LoquatToday, life is out of balance.
Not all of it, mind. I have made the small and useful discovery that, unlike the previous place, I do not need to be nearly as efficient about space. I am taking advantage of this: floors are wide open now, easy spaces for pacing and easier to handle. I no longer recognize the study, but I feel far more at home.
The world is spinning sideways today in other ways: there has been both too much time and not enough, there has been one more thing forgotten halfway down the hall. Doors I have unerringly pushed on the correct side for years have befuddled me, and the buttons on the elevator were of no help is telling me where to go. Some days are like that. Today was like that.
Tomorrow will be different. I should see about carpets.
Weather ReportThe air is syrup, and the haze is lit from the thousand lamps around, most over the truncated horizon at the edges of the valley. Over on the other side, the street lamps dance a little in it. The chorus of insects are winning in their war with the air conditioners, and the sounds of the traffic are reduced to a soft, shallow hum, somewhere deep in distance. Even now, the night is punctured with the staccato of firecrackers, lit carefully in the alley and followed by scattered whooping. The ceiling fans offer gentle comfort, but only when I am still.
I could a use a mango, spicy sweet, and some yogurt, tart, but I have neither of these. The solid walls of the foundation offer some comfort with their stubborn grip of cooler times.
The trick I have learned in walking is that walking far brings the comfort of sleep even when nothing else does. I think I shall sleep reasonably tonight.
ToastA while back, I was having a donut. I made the mistake of glancing at the toaster. A donut, thought I, is a lot like a bagel, and I've got a good toaster for bagels. So I tried it: a turn in the toaster and a bit of butter (it was toast, after all) and I had myself a plateful of something that was very bad for me, and very, very good.
It occurred to me then: what would French toast be like with donuts? Well, we tried that. If anything, that was both worse and better. Then: what about bread pudding made from donuts? I didn't have the schmaltz for that, but a friend of mine did. He made up puddings from both yeasted and cake donuts, and we ate them up with syrup. I do not think I ever need to repeat that experiment, no matter how good it was.
The thing is, though: I've got a stack of croissants on the kitchen table.
FruitfulI have spoken before about the box of produce I share with friends on a weekly basis, all good stuff from local farms. Each week the three of us have our troubles making it all disappear before the next one, but with a little focus (and a well stocked larder with the right kind of cheeses) it can be done, it can be done. We are finally moving out of lettuce season, now: how they manage to grow such stuff deep into the heart of summer is a puzzle, and I feel very much like a rabbit these days. This week the box was packed with new potatoes and chard, carrots and dill, cabbage and pole beans, squash, squash, and squash: tomatoes. There was still lettuce. My ears are beginning to twitch of their own accord, these days. All of this was compounded by the problem of travel; the other two are leaving, so I am left with the lion's share of the haul this week. For the next seven days, I think I will have to become vegetarian if only to restore sanity to the fridge.
There are things I can do. There will be a spicy curry of squash over rice, dressed with the Thai basil that sits in a vase on the table. Some of the zucchini will dance across the grater to become fritters, some will roll across the cutting board in slices and then sit in oil with garlic, to be put upon pasta: others will disappear into sweet loaves of quick bread, heavy with the basil from the garden. The roasting pan will see work with the potatoes and dill, and then again with the pole beans and whole cloves of garlic, to be turned out into a bowl with the tomatoes sliced cold and a bit of mint from the patch by the walk. The chard can go with beans from the pantry (I must soak some beans) and the cabbage may become kraut if I am brave, or soup if I am not. It is a good time of year.
We also scored a very reasonably priced flat of excellent blueberries, perhaps the last we'll see this year. Some will go into pancakes now, some into the freezer to become little marbles of summer to go into the pancakes of February. If things go as planned, I will have jars of blueberry jam to put up by Sunday. Some of them will go into yogurt, and some for just eating: like that, they are just fine.
I came home tonight to find more of the tomatoes in the side plot by the house had turned from a delicate blush to the full fire of ripeness: one of them had fallen free of the vine, and sat plump in the mulch below. It was the first tomato of the season, the first tomato of the garden, the first tomato from my efforts in this place, warm and smooth in the sun. I picked it up, brushed it off, and tried it.
There is little so good as that.
Room For The NightWe've been getting some rain.
This is something of an understatement. Three times, fronts moved through today, nasty lashing smears of red that marched across the radar, casting premature twilight outside and splitting the sky with light and deep percussion. By the second one, it was raining inside in several places in the building where I work (and much, much worse in many others where I do not). The house is doing well enough: the basement gathered a small puddle, but this is nothing considering what fell when the skies opened, over and over.
The critters are seeking shelter, too. I seem to have managed to leave the hasp off the door to the potting shed when I checked it earlier for water. Something timid has decided to shack up in there, somewhere in the back behind the plastic bag of soil. It's probably quite damp.
There's nothing to eat in there, and there's no way into the rest of the house from in there. I'm not too worried, previous experience and all. I'll leave the door ajar tonight, with hopes it will go tomorrow. It's time to clean the potting shed in any case.
Be warm tonight, be dry. Be safe.
This Is Not My CatConsider distance.
I was settling in to make some blueberry jam, or chocolate syrup (I hadn't decided) when a call came in from Ms. Tanner. There was a small crisis concerning a cat (hers), in that the cat was ill, needed to go to the vet, her petsitter had no car, and she was four hundred miles away.
I like cats. Health is a fragile thing. And I have a car.
So I scooped up the cat in her carrier, an hied her some ten miles east to some very good folks to make sure that whatever it was, it wasn't serious. Ten miles to the east is easy; should you wish to, fetch a map of this place and consider the route from Oakland to the far end of the Miracle Mile, out where 22 makes a careful crossing of 48. The parkway makes this simple, and somewhat quick. I think the cat could have used less road noise. I also think that the cat likes Pinback rather less than the lute music of Venetian courts five centuries past; this was unclear. In any case, once the car calmed down, so did she, returning to her sweetheart self.
We spent some time there, filling out forms, relaying histories, reading a book and scritching heads. The mechanics of that were somewhat complicated, but it was cheerful to be an element of human effort that conquered four hundred miles of distance, if not with ease, then at the very least competence. I am pleased to report that the cat is fine, or at least mostly fine. There are no bears in that basement tonight.
And yet: I was left with something of a problem.
If you consider the map, you will note that I was now ten miles east of where I needed to go. This was tricky: the parkway in that direction is very badly broken this weekend. Adding to the tricky were the many, many carloads of folks using said broken route in an attempt to get to the Steelers exhibition opener, and those that knew better were spilling over into all of the others. This is the same ten miles as before, but now fraught with peril and doom. I had a map of my own; I decided to try to be clever.
Around here, that usually means getting lost.
I really need to get around to finishing the essay on this: one way to think about dealing with traffic in this place is to consider the problem much like a jeweler, sitting down to cut a stone. Find the planes, and go gently. For myself this afternoon, this meant finding a way back to Oakland that would be utterly useless to anyone attempting to get to the game. I've used this trick before at other places and times, and it has served me well.
This time, I took 48 to the old Penn highway through Garden City, then up Jefferson to nip along Frankstown, cutting across to...
I'm not sure I should say. I imagine somewhere around here is a guild of navigators, artisan, with whom are kept the arcana of getting around this county. To join them is to endure a harsh apprenticeship, only turning right. To rise to the ranks is to understand the South Hills. One is elevated to Master only when one knows where that bridge goes. It would not do to spill secrets.
I will say this: it worked. And for that, the cat didn't mind at all.
The Unintentional Consequences of JamSometimes, cooking is like art. Fire up a pan, pull this and that from the garden, let it touch heat briskly, then eat with bread. Things are fresh, and things are good, and obviously so. Sometimes, though, cooking comes with instructions, and following them is important. Baking is like that: sometimes doing it a little differently makes for poor bread. The chocolate syrup was like that, too, I suppose: I've managed candy-making with loose tolerances, and chocolate glop is likely going to be a good thing, even if I screw it up. I got the syrup right: I do not think I will ever be able to again justify buying the stuff.
Canning is different. There are tolerances to canning: there is timing to do, and temperatures to maintain, and above all: care. Things need to be sterile, and the things touching the things need to be, too. If one does everything right, there is a jar of summer in the pantry, waiting for winter toast. If it goes wrong, though, things can get grim.
There are three pints of blueberry jam sitting happy on my radiator. I was careful, and I have a positive seal on all three. I think I did everything right. On one hand, I wonder at my skill, having no experience. On the other: people have been doing this stuff for years and years, and I have relied heavy on the collective wisdom. I will put them up on the shelf, and let them look forward to winter in any case.
It still remains that I made blueberry jam. I know exactly what went into those three jars: ingredients, time, technique. This in itself is a whole mess of fun. As an added bonus, I had some leftover unprocessed blueberry muck. I put it over ice cream and sat on the porch. I saw three meteors. I hope to see more.
The tomatoes are next.
SirensFrom the study, I can look across the valley up the hill to where the fire station sits. When the calls come in and they spin up the red lights, I can watch their progress down the hill. They usually fall silent until they reach the intersection, and the trucks let out a mighty wail to mark their passing. I know that I am only seeing the very beginning of a story - I wonder at where they go.
The other evening when the winds came through, they did a fair amount of work. A piece of the commute can wind through the back end of a hollow in the park, should I choose the route (I often do - blackberries grow there). The wind did much work there, and there is more light in that back corner than there was some days ago. The wind came as a great paw from the sky, pushing down a swath some ten yards wide and who knows how long - such things are hard to see in the lie of that land. It was sad to see so many big trees down, but that's the way it goes, sometimes.
Down in the hollow, there was one tree that splintered and snapped somewhat up from the forest floor, and the violence of the fall and the wind took away all of the bark along six feet of it, free of detail and suspended where it fell, nearly on the horizontal. Someone has taken it upon themselves to use that bit of trunk as a canvas: today, a stenciled message (in stain, or paint, or possibly woodburning) appeared:
I do not know who put it there, or how they did, or how long it will last. I do not know what they finally do with the old trees, fallen, cut, and stacked like toy logs at the side of the service road.
Maybe they mill them.
Phone ThrowerSometimes, the racquetball games lack balance. Today, we found ourselves brilliantly adept and spinning up the ball. The rackets pass against the ball with terrific force, and the ball takes new gyre. We were managing to deform the thing from spin as it flew. This is useful: the ball takes unexpected bounces off of walls. This is less useful, as we were utterly inept at judging the spin today, and we were sending returns all over the damn place.
Eventually I got clonked in the temple. No great harm done: it's only a racquetball, after all. Getting thumped in the head is never pleasant, but I am fine. We've got a rule: when someone gets tagged, we stop: we're supposed to be having fun in there (we do, we do!) and it doesn't do to worry.
The food from the farm has shifted: there is less lettuce now, an explosion of tomatoes, and the round green rind of a sugary melon sits on a shelf in the fridge. There will be potatoes, soon, to go with the cabbages.
Far in the night, klaxons of volunteer fire companies chant urgency, then fall quiet to yield to the insects and wind.
WiddershinsI used to live near saltier waters. I miss it sometimes: having a clean line between sea and sky is a comfort. There's a piece to living out there, though, and it is that the ocean is trying to kill you. Hurricanes are an excellent example.
My personal definition of a hurricane goes something like this: hurricanes are fun! The weather becomes interesting, then fascinating, then utterly riveting. The trick, though, is that there comes a moment when it is fun no longer, and you want it all to stop.
It doesn't, though. That's nature out there. It makes me happy I live up here on the quiet side of this little hill.
In the near distance, the fireworks are booming over the river. The breeze is cool, and the refrigerator has developed new percussion in its work. My foot remains a bit sore: in addition to the venoms of yellowjackets and hornets, it appears that I am also not dangerously allergic to the hot touch of the common honey bee. These little discoveries are getting somewhat old.
In the far distance, darker works are over the ocean, and they are spinning up.
Offense DefenseWhen tromping into the back corner of the garden to do some badly needed weeding, it is important to wear:
...which is all of great help when the yellowjacket stings one in the face.
Ow.
To The LobbyThere is a trick to putting together dinner for one: start right away. Walk in the door, put down the trappings of the day, pull out the cutting board and the knife and place them on the counter. You might not need them yet, but put them out. Look around for something good.
The day has been cold and wet: we get teasers for the seasons sometimes. I got lucky. I had remembered to set a potful of jackson wonder beans soaking the night before, and they went in with some trinity, to cook down and settle over rice. I'm also happy to discover that the chocolate syrup makes a wicked and easy cocoa. I'll have to be careful of that.
The cocoa makes the porch comfortable, just out of reach of the rain. I should start hosting dinners.
The Gloves Are ImportantThis evening, I took a quick trip up to Mr. More's house, a bit to the north and up on a hill. I was a little hesitant to battle rush hour in that direction: I've had some experiences. It turned out well, though, and I now have a trunkful (soon to be rackful) of scrap oak and other things with which to practice on. And perhaps make things from. More than anything, I need to spend some quality time making sense of the basement again. This weekend, willing.
In the farm crate this week, myself and my cratemates found tucked in the bottom corner a true herald: we found our first salsa bag. In this one, there were two jalepeños, six tomatillos, and a mess of cilantro, all of which we split. Elsewhere in the crate were tomatoes and onions. It is the time of year for this sort of thing.
The food processor makes a good case for itself, in putting together a salsa. I've done that, but I lack the touch: I usually end up with a smooth muck, somehow, and while this is good for many things (marinade, reduced for sauce, etc.) I find the resultant glop to be poor for chips. I have chips, so I went after the lot with the big knife, reducing the cilantro to bits and carefully dicing the rest. It's all sitting in a tub on the counter with a bit of salt, and it should be ready to start eating soon.
The trick with the jalepeños is that they are highly variant. We've had them arrive mild, and we've had them arrive with some strength. Last year, we got in a batch of 'em that were downright upset with the world, and wanted to make sure it knew. We've learned to wear gloves. As I seeded the dark green flesh with a spoon and diced it with the small knife, I felt heat fall on my face, teasing. It should be a good salsa.
Mr. Containment likes tomatoes. I had some early girls ready to fall from the vine, and I sent one home with him. He spoke with me later: he found it difficult, he said, to find the correct superlatives. He was afraid that the attempt to describe the qualities of the experience of that tomato would only come across as incoherence.
"Oh," I said, "you had a ripe one."
HomeAfter our taste of autumn (cool, damp) we have our summer back (warm, damp). The gardens loved the rain, and the nightshades love the heat. The brandywine is coming back, setting fruit, high out of range. Two new eggplants are budding out. Even the parsley is making a run. Otherwise, these are not nights fit for quick living.
I took a folding chair out to the raised beds and sat for a bit, watching the wasps. They are subtle, and they have hidden their home well. It looks like any other patch of tumbled mulch out there, and was utterly invisible under the weeds: it is no wonder I missed it. Only four sentries betrayed the entrance, carving out a small airspace. They will move on soon, and with the first hard freeze I can turn the earth and see what they've left behind.
From the study, I can see the moon. It is rusty from the weight of the air. Somewhere out there, a heavy train is rolling, and the air carries the rumble well. The moon moves from stile to stile, and it goes slowly.
Tempting FateSome progress made. There are a few devices in my life that become less than useful when the power goes out. Now, in the study, these devices all sit happily behind a battery, complete with a little green light to proclaim that all is indeed well. I built a riser for the battery box to keep it off the carpet, and there is enough room left over to accommodate the black cube that used to sit on the table. Under the table it can burble all it likes; the room is quieter for it.
Now all I need to do is test it. Ha!
The riser itself was something of a success. It is not a great piece of furniture, but it's functional. It was far more useful in the building of it: little by little, the tools are finding homes.
The light show in the sky is starting.
HaymakerOne of the aspects of this place that I dearly enjoy is that there is something of mine on the other side of these walls, and I can put a foot on land outside and still be standing on my home. The apartment wasn't like this: there was no place to spend time outdoors there that wasn't shared, much less built for such. It is good that the hammock has a place, beneath the maples. With all of this comes the responsibility of upkeep, though: the work of weeding, and pruning. The lawn.
I have a reel mower, a push mower. I know how those go; I spent some small amount of my childhood running one of those around the lawn I grew up on. The trick to that was that the grass of my childhood did not grow in maniacal punctuated spasms, so that kind of mower was effective. The other trick to that was that the lawn of my youth was flat. My present yard is not, and the grasses that grow there seem to lie coiled, waiting for the rains when they stretch upward with giggling glee, all in a day. Under these conditions, a reel mower is less than optimal.
It's a good machine. It makes a soft noise as it rolls, the ticking of summer evenings as the set of blades spin through. I'd much rather use it for this reason. Its peaceful up here on the hill, and I'd like to do my part to extend that. For my lawn, though, it's the wrong machine. Particularly on the slopes: there may be stone works in the future to fix these things and make that mower workable again, but for now, I need other options.
There is the idea of an electric mower. The corded ones I dislike; I have no ready outlets, and I know that I will end up mowing the damn lead. I'm predisposed to that sort of thing. They make cordless ones as well, but no one seems to be making one that is both of high quality and reasonable cost. A cordless mower would also saddle me with eventually dead batteries. They're pretty loud, too.
I looked into getting a scythe. There is a small resurgence in the use of these things. They can be had cheap at the more rural yard sales around here, old wood polished by hands and time. The trick to scythes, though, is that they really need to be sized well to the person using them. A scythe that fits is reportedly a joy to use, and extension of the self that effortlessly brings down the stalks. There are companies that will take your measurements and send you a fitted scythe for a goodly fee (but less than, say, a new mower). Scythes require attention, to be sure: an important part of using one is stopping from time to time to whet the edge, and occasionally to peen it. The wooden part of a scythe has a name: they call that part of the tool the snath. I like this sort of thing. I do better with tools I have a connection with, that come with the type of hand work that is good for thinking of unexpected things. Scythes are quiet, too.
I'm tempted, but I'm reasonably sure it is not the correct tool. Would that it was! Perhaps I'll try one anyway, some year. It seems the sort of conceit that is more useful than not, in life.
In any case, I've been ruined already. I got into trouble with the reel mower early in the season, and a friend of mine lent me a gas powered mower. I have to worry about gas and oil now (both use and disposal). It's a noisy beast, and while it is a modern engine, it still belches bad air. I am aware that what I am hefting around the yard is a power tool, and all the danger that this implies.
But, heaven, can it cut grass. In the lee of the compost bin is now a goodly pile of clippings, slowly turning from green to brown in the shade. Some of them go into the bin; the rest will wait to be mixed in with the leaves, when they lose their green and fall.
The lawn engines of others are active tonight, growls echoing across the curve of the hill, the bowl of the valley. The crickets are giving them a run for their money, regardless.
The Speed Of Light Is Low TonightOne of the nice aspects of my employment is that I get to take classes on the very, very cheap. Somewhat true to my own form, I find myself ending up in courses that have nothing whatsoever to do with my job, but nobody minds that much. I've been taking Italian for some time now, and it's been marvelous fun.
(Non scrivo nella lingua qui; I do it over there, in the other one.)
Classes have begun, and we are now all deep into it; the course this year is far more free-form, conversational, and deeply frightening. No matter how much I know (which is roughly how much I think I know, depending on the day), nothing shines quite so bright a light on what I do not as casual conversation. About things. Timely things. I have far to go, but this is okay.
As a tip, our instructor gave us some links to webcasts of Italian music stations to listen to while we work, to fill the background with bits of language we're trying to better ourselves in. Listening to an Italian popular music station is a strange experience. Something odd and twisty happens to time. An example: right now, people in Rome are listening to The Spin Doctors.
Corollary: right now, I'm listening to The Spin Doctors.
I started poking around looking for alternate stations, and I stumbled upon a thing that purports to broadcast Italian roots music. The interesting thing about this is that all of the source works for the music they play seem only a scant two centuries old or less. Those guys have been making music for a lot longer than that.
It's good stuff, though. Folk music often turns out to be. Non è male, non è male.
All content under copyright by the author. Dancing is permitted. The strange deltic glyphs in the sand under tidal flow are a pleasure to watch in their deepening. Offer not valid in Kansas. We put it down and then we lost it. It all happens in the corner of the eye. Commentary accepted at pen@goob.com, although the traps are agressive and the pointy bits simply drip with dark liquour. We have a dog, but we do not own it. Thank you.