afraid if I start reading, I'll fall asleep.

The staff moves into the new building are back on schedule and should be finished by the end of today. Of course, there are a million niggly little things that need to be fixed, but getting this far is a huge accomplishment. People complain about this and that, but the biggest complaint seems to be getting lost-- that's how much different the building is from the its pre-rennovation/ addition state. We are going to have to distribute maps to help staff get around. It's going to be even harder for the public, once we let them back in.

Thanks for more great roofing pictures, Sandy. What a job that must have been! I like the shot from the back, showing the new kitchen and deck. It was the first picture that gave Bill a clear idea what the addition was all about. And it will be fun to watch those tiny little rows of shoots transform into a small forest of corn-- probably the most spectacular of garden miracles.

Mom, I got the card (cute, and so true). Thanks for it, and also for the tour item from the paper. Nice picture of your deck with the new flowering baskets, too.

Pork Diane is similar to Steak Diane-- medallions of pork loin flattened a bit, sprinkled with lemon pepper then sauteed quickly in butter. Pan deglazed with a lemon juice/ Worcester/ Dijon mustard combo and topped with chopped parsley. Very easy, very tasty.

And speaking of tasty, the leftover pasta from Monday makes splendid leftovers, just miked a bit. I'm not usually that fond of leftover pasta, but this one is an exception. I'd have brought some in for lunch, except usually we go out for lunch on Fridays

"La auto linda" -- interesting that "auto" is feminine in Spanish! We are still trying to establish the gender of Moonbeam. It continues to be exciting and fun to drive or ride in-- it's not yet become just the car. It's so easy to get in and out, and what a luxury to be able to open a door to the back seat and just set briefcase, lunch, etc. back there, then just step into the front seat. In Babe, you couldn't set stuff in back without risking it rolling down into the doorwell by the sliding door, so I would have it all underfoot in the very small legroom area after climbing in. Much nicer start to the morning.

roof day II

Here's the way the front roof looked during the tear-off.



And after shingles were put up (still not done)



Back during tear-off. The sharp-eyed will notice Charlie by the chimney (don't forget to click on the photo to enlarge it). So much for Charlie not being on the roof. He didn't spend much time there, though.



Baby corn. It's funny. For now it's just some rows of tiny plants. Soon it will become an environment.

So that's some news from yesterday. We got the peas weeded, so for a few days the garden is under control. Still some plastic to lay in unplanted spots, and two more hills of cukes to plant.

The roofing, which is being finished up now, went quite well. Charlie is very picky about such things, and he's pleased.

One nice thing was selling the car. We had it prominently displayed, as Mom said, and quite early in the day the foreman of the bunch walked over to it and said to his mates on the roof: "¡Mira el auto linda!" I strolled right over to talk to him, you can bet. He speaks English, which made it easier. We firmed up the sale at lunchtime, and then Charlie and I made two trips to RF to get papers signed. I had a hard time finding out from Madison exactly which papers we needed (I got different news from different people), so we covered out bets and have everything possible. Why someone has $1000 cash on him escapes me, but Jimbo says that it is not uncommon for laborers to carry a lot of cash. We talked to Curtis on the phone at the end of the day and he said the same thing. Nicolas will take the car today; he didn't want to take it yesterday (though he officially owned it), because he wanted to have at least a little paper work completed, since Wisconsin laws require the removal of plates. He lives in Minnesota, where plates go with the car. I had the feeling that he did not want to chance any kind of runin with the police. He has a Minnesota driver's license, but that doesn't mean that he is a legal alien. Anyway, he's a very nice guy, and he is most happy about getting the car. The fellow at our gas station down the road said we could get more money for it if we sold it to someone who'd put it in a demolition derby. We were not interested. The thought of it made me sick.

How nice that Bill has such highly refined management skills! Yelling into the phone is sometimes the only way to get stuff done. How terrible to have dicey elevators halt the progress of the move! Glad that all is back on track. I'm really enjoying the updates.

What is pork Diane? I make steak Diane quite often. Last night I caved and made steak on the grill, baked potatoes, and green beans. I did add one FC flourish, cilantro butter, which was part of a chicken recipe in the 101 chicken recipe book (also recommended).

The robot voice on my computer (as well as the damned bird clock) has just announced that it's nine o'clock, so it's time for me to go. By 8:00 I had three loads of laundry on the line. The trick to this is to wash the first load at night, giving me an hour leg-up. Yesterday I couldn't hang out laundry because of falling shingles.

Smells Like Progress

Gainesville

Whoa, more great garden pictures-- thanks, Sandy! You have no idea how happy it makes me to see them. Good luck with all the growing crops, and of course, with the new roof. I chuckled to think of you eavesdropping on the Mexican roofers-- too bad they were tipped off!

And how wonderful to sell your car just like that, Mom. All it took was having it driven a certain distance outside town, and bingo! You suddenly have a whole lot more space, and a rather large piece of clutter is gone. And you even got some cash for it! When I last unloaded a car (my Fiesta), I had to pay to have it hauled away and scrapped. I'd say you did better.

I do have the 101 Q&D Book, though I rarely think to look there. Tonight I sliced up a piece of pork tenderloin that had been in the freezer long enough and made Leanne's Pork Diane-- very easy, and very good. It was too late and too hot to think about Baga Fries, and I had a fennel bulb left over from when I shaved a very small bit of it for the radish-fennel salad last weekend. I looked at a few recipes on the net for braising it , and adapted one, adding Sandy's technique with carrots-- boiling off the liquid at the last-- it included some white wine. Swirled in more butter at the end. No time either for the scheduled Four Bean Salad, so I just took some the greenies from last night and put some parmesan ranch dressing over some of them. Quite a feast, as it turned out.

The kitchen is clean. Bill's big whites are folded and put away. There are no new bills needing payment. And best of all-- tomorrow is Thursday!

I awoke this morning hearing Bill speaking rather strongly over the phone to the people responsible for the elevator. Apparently it did some good. Our brand new state of the art elevator already needed an "upgrade". The elevators were again servicable, people continued to move, book moves are being pushed up, and (knock knock) there was no news of fresh disasters as of late this evening. This smells like progress. We keep our fingers crossed.

We heard today that our Big Black Box is stuck in Sony parts limbo, and they are now offering to replace the whole unit. We say yes. After a month without the vid system, there are things we miss-- like being able to watch and hear a DVD on a decent sized screen, while being able to walk around... and being able to have sports in the kitchen while I cook. A DVD arrived in the mail this week from Norman-- a BBC movie on Beethoven's Eroica -- I'm dying to see it, but doing so on the laptop is too daunting. I wonder if this paragraph makes any sense at all. Probably not. I'll check in the morning.

Meanwhile, time to surrender to the arms of Morpheus.

roof day

onions, leeks, broccoli, shallots, cabbage -- note watering bottles



garlic in the distance -- tomatoes on the far plastic -- near plastic: peppers, cukes, squash



potatoes, peas, beans


Waiting for the roofers to arrive, at which time all hell will break loose. A beautiful day for it. I plan to spend at least some of the time in the garden, weeding the peas. The roof will be done all in one day, and I am gloriously happy that none of it will be done by us. My job in these circumstances normally is picking up old shingles and putting them in the dumpster, then running a magnet around to pick up nails. I'll probably end up doing this last bit, since roofing crews are not very thorough about it. Anyway, my real joy is that Charlie will not be up on this terribly steep roof. Just remembered that my job when we roofed the garage here (since it was a new building there was not the mess of the tear-off) was to cut shingles, a nasty hard business, and it was cold, so the shingles were difficult to cut. A drag.

The FC cooking binge continues. I made the Asian salad (the recipe Charlie picked out from the magazine), and it was a big hit. Pretty hot from only one little pepper (superchili, the kind we use in pickles; I have a million of them frozen). We both loved it, and it was great leftover for lunch. I also made the shrimp salad in the Q&D section. This was less popular, but the shrimp I found in the freezer were mediocre.

I plan to try the pasta you made, Suzy. Maybe I'll do that tonight. Last night I went back in time and made a chicken breast with gremolata recipe that was in an old FC but repeated in the 101 Q&D book. I highly recommend this compendium, if y'all don't have it. You can get it from the Taunton FC website. I was inspired to make the gremolata recipe by Suzy's making of the pasta dish and by the fact that we already have parsley coming out our ears. Wonder if I can pass off a parsley-heavy dish two nights in a row.

The three photos of the garden were taken a few days ago. It's changed already, of course. The corn is peeking up, long rows of little green spikes. I'll snap that tomorrow and send it along.

It's nice that you are planning time off, Suzy. That will make these last months less onerous. It's hard to have little to do at work; makes the time go slowly.

The roofers have arrived, but I'll add one more thing. I actually ran across a piece of family correspondence. It's a postcard to Pa and Dan. The photo is of Fort Raleigh, Maneto, N.C. "Birthplace of Virginia Dare . . . ." The card has a 3-cent stamp, and the Berkeley address is pre-zip code. Postmark is Killden Hills, N.C., August 31 1962. Here's the text:

Hi. We are having a super vacation at Nags Head, N.C. Sharing a beach house with the Dupzyks. The kids spend hours in the surf & also yesterday Chris & Davy (10) caught 17 small fish that we cleaned and cooked, very small & mostly tiny nasty bones, but they were quite thrilled. Chris starts school Tues & it sounds like a very good one. Nothing but 8th at the school.


This must have been one of the first visits to Nag's Head. Anyone know? It's the start of the second year in the D.C. area. Wonder where I was. Probably still in CA. I don't remember when I came east that summer/fall, but I know I spent some time in Berkeley after Suzy's wedding.

Now I'll watch the destruction for a while and then go to the garden.

Final notes: Puss is terrified of all these strangers and noise. Suspect she'll spend the day hunkered down in a shed. All of the roof laborers are Mexican; the roof boss warned them that I understand Spanish, so they should be careful what they say!

Too Many Sixes

Gainesville

Today I kept busy at work by planning out even more exactly how to deploy the rest of my vacation days, using a spreadsheet to make it more precise. (We get 6.176 hours of vacation for every two week time period, so the math is a bit dicey.) I think I've got a good plan that allows me to never have to work two full weeks in a row for the duration. It also leaves me with 5 extra days to spread out ad hoc as needed, such as when Bill has an ungodly early meeting, or when I just don't feel like going in. This was fun work!

Yesterday I got three comics-related books from Amazon (finally) -- Hatfield's Alternative Comics, Jeet Heer's Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium, and The Sandman Papers, a collection of academic studies. This latter I took into the office today-- I usually save my professional reading for the telecommute day, but things have been so slow I finally broke down and decided to read some at work.

Even later getting home tonight. I flew around the kitchen and produced a surprisingly good Crab Newburg (one of Leanne's), a dish I'd never eaten before, let alone fixed, in less than an hour. Blanched a batch of haricots verts to go with it, with enough leftover to make a four-bean salad tomorrow night.

Poor Bill-- just before 5:00 he sent out an announcement that the elevators were working again, and the staff move could resume. Just after 5:00 they stopped working again! These elevators are just way too high-tech smart for their merely-mortal operators-- what probably happened was they were accidentally set to turn themselves off at 5:00, but who knows. We won't know until morning if the problem has been fixed. It's a good thing Bill has his WoW game to escape to-- at least he has some semblance of control over things in that space.

Thanks for the rest of Chris' letter, Mom. Wonder what that haircut was all about?! I'd forgotten about the adventure of raising baby chicks in the bathroom! Those were very different days...

I'm so proud of you for keeping going on your Nordic Track. That is such a great habit to have acquired. Also happy to hear you continue to play the organ, even when it doesn't work perfectly.

I am struggling with my new habit-- eating breakfast before work (or otherwise starting the day). Yesterday I just plain forgot (again). The best I can manage when in pre-work mode is instant cheese grits, but it's a start. Brought myself good lunches of leftovers yesterday and today. Good thing, as I've purposely let my desk munchie collection run out. If it's time to calculate vacation use, it's also time to start moving out of my cubicle. There are boxes in there that I never opened since moving out of the tower. I hate the thought of dragging yet MORE boxes of clutter into this already over-burdened house.

And I should confess: I broke a FL cardinal rule when I started reorganizing my comics studies collection a week or so ago and got out more than I could put back in an hour. The collection is still basically assembled, in stacks on the cedar chest-- but I've been unable to make myself take the next step, as it involves even more disruption-- where to put the books that get displaced by the consolidation. Every time I contemplate it, my brain goes into vaporlock. The shelf space just ain't there. And the Clutter Monster sits atop its horde, daring me to challenge its supremacy.

No rain yesterday or today. There was a fire near Hawthorne, but I think it's under control now. A dry Florida is almost as scary as one battered by hurricanes, as there is so much jungle vegetation ready to act as tinder when dried out.

Only half an hour of 06-06-06 left as I type this -- and of course, for one magical second this morning, it was also 06:06:06! Needless to say, I slept through that particular numerical milestone.