so much pretty yarn and so little time...

ah, yarn! there's just so much pretty yarn out there and lately i have just gone on a yarn buying spree. or would binge be a more accurate characterization? a few nights ago i bought a book called romantic hand knits. i was intrigued by the title and man, does it have some beautiful (and sexy) patterns! i didn't get that great amazon price, i paid the $27.50 list price, but i also bought it at an independent bookstore, so it's all to the good. when i lose the weight i've put on (first time in my life i've ever needed to lose weight - egad!) i will be making that skirt.

i also ordered some donegal tweed from patternworks, in garnet, which happens to be my birthstone. :) i have been lusting after this yarn for several years now and not buying it because i didn't have a specific project in mind. i hate buying odd skeins and then not doing anything with them, so even when i impulse buy i'm usually getting at least five skeins or so, and when i'm in for that much dough (the donegal tweed was around $11 a skein), i hate to just have it sit. i am a somewhat weird knitter in that respect, i.e. i don't want my stash to get too big. then it went on sale and i figured to hell with it! i don't care if i don't have anything specific in mind, i'm getting some! so i did.

i also bought some double twist from green mountain spinnery a few weeks back, with a project in mind. i got a gray color, not either of the ones listed. it's actually a little more of a taupe-y gray than i wanted (damn you inaccurate computer monitor!!!) but it's still quite nice. i might not use it for what i bought it for, ironically, as it's a little scratchier than i want that particular sweater to be. the tags say it will soften up a lot upon washing and i do tend to trust the tags, especially when they're from the mill that makes the yarn in question. whatever it ends up being, you can't beat $7.35 for a 250 yard skein of 100% wool!

we also did the complete splurge of my knitting career buy a few weeks back... debbie bliss pure cashmere from littleknits; black for drew and morning sky blue for me. drew really wants me to make him a cashmere sweater and they're having this bag sale, ten skeins for $76! seeing as how the skeins are all of 45 yards/250 grams (i.e. tiny) and retail for anywhere between $23 - $25 per skein i just couldn't pass up $7.60 a skein. couldn't do it. and they let you mix colors to get a full bag, too! mind you, with what we were spending i'd let the customer mix for a full bag too. i can't bring myself to say how much it all cost... let's just say a huge fucking sum of dough, and leave it at that.

and drew, bless his immensely generous heart, got me alice starmore's in the hebrides, which is out of print and consequently quite expensive and hard to find. it didn't cost quite what the cheapest one listed did, because i got the cheapest one - woo hoo, hoo hoo hoo (that's the vonage jingle woo hoo, fyi.) it hasn't arrived yet - i can't wait 'til it gets here! i have one of her books, the celtic collection, still in print i think, which i bought years ago at straw into gold in berkeley (a great yarn shop, now sadly defunct). it was one of those "if i open that book i know i'm going to buy it, so i'm not going to open it. shit! i opened it!" situations. i hadn't even realized most of here her books were out of print now... some sort of blow out with the publisher. it's a crime, really, her designs are just magical and she's pretty much the authority on fair isle knitting. you can still get new stuff from her web site, virtual yarns, which is good. i'll have to find a picture of me in my cromarty sweater to post here. it's the blue one with all the intricate cables, you may have seen it.

ooh! and i got some blocking wires and a spaceboard, again from patternworks. not glamorous but completely essential. i didn't understand that blocking was as important as it is when i started knitting, but it really is so i decided to invest in the tools. not having the blocking stuff is like trying to sew, or block, for that matter, without a good iron, i.e. a really bad idea.

and i am working on a pressie for someone, too, but i can't say what in case they might figure it out. when it's been given is when i'll post a picture. :)

there is so not anything going on at all that i'm not even sure why i'm posting! i'm finally getting over the flu, which is nice, but it means i've done jack for the past ten days or so, thus having nothing to really capture anyone's imagination with. i got a flu shot, but managed to get a strain of flu that wasn't in it, which is just insulting, as was getting sick on a saturday. wah wah wah!

it's very rainy here in nocal which is all to the good as we need it, but you know what? it's not just pittsburghers who can't drive in the rain. there are so many yahoos on the road here and people just get stupid in the rain, going too fast or too slow. my favorites are the folks who, in already slow traffic, somehow manage to be left-lane bandits. i think you need a God-given talent for that one.

one cute christmas-y story for you, about a christmas card delivered 93 years late. who says the u.s. mail doesn't get the job done? :)

sniff, sniff

i have a cold. sore throat, stuffy head, sneeze-o-rama - ugh! some way to spend the weekend.

there is absolutely nothing interesting going on. i've been reading some really great books by s.m. stirling lately; dies the fire, the protector's war (there was no war in the book, however), and now the third in the trilogy, a meeting in corvallis. the premise for these books is for an unknown reason, could be a freak natural occurrence, could be aliens, who knows? everything mechanical in the world stops working; in the book this event is called "the change". gun powder and explosives don't burn right, either, so guns, dynamite and the like are useless. most of the people in the world die, and what happens to rest is what the book is about. i love these kinds of stories, alternate realities and such, and this kind of ties into my love of zombie movies. even though there are no zombies it has the element of little pockets of people thrown together because of a cataclysmic event trying to survive. i have always liked to think that should there be a zombie attack, i'd be one of the survivors. then again, i don't know how to shoot a gun and we all know only a head shot will kill a zombie. i did decide i should learn how to shoot a gun after watching the dawn of the dead remake a few years ago. my brothers, joe and justin, sat with me and the rest of the viewers after the movie coming up with our plan to survive. joe and justin had just bought a canoe at the highland park rummage sale that weekend (for like $50 bucks - sweet!), and justin and joe were living in lawrenceville just a few blocks from the allegheny river, so both figured prominently in our survival plans.

on the way home i called drew, who was away on a business trip, to tell him i wanted to learn how to shoot a gun, because you never know when zombies might attack and while i was never a boy scout, they're onto something with the whole "be prepared" motto. he of course thought this was hysterical because he thought i should know how to shoot a gun just in case i was ever in a situation where i might need to shoot one, and i'd always said i had no interest in guns nor learning how to use them. he's kinda got a bit of a survivalist streak, my sweetie; again, something that will come in handy during a zombie attack. in the midst of our conversation my cell phone cut out on the section of wible road it always does, and i thought to myself, if this was a zombie movie this is where i'd bite the dust. i collected the dog and slept at my folks' place that night, and when i got up in the middle of the night to pee, i thought to myself "i am so glad i came down here!" i have no pride when it comes to such things... my overactive imagination gets the better of me sometimes and it was better to just indulge it by going to my parents' house. drew also thought this was hilarious, and pointed out we lived a minute's walk away from the local police station. i replied, "yeah - a police station filled with armed zombies!", so he gave up trying to dissuade me.

as long as i'm on zombies, there's an excellent zombie book that you might want to read: world war z: an oral history of the zombie war. fucking excellent book! i think they're making it into a movie... i hope they don't fuck it up. i wonder who's in it... must do a google search.

well, that's it for me folks. and my advice to any of you who, like me, are a little chubby and out of shape, or who don't know how to shoot firearms or live on nuts and berries in the woods... perhaps we should all make a new year's resolution to get in shape and learn a few new skills, because if the change ever does happen or zombies attack, i'd hate for any of us to bite the dust because we were the sick zebra in the herd.

herbie, wounded warrior

herbie, our wonderful orange tabby, is wearing a cone and sporting a shaved spot with a straw sticking out of his backside, courtesy of surgery wednesday night by dr. nicki at santa cruz veterinarian hospital. he's fine, don't worry, if not a little frustrated; he had an almost abscess near the base of his tail. it wasn't actually an abscess yet, but was heading that way fast. there were two bites (we think from tommy, the other orange tabby in the neighborhood who he has been fighting with) & apparently there was a pretty big infected area so the vet thought he'd need a drain in it. we knew something was up because he was walking sort of funny, like his butt hurt, but more than that he was in a most un-herbie-like foul mood... hissing at us when we tried to pet him and that's just not our little love bug at all. when he wouldn't eat, when he turned his nose up at his evening nummies (a small scoop of fancy feast), an event he eagerly anticipates every day starting at 4:30 pm (and nummies aren't until 6 pm at least, usually) we knew he was sick. so off to the vet at 11:15 pm, where we stayed until about 12:30 am, probably closer to 1:00 am, before heading home without the herbster. the vet called the next morning to tell us the surgery went well (they were only going to call overnight if there was a problem, and there wasn't, praise God!) and that he had "a robust appetite" this morning, so we know our guy is back! :) and his dad stayed home on thursday to look after him. he's really settled down (he was pissed when he got home), but he's bumping into things and walking backwards so he won't bump stuff. i just had to re-do his collar. he'd managed to get the plastic part undone at the place where it's put together. i felt bad when i'd finished as he just sat there, head down, like a bowed and beaten man.

but the cone and the drain will go bye-bye on monday, so if he can just put up with us until then. i gotta say, he's loads better about taking his medicine than chiana was when she had a really bad abscess a few months ago. in general she's a lot easier going, so much so that her temperament combined with her fluffiness meant we didn't realize she had such a bad abscess until she was really sick; the vet said there was necrotic tissue in her wound (and necrotic tissue = totally disgusting!) herbie, on the other hand, was pissy and miserable and it wasn't even an abscess yet. then again, he is one smart cat and he's not into suffering.

hating me for documenting his suffering:




the reason he needs a cone




success at finally getting to clean his tail! and his drain. i'd just done warm compresses on him, which is why his fur is wet around the edges.




please send herbie healing prayers and vibes, as he is finding us very trying. as to his sister, she's doing great!

thanksgiving

sorry to take so long to post about thanksgiving, but i just now woke up from the turkey coma. and if you believe that, i've got a bridge i'd like to sell you. :)

well, thanksgiving was wonderful!!!! yum-a-dum-dum! the turkey was so great that i ordered another for christmas (since it was frozen it was $10 less - mad savings! not!), and i am already looking forward to it! we had excellent company and our own private bartender (thank you dave!) i had three versions of a sidecar, a cocktail i had never before drunk but it's really darn good! dave seriously has a gift for mixing drinks, and that's not something to be taken lightly. anyone can mix a drink, but not anyone can mix a drink like dave can. whoever happens to be mixing your drinks, don't be like me and start drinking it when dinner is almost done and you haven't eaten for a good five hours. i had to stick it in the fridge half way through because i was getting tipsy, and nobody wants a tipsy person making the gravy or mashing the potatoes.

without further ado, here is our turkey before going into the oven.



this is the heritage turkey we got from reese turkey farm. as farmer reese says, the best way to save these rare breeds is to eat them, and i am happy to say he has recruited five new volunteers to eat these birds into every day commonness. seriously though, we paid a lot of money for our 11 lb turkey, though we weren't just paying for the turkey: we were also paying for preserving and helping to foster genetic diversity, which is very important to us, altruistically and from an enlightened self-interest standpoint. farmer reese's turkey was so good that we'll never get another turkey from the supermarket if we have anything to say about it. fortunately for us, we do! i brined this bad boy for twelve hours using williams-sonoma apple & spices turkey brine, mostly using water but also about six cups of apple cider. i made a maple syrup and herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme) compound butter, which was rubbed not only on the skin but also under it. i worked the skin loose from the meat, which it tougher to do on a heritage bird than a conventional one, and then deposited dollops of the butter underneath. if you look closely you can see some lumps under the skin. they're easy to see on the legs. stuffed the heck out of him with my usual stuffing and we were off to the races!

and after a few hours, this is how he turned out:



pretty magnificent, huh? we sure thought so, and for those of you reading here, can i just tell you how great the heritage turkey was? i thought i'd discovered the secret to making delicious turkey when i discovered brining, but a heritage turkey goes up to eleven, maybe even twelve. on its own, it must be wonderful, brined it was just paradise. i seriously didn't know that turkey could taste this good! i wasn't sure about brining, as a lot of sites said not to, but for strictly comparison purposes i thought i should, otherwise it would be comparing apples and oranges. i also read another blog where the cook faced a similar dilemma and decided to brine and her turkey turned out great, so that clinched it.

the biggest differences that i noticed between heritage turkey and conventional ones (i.e. factory or even organically raised broad-breasted whites) is that the meat in general is darker, even the white meat. the legs are a little longer and the wings are much more developed. also, the skin is a lot thicker on the breast, perhaps because these turkeys live normal lives doing normal turkey things, like flying, running and scratching around (and even having - gasp - sex!!!!) if you're a big fan of the skin, the breast skin doesn't crisp up where it's thicker like on a conventional turkey, so you'll want to get your crispy skin fix from the legs or another part of the bird.

of course, we had great company and i had many helpers, so here are a few more shots for your viewing pleasure:

preparing mr. turkey for his date with the oven:



a chef is only as good as her sous chef! his people might not know potatoes like mine, but he can sure peel a mean potato!



mashing the spuds. i have to make a product plug at this point. i'm an easy mark for williams-sonoma. i drool over the catalogues, wanting one of almost everything, and if i were ever to get stuck working retail again, i'd want to work there. always looking for new gadgets that will make food yummier and easier to make that way, this year i tried out the potato ricer that williams-sonoma was selling (it's not available on their site anymore; hopefully that's not a permanent situation.) folks, if you like mashed potatoes, you need this gadget! you still mash them up with a masher once they're through the ricer, but that ricer makes them so smooth and so light... i never knew mashed potatoes could be like this, and i'm irish!!!!



we all need somewhere pretty to eat.



how's this for happy diners? diane and dave were nice enough to join us (trump is taking the picture)



mmmmmm.......... pie......... mmmmm!!! one mincemeat and two pumpkin, with fresh whipped cream of course! kind of hard to tell but i bought these cute little pie cookie cutters for that i used to decorate the crusts. another williams-sonoma product... it includes a maple leaf, oak leaf, acorn and pumpkin cutter. if you look very closely at the crusts you can kind of see the shapes, and i used the oak and maple cutters for the steam holes in the mincemeat pie.



and as herbie demonstrates, this is what happens when you eat too much turkey.



i hope your thanksgiving was just as good and just as much fun as ours!!!!

pooped

i can't believe how tired i am from my days off. so sad. well, i also had trouble sleeping last night on account of my bum shoulder... it kept me awake for at least an hour at one point, and it makes getting to sleep hard, too. i think i'll have to take hubby's advice and see about getting PT for it.

at any rate, lots to tell and lots of pictures from thanksgiving (yes, actual pictures!) but i can't do it now. just wanted to send up a sign of life. love to all...

it's not all doom and gloom

as you no doubt know i have been pretty bummed about my friend jamie, but life does go on, so if you're at all inclined to, don't get worried about me. :)

i am really looking forward to thanksgiving! it did make me a little homesick for a while, but i've rallied. drew and i did the first round of shopping yesterday and despite forgetting my list i only forgot to buy two things, which i can easily pick up on my vegetables shopping trip on wednesday. our tom heritage turkey is arriving tomorrow via fedex, so drew is staying home to receive him and put him in the fridge. so far our yummy menu includes:

turkey (of course!) brined in williams-sonoma apple & spices turkey brine (i can't find it on their site anymore... totally annoying), a baked ham (one of drew's family traditions), mashed potatoes (using my potato ricer; i'll report on it soon), stuffing, gravy, sesame green beans (these are seriously yummy, a huge hit at our dinner parties), roasted asparagus, a blue cheese salad our friends are bringing, and of course pumpkin pie w/ whipped cream and mincemeat pie, plain or a la mode. :) i was so stoked to find the nonesuch mincemeat at save mart yesterday; safeway only carried that brand i don't like, the crosswell something or other. totally inferior to nonesuch imho. even better, it's the little boxes, the kind you have to cook up with some water which smells divine while cooking!!! that's such a childhood memory... my mom cooking up the mincemeat on the stove. it's funny how much of what we do for holidays has to do with what we did (or in some cases didn't) do as a child. luckily for me it's a case of what my family did do that influences me. :)

all of this writing about food is making me hungry! i think it's time for lunch.

oh, and if you've never had brined turkey, you have no idea what you're missing. the article includes the chez panisse turkey brine recipe. i've never had turkey there, but i'm betting it's pretty excellent.

i have spent the weekend being supremely bummed out about jamie. fuck, but everything they say (you know, that undefinable "they" that we all refer to), about anniversaries is true. all the sadness and missing comes right up to the surface and it just sucks, sucks, sucks. it's different from other times when i talk about him, when it's not sad at all, because i'm remembering him, and it helps keep his memory alive. it's fun, even, though other people don't necessarily get that. beth and i had a talk about this just the other week. one of the few times i've been really glad i missed someone's call, because the message she left was just lovely.

but i digress. i had a long, well, not long, but a talk with jame today, while i was cleaning my bedroom. just sat on the bed and took five, and told him how much i miss him. and i do. it was one thing to hang out with him when he was sick, knowing he was going to die even though he was in complete denial about it. death wasn't an option so far as he was concerned, and who can blame him? it's quite another to live with him being dead, knowing that every real conversation i'll ever have with jamie bevilacqua has already happened. there won't be any more. i know it's true and yet i just can't wrap my head around it. it just seems so impossible.

at my wedding reception jamie's mom was really bummed out. not that i knew it from talking to her. she's way too thoughtful for that. beth told me, and even though it hadn't occurred to me (duh) i realized it was true. i remember talking with her at the reception, making sure to go see her, holding her hand, and she said to me "he's here." and if he was going to be anywhere that day my wedding reception would have been it. jamie loved a good party, especially if it was celebrating the happiness of someone he loved, but i just couldn't feel it. i couldn't feel anything that might give me an indication that jamie's spirit was with us, or me, ever, since he's died. i've had a dream or two... saying goodbye dreams, that kind of stuff. in fact, i had one that was so real that it woke me up and then i got up to pee and it took me about five minutes to figure out that yes, jamie really had died. i was so confused waking up from that dream that i thought he was still at his mom's house, sick, but still with us. but i have to honestly say that i've never felt his presence, ever, not once since he died. i've only felt the brutal, non-negotiable absence.

jamie, jamie, bo bamie

my best friend jamie died four years ago today and i really miss him. i can't believe it's been four years since he died. metastatic melanoma, aka skin cancer, at an entirely too young 33 years. it was a very weird day... we were moving into the place we rented on wetzel road in glenshaw that day. jame's sister, gina, called me that evening using his phone, while we were in the toilet paper aisle of the glenshaw giant eagle no less (i've always thought jame would have gotten a chuckle out of that.) i remember seeing the caller id and saying to drew "jamie's died" before i answered the phone, and being so worn out from the week leading up to that day that i couldn't even react right.

but, i was lucky. i was jamie's friend for at least fifteen years and he was was always what a good friend should be: funny, loyal, good about staying in touch and keeping you in the loop about life even if it was kind boring because nothing exciting was happening, and someone i would laugh with until my sides hurt. i got to see jamie that week, on tuesday night, i think (he lost consciousness that night and went into the hospital the next morning), after he'd gotten back from california - the last ditch treatment with a different doctor. if only it had worked even though i knew it wouldn't - and we had a great visit. it was really hard for me, as he looked dreadful, and his mom and step-dad's hearts were just breaking, anyone could see. it was so hard to see and experience but he was still the same old jame. wanting the gossip, even though he was tired, looking forward to when he could eat tomatoes again w/out them wreaking havoc on his system, and setting up physical therapy for later in the week. he didn't go of course, anyone could see he wouldn't be going even if that hadn't been the last week, but jame was having none of it and there is something very admirable in that spirit that refused to surrender.

but...

i don't think he'd approve of me going on and on about my loss, and i could, believe me; not a day goes by i don't think about him. i think he'd approve more of the "jamie, jamie bo bamie" stuff, which is why i gave this post that title. some of the most hilarious times i had with jame were:

homecoming night of his senior year, 1988. i was his date that year - he'd left it too late to ask the girl he had his eye on - and he was also the chairman of the choir float, which basically meant he was working on maybe two hours sleep a night for the entire week leading up to homecoming. so off we go to dinner and the dance, the choir float won and jame and i did a celebratory dance to "lady in red" (remember that one, children of the eighties?) afterward we went to our friend amy's house. jame proceeded to pass out on the floor of her family room and when it was finally time to go home it took our combined efforts to wake him up. so what does he do? he grabs his docksider shoe and walks into the powder room with it, then comes back and i think he sat down. amy and i were just dying of simple chronic hilarity... it was so funny... he had no idea what he was doing. we go into the powder room and he'd set his shoe on the sink! i seriously thought we were going to pee our pants, and of course jame found all this laughing really annoying, even though he had no idea we were laughing at him. he was so embarrassed when we told him the story, too. ah, youth!

and... thanksgiving, the year before he got diagnosed, so that would have been 1997, 98? he came down to berkeley and were were cooking away. my dog, zinger, had her doggie bed in the back by the deck and when the doorbell rang she would bolt out through the kitchen to go see who it was. well, she had so much speed going that when she went to make the turn into the hall she started slipping on the linoleum, but her feet kept going and it took her a full twenty seconds to accomplish the turn, all the while looking like something out of a cartoon. jamie and i were laughing so hard we forgot about the asparagus we were steaming and ruined it, but it was totally worth it. to this day thinking about it makes me laugh out loud.

and... kennywood, my senior year, so 1987. we all went for the school picnic, the usual suspects: darcy, amy, ted, me, jame, christie and maybe even a few more. ted won this penguin and it was kind of overstuffed and funny looking. jamie pokes at it and says "he's stuffed to the gizzards!" stuffed to the gizzards really hit darcy's funny bone, hard, and she proceeded to laugh about it for the rest of the day. not giggle, but full out belly laughing, and this phenomenon continued for several years. all you had to say was "stuffed to the gizzards", no matter how completely out of context, and she'd lose it. he never said so, but i think jamie was secretly tickled at how much it made darcy laugh, and of course we all got many hours of enjoyment out of it.

last but not least: singing that song from sesame street with jamie, the "ma num a num" one. you know, ma num a num, beep beep bedeepity, ma num a num, beep beep de beep". i'd forgotten about the bridge part of the song, the middle part that i'm not even going to try to phoneticize here, so i stop singing and jame just starts belting it out, top of his lungs... it was great. and i always think of him whenever i hear or sing that song ever since. hearing jame belt it out like that, at the best of his goofy form, was a real treat indeed.

so... here's to you, jamie! i miss you, my dear, and love you, and know we'll meet again some day (and if we don't i will be so seriously pissed off it'll be good that i'm dead or i'd probably kill somebody.) we can have some more stuffed to the gizzards laughs then, and just imagine the gossip that we'll have to catch up on. i expect there will be lots of simple chronic hilarity to go 'round. :)

heritage turkeys, oh my!

gotta say i am feeling so much better the past few days it's not funny, so thank you all for the positive vibes and wishes after my last homesick post. so nice not to be down in the dumps. nothing like talking to mom to get the old head on straight.

well, we took the plunge: we ordered a heritage breed turkey for thanksgiving after reading this article in the nytimes. the turkeys are raised by a farmer, frank reese, jr., who is trying to preserve rare/heritage breeds of turkeys and genetic diversity overall. since the slow food movement and genetic diversity, not to mention good food, are very important to me and my honey, so we decided to get our turkey from farmer reese. we need to start living out our values in the realm a lot more, and what more patriotic way to do so than on thanksgiving? i am really looking forward to our turkey, and if it's half as good as i'm expecting, it'll be worth every frightfully expensive penny. call it enlightened self-interest.

another reason for the great mood is i went to lunch yesterday with a colleague to find out more about scu's resident ministry program and left so excited and jazzed! my colleague is currently a resident minister (rm) and had to lots of valuable information and many insights. the things i was worried about as obstacles are not, in fact, going to be a problem. indeed, one of them (pets) she thinks will be an asset as it's a good way to connect with students. whew!!!! that was a deal breaker. we're a "no pet left behind" kind of family. people who view animals and pets as expendable really make me so angry, but that's another post for another day.

anyway, i am so excited about applying to be a rm! keep your fingers crossed.

last, but by no means least, we just got home after attending a really great lecture by gary macy, professor of religious studies at santa clara university. it was based on his new book, the hidden history of women's ordination, but it covered so much more than that, since he's a historian at heart. gary is such an engaging speaker, really funny, and having met him i can attest to what a completely lovely person he is as well. drew and i enjoyed ourselves immensely.

more later...

maybe it's just that time of year

man, but am i homesick the past few days... i miss everyone: my family, my friends, our old flat and walks around highland park, admiring all the pretty old houses. stopping by the unofficial dog park to hang with fellow members of the doggie set. i miss riding the 73b into work every day, not even because it was such an easy commute, but because it was fun, too. thanks to "chatty cathy" drew we made a lot of friends on that bus. i miss our dinner parties, and know a lot of you do, too. even the grammatically atrocious, way too loud conversations of yinzers from la-ville would be welcome right now. that it's the gray time of year, as my good friend beth put it, doesn't dampen my desire to be home at all.

i am missing a sense of place... a sense of permanence and belonging. everything is too transitory and ambiguous right now, and i don't like ambiguity. i like things to be clear and defined. living in santa cruz is temporary, and while i am really thankful for that because the commute sucks (in terms of time) and it's too far away from everything despite being a lovely town, it means more change. it's too soon to know what moving up to the south bay will be - will it be getting our own place or starting as a resident minister here at scu and living on campus? both have their pros and cons... our own place would be expensive, but it would be our space, with our stuff, and that has great power and appeal. resident ministry would mean getting to use my masters degree, which is exciting, a great commute (a few minutes walk) and an opportunity to save some money, but it also means our stuff staying in storage, which is so discouraging to me at times that it makes me almost want to sell most of it on ebay and craig's list and save that money to start again later (a bad idea, i know.) rm would also mean a small apartment, close physical confines. after living in someone else's house, which we are very lucky to be doing, it would be so nice to feel like our new space is really ours.

i guess i'm also feeling a bit worn down by the unforgiving nature of life in northern california. yeah, it's beautiful and there's lots to do, more opportunity work-wise for both of us, but it's so expensive that the opportunities don't make up for the difference in cost of living. they just don't. any mis-steps or set-backs can mushroom in no time flat to something incredibly unpleasant. that was one of the things i really liked about home... much more forgiving in that respect. even though i really love my job and i'm very grateful that drew isn't having the sorts of problems he was having in pittsburgh, it feels like we're losing ground. i was a very late bloomer when it comes to career. i didn't get it, if that makes any sense, until recently. maybe it's partially a product of being the first generation to go to college in my family combined with living at home while going to school, but i didn't understand, hell, i didn't even know how to go about building a career. i didn't understand what it took, never mind how to get there. i didn't know how to leverage my degree to my advantage so i just kind of drifted from one thing to the next. i'm way far behind in that respect, which a little over a year shy of forty can be kind of depressing if i let it. and how the hell did i end up pushing forty? that is just way too bizarre. i usually don't let this stuff bum me out, but you know how it is when you're already feeling low. i can do better from here on out, of course, that's the beauty of life, but i wish i'd understood it all earlier.

i guess, fundamentally, i'm feeling lonely right now. i have so little free time during the week that i don't have time to connect with the few friends i still have out here, never mind making new ones. i'm so fucking tired by the weekend that i never seem to get everything i need to do done. thanksgiving is coming up and we still don't know what we're doing. i can't seem to pin my sister down about what they're planning/do they want to plan something with us... i need to call her today about that. several of the friends i do have here still have been part of a book club for over fifteen years that does thanksgiving together, others have moved on to have families and are doing their own thing, so they're out. i was always the one who invited the strays to dinner; realizing i might actually be one is pretty discouraging. combine that with wanting to cook and fuck! no wonder i'm blue. drew and i can always have thanksgiving together, but let's be honest, it's kind of pathetic to have two people for thanksgiving.

ah well. believe it or not, i am actually feeling better that i was yesterday, thanks to the efforts of the homesick/discouraged/weeper support network (aka beth, kendra and judy). and i know i'll feel better soon, i always do. :) at least i don't delude myself thinking i have to get life figured out. i don't think that ever happens, really, even when you're eighty three. you have some stuff figured out by then for sure, but LIFE? it's too big to figure it all out, but it sure is interesting trying.

a new look

"i'd rather be in pittsburgh" is sporting a new look today. not exactly how i want it, but the template options are pretty limited, and at least the pictures aren't scrunched up and cropped awkwardly, which was driving me nuts before (the best part of the "oh happy day" picture is all the guys, imho, and half of them were cut out before!) i do like the purple and green, i must say. i must also get cracking here... the day's a-wasting away and here i am, fucking around with my blog. ah well...

fireworks 101

no offense or anything, but people in santa cruz are retarded when it comes to fireworks. and firecrackers, bottle rockets, roman candles etc. it's not that they don't love them, because believe me, they do. if anything, they love them too much.

when you think fireworks, you think.... forth of july, new year's even, a winning pirates game (so few and far between they have to do something), and on the west coast or nyc, you might even think chinese new year. am i right? well, in santa cruz, they think fireworks any time from the forth of july on, and while i love firecrackers and bottle rockets as much as the next gal, my dog, zinger, does not. after all the trick or treating excitement was over on wednesday, drew and i took zinger on a walk. and it was a really great, spooky, halloween-y halloween too... totally socked in with fog, so it pretty creepy. especially for those of us with over-active imaginations. we made it out of our cul-de-sac and almost to the end of the next block when some genius sets off a firework. i think it was a bottle rocket, based on the acoustics (high pitched and fading wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, followed by a loud POP!)

what the fuck, people? since when are fireworks, crackers, rockets, etc., fair game for halloween? halloween is jack-o-lanterns and fake cobwebs with over-sized spiders in trees and signs that say "spooky lane" by the front walk, next to the fake tombstones for count dracula and frankenstein. these maroons (thank you, bugs bunny) are continually freaking my dog out! i expect this on the forth of july, and a week before and after. shit, let's be generous and say i expect it for the entire month of july. but october? for fuck's sake! i must say, the little dog really rallied and surpassed my wildest expectations this time. usually, after the initial startlement (complete with tail & ear tuck and pulling on her leash (with a pinch collar) until she's gasping for air), she'll give it to the closest pooping spot (in this case 1.5 blocks away) do her business and then turn around, indicating none too subtly that she is finished with her walk and wants to repair to the safety of her beneath our bed lair. and who can blame her? not only did she pass the poop spot, but she didn't pull on her leash until gasping (though it was taut), and while she did an initial tail and ear tuck, she got through the whole walk, and even managed to wag her tail after a few minutes. if there'd been another firecracker all bets would have been off, but as it was we didn't have any additional displays of santa cruz genius, thank god.

much as i am looking forward to thanksgiving (even though we have no idea what we're doing yet, apart from cooking) if we're in santa cruz i hope it doesn't include fireworks. i hate to think of myself as a bah-humbug kind of gal, but my poor doggie just can't take it.

another reason why i love my job

so i get into work this morning tired out of my mind. we're talking jaw-cracking-uber-yawn tired here, not your regular garden variety tired. not only was my truly lovely and wonderful niece, rachel, in town and staying with us since last wednesday, but i came down with a really bad cold the same day. thus, i was dragging my all-i-want-to-do-is-sleep-and-blow-my-nose-ass all around the bay area to go and do cool things. can't let a cold, even a nasty one, get in the way of helping rachel see some of the local wonders.

so i come into work bleary eyed and tired, definitely in a "we really need to hit the lottery because i am so over all this working shit" frame of mind, when i notice it. there's a bag of biscotti on my desk that was definitely not there on wednesday. i'm standing there wondering how it got there, and who did the getting, when i read the tag and see that it's from enrico biscotti, which as all pittsburghers know is some of the best biscotti in the world. now how the heck did that get there? after a moment or two (or three or four - i was tired!) comprehension dawned as i realized my boss, bill, got it for me. he was in pittsburgh for a conference last week, so i did what any self-respecting pittsburgher would do: i gave him a list of things to see and do. he didn't have time to do most of what was on the list but he managed to go to enrico biscotti and bring a bag of it back for me. i know i'm easy to please, but it was such a lovely suprise and totally made my day! bill, you rock! :)

since i started my new job i have often felt that i've stumbled into an alternate universe so pleasant and so humane, especially when compared to another work experience i won't mention in detail, that it must be a dream. i mean, it feels like there can be no other explanation. i've decided, for as long as it lasts, that instead of pinching myself to see if it's real, i'm going to make a cup of tea and munch on some biscotti, and think about what i'm going to do and see next time i'm home.

crab-asses of the world, unite!

warning!!!! you are about to enter a verified crab-ass zone! beware!

nothing like a little sleep deprivation to improve my mood - ha ha ha....

seriously though, folks, i am one tired little chicky and it's making me so crabby it is unbelievable. i owe it mostly (though not entirely) to my attendance this past weekend at the bioneers conference. it was a great experience but one that didn't allow me to sleep in at all, thus serving as an eye opener about how much i depend on those lazy weekend snoozes with wake up times of 10 a.m. at the extreme earliest. that said, the conference was really cool. it would have been cooler if my little brother had been able to attend as planned, but apparently playing flag football and ping-pong can be pretty hazardous to one's health; he was sidelined with injuries from both (and he was pooped - he works too hard and much.)

so while the conference was good, it was the second day before i realized that my number one reason for going was to get to hang out with him, as i don't get to enough, and maybe that was why i wasn't experiencing a paradigm-shifting event like he and my sister, who also went, have as a result of attendance in years past. in any event, not all was lost as my sister and her husband, not to mention my niece and her tutor, were there. the plenary sessions were great and i was introduced to so many interesting people and their work, like jay harman, founder of pax scientific, specializing in bio mimicry design - very cool stuff; van jones from the ella baker center, which is working with disadvantaged youth in west oakland, california, training them for green collar jobs; eve ensler, playwright of the vagina monologues fame; and the amazing husband and wife team ka hsaw wa and katie redford, founders of earth rights international, the organization that successfully established the ability to sue corporations, in this particular case unocal, in u.s. federal court to hold them responsible for human rights abuses committed as a result of their business dealings. again, in this case, during construction of their oil pipeline in burma. unocal settled once they went all the way to the supreme court trying to get the case thrown out, so it's the same difference, and they established that it could be done, not with standing katie's many law professors telling her it not only couldn't be done, but was unconstitutional. they are now suing shell for the heinous human rights abuses being committed in nigeria, including the murder of activist ken saro wiwa. and so, so many more that i am not going to write about here or it's all i'd do. so many inspiring people and their work... it makes me feel like i really ought to be doing more and that my accomplishments in life are meager indeed. i know that's not the intent of conference, but still... i really need to do more. but first i need to get rid of the two-ish hour commute every day (round trip, i'm not that crazy), which is sucking my will to live right out of my body.

not much else new. got some new yarn and am expecting more to do some felting projects! when i'll have the time to do so, well, that's another matter for another day. at least i have the raw materials. was reading how my dear friend lb's blog about the entire room she is devoting to her knitting projects (and possibly others) and i just about had to wipe the drool off my keyboard. i can only dream of such spacious accommodations at the moment.

anyhoo, that's it for me just now. send all kind of love to the world and all of her inhabitants, people. if ever a planet needed it, she's it.

craftiness frustration

sorry to be m.i.a., folks, but i have been busy, and mostly with work, of all things! i still love the job, though, i am happy to report.

so... i have been re-inspired to take up making candles again, after the beautiful story in the november 2007 issue of martha stewart living, Candles Take Shape for the Holidays. however, i do have some frustrations... namely, the buying guide tells you where to buy most of the products needed to make the items in the article, like the turkey molds and the wax, etc. (and boy did i ever do some buying), but not where one can buy the molds for the pumpkins! all of the pumpkin molds i've found so far by googling are lame... nothing so beautiful and charming as those pictured in my idol's publication, especially the larger ones. shame on them, really! i've decided i'll have to write the crafts editor, and a good old-fashioned letter, too, since it's proving impossible to find her email address.

i am still working on the same sweater i've been working on for months. i carry my knitting with me but rarely have the time to do it - frustrating! i also have yet to receive my order for this cute little backpack from patternworks. i've changed the color scheme a bit and replaced black for the brown, and a pretty blue for the orange; i'm not really a brown and orange kind of girl. the missing order is frustrating not because i'll be able to start it any time soon, but they're usually so on it. i don't know, maybe it got lost in the mail, which is one of the disadvantages of them using regular mail: no tracking numbers. they said if i didn't get it by yesterday they'd re-send my order, so i hope they have because it still hasn't arrived. :_(

in other news... well, that will have to wait, but i promise i won't be so long in getting back to you. :)

california dreaming...

i love magazines... martha stewart living (and martha stewart weddings when i was smoking the wedding crack pipe), cook's illustrated, vanity fair, national geographic, sunset, dwell... all full of cool stuff i love, and yes, we have subscriptions to all of these but two - can you guess which ones? i'll give you a freebie: sunset, which brings me to california dreaming. in the latest issue they have their annual sunset idea house, and this year's house, in lake tahoe, is a doozy. wood everywhere, concrete walls that are to die for (really, they are), slate floors, wood floors, outdoor shower in the master suite, rammed earth walls surrounding the most gorgeous patio (complete with sunken fire pit), a mud room, and a beyootiful kitchen with counter space that doesn't quit, although i'd need to see the chandelier in person - it wasn't speaking to my soul in the picture. basically just the most gorgeous, multi-million dollar home i've seen in a while, but it's from sunset magazine - of course it's gorgeous! i'm still in love with and dream of building a sunset breeze house some day, the house that totally changed my preconceptions of what a pre-fab house can be and made me think, yes, i could live in a modern design house.

in a nut shell, this latest issue of sunset has set off a huge pang of wanting to be so rich we could build such a gorgeous house in any gorgeous location of our choosing, when not shopping in paris, and such pangs are just so unproductive. for me, anyway. but then again, maybe not, if our little plan works out. one of the more interesting aspects of my new job at santa clara university is the resident ministry program. the basic idea is that you live for free in one of the residences in a one bedroom apartment and get paid a stipend, and put in 10 - 15 hours a week as the resident minister - helping students with spiritual development and engaging in the tradition of jesuit theology, which is hard core on social justice and human rights, so just up my alley. that appeals to me, and it also made me realize in a much deeper way that while i was living in pittsburgh, for all of its many wonderful traits, it was a very spiritually impoverished time for me. very. i couldn't hack going to mass there because it was so conservative so in terms of spiritual practice it was all on a personal level and i really missed the community participation. back in california i've found a parish i like, have met many progressive people there... i mean, let's face it: it's easy to be catholic in northern california, with it's progressive social norms. the resident ministry program just captured my imagination, though, and has rekindled an interest in ministry that i had pretty much written off. maybe i'll go in a direction of campus ministry, maybe not, but i'm going to try to get hired as a resident minister. there could be some snags for me, not quite sure just yet, but by hook or by crook i will give it my best shot (so i am requesting all positive vibes and prayers, please, for as long as it takes.) it'd be a drag to not be able to unpack our stuff, though we would most likely move it from its present location, or at least pull it all out and dig through it so we can have our kitchen stuff and other things that i, quite frankly, don't feel like doing without for years on end. one year, even eighteen months i can handle, but much more than that and we might as well just sell it all and be done with it. and of course in addition to all of the spiritual and professionally appealing aspects of the work we could so save mad cash if we didn't have to pay those progressive, social norms northern california rental prices. heck, we might be able to buy an exorbitantly overpriced house of our own after a few years!

so maybe the sunset idea house isn't such a bad thing after all, in terms of motivation for longer term goals. it's open to the public weekends thru october 28th, and i'd like to go see it. oh, and that brings me to another great side bennie of the resident ministry program: a five minute walking commute. our living situation here in santa cruz is amazing and we are so lucky, and grateful for it, but the commute is a bummer. i can do it for a year, but even if i don't get into the resident ministry program we have to move to south bay sooner rather than later because two hours of my day driving to work is too much. the worst part about it is that i don't want to go anywhere on the weekends if i have to spend more than twenty minutes in the car. i'd like to go see the house, but shit! a five hour drive up to tahoe is long as it is; after a week of our commute it starts to feel punitive. that's the basic problem with santa cruz, which i've actually come to quite like: it's just that bit too far away so that going anywhere involves way too much schleping oneself way too far. it takes an hour and a half to get to san francisco or the east bay on a good traffic day, so we just don't do it much. i mean, it's 45 minutes w/ good traffic to lucy's in san jose. santa cruz would be perfect if it could just be in los gatos.

ah well... obviously the universe didn't have my needs in mind when forming this beautiful world of ours. selfish s.o.b.. the universe, not having my needs paramount while creating itself! and perverse as all get out, too, but that's a post for another day.

almost friends for all these years

today i had one of the most delightful, hilarious, surreal experiences in quite some time: lunch with my "new employee" buddy. part of the orientation at santa clara university is being paired up at the end of orientation with an employee buddy who takes you out to lunch (on scu's dime, too! how cool is that?! i love scu!) my buddy, vid, and i couldn't meet for lunch that day as he had a meeting and i had new faculty orientation, so we finally went to lunch today. in the meantime we'd met, since vid's office (he's the assistant director of the study abroad program) and mine are across the way from one another at cesar chavez commons. cesar chavez commons are trailers, a and b, with a big deck between them, and while i like it just fine i hope that maybe some day a cool building can be built there. maybe it's just me, but i'd like cesar to have something more, well, impressive, than two trailers and a deck. but who knows? he was by all accounts a humble man, so maybe he'd like it the way it is.

but i digress...

so vid and i go out to lunch and it starts. i live in santa cruz, and guess what? he lives on this side of the mountain, too. he mentions his wedding anniversary is coming up, and i mention mine is too. damn, but you kids are sharp as tacks! we have the same wedding anniversary; he and his wife have a year on me and drew. i ask about what he went to school for his masters for and he mentions he was a jesuit for about ten years and went to the jesuit school of theology at berkeley (jstb), which is a graduate theological union school just like my school, starr king school for the ministry. yep, right again - he was there the same time i was! in addition to the fact that we may have even had a class together without knowing it, i found out that the nickname at jstb for starr king is starfish, which i thought was pretty hilarious. i think my other starr king pals will think so, too. and last but not least, we both went to the newman center - holy spirit chapel in berkeley. heck, probably the 10 pm mass, too. talk about a small world that it took us only ten years to finally meet in. all in all it was a really fun, hilarious lunch with tons of (as my 18 and dateless friends used to say) simple chronic hilarity. and my hat is off to whoever it is in hr who did my background check, because dang! they were mighty thorough! :)

i also had a very cool evening, but it's after eleven and i have to get up early, so you'll have to wait for the next installment. try not to let the suspense get to you. ;)

week four in the bag

hidy ho, boys & girls! well, i've just finished my fourth week here at my new job and this is the first day i've felt in any way competent - thank God!!!! i was wondering if that was ever going to happen. i am sure i'll still have those days, but it's nice to feel like there's some light at the end of the tunnel.

i am trying to read a book on canine acupressure, so as to help the little dog in her advancing years. she gets a little stiff after going to the beach and running around, not all the time, but sometimes. we started her on glucosamine, so hopefully that will help. i guess i'll start looking for a doggie chiropractor. yes, i admit it, i am the personification of the childless by choice yuppie who dotes on her pets as if they were human. in point of fact, zinger is better company than a lot of humans i know, so of course i am going to take her to see a chiropractor if i can. she loves the running around like a crazy dog at the beach, even if she ends up stiff afterwards.

anyway, that's all for now. :)

sigh.......

is there anything more depressing than writing a sympathy card? well, yeah, of course there is, i suppose. kind of a self-absorbed question, if i think about it.

a friend back home, karen, lost her husband, joe, last week. he had leukemia and was all of 33. the second 33-year-old man i know who's died way before he should have, in my humble opinion, and it's that, and having to acknowledge such a monumental loss for karen and their families and everyone who loves them that makes the card writing such a bummer. necessary, of course, and often overlooked in our ever-declining society of manners and civility, but a bummer none the less (but my husband is hale and hearty, so what the hell am i complaining about?) i can't imagine what i'd do if drew went and died on me, which is another part of what makes joe's death hit so close to home. our mutual prohibition against dying and leaving the other high and dry just isn't providing the comic reassurance it usually does. a silly rule, and completely unenforceable at that, but we like it.

take a minute out of your busy day and let the people you love know it. it's good for the immune system, it's good for the soul, and life is just too unpredictable not to. :)

be careful what you wish for

my husband, drew, basically rocks my world but has this annoying habit of telling me periodically for the last two years or so that i really ought to blog. i've resisted thus far, but what can i say? it's a friday night and i'm still at work at 8:26 p.m., not because i'm working, but because drew had something blow up at work and he's still working. i'm hoping he'll finish up soon because if boredom has produced the long sought after blog, who knows what else will happen?

that said, i am thinking this might be fun. and so much happening, too. i just started a new job, at santa clara university, and i really, really love it. just finished my third week so it's early, true, but this place had a good vibe since the interview that just hasn't gone away... it's gotten stronger, if anything.

i think i'm getting used to used to living in the bay area again (san francisco bay area, fyi). northern california is a strange and wonderful place... so much that's great about it, so much that's just soooooo californian, and then the stuff that sucks. like traffic. and real estate prices. but that's such well covered ground by everyone in the world that i refuse to go there; it is what it is. the thing is, when i moved back to pittsburgh, my hometown, in 2002, all i could think about was moving back. by the time thinking about moving back out here rolled around, there was nowhere else i wanted to be than exactly where i was. my family was there, my friends were wonderful and many, i loved so much about the down-to-earth sensibility of the 'burgh. true, i was stuck in my old job, which i affectionately refer to as "the viper pit", but, i knew that couldn't last forever. alas, my one true love is literally allergic to my little slice of heaven and it became painfully obvious that if his health was going to improve we had to get out of whatever it was in pittsburgh's pollution that was making him sick, to pollution that while not much better in terms of particulate matter in the air, was more agreeable to his system.

and now it's sunday, and i'm finishing this inaugural post. not a good sign, perhaps, but, there you are. more later...