Can-do

My first attempt at canning - success! I was inspired by the selection of jams at the craft fair to turn our surplus of peppers into jam (technically jelly). I was a little nervous to try canning because I didn't have any of the proper equipment and I'm kind of cavalier about recipes, but all three jars both sealed and set! (Just ignore the pepper bits all jumbled up at the top.) Now all I need is some cream cheese and crackers.

Purple mascara

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I play favorites with the kittens. Cadbury’s dog-like enthusiasm, affection, and big nose win me over every time. I love Stilton too, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes my attention to him is more... obligatory, more of an “Oh hey Stilton. I like you too!” kind of thing. Do parents have secret favorites with their children, too? I didn’t think so before, but I do now. It’s easy to love two things a lot but hard to love them equally all the time.

I sometimes feel like a kid playing dress up at work. When I’m on the phone with someone who doesn’t know me personally and they’re taking my opinion really seriously and trying to curry favor, I feel like I’ve fooled them.

Speaking of dress-up, I had my makeup done today at an Aveda event, and it’s driving me crazy. I couldn’t even wait until I was out of eyesight of the stylist to wipe off the bright gooey smear of lipstick/gloss. Ugg. And the eye makeup! White eyeliner with purple shadow, both over and under my eyes, and dark purple mascara... do I look like someone who would wear purple mascara? I hardly wear black mascara! I suppose it’s good to be pushed out of one’s makeup comfort zone once in awhile. I did like the tinted moisturizer and powder, and eye shadow (in smaller quantities).

Making farm kids cry

TUNNEL LOVE
I love driving through tunnels.
I go through two every day on my commute, and while I'm usually plotting my post-tunnel lane change, every once in a while I remember where I am at and get a little thrill.
I'm not sure why... it's sort of big city savvy Mary Tyler Moore thing. I can navigate insane freeway passages that would make farm kids cry.

REOCCURING DREAMS
I make it a practice not to share my dreams*, because I read somewhere that no one really cares about other people's dreams, and I think that's pretty true. But I do think reoccuring dreams are interesting... those dreams you watch over and over like a bad rerun of Saved by the Bell (I suppose "bad" is redudant). This is all prompted by the recent revisiting of my number one reoccuring dream: encountering raging impassable rapids while canoeing on some remote river.The sense of hopeless despair and impending death usually jars me out of sleep and spares me from having to witness my own demise.

CRAFT FAIRING AND LIKING IT
This weekend I'm going to a small town arts and crafts fair... and I'm excited about it. It's girls' weekend at the H house, when my mom, two aunts, and grandma get together and act like kids again, and I tag along for the fun. After packing as many finds as we can into the van, we're heading up to the cabin. I'm hoping to get a lot of knitting done during the long rides, since scarf weather is nearly here (Hurrah!)

*OK, I did share that one about Kate Spade. But it was an aside.

“Sorry I’ve been a bitch” cake

I'm back! On Tuesday morning, two weeks after returning from vacation, I finally felt back to my old self. It took a few random acts of kindness, including a “Sorry I’ve been a bitch” French yogurt cake, but it feels great to be back. Good riddance crabby post-vacation self!

When will I stop being mistaken for an 18-year-old? Women-friends, I am pleading for honesty: Is there anything I can do? A new haircut? Different makeup? I know I have a "youthful" face that people tell me I will come to love in ten years, but really. It's hard to think that people take you seriously at work when you are mistaken for an 18-year-old.

Current obsessed with: Ben Gibbard’s song, “You remind me of home.” I haven’t been this desiring of constant repeat play since last winter and the Postal Service’s “The district sleeps alone tonight.” Also: pudding pops -- mmm! I don't know where you went, but I'm glad to have you back.

Those damn funeral processions get me every time

I try to give off a tough exterior, but I'm as Husband said once, I'm "surprisingly emotionally available." Translation: I am brought to tears easily. Not in the boo-hoo playground crybaby way, but in the overcome-by-humanity tear-up that I'm usually able to hide. Here’s a list of things that have made my eyes well up/cry in the last week:
- Viewing photos of friend with her brand new baby boy
- Reading about Katrina destruction
- Friend sharing a story that had nothing to do with me but that made her eyes well up
- Watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (don’t be fooled by its silly exterior)

I also dependably well up/cry:
At funeral processions
At weddings, graduations, and funerals, even if I didn’t really know them
At cheesy but earnest displays of patriotism
Whenever anyone asks me how I’m doing when they know I’m not doing too well
At music of all kinds, especially odd but poignant Dar Williams songs, such as “The Babysitter’s Here,” and “The Christians and the Pagans.”

I'll stop there, but it's a pretty long list. Those damn funeral processions get me every time.

Black days and Beets

In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, the protagonist, Christopher, an autistic boy, knows the day is going to be bad when he sees four yellow cars. ("Four yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks."*) My omen is when the word game of the day on m-w.com is Bee-cubed (shudder). But today it’s Dictionary Devil day, my favorite, and a sure sign of a good day if I’ve ever seen one.

My cousin’s best friend and brother live in Bay St. Louis, and she hasn’t heard from them yet. I can’t comprehend the scope of the devastation.

On a much lighter note the kittens are wrecking havoc on our home in their own way. The tally so far is three pairs of headphones, cords chewed through; two large glasses; and one bowl... and they’ve only been able to jump on to the kitchen counters for a little over a week. I was so angry after the bowl incident because they insisted on playing with the shards as I tried to clean it up (look, a new toy!) that I had to lock them upstairs until I was done. I’ve now approved judicious use of the faucet spray attachment on all occasions.

BEETS, BEETS, the magical vegetable,
THE MORE YOU EAT the more stained red your kitchen (and pee) is,
THE MORE YOU EAT the more you despise those little rattails they come with,
SO EAT MORE BEETS (’cause their tasty and in season!) with every meal!

*I've found myself longing to declare Black Days recently. Except my version includes lunch, a heating pad, and maybe a few good movies.

Steam heat

I am consumed by thoughts of having my own sauna. You know when I wanted a pool? Yeah, now I want a sauna, in a little cedar shack in the back of the yard. I’d use it all the time, I swear. I can’t decide whether it should be stove-heated or electric... maybe have the option for both? Think how great my complexion would look. Surely it’s cheaper than the fancy moisturizers and facials I will someday require?

Ennui typhoon

These last few weeks I’ve been all take but no give. All reading but no writing. Why? Because I’m in some kind of ennui typhoon where I have nothing of interest to say. My excitement has consisted of eating ice cream and having my face bandages downsized (I heart steri-strips). My angst has been grievances about my hair and whines about the library reservation system being down.

I did the depressed smoldering poet thing only once. It was in 5th grade, and I stayed home from school and typed out pages and pages of poems and short stories on the typewriter, pausing only to stare morosely out the window at the rain. (Oddly, a lot of the poetry was upbeat, like limericks). By the end of the day I had several inches of writing that I never looked at again, and I’d cured myself of any poet aspirations. Another childhood milestone that I passed too soon (along with abandoning Barbies in 2nd grade and canceling Seventeen at thirteen).

The guy who tosses the turkeys into the killing chute

The kittens were crazy this weekend. They were fighting on top on me while I was reading in bed, so I crumpled up my library receipt and threw it. I watched smugly as they scampered after it, and turned out the light. Five minutes later the paper wad returned. I thought their dog-like ability to fetch was charming earlier, but I was not amused during the next half hour, when Cadbury eagerly deposited the soggy wad by my pillow and I tried in vain to throw it further and further away. I hid it under my pillow only to have Cadbury crawl all over my head seeking it out. Defeated, I fled to the guest room.

I keep thinking that guys are checking me out, but then I remember the bandages on my face.* And while I think they’re checking me out, I’m not thinking to myself, Yeah, that’s right, I’m thinking Is he thinking about stealing my purse? or Does this guy think I’m trying to be suggestive by bending over when I’m really trying to read the bottom row of titles in the travels essays section?

* I saved the explanation for last, because it’s really lame: I had some moles removed. Mmm... attractive. As they were snipping away I wondered, What do they do with those little bits that they remove? Toss them into the trash? Put them into neat little biohazard bags? I know now that they probably incinerate them... but what about the person who has that job? I once knew someone whose job it was to take the turkeys off the truck and toss them into the killing chute. That’s so good it deserves to be in a novel.

Big Hunk

I'm back, but I don't know quite what to do with myself. I'm tired of all my leisure time activities -- reading, watching, knitting -- yet after an initial burst of enthusiasm (our bedroom has never been cleaner) equally reticent to do chores. I did a good bit of shopping, for me (shoes, wallet, baking dish) so now I can't do that either. Vacation has ruined me! Now that I have broken free from the shackles of oppressive routines I find myself longing for direction.

Consumed by thoughts about:
1) What it's like to date after being divorced. How do you transition from a dozen years of marriage to Sex and the City without getting the giggles at inappropriate times?
2) The "Big Hunk" bar I just ate part of. How can nougat taste so good?
3) Why I really felt bad for the man rather than the woman after hearing that two distant acquaintances accidentally produced a baby during a random encounter despite trying to be careful.
4) Whether or not the occasional stomach cramps I've experienced lately have anything to do with the Nalgene of unfiltered water I chugged on trail.

Read: Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker - the best book I've read this year. Sort of Salinger-y but without the pretension. Don't be put off by the naked woman on the cover. Also Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell, who's always great, and The Writing on the Wall by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.

Nature 2, Self 1

A mid-vacation post! I am partaking of my first internet cafe experience. Fortunately with the prevalence of wireless internet use it is now cheap cheap cheap. The place is actually owned by my friend and trail buddy N's parents (with whom we paddled the Mighty Mississippi).

Wilderness trip summary:
Self's trace left on nature: 2 Nalgenes, one headband
Nature's trace left on self: 5 blisters, countless scrapes, the worst sunburn I've ever had.
Summary: Nature 2, Self 1.

Friends K and F were excellent trail companions, v. compatible for wilderness travel. There's no other couple I'd like to be lost deep in the woods well down a trail that doesn't exist on the maps and miles from where we need to be .

There is nothing more indulgent than the slow pace of vacation. Breakfast is a luxurious affair, comprised of simple food arranged purposefully and eaten slowly. Running with no thought to the time is a invigorating and at the same time, relaxing. Evenings I've been working my way through a gorgeous bottle of white wine and a round of camembert.

Read so far: No Last River, an extremely dangerous trip down a river in Tibet, The way men act by Elinor Lipman (confirming that The Inn at Lake Devine is by far my favorite), Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs (a cute graphic novel about a couple in 1920-1970 England), Perseopolis (a really good graphic novel about a woman growing up in Iran c. 1980s). In process: On death and dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (should be required reading for life), Harry Potter, and The best American magazine stories 2004.

Relax! Now!

When I was getting treated for my headaches, I visited a psychologist who taught me biofeedback. The first day he hooked me up to a machine and made me count back from a thousand by sevens. After I was good and stressed, he stopped and wrote down the number. Then he told me to do whatever I could to bring it down. Have you ever tried this – to relax yourself under pressure? It’s interesting. The first time I did OK, but on the second visit he upped the ante: I had to watch my progress on a screen and listen to a high-pitched whine on headphones that got louder when I became more stressed. Over the course of six sessions I got very good at this – one of the best he’d seen, actually.

You can tell the biofeedback is working when your hands get really warm. Some people do this by visualizing hot things, but I was never able to get into the whole “you’re on a warm beach...” kind of thing.

This all made me feel like I was some loser who can’t handle stress, but my doctor said the science behind it is that migraine sufferers’ blood vessels don’t contract as readily after stress as other people.

I’ve always wanted a stupid human trick. I can’t wiggle my ears or dislocate my elbow or sneeze on command. But I guess I can make my hands really warm really fast. I’m sure David Letterman will be calling me up to see that one.

Salad days

I keep wanting to have a food blog like those that I admire, but this always deters me: Either Husband or I make some gorgeous dish, and I think, "I should get the camera!" But then I think about what I'd be doing: Taking a picture of my dinner and posting it on the Internet. That stops me every time.

I think recipes and anecdotes are still permissible, though. Here's a really good reliable vinaigrette recipe from Rue Tatin author Susan Loomis:
1 T balsamic vinegar; sea salt; 1 shallot, sliced paper thin; 1/4 cup olive oil; freshly ground black pepper. Whisk vinegar, large pinch of salt, and shallot in a small bowl. Slowly whisk in oil. Add pepper to taste. Toss slowly and thoroughly into mixed field greens. Let rest a few minutes before eating to tire the greens.

I'll let you imagine how gorgeous it looks.

The time I tied myself up with rope

Like boarding schools, I always wanted to go to camp. I finally went during high school, and while it had the camaraderie and inside jokes, we didn't actually spend much time at camp (we went on extended excursions). I made up for it all by being a counselor and then co-camp director during college. It was a small girls camp, so we had a lot of flexibility in programming. So if we wanted to make candles, we made candles. If we wanted to swim a lot, we swam a lot.

Sometimes we took this flexibility too far. My second year there we got a hold of this book in the camp library (which doubled as the staff lounge and nurse's office, if that tells you anything about the size) that described all sorts of fun jokes and ruses you could do. Inspired by the book, we attempted our first prank. The girls cooked all their meals over the fire, and they'd come to the program center before meals to pick up their food. One night we pretended that someone had stolen their food. Laying the blame on a certain counselor, we led the girls on a hunt around camp, complete with clues. The clues finally led them back to the program center, where a lasagna dinner awaited them. We figured they'd love a break from cooking dinner, but they were pissed. Apparently we were too convincing.

Unfortunately our first effort didn't deter us from trying another, more complex ruse. We chose a session with an older group of girls, thinking they'd enjoy the joke more. The prank consisted of pretending that a counselor (me, in this case) had been kidnapped. We did this activity after dinner, when the girls assembled for evening activities. I'd written a cheesy lipsticked note on a bathroom mirror (something like "help! back trai.....") and the other counselors pretended to find it and got the girls involved and they took off down the back trail, finding shreds of this ugly lost-and-found sweater vest I'd donned earlier along the way. Finally they arrived as a wooden platform where I'd tied myself up with rope. As the girls approached I quickly grasped that this prank had gone even more awry than the first. The girls were petrified. I shot a quick look at the other counselors and tried to let them gently know that is was a joke so that they didn't feel too embarrassed and to get them to laugh about the whole thing. They got there, but not after us swearing off pranks forever. But the laughs we had planning and recapping it were certainly worth any of the trauma the girls experienced.

Their cuteness obscures the evil that lurks within

Wrestling on the couch...


Preparing to walk on the keyboard and delete e-mail

The kittens are so naughty that Husband and I have dog-eared the section on discipline in Kittens for Dummies. The two biggest problems we have are fighting on us while we're asleep (surprisingly not charming) and putting their noses (and tongues, if we'd let them) in our food. Cadbury is particularly incessant about anything dairy, and also enjoys iced tea. Although Husband has a really good alpha dog voice, yelling, clapping, etc. generally has not be very effective, particularly at night if the other is somehow managing to sleep through the nightly WWF match. So we've been testing two other techniques: the reliable water spray bottle (which is somewhat effective), and hissing. I admit, I'm not a very good hisser. It doesn't feel very natural. But Husband made me jump nearly off the bed last night when his deep convincing "HISSSSSSSSSSS!" jarred me from semi-doze.
If you have any ideas, send them my way. Please.

Pie corruptions

Why do I want to turn all fruit into an alcoholic beverage? What happened to pie? After the success of the rhubarb slush, my first thought after picking a bowl of raspberries at Husband’s family cabin was to puree them, strain them, and mix them with something lemon- or lime-y and vodka. I think it’s all about the texture – the smoothness of a drink is nicer than the many-seeded berries or stringy rhubarb. And the heat of summer seems to justify an icy beverage.

Another pie corruption: the Dream Pie Blizzard. I reluctancy agreed to ordering one after Husband extolled the expected virtues of the pie crust bits in ice cream... and damn, he was right. It was amazing.

As our two-week vacation is less than two weeks away... my thoughts are consumed with vacation prep. Newspaper to cancel. Haircuts to get. Books to reserve. Provisions to lay in. I haven’t had a two-week vacation since... I can't remember... so this feels rather sinful.

I haven’t read anything good lately except listening to Tomorrow When the War Began, which besides a few nagging faults was really engaging. I really like Aussie voices... I should have made it a priority to date an Aussie man. But thinking about it, the Aussie guys I’ve met were more pasty milquetoast than Crocodile Hunter.

MR not puppies

The kittens must learn that it is not charming to use me as a prop in their half-hour-long fighting games at 3:30 a.m. “At least they’re not puppies,” Husband said. “At least they don’t fight on you,” I thought.*

We visited some friends last night who have a pool in their backyard. I have never wanted a pool until I saw this pool and thought I WANT A POOL IN MY BACKYARD. Refreshing evening dips to cool off, days off spent on loungers with stacks of magazines... mmm. But really, better than having a pool in your backyard is having a friend with a pool in their backyard. So I’m safe. Nevermind the fact that our backyard would hardly accommodate a hot tub. As a kid I had a fantasy with the neighbor kids that our families would install a pool that would span the length of all three of our lawns. I must have seen it so clearly that part of me actually thought it could happen. Around this same time my parents asked us “What would you like best: a pool, a cabin, or something-else-that-I-can’t-remember-because-it-didn't-make-the-cut.” “A pool! A pool!" We shouted excitedly. As my parents are generally people of their word, we began telling our friends that we were getting a pool. We got a cabin instead – which, to their credit, was a much, much better idea.

*In the spirit of truth, he did save me by taking them downstairs and playing with them.

MR puppies
MR not puppies
OSAR
CMPN?

Mais oui

Husband speaks French exclusively to the kittens. “Les petit chatons, qu’est que ce, ca,” he patters. I wonder if he’ll do the same with our kids. I once asked Husband to say "You are so sexy" in every accent that I could think of. My favorites were the Norwegian, which sounded jolly, and the German, which sounded gay because in his impressions all Germans are gay.

I’ve been reading lots of young adult nostalgic novels lately, including the incredibly violent Wolves of Willoughby Chase that my fourth grade teacher read us, so I’ll mention two books I read previously that I really enjoyed and could not help but tell others all about: Deep Survival: Who lives, who dies, and why by Laurence Gonzalez, which is a fascinating exploration of the assumptions and social rules we work under when threatened (particularly in the wilderness, but he also uses examples from 9/11, etc.) and why they help or hinder us. I also really enjoyed What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained by Robert L. Wolke. This book that has prompted me to share with others annoying facts such as that onions cannot technically caramelize and that adding salt to boiling water and a potato to salty soup doesn’t help.

Since my purse now contains nearly nothing (so far, the receipt from my license renewal, new insurance cards, and $20) I’ve taken to going around without it, and it is so freeing. I remember how loath I was to start carrying a purse in the first place – I resisted it until college ended. I do love with a passion not usually reserved for purses my black Kate Spade winter bag, so I’m sure I’ll be back in the swing of things by the time the temps drop to the 50s and the bag can come out of hiding.

Pet peeves du jour: The use of the word “frankly.” The phrase “and more” when detailing the attributes of something. Walking with someone who walks a step or two ahead of me (stupid, I know).

Not a good story

I was robbed last night. It was 8 p.m. and I was sitting outside the neighborhood coffee shop with friend T (who should be renamed the Ms. kick-ass-don’t-mess-with-me-fucker). It was a nice summer evening, the sidewalks were a slow parade of couples getting coffee and walking dogs... and three 17-19 year-old guys ran up and grabbed T’s purse. She took off after them while the other two tried to wrestle mine away... as I screamed one kid poked my hand with something black and plastic-y and the other punched me in the neck and they got it and ran away. A guy from the coffee shop chased after T and the guys, aided by a random guy driving down the street who helped chase them with his car. I called the police (along with about every third house down the streets they ran down) and within a minute police cars were entering the neighborhood and after what felt like forever (maybe fifteen minutes?) T came back and the police came and told us they arrested the guys (two adults, one juvenile). T and I filed a report with a very nice police officer and after another fifteen minutes/half hour, the police and searchers found all of T’s stuff (purse, wallet, cell phone, even cash, all separate and tossed into various bushes) and my purse (minus the wallet and cell phone). Husband, T, and I searched for my stuff by climbing over one of those freeway solid fences and combing in the vast overgrown bushy area that separates the highway from the fence/neighborhood. We recovered the cell phone, but not my wallet.

What I learned:
1. While running after the guys is not necessarily the safest option, I think it’s definitely what allowed us to recover as much of our stuff as we did, so I’m very grateful to T.
2. While being robbed in my own neighborhood isn’t very comforting, the dozens of people who witnessed what happened and came forward with descriptions and stories, the grocery store owner who took a picture of them earlier because they looked suspicious, the people who saw them running and called the police, and the bystanders who gave chase all speak to the goodness and communal concern of my neighborhood.

Trading in the kiddie cocktails for G&Ts

The best weather we’ve ever had at the cabin, good friends we hadn’t seen in awhile, and a cooler full of beer each came together for a wonderful holiday weekend. My family has vacationed with the family that always comes up for the Fourth since I was two and crying because I couldn’t walk out with the big kids in Lake Winnipeg. Between trips to Disney World, summers at a resort, and weekend trips around the state, we have quite a few memories together. And we did our best to make a few new ones... thanks in part to the sneaky dehydrating effects of the sun and the illusion of sobriety promoted by laying around on the dock.

On the drive up my brother got a ticket – on the rez! I comforted him with the fact that it at least it made a good story, with the rez police and all of the in-poor-taste Indian jokes about paying for the fine in trade, etc.

As of mid-morning today, the Brothers K had their manhood taken away from them. Poor dears.
I bought some dill to plant on a whim and have ignored it since, so now it looks like a mini-forest rather than herbs. I cut some down last night and wasn’t very enthused about cooking with it, but I quartered some baby Yukon gold potatoes and stirred in sea salt, ground pepper, a spoonful of sour cream, and all of the dill bits from one of my trees. My god, it was amazing. It was fresh and full, and redolently resplendent with pickle-ness.