Recession Christmas

I wish all Christmases were recession Christmases. Virtually all of the gifts here at my sweet second home have been hand made. The presents end up being so much more personal this way. They're an artsy bunch, this family, and it shows.

My gifts to them were either homemade or scavenged from around the house. Hats, scarves, too-small cashmere sweaters, a winter coat that didn't fit and that I've been too lazy to return (mail order! Annoying!), and the like. Since I hadn't prepared for gift-giving, I had a blast running around and seeing how creative I could be.

May your celebrations be simple. Happy Holidays.


(my new, original) artwork, pictured above:
Perfect from now on 7
2007
acrylic on paper
9" x 12"
by Wendy Heldmann
(Note the birds)

Dashing through the SNOW!!!!!

OK, so there might not be snow, but I'll be home for Christmas! At my second home, that is. My NC family home base is in Charlotte, at my sweet love JJ's parents' home. Skip, Jane, and the rest of the clan welcome me with open arms whenever I need it, and I am just full of gratitude for them.

Also, for my mumma, who read that last pitiful entry and offered to buy me a last-minute trip home.

Love Love LOVE!

Sleighbells ring and all that.

I've been feeling a little pathetic recently, to tell you the truth. I had some meds changed, which helped curtail a slide downwards that I was feeling, but they've also left me with some weird side effects. Basically, in the mornings I've been feeling shaky and sometimes vomitous. Actually, I think for the first time ever, coffee is truly exacerbating this yuck feeling. I tried stopping the wakefulness-encouraging medicine, but that just left me so sleepy I've taken two 3-hour naps in the last two days. Followed by a full-night's sleep. Ugh!

This morning it hit me hard that I was going to be alone on Christmas. I called up a friend, but she wasn't able to invite me along to her goings on. I have to admit that I then cried in public. I do have a couple of places I can go, but for some reason they don't feel *right*. I want FAMILY, darnit. Hi Mom. I love you. I'm still glad I'm not getting on a plane, but I sure wish teleportation were a viable travel option. Sigh.

The good thing is that I've managed to take the last couple days' slump and transform it some. I left the house this morning, and when I came back I put in a couple of loads of laundry, ran the dishwasher, and gathered cookie recipes. I've made some thumbprint cookies to showcase my plum jam, and I'll begin on my traditional toffee here in a bit. Tonight I have a party to go to, which I'm looking forward to, and tomorrow I'll be doing the Chapel Hill Christmas Bird Count. I did the Durham one last weekend.

I did get a couple of cards in the mail today, which also helped. One was from my wonderful Grandma, and I'd like to share it with you.

Dear Stew,

I'm sorry you couldn't make it up here for Christmas, but when you work that's not always possible. We'll miss our Stew but will look forward to next summer maybe.* The weather up here is just so cold and snowy right now. I hate to go out and shovel my walk off, but I'll have to because the poor little birdies are all out of seed. So I'll have to go fill the feeder. My two pair of cardinals and the little snow birds (juncos) and sparrows and chickadees and blue jays are waiting for me to feed them. The squirrels and a little rabbit are out there, too. The boys were over last week with their father, and they brought hamburgs. I can't say no to that! I went to school doings with Annie and the boys last Wednesday. Your mom and Pete were here Mon. and brought me wine, two kinds of soup, fresh strawberries, and choc. cheesecake. I guess I won't starve! We will miss you!

Love, hugs, and kisses from
Grandma


*What Grandma doesn't know is that I'm flying up to Michigan for a long weekend at the end of January. She's turning 90, and I'll be there, dammit!

The Friendly Birdy Island

"Aunt Stew, you're spilling your beer!" 6-year-old orange-headed nephew. Gotta love a guy who knows what's important, hm?

Mom and Pedro gave me their old camera, so I took a bunch of photos. Unfortunately, the light was rarely right. Here are the best of the bunch. I didn't edit.

Pearly-eyed Thrasher*



Black-faced Grassquit*

'
Black-necked Stilts and White-Cheeked Pintails*.


Zenaida Dove


Lesser Antillean Bullfinch


Bananaquit!! (definitely the best bird picture I got)


Ruddy Turnstones

Green-throated Carib



*Lifer this trip!! (Also, a female American Wigeon and Caribbean Coots)

Other birds: Gray Kingbird, Antillean Crested Hummingbird (so tiny), Common Ground Dove (also tiny!), Brown Pelican, Magnificent Frigatebird, Brown Booby, Common Moorhen, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Sanderling, Spotted Sandpiper, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Cattle Egret, Green Heron... I'm probably forgetting a ton. Ah well.

Oh, and check out this delightful surprise I found next to a beach bar!





(Yes, they were tasty.)

Sunscreen off season is pricy.

Who in their right mind gets an international flight that *leaves* at 6 a.m.?

Oh, me. Right.

SO! Saturday at 3:45 (yes, in the morning OMG), I'll be driving out to the airport, hopefully having a seat assigned, and jetting off to Sint Maarten, and well, Saint Martin also, via Miami.

Hm. Last time I went it must have been on my old blog, which has since vanished into the ether. Argh. Ah well, the first sinnoticiasdetstew lives on through the wayback machine. Or at least I hope it does. I've somehow lost the URL for that old blog. Anyone else have it? Wow. Argh. I just found the old link and the blog is GONE GONE GONE, do you hear me? ARGH!!!

It's OK though. Sad, but I'll get over it.

Cause I get to BIRD again. Yay Antillean Crested Hummingbird!



Male Antillean Crested Hummingbird
Originally uploaded by Alexander Yates

Mom Menu

My mumma's birthday is today! I called her from work when I was meeting with my cutiepie peer educator kiddos, who insisted they wanted to talk to her.

So she had a 10th grade boy and a 10th grade girl each ramble to her for a while. They are SO CUTE.

This is mom's dinner tonight. Can you figure out where she's going?
(I'm jealous)

Wednesday, October 15 $75
Hand-stretched mozzarella with late-season tomatoes and basil oil
Local swordfish involtini alla siciliana
Spit-roasted loin of Magruder Ranch California boar with shell beans and wild mushrooms
Meyer lemon granita with raspberry sherbet

Art (Not that kind)

As long as I've been alive enough to remember, my dad has been enormously overweight. Back at the end of January, as I believe I mentioned, Dad had some kind of gastric bypass type surgery. There was quite a long time where he felt like extreme crap, but it looks like that part is over with for the most part.

One hundred and fifteen pounds later, he looks like this:

I can put both arms all the way around him when we hug, and he's a handsome devil, but by far the best part is that he's been able to go off of almost all the medicine he took as a result of being so overweight. We went to lunch, and he ate 1/4 of a sandwich and two spoonfuls of a divine strawberry soup. Cheap date.

A day at the farm in Ionia. More of my favorite things.

Welcome to my aunt and uncle's 250 acre farm in beautiful Ionia, Michigan, home of the Ionia Free Fair.


The farmhouse is real old. It's kind of not my style on the inside, and I wonder if there are hardwood floors under the carpet. The well water is very very full of iron, which is difficult to get used to drinking.

The barn is really old, too. I love it. Blue silos rock.

Flower mix of goodness.

Oh, my, how cute?!

Uncle Evan. Over the course of my life they've had normal farm crops (wheat, soybeans, corn, etc.) and always animals. The best ones in my opinion were the angora goats. I mean, look at how cute the kids are! Evan and Linda used to have huge numbers of cattle for beef, but now they just have about 14 head that they breed for stud. One roan got out of the barn while I was there, which was very exciting. Aunt Linda and I had to chase the poor cow back before it decided to cross the street onto someone else's farm. Evan's not in the best of health, but he still spent the day spreading manure. Like I said, the farm is 250 acres, but Evan rents about 175 of them out to other farmers. The rest is for pasture, hay, and maybe grain.


Steer. Soon to be MEAT. Less than a month, dearheart. Enjoy it.



I wish I had gone up in the hayloft yesterday, but here's a shot of where the cattle go to feed once they've had their fill of pasture.



Grandma and Aunt Linda pick some strawberries. I came home with more vegetables than I know what to do with. And a pressure canner! And a ton of rhubarb seeds! And onion sets! Lots to do today. I might take the beans home in my suitcase and process them at home with my new pressure canner.




Isn't she lovely? Born 1919. Grandma kept telling me that if I was tired I should take a rest. There's another photo on flickr of her that I couldn't get to rotate correctly on my computer. It shows Gram's beauty even better. An added bonus is that you get to see a monster beet.


What a fantastic day.

Coming up: A few of my favorite things.

I suspect that this photo might cause someone in the household to look for the nearest trash can. I can't help, though, but love this bottle that has graced "my" bathroom closet since at least high school. Really. I adore it.

Decapitated Chicken

That's me. The day after tomorrow I leave at the asscrack of dawn to head up to the Great Lakes State for some R&R, good birding, and familial bonding.

Somehow, though, every single type of deadline possible is also this week, both at work and in my personal life. I have so many things to do that it's been keeping me awake at night, with all the to-do's running through my head over and over. What if I don't remember to do X before I leave? What if I can't get in touch with Y person? What're these other unexpected time-consuming work tasks that have a deadline while I'm gone? Must do! Must pay rent! Must document all car problems! Must water neighbor's garden by hand with her cistern water and free any Brown Thrashers that managed to break through the netting to get to the sweet sweet blackberries and then can't find their way out! Must make homemade fruitsnacks with a handful of blackberries and two dozen underripe peaches! Must do sinkload of dishes! Must deal with housemate pas de deux! Must clean out car! Must complete and hand over certain things best not to mention here but that take way too much time and are inordinately important and that are due before I go! And that I just found out about yesterday! Must pack ahead of time because I'm going straight from work Thursday to Chapel Hill to take my car in and then spend the night at Emily's so she can get me to the airport at said buttcrack of dawn! Must prepare my bathroom for new roommate to use before old roommate leaves! Must harvest and figure out how to take produce on the plane! Must get medicine refills, because I might run out, but who knows if I can because of the damned health insurance limitations?????????

Argh!!!!

So remiss!

Ugh. I guess for now the epoch of daily posting is in remission. Part of that is because I have new tales to tell and want to give them justice.

I took photos of my garden to post, but it looks like they're not wanting to upload, dammit. Oh, wait, at least one of them did. Rock on. Patience, Stew, patience. (Blogger is apparently playing hard to get.)

Shortly I'll be leaving for the Queen City for the weekend, where I'm going for an almost-family reunion. My friend-since-10th-grade jj, her parents, her sister(s?), aunts, uncles, cousins, and me. Oh, and NOT least, jj's two children (of which I've only met one), her husband, her sister's new babe, and her sister's husband (neither of whom I've met either).

I'll be taking them some gardenous bounty in the form of a couple of tomatoes, cukes, plums (from the community garden), plum jam (same, but I processed it last week), and peppers. As you can see below, the eggplant is not yet ready, but isn't it looking nice? The beans are behind, because I planted them way late. That's fine, though, because there's still plenty of time for them.

Now for the pix, which did eventually upload. As you can see, however, some of my edits didn't take for some reason. Bizarre that they didn't save as rotated.

Anyhoo:

One of my eggplant plants.

Corn! And maybe zucchini. Something in that family, anyway.

Tomatoes. One of many varieties. The first to ripen were the sungolds, as I mentioned before. The second is the Cherokee Purple. This is either Better Boy or perhaps Pink Beefsteak.

Hydrangea. I got this plant about 6 years ago, and it was a baby in a 6 inch pot. (Note the fig tree behind it.)

One of the zinnias. Gorgeous color, isn't it? Cosmos and swiss chard beside it.

Misleading photo of a summer squash. It's only about 6 inches long. Perspective. I'm guessing it will be good to eat in a few days when I return.

My tomato/pepper/cuke/eggplant/marigold bed.

I wish my camera took better close-ups. It's from about 2000, though, so whatevs.

To all the Moms I've loved before...

Mumma and Li-Li (4 years ago, maybe?)

Annie and Gigi.

The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother's Day are the good ones. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

It's a good thing that all the mothers I know are good ones. See, I don't forget the important days so much as I don't get things together in enough time to do something about it.

Of course MY mom is the most important and best mom in the world. After all, she made me carob-chip wheat germ cookies when we were little! (Hey mom , do you still have that recipe? It was really good except for that carob part. Lots of butter and a nice sandy texture.) And she sent my sister to get piano lessons at a woman's house (Heather Halstead?) who kept owls and made her own yogurt! (Is it true that there was bird shit everywhere?) My mom's the one who comes to take care of me, even now, at the drop of a hat when she's needed. Gallbladder surgery, major depression--you name it. She bought me Zork for our Apple ][+ (A trendsetter, she was.) Thanks for taking me to the farmer's market, Mom.

My Sea Star is also on my top list of fave moms. Her Three Sons are so cute and nice I can barely barely (stand it). See, that's the thing. Annie has a fantastic sense of humor, and makes up her own language. I can't tell you how many of my friends now say things that began with an Annieism. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't be Stew. Or Tiny Cutie. Or Nen. Or Little Juan. Or any number of the zillion nicknames she's made for me. Her boys haven't escaped this, of course, nor would I want them to have. She's the Big Jose to my Little Juan.

Tiny Grandma (nickname courtesy of Anko as well) is the powerhouse, though. She's going to be 90 in January, my sweet grandma. I love love love her so much. Gram, Gigi, Izzy, Zet, Izetta. She's the best. I really wish I had more time to just sit and talk with her, because Gram has the best stories ever. We can talk about anything. She taught me to sprinkle sugar on a lettuce leaf from the garden, roll it up and eat it. She always had Chef Boyardee ravioli for me, as well as sugar cereals in the tiny boxes you could make into bowls. And a garden. Yum. Gram also taught me how to peel the fibrous membrane away from a shelling pea's pod to make it edible. She showed me wintergreen in the forest.

Keashie is my other mom. I'm not sure I know many people who are more down to earth than she is. It was really interesting growing up with a stepmother. The relationship, in my case, walked the line between parent, aunt, and friend. Not having the traditional parent role takes some of the pressure off, I think. At least from my point of view it did.

Many of my friends are moms. I salute you, Nem, Pinky, JeniQ, jj, Nemoid, Jisook, Nicole, Marianne, minty, Helene, Alexia, Clella, Maggie, Peaceable Imperatrix, and anyone else I inadvertently leave off.

Brenna, KW, Ols--you're all about to become moms for the first time. Savor it, even when you curse the late nights and nipple chafing.

Love,
Stew

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. ~Spanish Proverb

No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones. ~Harry Truman

Loose ends

I can't figure out what to do with my time. There are things I should be doing (ahem, taxes), but it's the weekend, and well, yuck.

So I'm in bed, awake for the past 4 hours, but I haven't done anything other than cruise along on the internet. I want coffee, but seem to be too lazy to make it. I suppose the plan was to get up and go to a coffee shop, but I couldn't find the motivation. I didn't know where to go, and I didn't know what I'd do when I got there. I suppose I'm just feeling like I'm at loose ends.

There's a little bit of a bummer-drag feeling inside of me today, also. I got a text message from someone who I have no respect for, but who is inextricably linked to my three favorite boys. They're apparently in Nashville currently, and The Father (who I really dislike interacting with) wanted to see if he could call me "since it's a favorite place of yours" or some such. Well, I haven't been to Nashville in 15 years. What's really bumming me out/pissing me off about this is that The Father was a friend of mine way before he was The Brother In Law and then The Father and then the Asshole. And in that role of friend, he came to visit me in Nashville. So the text message makes me just that much more bitter and sad and pissed off, remembering those nice memories and how tainted they are now.

I'm crying a little bit now for that lost friendship. And for knowing that right now I *can't* call them because he still makes me so angry, even four years later. And that makes me feel guilty, because a big part of me wants to let bygones be bygones for the sake of my dear sweet boys. Why shouldn't they talk to their aunt when they're in a town that she lived in? It's my inability to deal that's upsetting me. I don't want to be that person who stops talking to other people. It messes with kids. I mean, if it were just some random person who fucked me over I would have no problem with just cutting them out of my life. But this isn't comparable.

I also feel guilty, of course, because I'm not the one who was most wronged in this situation. My anger is mostly by proxy, but also directly. He lied to everyone. I trusted him and he fucked up royally, and for a very long time, and very badly.

So kids, if you have friends who become relatives, a word to the wise. Don't be an untrustworthy asshole who hurts those around them, who trusted you and loved you and welcomed you with open arms. Don't lie and disrespect and screw over your friends' loved ones, their family, their friendship.

Just don't. It leads to days like this.

Thanks.

not. hungry.

Dude.

I have been eating like a queen recently.

Thursday:
Dinner at Q-Shack
Friday:
Lunch at Watt's. I already talked about that.
Dinner at home. Also already discussed.
Many provisions purchased at Whole Paycheck.
Saturday:
Breakfast at home--an almond croissant from WP with coffee
Farmer's market--strawberries, cheese from the CH Creamery, lettuce and radishes.
Lunch at El Corral over on Hillandale. It was SO cold and we apparently needed some major sustenance.
Dinner at Piedmont. This deserves some talking about. I'll do that after I'm done cataloging.
Sunday:
Breakfast at home--Fage full-fat yogurt with honey.
Pre-brunch at home--salad with my romaine! Yay, garden!
Brunch with My Sweet Emily at Guglhupf. I had an entire bread basket, complete with 2 packets of Nutella.
Snacks at home: I ate the leftovers from both Piedmont and El Corral. YUM.
Monday:
Breakfast at home--bread from Guglhupf with butter and chocolate chips (What!?)
Lunch: salad made with Farmer's market lettuce and radishes, garnished with green onions from my garden. More bread. A pound (yes) of local (yes) strawberries (you heard me right)
Dinner: Tentative, but likely, a feast at Angus Barn on someone else's dime. Rowr.

***********
OK, so Piedmont: Cheese was smoked blue from Oregon with candied pecans. Yum. However, the candy on the pecans wasn't quite at hard crack stage, and so was that "pull out the fillings" texture. Eesh. Tomato and Fennel soup: fabulous. Mom and Pete both had the NC striped bass. Mom's wasn't cooked. We sent it back and it returned gorgeously prepared. I had the orecchiette with broccoli rabe, roasted garlic, red pepper and Parmesan. The combination was good but OH MY GOD was it overly salted. None of the desserts appealed, so Mom got a nice port comped for her fish being raw-ish the first time around.

Visit visit

Mumma and Pedro are here. We're eating really well. Watt's* for lunch, grilled steak and salad at home for dinner (I had just cheese, apple and bread.), almond croissants for breakfast, Piedmont for dinner tonight....

Yum.


*I had a slightly bizarre experience with the burger at Watt's. It came bloody rare (as in exploded onto me at first bite and then bled copiously onto the bun), so I sent it back, asking for medium. In what may have been a fit of pique, the kitchen brought it back to me entirely gray throughout, dry and hard to swallow. On the one hand, how marvelous to have a restaurant able to cook their burgers rare for those that want it that way (they didn't ask me how I wanted it). On the other hand, WTF? Medium is NOT rock hard.

I haven't had a lot to say recently, have I? There's no real reason for that. I'm just plugging along, enjoying life for the most part, and thinking about the fact that three of my friends had babies in the space of 1.5 weeks. I've only met one of them so far (so cute!!), but I hope to meet the other one real soon. The third lives kind of far away, so I won't meet her for some time.

Since I put together my grow light setup, I've been getting up a little before 6 every morning. It's nice to have a cup of coffee outside at that hour. I sit and listen to the birds; I've finally been hearing Roo-Roo the Rooster, who lives across town a bit, as an illegal pet. He's sweet, and very vocal. I'm also going to bed really early too. Except for last night, when I was up until midnight. I think I slept too much the night before!

I've finished a couple of neato crochet projects. One was the plastic-bag doormat. Note to self and others--use bags that have mostly the same weight to them. If you have particularly strong bags, cut the plarn WAY thinner than for a typical grocery bag. The other project is a jellyfish, which I think I probably mentioned somewhere else, but can't be bothered to look it up and see. I like this one where he seems to be swimming. (On my unmade bed!) And this one is what he looked like after I decided that he needed to have a heftier head.

I had my little nephew LiLi (Liam) in mind when I whomped that baby up. Now I need two more projects for 10 year old boys. Can't leave the others out, you see. I have no idea what they might like, though. It's also slightly complicated in that I still refuse to use patterns. Cobby Cobberson (Conor) loves soft things, so that's a factor. Bubbina (Ian) is a harder nut to crack. He likes science. Actually, both of the twins are really into nature. Maybe I'll make an caterpillar emerging from a cocoon or something for one of them.

Any other idea? What would 10 year old boys like? A nose with boogers?

Better, I think

Dad called me just now, and said he felt bad for dumping his troubles on me. As IF! I'm glad he told me about it. Even though it's sad to hear he's feeling crappy, I'd much rather know about it, and help if I can.

Anyhoo, he said he's feeling better, but that it's a day-by-day thing.

In other news, I'm getting really excited about an idea that's been floating around the office here, to create a youth community garden as a childhood obesity prevention initiative. I'd been thinking about it myself, since we've been getting more and more into that particular topic here at work. I mentioned it in passing yesterday while everyone was gathered in the conference room eating cake piped with hot-pink icing (hypocrites!), and it turns out I'm not the only person who is thinking that'd be a great idea.

It would be a huge undertaking, and guess who'd be the primary person doing it? MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Luckily we have a sister-city with an organization dedicated to similar programming, though with a different mission.

It may just be a pipe dream, but I know others who are working on similar things who can also advise, I'm sure.

Wheee!

Daddy

So, Art's not doing so well, a month after his surgery. Sure, he's lost 60 lbs and is almost unrecognizable because of it, but he's also suffering greatly.

Every day he wends his way through never-ending nausea, diarrhea and dry heaves. His back hurts so much he's unable to move around much. He doesn't sleep at night. He's lost his voice. He's got blood coming out of places it shouldn't be. Dying goes through his mind. He can't keep even water down. The day I talked to him he'd managed to consume three saltine crackers with jelly and three blueberries.

I'm sad and worried.

The good news is his blood sugar and blood pressure look fantastic.

Did ya miss me?

I got a couple of frantic calls yesterday from my sweet mumma, who was worried I'd gone missing or something. I hadn't answered the phone, I hadn't blogged...

Poor mumma!

Of course, I'm totally fine. I'd been busy and out at schools all day every day and my phone has been on silent, is all.

I for sure haven't had much to say here. Lemme think...I saw Nicole this week, which was fun, especially because she brought her little two-month-old. I worked a lot. I've been going to bed early and getting up early when the grow lights go on a bit before six.

I keep buying yarn. I started some new seedlings--eggplant, cilantro, basil, and more ground cherries, since the others haven't germinated. I picked up 5 bags of leaves from a neighbor, which I'll use for my composting. I finally got some new clothes from a gift card I got at christmas. I made a lemon pound cake. I went to an Oscar's party.

Same old same old.

Hankies

Five years ago or so, a Belgian/Spanish friend brought me a couple of hankies from Spain. I'd never considered using them before that, but once I did, I was a convert. Collections of anything really aren't my thing, but beautiful old linens just woo me with their softness and craftsmanship. Tea towels, tablecloths, napkins, aprons and hankies are my downfall.

This weekend I documented most (but not all) of the hankies I use. They were meant to be used, after all, and my deep distaste of collections is mitigated when I can rationalize the purchases as things I use rather than things I just look at. Some of these I bought at thrift stores or garage sales. Some were inherited. Some were purchased. They're all beautiful. Despite the beauty of the old ones, they're usually extremely cheap--no more than $2 each.

NB. I don't iron.