martinmas and armistice

Two things to remember: those who served and the light within us all. If legend is true, Martin was a Roman Soldier and surely you have read enough history to know the atrocities committed by Roman soldiers, yes? And yet, his kindness made him a saint. War is horrible. I believe in peace. I have marched for peace and voted for peace and I practice peace toward my children. Blessed are the Peacemakers. But life is complicated. And war is not the reason people join the military. Drafts aside, it's about health care and education and consistency and opportunity. And I recognize the light, the basic human light of Creation and Being and Progress, within all of the service people, past and present, in our country. Our philosophies may differ, but our hopes are probably eerily the same. We're all just people here.

Per the waldorfy tradition, the children and I made Martinmas Lanterns the other day. It had been a while since we've done the old tissue paper scraps on jar technique, so we were due. Our tissue paper supply was paltry, so I dipped into the thin wax paper (like for window stars, you know?) instead. Add some peanut butter jars and some mod podge (plus a few particularly placed fall leaves, for flair) and you've got yourself a sweet little candleholder. We wrapped wire around the rim to make a handle and secured them onto sturdy sticks for carrying.

After a lantern walk at the park (we met up with other folks), we came home and stuck them into the large clay pot that sits on our hearth. The tiny lanterns + the fire were our only living room lights this evening.

the upside to the downside

We're past the point of grumbling about it, but, yes, if you're wondering, we're still affected by the mister's job loss. When a family loses their only source of income and that family is already pretty broke (by that I mean, zero savings plus a hefty mortgage, to boot) it's grumble-worthy. But it's not just us. Joblessness is widespread and if you don't know someone who is unemployed and struggling, then maybe you should get out more. We're scrabbling.

There is a new business endeavor. Have you heard? Starting a new business when a heap of bills are late and things like Foreclosure have become actual possibilities might be foolish. But what else can you do?

So, while we're in the middle space between jumping off the cliff and either hitting the ground, hard, or, miraculously, somehow, taking flight, I thought I'd mention the flip side to unemployment, the good parts of what is mostly a very, very difficult thing to experience.

Let me back up a bit and set the scene: there was the difficult relocation (a wanted return to oregon, but the circumstances were trying), a painful pregnancy loss with complications and medical bills, and then, interwoven in all that trouble: my husband's job which pretty much sucked donkey balls. (that's the most polite way I can describe it.)

So even with all the extra stress unemployement (like lack of income and losing insurance), I can't deny that there have been some really wonderful perks.

I think my husband's old job was close to destroying my family. I would like to tot up a list of specifics here, but I'm trying to be vague. Trust me when I tell you that the working environment was very much not good. And my husband? He is not a complainer. He does not shirk. And nothing he ever did was good enough for those people. He put in such long days and gave them so much and it was never enough. (it is seriously hard to keep from spilling the details.)

So, for starters, we see my guy a lot more. He often didn't come home until the children, at least the little one anyhow, were asleep. He left before we were up in the morning. And now he is here. He reads the bedtime books to the boy and he watches library Doctor Who dvds with the girl and he eats breakfast with us and dinner, too. He is a part. As he should be. As he always was before, but his previous employment made impossible.

Our garden this year was bigger and better than the year before because he was around so much more.

He has had the time, since this past Spring, to work weekly at our friends' farm. This has been so tremendous, I can't even tell you. We get vegetables in trade for his labor, but we're really getting so much more. When the mister was working a zillion hours a week for micro-managing brickheads (again, severely censored. believe it.), he didn't have the time to get to know people he'd like to know here locally. This farm working arrangement was a step in that direction. He likes our farmer friend so much and also loves working. My guy loves being outside doing hard work. He has learned, a little, about small scale farming and is re-inspired about our convictions about food and supporting a local economy. It's given him a connection to things that matter. This never would have happened if he were still bogged down by his old awful job.

Our house is better off. He is handy and likes fixing and improving things but everything went to the old nasty job and there wasn't a lot left over. He's been able to do some repairs and such that he never had time to think about before.

So, really, what this all comes down to is how good it is to have time, to be the master of our own schedules again. He picks up odd jobs where he can and is trying, trying to get the new business going and will always adhere to any associated obligations without a fuss. And not all jobs suck the life right out of an employee, but man, that one nearly did us in. He gave so much to people who didn't appreciate it, and had very little left to give us, the ones he's working so hard for in the first place.

I don't know how we'll make it work. It's shame that, even in these tenuous economic times, someone so capable and clever and strong (like an ox!) could be jobless. Worry still hangs over us and clogs our plans; I sure hope we again see some kind of financial stability. Who knows what lies ahead of us. But in the meantime, it's all so much more manageable within the context of a healthy, intact family.

everything is golden

We've been here, in this house, for just over 2 years now. What that means is that we're beginning to cycle through our THIRD holiday season in the same home. I have celebrated observed 3 of my birthdays in this house. We've had 3 Halloweens here. We're approaching our third Thanksgiving, Solstice, Christmas, New Year's, etc in the same place.

We are breaking all previous records.

And yet, my daughter still identifies as someone who moves a lot. Two years are not enough to salve the sores from a disastrous relocation, not when the trouble came fast on the heels of a lot of other hasty moves and stressful temporary situations. Anyone who has had to scramble for housing last minute should know this stress. But doing it again and again and again has left a shadow, a spook, an inability to breathe deeply without worrying when it will happen again.

I have a hard time accepting that this is it. Part of me is so accustomed to the transition, the perpetual packing and unpacking and settling in that we've done (thirteen addresses in as many years!) that I crave change as much as I appreciate and cherish the consistency of staying put.

Actually, I don't want to move again. I want to see all the blueberry bushes we planted last year grow. I want to finally collect enough salvaged bricks to make a patio in the front yard. I want to figure out how to best sneak a little flock of chickens into the backyard. I want to be here. Starting over again requires too much energy, loses too much time.

But I want to stop feeling like we're in the wrong place. Self identified city mice who thought about choosing a rural home and ended up here, in town, instead. I like being in the city. I like walking everywhere and seeing the hum and rush. I like the busyness and the brightness. And we have some of that here. Our town is very sweet, photogenic and charming. But we are far from the city. And we are confined to town restrictions, zoning and space and the squelch of too-near neighbors who are anything but simpatico souls. So in-between. Not the city. Not the land.

We expedited the purchase of this home because our living situation was so bleak. Our family was in the darkest times. And the job that caused us to move here is no more. I feel like I chose the best from what was available, but the rules of the game have changed since then and now I'm stuck trying to make it work.

I tell her that you never know. That anything can change in a blink. And that's the truth. But is no guarantee. She can't be the only 11-ish year old girl right here who likes to climb trees and pretend and whittle spears out of sticks with sharp knives and notice the plant life on walks and make up dramatic hairstyles and draw for hours and play Irish music so loudly. And maybe such a kindred soul will materialize suddenly soon.

This is not the dress rehearsal. This is not practice. This is my children's childhood. And it is so dear and joyful. We share so much gladness and we all of us have so very much for which to be grateful. But it's hard to reconcile that it's all going by so quickly and it's all so different than what I wanted it to be like.

My daughter will not ever have close, in age or proximity, siblings or cousins. She won't ever have close friends she's known her whole life, kids she's grown up with and knows well. The lonesomeness of her days continues to tear me up.

I wish I could give both of my children a steady group, a trusted pack of folks who have always been and will always be there. But I can't.

So I give them countless hours of reading aloud and Sunday night pizza and obnoxious operatic improv songs and muffins. I bake a lot of muffins. It's not enough.

The little traditions and routines I make up out of nothing are the smallest tokens I can offer, paltry talismans to conjure a decent childhood. I am inadequate. I would like to share this burden. Not just with their father (for, of course, he is here, participating every day), but with other people.

I love this time of year. I despise this time of year. The coziness of being inside more, the dread of doing it all again and not being able to hitch a ride, even for a moment, on someone else's momentum. It's the same old dreary story. Which is not to say we're a dreary bunch! But most of our days, regular days and special days, are spent just the four of us. Sweet. But a little sad, frankly.

I don't know how to escape the taunting thoughts that if we lived in the city, we'd have so much more to choose from. If not relevant community, then, certainly more distraction. Or if we were in the country, acreage and animals and all of that, we'd be so busy we wouldn't have time for discontent. I am tired of needing distraction. I want to sit in the middle of everything I have and like what I see.

I must reign in my visibility. Stop thinking about the big picture everyone's always talking about. Focus on the little picture. Everything is golden. The leaves and the light and the Promise I see in my children. We will have our quiet holidays, we will keep our simple days.

I cannot do better than I can do.

passive aggressive kitchen witchery

It wasn't quite Necessity is the Mother of Invention here this morning, because Coffee isn't exactly a need, is it? And I didn't invent pan roasting beans. And back up the truck here, I'm not even the coffee drinker. Oh, I drink it when it's hot and ready and I'm too impatient to boil water for tea, and maybe I'll admit to the occasional chain soy latte indulgence (sorry, local little guys. your lattes blow) but since I'm not a moderate individual, I can flail right into racing heartbeat and shaky hand and grinding jaw territory and so it's just better if I abstain as much as possible. So it was in deference to the mister's caffeine dependence and my recognition of our sparse pantry that made me pull that ziploc baggy of green beans out of a drawer.

My friend The Tardy Homemaker roasts her own coffee and it is smooth and delicious (I never pass up a cup at someone else's house. reference: the aforementioned Not Moderate confession. if it's offered, i'll drink it, pretty much, yup.) and I must have made grunts about wanting to do the same (because, hello? pennies on the dollar, practically, for organic fair trade) and she gifted me a pound of green beans once when she purchased in bulk. She uses an old air popper for coffee roasting and this was my intent, as well. Surely you know about my thrift store habit. For as often as I'm there, I could be creepily stalking the old volunteer ladies at the St Vincent de Paul, but no, it's ric rac aprons and old school readers and sturdy spatulas I seek. And in all the many, many visits I've made to secondhand establishments since I've had a pound of green coffee beans in my possession, how many old air poppers do you think I have found? Not one. I have an air popper in my kitchen, use it frequently, actually. But it's the newer fangled sort made of thin plastic which will allegedly melt in the time it takes to roast a pound. So I reserve it for popcorn only and keep looking for an older one.

Which is all well and good until we wake up one cold frosty morning (frost two days in a row. hey, november, you mean business.) and I'm up and starting breakfast and feeling mightily disgruntled at the mister who is still in bed. For the record, if you are married to me and I send your grumpy ass to bed at 8:30, what that really means is that I am looking forward to you being the first one up in the morning, so that the house is awake and cheerful and the blinds are open and all of that when I get out of bed. And when that doesn't happen, when I am the last one to bed, by several hours, and then, by default, have to be the first parent up and about, I will probably growl at you and stomp down the hallway, sleepy and mad-like. But, for all the grumbling and cursing, I knew the longer he stayed in bed the madder I'd get and the best way to get him up is to get the coffee started. So.

I've heard that it can be done like this and I have roasted my share of nuts in a cast iron pan, so how about coffee? Three cheers for trying, anyway, and I have a canister full of Irish Breakfast so it's not like I'd be missing anything.

Here are what the beans looked like when I put then in the pan:

(one of these days I'll buckle down for real and figure out how to take a decent picture in a dim kitchen at 7 something in the morning)

I started them at 350 but they hadn't made much progress at all in ten, fifteen minutes, so I notched it up to 400ish. I think I left them in about 20 minutes after that. By that time the husband was up and dressed and bewildered about the smokey coffee scented haze in the house. It wasn't hot coffee that enticed him upright, but I think I smoked him out of bed. It would be easier to leave a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan on a hot burner next time. I'll remember. I did reach in and give the beans a stir a few times. I think, really, I took them out too soon. But, at that point, it had already taken longer than I thought it should have and I was done and the kettle was on and the press was clean and I just called it good enough.

They looked like this when I took them out:

(notice that I yawned and turned the camera to auto, flash and all. photography, what?)

We might not agree on bedtimes or wake up times or the most acceptable dispositions to share with the people in your household, but we both like our coffee beans dark and oily. These were on the light side and still rather dry-ish. The oils were just starting to come out when I blew the whistle on the whole experiment. However, maybe because the beans were so freshly roasted, who knows, the resulting coffee was excellent.

I drank more than my share (he hates it when I drink coffee in the a.m. because there's none remaining to pour into his thermos when he leaves and he knows it's not like I'm so discriminating, anyway, I'll still load up on tea all day) and he complimented the brew more than once, which is a lot more than usual.

Is this going to be a thing around here now? I don't think I'm ready to promote it to Regular from In A Pinch, but at least I know now it's easy enough.

(but not as easy as tea.)

take a hottie to bed

A little middle of the night motherly nursing last night prompted me to dig out and fill up the old hot water bottle. It was the best idea I had to help soothe my girl's very bad stomachache. She was hurting enough to wake me, which, for her, means quite a lot. She is the buck up and tell me about it later sort, and not usually so much for getting out of bed at 4 in the morning to tell her mama that she's sick.

I always forget about the hot water bottle until we have some sort of acute sickness. Although, regrettably, I forgot about it completely when I had my recent bout with illness. But since the weather shifted and there's often a cold snap to the air in our house (I'd rather bundle up a little, anyhow, than be too warm and it sure costs less to keep the heaters all off as much as possible) I have been thinking that I should invest in hot water bottles for the whole family. I rely pretty regularly on my husband's hot bloodedness to warm my cold sleepy toes, but he isn't always amenable and, well, I cannot reciprocate (I'm always cold!) and, also, think of the children!

I actually have a hot water bottle on the running gift idea list (because the proverbial corner is approaching and you know what's just around it) for my girl, but since she requested a fill up tonight, she might usurp the bathroom cabinet old stand-by before I acquire a new one just for her. She said it kept her warm all morning.

Googling just now revealed to me that the hot water bottle we have, what I thought was just a regular old modern day drugstore specimen, is really a vintage 50s jobbie. I bought it for $0.50 at a Phoenix Goodwill about 4 years ago. So we haven't even had it all that long. I always thought I imagined the faint whiff of roses and old man inside of it, but if it's really sixty years old, such a combination is probably possible. I wanted to get a few others just like it, it's so thick-walled and sturdy and the spout screws on tightly (it's called a Kantleek, by Rexall, and that sure seems to be true) and it keeps water hot for hours, but I don't think they make them quite like this one anymore.

More googling pulled up this article now I think I'll start calling ours a Hottie, too.

Energy efficiency + personal comfort were the reasons I wanted to get more anyway. Having a radiating ball of warm in your bed just makes sense. I toss ours into an extra pillowcase and wrap it up a few times, but a wooly cover would be better, perhaps, for heat retention and softness. But, still, it didn't really occur to me until I read that article that hot water bottles should be a standard. Like re-usable grocery bags and recycling! Has there been a hot water bottle resurgence when I wasn't looking? Because while I find lots of bottle and covers and cozies for sale (etsy and ebay and various and sundry other sellers), it certainly doesn't seem like a movement or anything. Not yet, anyway!

Do you take a hottie to bed?

too much candy

Even though I am, legendarily, earnestly, a bonafide Halloween Grinch (candy! kids! bah!), I admit to having had a really great time this year. Wait, didn't I say the same thing *last* year, too? I believe I did. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em or some such like that. Almost anything is a good time with friends and a few nips of strong hooch. Yes?

The thing is: we don't eat candy. So there's a tin of suckers on my fridge, sure. The health food store sort with regular sugar and no artificial crap and that's just the way we roll around here. And unless they're the best full time always on actors ever in the whole world, my children don't feel left out or less than or different. They enjoyed the thrill of tromping around town after dark, ringing doorbells and that whole schtick, but the candy thing isn't really the thing at all. I don't have to cajole them not to eat too much or sneak it away or let them gorge and crash and burn and hope it's all over soon. Because it is a non-issue. One or two pieces, maybe, but that's it. And that's why my first reaction is to shrug and then avoid an event that's really all about junky candy. But for what other reason would I be compelled to pull a zebra print skirt and bright orange high heels out of my closet? Dressing up is just good fun. It's a shame we do it so infrequently, really.

Even without the damage of post-sugar high here at our house, tonight was rough. Time change, I guess. Never a cuter orange lego has ever existed than my boy in his last minute costume last night. But for all his adorableness (where did so much cute come from? I don't even know!), he was up so late, for an early-to-bed sort of boy. And we jollied him along on a very far afternoon walk today; such a long way for tired little legs. My girl was the intense one, exploding with feelings (happy! mad! all the feelings!) and we had many (many many many many) meltdowns and fall aparts and screaming-til-hoarse episodes when she was little, but with my boy, it's rare and I am rusty. I remind myself how scary it must feel to be a little person totally losing control and I hold firm and strong and kind and I repeat the mama mantras and I keep a respectable distance and when the facade cracks I swoop in to wipe tears and slice an orange and put on pajamas and give kisses and everything is smooth again before bed.

I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day for the first day of November. The house was chilly, kids and pets and the husband in and out, the doors opening and closing so much, and I wore a scarf all day. But it was bright (I grumbled about not having sunglasses on our walk) the leaves were crunchy and the sky was blue and I could not (ask the mister, go ahead) stop dancing. It felt like a dancing sort of day, just that clear and brilliant. And so we played a lot of dancing music around here today.

This is a perfect song for a dancing day on the day after Halloween. I like the Schoolhouse Rock-ish animation style and the theatrical sound and the frisky rabbits and Mama told me what I should know too much candy gonna rot your soul.

the season of my miscontent

Well, there wasn't so much celebrating. But there wasn't any moping either. I call that good enough. But, still, being that it's the time of year that I reset my own personal little ticker tape, the early autumn is still a fine time to think about stuff I didn't do, stuff I want to do, and stuff I'd rather not.

I'm waist high in my 30s now (not quite halfway, I'm short waisted, you know) and while it's unreasonable to expect, or even entertain the notion of, like a secret for myself, that I might have a real whoop-de-doo affair next year, I can think of a lot of things I would like to accomplish between now (two days into it) and then (35, holy moly).

A list, for all the people who like lists (me? not so much. even my grocery lists peter out after just a few things and I chase random ideas around like falling leaves):

1. finish Couch to 5k. totally reasonable goal, yes? being down sick for several days + a general unwellness in the house lately put a wrench in what had been a very impressive effort. even i was proud of myself, and you know that's something. i can get back to it. looking forward to it, actually. every little breath and conversation isn't making me cough anymore.

2. sing karaoke. easy. easy enough, anyway. i cannot sing well but i enjoy it and if i said i didn't have a wee bit of a rock star in me, i'd be lying. don't we all? who knows, i might hate it after all, but it's something i must try. you don't have to ask me for an encore but you can clap all the same.

3. visit phoenix. oh, phoenix. i left on such hasty terms and i spoke so often, so openly, of all the things about you i despise. well. it's been two and a half years now. and if absence makes the heart grow fonder. . . i could never live with you again, but i think we can still be friends. not to mention that our time living there was tremendously important for my girl and i would like to take her back, visit old haunts, see old pals, keep from forgetting everything.

4. road trip. not necessarily related to the previous item. we did visit family last year during the week of thanksgiving, but nothing's on the docket this year. and it should be. car travel is the best way to travel and all the people who hate it don't know a thing. my kids are super travelers and we all get cross and fidgety, sure, but we talk, we watch clouds, we try on what it must be like to live in so many random little places. it's the best thing and i don't do it often enough.

5. make some money. red light jokes aside, this will be the most difficult to do. i'm smart and quick and funny and so capable but the only thing that matters is that i haven't worked for pay in a long time and people who hire people find that, i discovered this last year, the unforgivable sin. i wouldn't change this path i'm on. because unless you've got a time machine in your pocket, here i am. if it weren't for all the gray hair and wrinkles, i'd make like i just graduated high school (ha!) and then it would be, wow. isn't she great?! but even when we're talking bottom rung positions, mere cents beyond minimum wage, life experience, gut instinct, rapport, none of those things matter as much as blanks filled in on an application. it's demeaning and discouraging and i'm really better off working for myself. so who knows. income, somehow. that's what.

6. get curtains up on all the windows in the house to mask the goldanged ugly creamy colored mini-blinds, loathed atrocities that they are.

7. order many, many prints of pictures. my photo albums stopped the very day i got my first digital camera (mother's day, 2003) and i rarely, almost never, order prints and, come on, grandkids, gather around the hard drive. no. that will not do. also, i love taking pictures and sometimes, not often, i get some excellent shots and those should be, i'm serious this time, printed up and framed and on the wall.

8. make more stuff. i do not need to elaborate here, right?

9. let go of the stuff that needs to be let go of, which is a roundabout way of saying i have an awful time with change. i want to keep everything i love right in my pocket where i can have it close by for all the things, the good things, the hard things (and my, have there been hard things, 2.5 yrs of so much hard) but life doesn't work that way, apparently. and i can't keep getting offended, broken hearted, every time i'm reminded that it's just never going to be that way again. but do you empty your pockets and start over fresh? or set your things on a little shelf somewhere so you can still see them and think about them now and again? this is what i don't know about.

10. say Yes more often.

11. join a club. remember when marsha tried everything? just to see what she'd like? there should be such opportunity for witty middle-aged(ish) mothers. because i'm not involved enough!

12. get some ink on my upper arm. right side? sure. all these push-ups i do now shouldn't be for naught. what i need is a focal point for all that pre-shower bathroom flexing, don't you think?

13. see more live music. i saw more this last year than the year before. the babies are older (don't let the older one catch me saying baby, either!) and there's really no reason to sit around here so often. i'm such a content homebody, almost all of the time, it's true. but i like the night life.

14. finally install the sign board, poetry board, art and public notice board, whatever you want to call it, in my front yard that i've been aiming to do since i moved into this corner house. we get a lot of foot traffic. i have a pretty big (for a downtown house) front yard. these things should be working together!

Well, that's a good start. I reckon once I click Publish Post I'll remember other ideas because if I'm good at anything, it's coming up with ideas. All day long with the flashes of brilliance. Too bad I let things flash and then they fizzle and, more often than not, I forget.

me + larry david + a siamese kitten

It's not that I'm anti-napping. It's just that sleeping during daylight hours feels so gross to me. Clammy and groggy and pinching waistbands and vanished time. No thanks. It's just me. But because it's just me and if we're on good terms, you and I, and if you're the napping sort, then I've probably ribbed you about it. Don't sleep your life away! and what not. I'm not the touchy feely sort, so much, so such things are like little quick squeezes to your shoulder. Only teases the ones she loves, or something like that.

So what it comes down to is this: if I'm in bed during the day, something ain't right. I barely left my bed for the past 2 days! So while I'm breaking one rule, on account of swine flu or who knows what, I pretended that it's not verboten for the cats to jump up, clamber around, lay right down on my chest and purr. The No Cats In Bed rule seems superfluous when I'm languishing in wrinkly sheets with lip balm smeared all over my nose. And, anyway, 2 of them didn't realize I fell down on the job and one of them saves his affections for the mister, so it was really just the little one keeping me company. We watched the whole sixth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm together yesterday.

Sick sheets in the wash, fresh sheets on the bed. I wore a supportive undergarment and pants with a zipper today. Improvement! Which, then, must have been just a doozy of a cold, right? Or maybe, as I'm convincing myself, it really was a more serious illness that I kicked into submission with my tireless barrage of oils and vitamins and teas and nasal irrigating and, yeah, napping.

I'm still not completely normal, the children are vaguely unwell (the big girl tucked herself into bed long before her little brother was even in pajamas -so tired.) and I hear talk of cold and flu all around me, it seems. Still in the woods. Not out yet.

So, in case the remedies and treatments and hours of librivox recordings didn't kill it all off, this song will help. It's a start your day off right song, a dancing song, a thrill me like Erasure and I'm fourteen and explode frequently from so much secret love song, a simple, happy, smiling song.

ten shopping days left!

I've spent too many years doing the whole pathetic woe is me birthday introspection. So I'm due a turn-around, a departure from the doldrums, some unabashed celebrating. And since it's unlikely that the celebrating will involve much more than the cake I remind my daughter to bake me (much as I'd prefer pie, that might be still a bit beyond her almost-eleven yr old kitchen prowess) I am taking this opportunity to engage in a little wish listing. For your entertainment and should, perchance, an anonymous benefactor, or my husband, be reading.

Most of the things I want aren't accessible. Steady income! Health insurance! A singing voice like an angel! And generally I'm accustomed to picking from quirky used treasures in secondhand stores for all my gimme-gimme needs, so it's not often I even think in this direction. But can I compile a list of new things I want? You bet I can!

Here goes. In no particular order.

1. ukulele
2. sport headphones, non-earbud type.
2. stripey socks and tights
3. treadmill
4. unicycle
5. lenses for my rebel
6. sanita clogs, brown oiled leather w/ tan soles
7. curtains for the living room. and dining room. and my bedroom. or just curtain rods. if i had the hardware i would make the curtains myself. hm. or not. stick with curtains.
8. THIS nifty camera, which consoles me the littlest bit over the loss of polaroid film.
9. tall kitchen chair w/ pull-out stool
10. mid-century sectional
11. ink. on my body. bicep tattoo! rawr!
12. submersible blender
13.

Gah, apparently that's the extent to which I can stretch my brain for this silly activity. It's not like I don't ogle the pages of every garnet hill catalog that comes in my mail slot. Because I surely do! So, see, I have plenty of covetous moments, it's that, most of the time, I guess I'm satisfied enough. At least concerning the stuff that can be purchased. I am balls of regret and discontent with regard to all the ephemeral junk of being a person in her (cough) MID thirties.

Next time (not now because if I don't get into the kitchen to clean it up, I'll never get to watch a couple of Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes, which will be shameful what since Season 5 was due back at the library today and I am pushing it already) I will share a list of things I aim to accomplish before my next birthday, not this one. I already blew this year and I'm coming into land with my eyes closed, more or less, already thinking about the take-off and next chance. See? the woeful If Onlys are so much more instinctual than the glad hurrahs. This trying to celebrate idea will be tricky!

i just want to sparkle for a moment

We soaked it all in and now we're moving on. There was one quick coastal camping trip over the last weekend of September; likely the last tent adventure until next Spring. There was a much anticipated and deeply appreciated visit by a dear friend from far away (Arizona isn't the other side of the world, no. But it's sure not across town and I had not seen my friend in over two years). Greens have faded into golds and reds and, yes, browns and tonight we lit the first fire in the house. Hello, Fall. Guess you're here for real now.

Until it really gets cold-cold, I find the crisp air exhilarating. And on sunny fall days, like today, I like to keep the doors open. Please come inside, though you might not want to remove your sweater. And I was feeling so cozy in my scarf all day, sweeping and baking and doing housewifey things around the house, music blasting, the children, pink-cheeked, in and out and in and out. The cool air in the house, the good things in the oven, the asters blooming on the porch, so sunday afternoon mid-october just right. But sunny/crisp days turn quickly into cold nights when the sun goes down and my lungs were unhappy with the evening activity.

I gasped and wheezed through my intervals, dreaming of treadmills and indoor gyms. I'm so not a gym person. Like I know some people say that. But I really mean it! The whole idea of paying to exercise, in public, with other people, seems wrong. Plus, I genuinely enjoy being outdoors and this newish endeavor has been particularly doable and pleasant, I believe, because I've been outside. So who knows. I cried uncle several times and walked out the rest of the runs, not because the running was so difficult, but because it's hard to run with the squeezing sensation of one's esophagus closing shut and filling with needles. I've noticed remarkable improvement in my breathing stamina since I started running, but if cold air running is always so painful, I'm not sure I will be able to hack it. I definitely don't want to lose my momentum here, so I am hoping the next run renews my confidence.

This song here was on one of my first running podcasts. And I hum it a lot and have since been listening to the band (the boy least likely to) quite a lot lately. If you're able to pull up files online, I especially like the song called Stringing Up Conkers (such a fallish title), but it's not on youtube, sorry, so you get this one instead.

autumnal

A first day of fall that finds me bearing my freckly shoulders is all right with me (only it wasn't so much when I lived in the land of Endless Summer. I craved sleeves and sweaters, then, the way I will surely jones for sunshine late next winter). I really do love the mix of seasons here. I'm looking forward to the cool coziness approaching, but this last hurrah of skin and ice cubes is pretty great.

The boy and I talked about the end of summer, about less sunlight, about Fall. We went into the backyard to look for signs of autumn (why not the front yard? because the front yard has different signs, red flashing obnoxious signs that say Unkempt Garden! Weeds! Unruly! but gradual seasonal changes are less noticeable there still).

Clockwise from top left: hazelnuts (our tiny tiny backyard has 3 old pretty big hazelnut trees and, boy! do we have a lot of nuts), grape stem (concords eaten by the boy who eats the most fruit), dogwood leaves (the first bud in spring, the first to change color in fall), deciduous redwood needles (kinda cute, when it's just one, but when we have several foot high drifts of 'em along the side of the house, less cute).

The boy so kindly made hazelnut muffins for me, but I could only manage one. I am *still* full from all of the crackers I ate today. Crackers + Feta + Roasted Tomatoes. Oh man. So good. How good? Like a letter from home with a dollar in it (as my dad would say). Ten dollars. I've been slow roasting a lot of tomatoes lately, and while I aim to keep them them through the winter, I was particularly lazy with one batch. I started them late in the day and at bedtime, they weren't near dry yet and but I stopped them anyway. Because they're so gooey and soft, I am not so sure they'll keep as long as their more dehydrated compatriots, so what else can I do? Eat those puppies up. A boon on good crackers at the grocery outlet inspired me to do them up like this:

My children, who enjoy tomatoes otherwise, thought these soft oozey clumps looked disgusting. I goaded them for a moment and then stuffed my mouth with another one. More for me, suckers. These crackers are so good. If I didn't eat all the feta up or if I don't wake up with raw sores in my mouth, I'll probably repeat this tomorrow for lunch. And dinner.

In other related equinox news, I made up a batch of mix CDs today. I haven't done this in a while, the mixmaster hausfrau thing. I am not a hip music cat and I always feel a little sheepish sharing the stuff that's doing it for me right now. Here's my fall oh nine playlist:

The last track is my current obsession. You should listen to it straight away so we can drawl out, "alabama, arkansas. . ." together. You'll see.

I kept myself busy in a glue + scissors way for a while. I love being busy that way, but I don't indulge very often because, oh! what a mess. I can barely keep up with the creative pursuits of my daughter. Throw my silly little projects into the mix and we might never see the dining room table again.

I confess to pushing everything to the side so we could eat dinner. I needed it to remain handy so I can bust out some more CD sleeves tomorrow. There's a reason I keep every old calendar, scrap of paper, everything around forever. You never know when you'll need to make an envelope:

That's a lot of stuff to make a fine first day of Fall.

listen to me! there is something i must do.

The very best thing about the facebook + youtube timesuckerpunch is being privy to every amusing thing my friends find. I love that. The internet is mostly boring me lately. I am slow to email, I 'mark read' huge swaths of entries from my blog roll, I can't remember the last time I poked into my local craigslist. Snore. But every single day, somebody shares something on the old facebook that makes me laugh. Laughing = good.

I wasn't going to share this anywhere, it was amusing to me yesterday and then I moved on. Until I went to bed last night. The mister was already back there, asleep, and what had he fallen asleep to? The soundtrack to Les Miserables. That sort of synchronicity is so weird. How long since I last even thought about Jean Valjean? Years!! Even though, yes, seeing the touring production was a pivotal point in our relationship and, sure, my daughter liked to startle people at age 3 by belting out Master of the House, I lost track of the CDs and never imported them into itunes and hey! who listens to CDs anymore, anyway? Apparently the husband had just undertaken a big old-CDs-into-mp3s project for his new ipod.

It's not every day I randomly hear Confrontation twice.

Hey do you remember when I sang the praises of Freaks & Geeks? Probably not. It's been a while. Anyway, Jason Segal's character is the drummer I referenced in that linked post and while I couldn't say he's my favorite F&G character (perfect ensemble cast!), I am quite endeared to him. This clip almost makes me want to check out their current sitcom.

I am trying something new, which is not the ukulele (not yet). I am feeling the pressing weight of, well, I want to say my years and doesn't that sound pensive and wistful, but really, it's the pressing weight of my ass. Totally different. I have to reconcile the space between pounds to spare and a closet full of pants that won't fit. For my next trick, I will attempt to bridge this gap by running. Or something like running, but slower. I will say this: it's going better than I thought it would. And there aren't a lot of things these days I can say *that* about, so. . .

parting is such

There is this voice that has been haunting me (no not that. haunting is too spooky of a word, too invasive and serious, how about compelling?), compelling me to listen. and last night I listened to it live and wasn't that a good time? The September of my adulthood is like the October, November of my youth: a brilliant string of clear days, and nights when windchimes clang and sleepy hands shut windows, grab for blankets.

So this voice. When he talks I think of Matthew McConaughey's character in Dazed and Confused. Oh, you know. Tell me know you. What, you don't know?!

And so when I say that the front for Deer Tick gives me an I Love Those Redheads vibe, then you should know, surely, what I'm talking about, yes?

The last day of official summer upon us. A celebration and a regret. The rough smoothness of a raspy voice. The looking ahead and looking behind. The wish to pause the best seconds -the ones with the most laughter, with children running in circles and tomatoes piled in heaps and insecurities almost too small to see- is strong.

There is a certain seventies good ol' bad boy sleazy rock and roll feel about Deer Tick. I am sorry I'm still talking about them. I can talk about one thing for a long time. I can eat the same thing every meal for weeks before I tire of it. I am insatiable until the inexplicable moment when, without warning, I've had too much.

I haven't had too much yet. Not of this song or bare legs or open doors or nectarines. Not yet.

ride me, mama

There are some things you don't even want to whisper, not even in an empty room, because once said these things might be heard and remembered by someone. I tend toward the quiet, and have been mistaken for shy. But the truth is this: I am an extrovert with very quick moving thoughts and a tendency to blab too much about anything. Keeping quiet keeps me out of trouble. You don't want to know what I'm thinking, believe me on that one.

Today I've been regretting something I said last night, at a very fun and comfortable gathering with friends. Because just like I don't care to promise things to my children until I know they are for sure, I don't like that I announced (hm, a rather grand word, it was more like a casual mention) that I'm going to learn to play the ukulele. It's a fine idea, sure, but if I don't do it? Of if I try and fail? Well, then folks will know about it. I would rather keep that to myself, I suppose.

My birthday's coming up and I'm another year closer to OLD and another year further from being able to make music. Oh, sure I took piano lessons when I was a kid. And there are those nearly forgotten years of being in the school band (you will never guess what instrument I played and I won't tell you!) and there are the countless hours I inflict my singing voice on my helpless family members. But making music in a relevant, participatory way? No. And clearly this is a troubling thing because it troubles me.

I do not have any aspirations of being good. I would be content to just plunk along and not be too terrible. That's a doable goal, yes? For an old lady?

And now my pride's on the line. I've said it out loud. Ay!

So being that it's sunday (remember I was trying to share a song on sundays?) and I'm kinda talking music already, I will include a song that I have been enjoying recently. A friend of mine shared it on facebook and it was new to me and I liked it right away. Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show (apparently an old Bob Dylan song previously unrecorded by the old songster himself). I'd actually forgotten all about it, but on the drive home from Eugene today (we drove the two hours south on an errand and tooled around that awesome city; every time I find myself there I think it would sure be a great place to live), I was reading their local weekly alternative paper and noticed a concert ad upcoming for these guys. (Local music alert: they'll be in Eugene October 6th and in Portland on the 7th.)

Here's a good example of why I should continue to practice silence: I think this song is top notch, catchy and hummable, but I liked it better when I was mishearing the lyrics. The husband and I actually had a small debate about this, when I first played it for him. I was sure that Ride was the key chorus word and he corrected me with a much more prudent Rock. And after I listened for rock I couldn't hear ride anymore, and I conceded the point. But something was lost. Rocking is sweet and all; I have spent countless dear hours rocking babies and, well. Um. I think there's a time and a place for something a lot less sweet. Or something. Nevermind. You might be surprised that I really like this video quite a bit. I won't spill so much and tell you my favorite part, though. mmm. See? Must! Shut! Up!

Also! One more thing! I am pretty over the moon in love with looking up ukulele covers of songs on youtube. Did you know that was such a thing? Uke covers? Maybe you did but I did not. I barraged my effbee pals with a string of ukulele songs the other night but I'll only put one here (but choosing just one is hard! there are SO MANY). Seriously, if you have a favorite song, somebody probably played it on their uke and put it online. I don't think I've loved anything in a long time as much as I love all the people who love making music and putting it up on youtube to share it, for no other reason than because it clearly makes them happy. May I one day be good (and brave!) enough.

they're here

I am seriously sitting here trying to find a way to cleverly tie in a tacky Poltergeist reference to the surprising, bright light that fills my basement staircase on sunny days, in the late afternoon, at this time of the year. But, one, I'm a lot less clever on cue than I used to be, and, two, maybe Carol Anne isn't pop culture blog fodder in two thousand and nine. Maybe you didn't watch the movie when you were quite young (what was I? nine? and why? on who's watch was this approved?) and maybe you didn't have years of nightmares and creepy feelings about it and maybe you wouldn't have any idea what I'm talking about anyway.

But if you were in the habit of walking up and down my basement steps so many times a day, as I am, you would also know how really remarkable it is to have such light fill the space. It's not an area that natural light typically reaches and the presence of sunshine is really an amazing thing. It is blinding and ridiculous.

For a few steps, it is so intense that everything else disappears into a flash of yellow white. There is nowhere else to look.

So at the risk of being overly sappy and incomprehensible, I will say that this light-filled staircase, these pictures, have been burning metaphors in my brain. This is a time of year when I have to buck up and own my resolve. I have to survey the effects of our previous choices and acknowledge that, yes, unconventional and off the main road and lacking infrastructure as they may be, it seems to be working for us.

Taking blind upward steps is tricky, but there is no sense in turning back once you've already gone halfway.

If you think this is about the starting "school year", you think correctly. Among other things. But for so many, September signifies a new start, a new routine, a new excuse to hitch a ride on someone else's program. And as much as this (this "not sending the kids to school") remains the best choice for all involved, when assessing all possible area choices, I admit that I can get a little envious. I have been the IDEA person for a lot of years. There is certainly a lot of awesome to be said about the flexibility of our lifestyle. But flexibility is a two-headed beast. There is also a lot to be said about having marked setpoints to navigate the rest of one's time by. And the determining and the planning and the enforcing of those setpoints is a challenge. For me. This year, especially. Today.

It's intense but quick. The self-doubt will shift and I'll be able to see where I'm going soon enough.

let's do lunch

When I stayed up reading in bed late last night, the rain was charming. A lulling, nostalgic background noise I missed so much when I lived in the desert, I bought a sound machine to replicate it (digital precipitation: not the same thing). When I woke up this morning, the cool drizzle was cozy. My kitchen always feels extra warm and welcoming when color out the windows is gray. But by mid-morning, I was stuck without a game plan and (it wasn't even raining raining, mind you, just spitting) kids who weren't so keen on going OUT but were getting UNDER my skin and I was done with the wet day. Done with Saturday, done with feeling like a whistle-less, clipboard-less, unpaid activity director. Done with being the nutrition director and chef. Don't you feel like that some days? And while the clouds later gave way to sunshine and although our later afternoon and evening were spent outdoors and active, I was in no mood to make lunch mid-day. "But, mama, I'm huuuuuungry." But, babies, the fixin's are slim. And, also? Mama is busy imagining life as a single chic with a fat wallet. (not really. really. well. what can i say? i was awfully grouchy.)

So what did I do? I bucked up and dug out some leftovers and did a little kitchen magic and made lunch quickly and amused myself by taking pictures. Taking pictures is like an instant attitude adjuster for me. Which is maybe why I take so many pictures. Ahem.

Lentil/Patty Pan Squash/and other stuff Stew from a couple of nights ago. I liked it. The husband liked it. But the children were less enthusiastic. I whizzed some up in the blender and then warmed it up with a little bit of coconut milk. Instant creamy soup!

Okay, so soup. And?? Um. No time to bake anything. No bread. No crackers. No rice cooked up. Nothing. Oh, wait. Is that one tortilla languishing in the back of the fridge, getting crunchy in a left-open bag? Yes! So I sprayed it with a little olive oil and threw it in the toaster oven for a couple of minutes. When it was toasty, I took it out, ground some salt over it, and sliced it up. Chips!

And then I ran out to the yard and dug up some carrots and cut them into sticks.

There you have it! Lunch! Heavy on the wholesome, light on the grump, and apparently thrilling enough that I not only snapped photos of it, but I had to write about it, too. tralala.

i scream, you scream

Today I finally did something I've been meaning to do for ages: I made ice cream from raw goat milk. Last week I picked up a dandy ice cream machine for a cool three and a half bucks. I'll tell you what, I usually have decent thrifting karma; I picture the thing I want or need or wish for and (roughly) I find it on some secondhand store shelf soon after. But the ice cream maker eluded me for so long! We have a super source for farm fresh and tasty raw milk right now, so early in the summer I envisioned plenty of homemade ice cream in our future. But mid-summer or on autumn's doorstep, a cold frozen treat is welcome any time. I'm just glad I finally found one and the price was so low (cheaper than a store bought pint!), I had nothing to lose.

To be fair, what I really made is probably more of an "ice milk" than ice cream, seeing that I just used whole goat milk and no separated cream. Goat milk does not separate easily like cow milk does and the cream cannot be simply skimmed off the top; goat milk is naturally homogenized and contains a lower fat content, anyway. I read some recipes online, but in the end decided to wing it. I didn't go out on a wild limb or anything, I stuck to the standards, but didn't have any specific goat milk reference.

Here's what I did: in the ice cream bucket, I stirred together 2 C raw goat milk, 1/2 C organic raw sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, pinch of salt. In a saucepan, I whisked together 2 C raw goat milk and 2 eggs. I kept whisking until it got hot and bubbly. I don't know. And then I dumped the milk + egg mix into the maker bucket and stirred together and then followed the machine's instructions from there.

Oh, this machine, a compact seventies jobbie called, charmingly, "Ice Cream Parlor", instructed to use straight table salt, contrary to the tempting rock salt of my youth. Wasn't there always something so irresistible about sticking a finger in the cranking machine to sneak out a big lump of salt? I did have to make a special trip to the grocery outlet for regular salt, since I exclusively use sea salt in the kitchen. But that's a tiny expense (salt cylinders, 2 for $1, man, that grocery outlet always comes through for me) and worth the hassle.

It took about 40 minutes, thereabouts, before the mixture was thick and ice-cream-like. I pulled out the paddle and licked a tiny taste and oh! hello unexpected time travel moment! I'm in my grandma's backyard! I'm 7! or 10! or 14! and I have a plastic cup held out, ready for my share. Somebody's complaining that Grandma didn't make butter pecan or something fancy but I'm so glad it's plain old vanilla. So so good.

I let the children have tiny tastes, also, but then I packed it all into a container and tucked it in the back of the freezer. I love the fresh from the maker softness, but I thought a few more hours of hardening (or, in official ice cream making terms, "ripening" but seriously? ripe? ice cream? let's just call it hard, okay?) would make it easier to serve. Besides, we weren't an extended family gathering in the backyard, we were going to be getting crabby if mama didn't make dinner soon. So the timing was perfect to make the ice cream earlier and then start right into dinner prep.

This has been the biggest hit since the first time I made cinnamon rolls, a few years ago, and finished them off with a powdered sugar icing and let the cat out of the bag that, yes, such delectable treats can be made, easily, right here at home. But that doesn't mean we're going to have them all the time! So stop asking! Special things are only special if you don't do them every ding day. But that's so much sugar and this is, still, healthy goat milk and not so much sugar and the unmistakable motor sound of an ice cream machine, the round and round and round whirring. I love that sound.

quit yer bellyachin'

Of course, of course, so soon as I whisper Cucumbers? What? How? My boy resumes his previous pace of consumption and I remember how right and delicious they are, sliced, alone, and doused with Goddess dressing.

Maybe the No Cooking part throws me off because (this is just between you and me, right?) for vegetarians, we don't eat a lot of raw vegetables here. And by "we" I mean "they" because I'm just one quarter of this gig. And this is funny because if you knew us when we made the leap from meat eating to not, you might remember that we did it with gusto. We were more Raw than not and every morning began with reconstituted barley grass juice.

Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about why we stopped eating meat and why I still don't. But today I just want you to know one thing: almost everything is more beautiful when held up to the sun.

I miss August already. The light is changing, the evening more illuminated, in that glowy late summer way. I have to remind myself, I have to absolutely say out loud to myself, Be Here Now. Notice the beguiling shimmer of every plant at seven p.m. and do not stop to wonder about the missed sunrise or the passing of another month or how it's all going to possibly work out. Because this golden halo, this preternatural light, is the most important thing.

if you think her typing rambles, you should listen to her talk

I was just scouring my photo archives for a capture of before and afters of my (albeit puny) backyard. We've made a lot of progress back there. I don't really know why I bought a house with such a tiny backyard, it might have had something to do with the way our family was deteriorating and we were under the house hunting gun. But, in a turn of events that is atypical for me and mine, our quick fast utilitarian emotionless decision evolved into a home we love very much. I love the space, the feel, the floor plan, the openness, the simplicity. Sometimes I wish I could pick it up and plop it down in the city, but that's the stuff of fantasy and the here and now is fine enough. Our backyard was nothing, just an overgrown narrow mess of vines and weeds, when we moved in. And now it's usable. Small, but adequate. Play space and growing space (not the vegetables, those are in the front. but we do have some hefty old grapevines and 3 hazelnut trees) and a wide covered patio and plenty of room for hanging laundry in the sun. What more could I ask for, really? Anyhow, I did not find, in my fast search, the landscape photos I wanted. But I did find that one. A vintage tablecloth thrift score. I saw a hint of the colors and pulled that cloth out of a pile and swooned. Oh. I am such a sucker for bold graphics (of kitchen implements!) and thick, sturdy cotton, and paying four dollars for something so right.

Unrelated but on my mind: my boy's slowing down on his cucumber consumption. This is noteworthy since he and I are the only cucumber eaters in the house. If I put them on their plates, washed and sliced and ready to eat, the other two will swallow them down, begrudgingly. I sowed lots of seeds which have only produced one fruit, so far. But we got several from our ace farmers this week and maybe there will be more next week, and I have one or two leftover from *last* week. I love cucumbers. I really do. But out of hand and sliced in salads is feeling monotonous. I need to help with coming up with creative ways to use them. Suggestions? (um. edible ideas only. yeah.)

don't let this fading summer pass you by

Since the last time I came around here, the mister and I marked our thirteenth anniversary. Last year, I wrote a little about our whirlwind romance. And I'm proud that we made it through another year. A hard year. I keep thinking it will get easier and it keeps not getting easier and I'm not really sure what It is. But like the brilliant light that descends and casts shadows, marriage changes. I might not have to shade my eyes from the brightness of it so much anymore, but the sky can be so beautiful. And the stars in the dark night, worth waiting around for.

Also, I am still on a Neko Case kick and I am ever grateful for clever youtube users who post their own little videos, with songs I love as the background. So now I can share my favorite song off the the newest Middle Cyclone album with you. Here. I was going to tack it on at the end, but if you've never heard it, you can listen now and can catch up with me.

There is something for me, this year, about saying goodbye to summer that is so sad. Maybe it's a relic of growing up in the sunny southwestern desert. Maybe it's this stupid, nagging feeling that I missed out on the "best" years, those taut-bodied, reckless, careless days everyone seems to remember so fondly. I don't want to go backwards but I'm not ready to be in the winter of my life, either. And as much as I welcome a return to sweaters and endless cups of hot tea and seeing my breath in the outside air, I am thinking it wasn't enough. We're forecasting another warm spell this week, but it's not temperature alone I'm talking about here. It's being in the moment, it's not losing the pleasure in so much concern. It's holy heck! Thirteen years! Is this where we thought we'd be?

for science

Oh, be still my nerdy little heart. Did you know that They Might Be Giants is releasing (next month!) an album of science songs? TMBG is still our family house band, and even though I usually steer away from things I love once they become really popular (which implies that I'm partial to things that are not. which would be true.) I can't find one snarky thing ever to say about those guys. Maybe they're sell-outs and sing songs up and down the Disney channel (so I've heard, we don't have cable) and provide tunes for all sorts of things. But even a band needs to make a buck and I think they still produce consistently smart and quirky and singable songs. We love them. And I love that the Johns grew up and had kids and now devote a huge portion of their work to making music for children. I firmly believe that children will love all of their stuff (my kids sure do!), so I hope that the kid-centric albums are but an introduction to a band that should really be in everybody's music collection. I wrote a little some while ago about our history with They Might Be Giants, so I won't repeat myself too much. Suffice it to say, I'm looking forward to the new release very much!

And, being that it's about science and all, I couldn't help but be reminded of this link. Seriously, i if you don't already have this very old collection of science songs bookmarked, just click on over and do it right now. If you are already familiar with TMBG, you'll recognize Why Does The Sun Shine. But the whole collection is great. I've had it linked for years (I don't remember who sent it to me. I remember passing it on -to some of you, probably!) and the tunes are so catchy and informative they quickly became part of our life. Scroll down to the "experiment songs" and you can imagine my girl, when she was still a spritely age 6, dancing outside during a desert monsoon with an umbrella singing Who's Afraid of Thunder?. I love these science songs because they sound so much like the sort of hummy little numbers I like to make up myself, but with science accuracy!

your best polenta

Okay, you got me. This is about my best polenta. I've heard this rumor running around that some people don't like polenta. And since we like it a lot around here and find it quite versatile, I will tell you how I make it. The following might even resemble something like a recipe. With some exact, and some eh-whatever, amounts listed. It might become your best, too. No hard feelings if it doesn't.

I usually make a triple batch at a time, using 3 cups of cornmeal. You can buy coarse cornmeal that is specifically labeled 'polenta' but my regular cornmeal, which I buy 25# at a time from a natural foods bulk distributor, is coarse enough for me. I will just write up the amounts for a regular sized batch, but the pictures are from a triple.

4 C water
1 C cornmeal
3 TBSP olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
a whole buncha chopped up kale (or other greens)

Bring the water, oil, and salt to boil in a good sized pot. Slowly stir in the cornmeal. Keep stirring and turn the heat down so it's just simmering. If you pour the cornmeal in slowly and stir vigorously, there shouldn't be any lumps. Keep stirring while it thickens. I tend to start out with a whisk and then switch to a wooden spoon.

Once it's fairly thick, like pudding, I wash up a lot of kale and chop it. Tip: always put in more kale (or spinach or beet greens or whatever) than you think is right. Once they're cooked up they practically disappear and I like to err on the side of too many greens than not enough.

Then I dump the kale into the pot and stir it in completely.

It should be very thick. Very thick! Es muy importante!

Pour the whole mass into a greased bread loaf pan and let it set up. I put it in the fridge if I have a while or the freezer if I am in a hurry. Which for all my energy saving endeavors is an all around AWESOME idea, sticking just off the burner glop into a 0 degree freezer, I'm sure my freezer hates me. It takes a few hours in the fridge to get good and set up and hard. I think this is the key to making it my best polenta.

Once it's set up, I flip it out onto a cutting board and cut thin slices. If it was cooked slowly and thickly and had enough time in the fridge to set up, it will cut easily and will not fall apart.

I put the slices on a greased baking sheet and bake at 400 until brown and crispyish, about 20 minutes. I took pictures of the process, but you can see that the dinner frenzy, the "Mama! I'm Hungry Wight Now!"s and my "Yes, I know you're hungry, that's why I'm cooking dinner"s getting more frequent and closer together, distracted me and I did not grab the camera for the baking part or the eating part. I like to cook them until they're almost a little crunchy. Use your imagination.

We eat it under stuff, like pasta or vegetables or lentils, or on its own in a snacky way, or as a medium for dipping up hummus. So many ways to love polenta! My girl always requests that I whip up some "polenta sauce", which is her favorite way to eat it. The polenta sauce is one of those crazy things I made up once and was so well received it became a family staple (which is honestly the history of most of my dishes). It's stupidly simple and surprisingly delicious and you should make some and try it. It goes like this: you blend together marinara sauce and ground raw almonds. Es todo, no mas! I keep ground almonds on hand (and throw the stuff into all kinds of random things) but if you do not, you should. Gah, so bossy. No, if you don't, you should grind up your raw almonds first and then add the marinara sauce. I can't tell you amounts. I do it until it's thick and, this sounds weird but you'll just have to try it and see, cheesy. It becomes rich and creamy and is very reminiscent of cheese (I first made this when we were very very vegan and while we do eat -goat- dairy now, and have for some years, I'm still down with no animal product meals and eat a lot of 'em) and spooned on top of, or as a dipping sauce for, my best polenta? it's really good.

Oh, and I should mention that you could make this without the greens, but then you'd be making it without greens, and why would you wanna go and do that for?

the wrong and the right of it

Today was rotten. This is not my complainy place but I can't be one of those happy all the time, organic cotton and clotted cream bloggers. Oh you know the genre. Not the mommybloggers, but the betterthanyouraveragemommybloggers. I don't really think that everyone who blogs such constant contentment and harmony and unicorns is really like that all of the time. I appreciate presenting a certain public image. I do it myself, to a lesser degree. I'm not blogging with my pants down here, you know. It's me, but a muted me. The one that can say, hey internet! I'm here, too! But will hopefully not get me in trouble anywhere.

So even if I feel like I'm crashing some kind of blogging party by even daring to stick my words someplace and think other people might read them, I like being here. But as I was sitting on a blanket at the park today, at a park day sort of thing that is supposed to be friendly and fun and terrific, for children and parents alike, I was thinking about what a party crasher I always am, about how I really shouldn't bother. I managed, all morning, to be the same old cheerful mama that my children expect of me, the humorous and laughing mama, the engaged and patient one. It was a going through the motions morning, but the motions are such well-worn paths, I can close my eyes and steer without thinking and arrive, effortlessly, at the same gentle and kind (but firm) destination.

But by mid-day, the auto pilot went awry and I struggled to keep on track at all. Everything felt hard and wrong and rotten. So there I was at the park, and it happened that I had to be supportive of my daughter who had just experienced a huge disappointment (she was hoping to run into a kindred spirit she knows, who she has seen only once all summer and fell apart a little when she learned that was not to be). And in trying to comfort her, I just cracked. The plaster facade chipped away I have never been so glad to be wearing large dark sunglasses.

I sat there by myself and let all of my worries and regrets collide in a fiery explosion in my head. I sat there and wondered What The Eff Am I Doing Here?! Here being the park, an obvious outsider. Here being my town, lovely but not enough. Here being my life and situation, here being unknown and unemployable and thirty-three and, let me tell you, if you're going to have an existential crisis, maybe don't do it in a public park. Not that anybody noticed or that there was anything to notice, but it was an awful feeling. Maybe you call that feeling feeling-sorry-for-yourself, whatever. I was sorry and I was feeling and I was all by myself and if the shoe fits. . .

And then my boy fell off the play structure. His foot slipped on one of those big, curvey ladders and he fell, the back of his head bonking on the way down. He screamed, I ran to him, scooped him up, "I just want to go home wight now" he cried. And I couldn't have agreed with him more. We quickly gathered our things and made a beeline for the car. We've had other park day busts before, but this is the first one that felt weightier, more of a symbol of our not belonging, than any other.

I did not intend to write about this. I guess it just fell out and I am too jumbleheaded to erase and think of something else.

But even when so much is wrong, even when I seem to keep setting myself (and my kids) up for disappointment all the time, even when I don't know how to begin to get things right, I have to remember this: there are still books and blackberries, there are aprons and pockets and toast, there are songs and sunflowers, full moons and laundry on the line, and a dear little boy and his cat.