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!

Camp

There's a whole lotta campin' going on.

Last weekend I made a trip up to Lake James State Park with a few friends. Rained like crazy Friday night, and got a bit chilly Saturday night. My hair still smells of woodsmoke, even through four washings.

This is my s'more face:



I also managed to trip on the fire pit grate while trying to walk around it. Fearing that I'd land face-first in the fire (nice alliteration, eh?), I managed to throw myself in another direction. In doing so, a chunk of my epidermis ripped off my left palm. It was a clean separation that exposed a 1"x1"x1" (approx.) triangle of dermis. No bleeding, but man did it sting.

It's healing, but I fear a nice red scar:



I'm working this Friday and Saturday evening facilitating a youth group retreat. Around a campfire. They're gonna see my s'more face, and I'll end up smelling like beef jerky for another week.

Jodines!

OMG.

Y'all, I got a comment a couple of days ago from one of my most favoritest people in the universe, and definitely my favorite Catalana, Marta.

I met Marta when I was living in Barcelona, over 10 years ago now. (Vaya, como pasa volando el tiempo*...) We didn't hang out in Barcelona. Not much, anyway. We met towards the end of my year living there, when she found out that she'd be coming to my university on an exchange. I didn't have anyone to live with, and she had no idea about getting an apartment in a foreign country. A match made in heaven.

Seriously, Marta and I had exactly zero conflict when we were sharing a townhouse. Things just fell into place. I was messy; she straightened up after me. I liked to cook, so Marta ate what I made. Marta and I drove up to Michigan and stayed with my family, who loved her.

Loved.

Somewhere there are some photos from that time. My twin nephews, now 10, were infants, and we spent a gorgeous afternoon on a blanket in the front yard of my mom and Pete's house. The cherry tree was in bloom, and we were blanketed in pink petals. Truly a perfect moment.

I'm glad she found me here.


Marta, espero que sepas lo importante que me has sido y que sigues siendo. Aunque estamos en paises distintos, y a pesar de que solo hablamos cada dos años, yo sé que puedo contar contigo para cualquier cosa que necesite. Y también, que tú puedes contar conmigo. Es una amistad que tiene raices fuertes, y te lo agradezco. Mil besos, cariño.


*My how time flies.

For Cristin with looooove

My girl Cristin rocks. She just came by with tortilla soup from a local restaurant, Dunkin' Donuts and DVDs.

Hell yes.

Unmentionables and skeletons

Let's see if you can follow this trail:

I spent three years just after college teaching at a private school in NY. I ended up there for a few reasons--I needed a job, my boyfriend had attended the school before so I had a connection, and I couldn't imagine being prepared for any career other than teaching Spanish. I got the job, so voila. This was very much a reactive situation rather than proactive.

SO. Enter Facebook, again. The same boyfriend from that era had a close group of friends up there, and I plugged into the posse somewhat. I spent time with one woman in particular, really. She's not on Facebook, but another of the group is. He and I met maybe 3-5 times back then, and have talked more on Facebook than we ever did in real life.

He contacted me this weekend and asked if I'd been in a community theater show in 1995.

No. Not that I remember, anyway.

He wrote back and said, well, there are some pictures up here that I'd swear are you. They look like you and are even captioned with your name. He tagged me in one of them so I could have a look-see myself.

Sure enough, it was me. Three pictures, in fact. I tagged myself in the rest of them and messaged the poster, who'd been the director, I think. Haven't heard back yet, but I really wonder how he knew it was me. Shit, I didn't even remember until I saw the pictures. I'm looking forward to his response.

My time up in NY was one of the lower points in my life. I had few friends and less money. I lived on campus at this swank and very traditional boarding school, and was muddling through a long-distance relationship that really had ended some time before. Or should have, anyway. Teaching took a great toll on me--so much grading. So little time. Absolutely no training. Barely three years difference between me and my oldest students.

I'd be in the cafeteria at 5 a.m. and asleep by 8 or 9. I lived with two roommates and three cats. That's when my allergies really developed.

Signs of depression I wish I'd noticed:

Driving myself to the ER in the middle of the night because I didn't want to bother my roommates.
Extreme exhaustion.
Considering therapy for the first time ever, but rejecting it because of stigma.
Hanging desperately on to an unhealthy relationship.
Retail therapy.
Isolation.
So many painful and negative opinions about myself and my abilities.
Overreaction.
Personalizing situations that weren't personal.

Looking back, I don't know how I did it. I was a real mess, and this wasn't the first time. I'd seen the same behaviors and thoughts through most of my life, but they'd come and go in stages.

Over many years, with experience and much therapy, I've conquered or at least improved the ways I handle my life's challenges. I stand up for myself, I believe I am a good person, I can identify my own unhealthy reactions. I ask for help when I need it. I recognize that I've had some pretty rough times and survived them.

However, old habits die hard. I'm still isolated. I still feel unworthy. I feel like I've failed myself in many ways. I don't feel any of these ways all the time. But in my heart, deep down, I'm still not mended.

I cry for the young woman below who looks so happy but was so sad. I wonder if she'll ever really recover.





p.s. What's that SACK of a dress, anyway??

VCL. Oh. MY!

Yesterday I got back from Georgia, where as per usual I visited Jamie and Nemoid. Georgia is my default road trip. I have people I love there, it's relatively close by, and I always enjoy myself.

In that respect, this trip wasn't any different. So many things are the same from visit to visit, only changing a bit in the details. Jamie got a new freezer since I last saw her. The garden's bigger. Karen has a new car, and her children have reached new developmental milestones. Jamie, the s.o. and I trade stories about plants, wildlife, food and soil. Karen and I laugh about old times and catch up on the new ones.

It was just as perfect as it always is.

BUT! The overarching theme this weekend was not one of calm and expected happenings. Nope. It was a weekend of firsts. First time I've been stuck in traffic so bad that we turned the cars off entirely, going only two-ish miles over 1.5 hours. First time I've ever dropped my binoculars 8 feet onto a hardwood floor and knocked the optics out of alignment. First time I stepped with sandaled feet into a fire ant nest.

Sounds pretty sucky, that part. But it really wasn't that bad. I used the downtime in the car to clean it out, and the delay inspired me to let down my hair and buy cheap beer in cans in order to crack one open upon arrival, before I'd even opened the trunk. The binoculars miraculously fixed themselves over the course of two days. Right after the crash I had double vision through the eyepieces, but when I looked through them as I was leaving, the images had become one. I felt a certain pride at finally having succumbed to and survived fire ants.

Fire ant bites are rite of passage for southerners, don't you think? I only ended up with about 20 bites, thanks to multiple factors--not least being Jamie's s.o.'s quick reaction as I ran into the house shrieking "FIRE ANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Thanks for that, s.o.!

Welp, I'm making a short story long, again. Ah well.

The biggest first of all was on Saturday. See, when I asked my Georgia friends if they were going to be in town, Jamie encouraged me to come on down, with the caveat that she had plans in Atlanta for part of the weekend that I was more than welcome to tag along to.

That's how I found myself at a multigenre convention. Oh yes. Not *just* Trekkies. Not just comic-book collectors. Not just Dungeons and Dragons LARPs . Furries. Anime. Fairies. Wizards. You name it.


Fandoms of every sort wended their way around and through the three adjacent hotels that hosted DragonCon this weekend.

Here are my reactions, in brief:

• Wow.
  
• Everyone's either naked or overdressed.
• Hm. There are a lot of good-looking people here. That doesn't fit into my head.
  
• Am I supposed to recognize the characters people have dressed up as?
  
• Why would anyone go for a full-body plush or rubber suit in Atlanta in the summer?
• You know, that guy's creepy. So's that girl.
• Who has this kind of *money* to spend?
  
• The health department needs to have a table here with condoms.
  
• I wonder what all those Clemson and Alabama fans are thinking right about now?
• Does not compute
• A lot of people seem to be either fainting or puking in here right now. Not me! Cookies please!
• Most women's costumes rely on a corset, it looks like.
  
• Bad corsetry signals: breasts pushed so high they fold over on themselves. VCL under spandex.
• The Utilikilt to corset ratio is 1:1 (Holy CRAP that Utilikilt video's wrong!)
• I lack the background to understand any of the concurrent sessions here.
  
• Zombies.
• Poor kids in their strollers.

Check out the photos I took. Some of the costumes are obvious, but others left me entirely clueless.

BTW? Definitely worth the $50 entrance fee.



**************
Edited to add:

I forgot another first!

DURIAN! DURIAN!

I survived it! Basically imagine sweet taste combined with burnt hair/emerging BO. Unfortunately, I also ended up with Durian burps, which hold none of the sweet and all of the stench.

Burro

Dude. Bubba and I are home alone tonight, and I just played the video for him. OK, well, not FOR him, but just to see him again. He BARKED! A LOT!

And earlier when I had my friend Suze over for dinner after a matinee, he nicked the half loaf of bread we'd left on the table when we went outside to enjoy the fresh air for a bit. BUBBA! You're not supposed to do that. You don't eat steak scraps from the trash, after all. I suspect you're as carbo-loving as I am. The only time you seem to beg is when I've got crackers or an english muffin in hand.

Speaking of carbs, my oh MY. You have to make this for your loved ones. Don't let tell them the ingredients. For that matter, you might want to blindfold yourself AND cover your ears and sing LA LA LA while you make it. I'm not that dexterous, so I just resigned myself that it had better taste DAMN good. Instead of canned tomatoes, I used sauce that I had made yesterday, boiling down fresh tomatoes until they were literally half the volume they were to begin. There was an unfortunate forgot-to-stir incident during the sauce making. Just for the record, burning tomatoes onto the bottom of a pan will not ruin your sauce so long as you don't try to scrape the crap while the sauce is still in there. Just dump the sauce into another pan and cry that you've perhaps ruined your stockpot. The sauce will even be better for the burning, though, because it will taste as though you've roasted and caramelized the tomatoes somewhere along the way. Crazy.

I've never ever made a pasta dish that was so simple and so delicious. Actually, I may have never eaten a pasta dish that was that good, period. I tossed a handful of fresh basil in at the end, which made it even better. Suze and I both had two gigantic helpings, and I'm barely restraining myself from going into the fridge for a snack.

Do it. Seriously.

p.s. Suze never comments, but she does lurk. Just for that, here's a bit of dirt on her--she cried during the matinée of Mamma Mia we watched today. Somehow I did not, though I got a bit misty. Really, though, I think I may have just been lusting after Pierce Brosnan. Twentyish years older seems less of an issue than it did in the Remington Steele days. It left me so overcome that I spilled an entire HUGE Diet Coke on a young girl as we walked back to the car. Then I knocked my glass of wine onto the tablecloth. Thank god the wine was white, because so was antique linen table covering. More about Suze: she loves Bubba, too, and commented that he was rather catlike, for a dog. This as he lolled on her lap, paws up.

Excellent. Twenty minutes to write this means I still haven't gone back to the fridge for that leftover pasta. I might have to make that sauce for the next 12 meals in a row. I'll put the cardiologist on speed dial, don't worry.

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!!!!

When other people blog

Lazy Stew!

I'd planned to blog my very fun Thursday evening watching the VH1 Classic's "Rock honors the Who" with Cristin, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Fabulously, Cristin did the evening much more justice than I ever could. And the photos! You've gotta step over to Cristin's blog to see the goodness of the pix she took.

Check it out.

Additional observations:
• I introduced Cristin to McVicar, which had shots of Roger Daltrey's bare butt. I saw it at the Eastown theater* with my wonderful stepmother, who took a 10 year old girl to a midnight movie because she loved the Who.
• The musicians' commentary on Squeeze Box, my standard karaoke song, has vindicated me. I get made fun of for liking the song. NUH UH, baby! Sting likes it! So does Joan Jett! And Billy Idol! HA!
• I used to know all the lyrics of all the songs. That is no longer true. However, thanks to the magic of Google, I was able to sing along with everything anyway.
• Cristin does a damned good job of keeping her house cat-dander free. I slept over (very responsible of me) on her couch, and didn't have even one moment of breathing problems.

*No longer a theater--I think it's a church now, which in GR makes all sorts of sense.

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.

Dribs and drabs.

Inhale....exhale. Cough, cough. It's like a campground out there, folks. Very weird.
Two days ago, a very satisfied customer* sent me flowers. A large vase full of Gerber daisies. It was thrilling beyond belief, and I paraded them around the office, glowing. I wrote her a brief thank-you-for-the-thank-you note, to which I got the response "Oh, and we're making a donation to your organization in your honor."

Wow. Feels good!

*I've decided to call the people who ask me to do community presentations "customers" because it makes me feel good.

********************

Today is Ols's due date. A little girl. I can't wait to see the little poppet. Her parents-to-be look SO different from one another it's hard to imagine how those genes will mix. I'm also jealous that she'll have Moxie to snuggle up to as well as Ols and Mr. Ols.

********************

I'm off to see my sweet Nem this afternoon, but I'm not sure what's going to become of our plans. We were going to go to the botanical gardens and then for some crazy popsicles, but this haze might cause some re-thinking.

********************

Recent transplants don't understand just how much ice has to go in sweet tea if it's not yet cool.

********************

Garden SOC: My tomato plants are overloaded with fruit, especially the Sungold. I love how the itsy tomatoes grow like grapes. I have 1/4 inch cukes. I'm not sure which types of squash I planted, but they're up and thriving. I planted corn, but I'm afraid for their stability. They don't have much topsoil, and what there is is very loose. I haven't planted enough beans, so I have to hop on that. I don't think I ever mentioned that I've companion planted a slew of marigolds in between all of my nightshades. Oh. I have peppers, believe it or not. They're small, but they're there! I think I have some fertilizing to do. The raspberries are almost done, and I have a new one to plant. Thanks, gardening neighbor! I chewed up some Long Leaf Plantain to use as a soothing poultice for my new mosquito bites. Next time I'm out on swampy trails, I'll remember to do the same with Jewelweed, which is one of my favorite plants already. Love the seed pods. And apparently the seeds themselves taste like walnut. Yum.

OK. Have a good weekend.

Whew!

Hi! I have had a great day so far, despite it being 80º inside and rising. I started out at the farmer's market, because I have (count them!) two different potlucks to go to this weekend.

So I've spent the morning so far all about food. I used my new immersion blender to make my first mayonnaise, ruining two batches along the way. Apparently it can fall out of suspension if you look at it cross-eyed. I'm now just about out of oil, which is fine. I don't use it all that often anyway.

The mayo is going into a fab potato salad I've whomped up, containing radishes, green onions, garlic scapes, carrots, dill, hard boiled eggs, salt and pepper. And potatoes. The second dish is another of my faves, curtido. Cabbage, onions, garlic scapes, carrots, cumin seeds, jalapeños, adobo seasoning and vinegar. I'm glad I made the curtido a day ahead of time. It takes a bit for it to infuse with the goodness. Wish I'd done that with the potato salad; as it is I'm afraid it won't cool!

If you didn't get this part, all ingredients minus the oil and vinegar are local; I only contributed the dill from my own garden.

I have a bunch of dishes to do now, and then it's time to mix up a batch of dough. I'm going to try out my new dutch oven with the no-knead bread tomorrow. I'm quite excited about that!

Waiting to leave

Isn't he a handsome guy? A good friend, too. I've had a fantastic almost-week here in DC, mostly due to the company. Yes, Toby Toberson was a highlight, as he let me snuggle him half to death and loved it. But Marc, well, Marc was the best part. He's a fantastic host, and really easy to share living space with.

Other features: good eats, good drinks, afternoon naps, crosswords, and of course walks both with and without the Tobinator.

I was originally only going to stay until Sunday, but then we learned that our sweet Nem was coming into town yesterday for a conference this week. So with very little arm-twisting, I stayed until this morning. We all had dinner last night at a rooftop restaurant in Marc's neighborhood, and for the first time in ages I felt at home. Emily and Marc and I all met at around the same time at the same workplace almost 10 years ago. Others from that time are no longer much in my life, but those two have staying power. We haven't all lived in the same place for years now, and life gets complicated as we get older--jobs, families, moves. So it was a really, really nice reunion.

I never much remember the sightseeing I do on trips like this. I did go to the National Portrait Gallery, as well as the aforementioned trip to the zoo and Natural History Museum. I suppose if I lived here, I'd ignore all of that--it tends to be my M.O.

Yesterday afternoon I had a small attack of the blues. I tried to stay mindful, but I knew I was going home today, to a job that doesn't pay as well as I deserve, a messy house, a lack of companionship, and not much motivation.

My reaction to being in a city was one of pure joy at first. Built-in exercise, interesting sights, seemingly HUGE numbers of hot, single men, and a whole world outside my door. But there's also a part of me that knows that even if I moved here for good I'd still be the same person. A person in a major rut.

I have to get out of it.

Awesome

So...Marco talked me in to staying until Tuesday morning. See, my sweet Nem is coming to town for a conference on Monday, so we're going out to din din that evening for old time's sake. I met both Marco and Nem when I was temping at an organization that led to my eventual job track. The agency had a big USAID contract to do work in developing countries in the area of maternal and child health. Or as Marc put it last night, "We're in the business of saving mothers and babies." I worked in the resource center, i.e. tiny library. It was pretty easy work, and fascinating to boot. I read journal articles and then routed them around to the more senior staff to see who wanted to read what. Believe it or not, we did have the internets, but dead tree was still standard.

Anyhoo...

Yesterday I think I walked at least 10 miles. By the time I got home mid-afternoon, my legs and feet were so tired I thought I was going to die. Of course I didn't. But I did have to take a nap and bunches of ibuprofen. Which reminds me, I need to put some in my backpack.

The itinerary yesterday was the National Zoo and then the Museum of Natural History. Both were full of rambunctious children with their contact information pinned or stickered to their clothes. They screamed a lot. The zoo took up a lot of time and walking, so by the time I got to the Museum of Natural History I was pooped and not particularly interested in wading through the throngs. I sought refuge in the only unpopulated exhibit: DC Birds.

Hidden away in the basement was a somewhat grisly collection of taxidermied remains, poorly lit and locked in display cases. The birds were dusty, faded and rather gross. The owls in particular were lacking tufts of feathers, and the brighter warblers were barely showing their colors.

I was surprised, however, at the sizes of the birds. None of them was as big or as small as I had always typed them. There were also a number of extinct specimens, such as Passenger Pigeons and a Carolina Parakeet. I tried my hand at IDing some of the warblers, but was not particularly successful.

Hippo, above, taken for Nemoid's sake.

Off to the Portrait Gallery.

Pant pant pant pant

Excuse me here while I catch my breath. Since last Tuesday I've worked 70 hours. I have about 20 more to put in in the next two days, and then I'm taking off for our nation's capital.

Marc will be hosting, despite the upheaval caused by the arrival of all of his sea freight just a few days ago. I'll be couching it. I love couch sleeping!

Along the way I'll try to have lunch with Michele as well as stop by Ikea. Anyone in the area have any requests for me to pick up there?

In DC I plan to take off and sightsee for once. I've been to DC a number of times, but I always seem to be enmeshed in random Madonna concerts, marching on the mall or drunken St. Patrick's day festivities that involve eggs and Guinness at breakfast time. It hasn't left much time for your general Smithsonian goodness.

OK, just got done with mowing the lawn and attempting self-surgery on a skintag-like mole that I hate. I didn't succeed. Ah well. The sound of blood pounding through my ears must have been a sign that I was crazy. No harm, no foul, and not much blood. Damnit. I want that thing GONE.

I bandaged it up, but after a recent email conversation with Ols, I'm going to find some thread and try the tie off method. If that doesn't work, there are other options.

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

O Happy Day!

It's starting to rain, and I just heard thunder in the distance. The skies to the southwest are ominously dark, and I have the feeling we're about to get a good soaking.

I drove 200 miles this weekend, mostly while taking part in the CFSA Piedmont Farm Tour. It seems kind of wrong to be driving that much during Earth Day weekend, but the price-per-car made for a lot of carpooling. At least there's that.

Yesterday I volunteered at Braeburn/Cane Creek farm(s).

Ooooh. Wait. It just got really dark and windy. Maybe this is the first thunderstorm! Oh, my, it's battering the maple tree something fierce, and the wind gusts are making the huge drops fall at about a 60º angle. Yup. Thunder.

Ok, back to the story at hand (but it's soooooo awesome to

OMG HAIL!

Wow. The hail is pea-sized and my unplanted tomatoes are flying across the deck. Hm. Maybe I'd better bring in at least the Cherokee Purple seedling (!!!) I picked up at one of the farms today (only $2.50!). Hail seems to be over.

Sorry about that tangent. Anyhoo.... It's great to see some rain, and I'm glad I decided to come home this afternoon after only visiting four farms.

Yesterday, volunteering. Today, touring. Fab weekend, seriously.

Oops the hail is back!! Hang on while I watch it.

FUCK that was close. Jesus. Big thunder.

The hail is now just lemon-seed sized.

Damn, I can't seem to get my attention off of the rain. Maybe I'll write more about this weekend and how great it was after the storm is over.


EDIT: The temperature dropped 10 degrees outside in 2 minutes.
EDIT #2: According to weather underground, the temp actually dropped over 20 degrees in a nearby neighborhood. It was in the mid 70s, but now feels like it's about 50. Of course I don't have a thermometer or anything, so it's hard to tell.

Bird Crazy

So, migration is getting into the swing, and I haven't been birding in ages and ages. Yesterday I went to Maria's to pitch in on some weeding and mulching. Got sunburned a little where I missed a spot on my left shoulder. Oh man, I'm rambling. Ah well, it's OK because I haven't had any coffee yet (argh!), and I'll eventually get to the point.

I brought my binocs to Maria's just in case. She's a birder pal, as well as a garden pal, a public health pal, a spanish-speaking pal, and just an all around fantastic pal. While we were hoeing, scraping, mulching, and picking out henbit galore, we heard the loud teacher teacher teacher of the ovenbirds.

So yeah, migration.

We tried to see the yellow-throated warbler, but his sweetie sweetie sweetie belied his location (can I use belie that way?). Despite our neck craning and patience, we didn't see him.

I suppose this taste of spring migration is what led to my dream last night. I discovered what I thought was a nest inside my house. I saw a male American Redstart in molt sitting on a low shelf, and cautiously approached. I held out my finger, hoping he'd perch on it, but he just pecked at it. It hurt, but in quite a delightful way. I got him some seed and lay it near him. He ate it immediately, and as I watched I saw that there were more birds, baby birds, behind a basket on the same shelf.

Time lapse. I went to get a camera. None of them worked.

So I returned to just observe. Between going to get the camera and returning, my parents' housekeeper of over 20 years, Ruth, had been to visit. She had cleaned off the shelf, leaving just the basket. I picked up the basket, and inside I realized things had changed since I'd last checked in.

Instead of baby birds and a lone molting Redstart, there was now a mix of warblers. Some I knew, and others I didn't. There were two Blackpoll Warblers that I first mistook for Black and White Warblers. (Actually, in the dream I thought they were Blackburnian Warblers, but I meant Blackpoll and just confused the name. Now, looking at the pictures, they actually were Black and White Warblers, because they had stripy heads).

There were about 5-6 birds in that basket, and there was one that I seriously had no idea about. It was a warbler, but it was no warbler I'd ever heard of. The most distinguishing mark was the thin yellow X across its throat.

Yesterday I was remembering the time I had an avian visitor in the house. I bet that's another reason for my dream last night.

I need to get out there. I suppose I'll head out tomorrow morning before I let migration pass me by.

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.

Accomplishment

Y'all? I finished the bag and it is SO FREAKING CUTE (if I do say so).

I'm going to email Emily and tell her she's not allowed on the blog until her birthday.

LOOK!




And then a closeup: